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  Killing Giant Monsters In The Name Of Helping Japan

  Artist Joe Guinto will be auctioning off this great Shadow of the Colossus piece at the Kawaii Kon, April 29 in Hawaii. All proceeds will go to the Gamers Heart Japan charity. Shadow of the Colossus by Joe Guinto

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 6, 2011
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  Countdown Clocks Are Stupid. Capcom Has One!

  They are stupid. But for those readers who enjoy watching water boil and paint dry, this one’s for you. The website is titled “DD”, which stands for… [via DD]

  By Brian Ashcraft Published April 6, 2011
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  What Happens To Your PlayStation Phone Game When You Get A Call?

  We’ve seen the specs for Sony’s PlayStation phone, the Xperia Play. We’ve seen it in action. But we haven’t seen what happens when you get a phone call while gaming. This happens. The game cuts out, and the Xperia goes into phone mode. After dealing with the phone call, a window pops up on the…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published April 6, 2011
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  From Booth Babe To X-Rays

  Yuuri Morishita got her start as a booth companion back in 2003, appearing at events like the Tokyo Game Show. But by 2007, she was appearing as an on-stage guest to promote games. And now, she’s releasing an x-ray video. Not x-rated, x-ray. Like many pin-up hopefuls, Morishita paid her dues, passing out fliers and…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published April 6, 2011
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  Indie Dev Pulls Game In Protest Over GameStop Takeover

  Blind Mind Studios, the developers of indie space strategy game Star Ruler, is withdrawing the title from sale on the Impulse digital shopfront following its sale to multinational retailer GameStop “Due to a rather large list of things we detest about GameStop”, a Blind Mind rep writes on the company’s website, “Star Ruler will no…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 6, 2011
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  Please, Stop Putting Multiplayer In Games That Don’t Need It

  Some games are suited towards multiplayer components. Others are not. So why do so many games waste time and money trying to be the former when they’re clearly the latter? It’s something Randy Pitchford, boss of Gearbox Studios (Borderlands, Brothers in Arms), has on his mind. “…the reason [publishers demand multiplayer components] is because they…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 6, 2011
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  CultureTotal Recall

  Remembering Sega’s Exiled Mascot

  Nintendo has Mario. Microsoft has Master Chief. And Sega, well, for a long time Sega has had Sonic the Hedgehog as its mascot. Thing is, Sonic is an usurper Before the blue, spiky hero with the red shoes burst onto the scene in 1991, Sega already had a mascot: Alex Kidd. A character we have…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 6, 2011
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  Valve Tied To Vast Potato-Based Conspiracy, May Be Portal 2 Related

  As of last Friday, April 1, Half-Life and Left 4 Dead developer Valve has been dropping cryptic clues in its own games (Team Fortress 2, Portal 2) and games made by others (Super Meat Boy, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, AudioSurf). The common thread? Potatoes What appears to be a complex alternate reality game, or ARG,…

  By Michael McWhertor Published April 5, 2011
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  What Are Ya Buyin’?

  Hola, Kotaku. Let’s put this Tuesday to bed with a question, as we tend to do on Tuesdays. As a consumer of goods and services myself, I’m wondering, what have you been buying lately? Surely you’ve picked up some comic books, some video games, some action figures, a car or house or two. Maybe you’d…

  By Michael McWhertor Published April 5, 2011
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  This Is What The Mysterious Pandora’s Tower For Wii Looks Like

  Earlier this year, Nintendo of Japan unveiled Pandora’s Tower, a new Wii game slated for an overseas release this spring. We didn’t know much about the title beyond its use of classical piano music and large upper back tattoos. But now we have video of this high-speed action game. Pandora’s Tower appears to be a…

  By Michael McWhertor Published April 5, 2011
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  Why Hasn’t Rockstar Made A Grand Theft Auto Movie Yet?

  The makers of Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption and the upcoming L.A. Noire haven’t hopped on the “transmedia” bandwagon yet, meaning they haven’t tapped their best known franchises for movies, television shows or comic books. Why not? Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser tells the Hollywood Reporter, bluntly, that “Virtually all movies made from games are…

  By Michael McWhertor Published April 5, 2011
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  How will the Ender’s Game movie shoot the book’s infamous Zero-G training sequences? Bob Orci explains

  The most memorable moment from Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game novel is easily the zero gravity training that the child genius must endure. But how in the hell will the movie version include this? We asked producer Roberto Orci. In Card’s novel, the young prodigies learn about the art of war in giant zero gravity…

  By Meredith Woerner Published April 5, 2011
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  Indie Fighting Game Skullgirls Beats Lag With GGPO

  The all-girl brawler Skullgirls will fight for lag-free online battles with the implementation of latency-hiding tech GGPO, which enables the play of classic, old-school fighting games over the internet. Developer Reverge Labs officially announced that Skullgirls would be the first commercial fighting game to use GGPO today.

  By Michael McWhertor Published April 5, 2011
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  A Chubby Mario Of More Accurate 8-Bit Proportions

  The super hefty plumber Mario leaps into action thanks to Mike Mitchell’s cleaned up illustration from back in the day. Related Rampages: I Am Not a Sith | Sasquatch | NOFATCHX (More) Fat Mario by Mike Mitchell (deviantART) (Store) (Tumblr) (Twitter) Via: sirmitchell Need your daily fill of geek eye candy? If so, head over…

  By Michael McWhertor Published April 5, 2011
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  Call of Duty: Black Ops‘ ‘Escalation’ Add-on Pegged For May

  Activision’s massively successful Call of Duty: Black Ops appears set to expand in May with the “Escalation” Content Pack for Xbox 360, according to a retailer listing from the Australian arm of GAME. What’s in Escalation? According to that purported listing, spotted by VG247, Escalation looks to feature four multiplayer maps and one new level…

  By Michael McWhertor Published April 5, 2011
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  Light Writing With Kinect Comes To Nordstrom

  High end retailer Nordstrom is using Microsoft’s hands-free Kinect controller for Xbox 360 in its window displays to give the fashion conscious a chance to play with light. At Nordstrom’s downtown Seattle flagship store, the company’s Interactive Development, Visual Merchandising and Operations Teams installed Kinect cameras to let passersby toy interact with displays with the…

  By Michael McWhertor Published April 5, 2011
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  Till All Are At Least Ten

  Farewell, Old Friends | One last transformation before they hit storage. (Photo by Michael Fahey) Bedtime Stories World Exclusive First Look Under the Hood of the Next Unreal Engine You’ve seen the sexed up trailer showing what games based on Epic’s Unreal Engine will look like in the coming generation. Now join Kotaku and Gizmodo…

  By Mike Fahey Published April 5, 2011
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  PlayStation Store Update: Red Faction: Battlegrounds, SOCOM 4 and StarDrone

  What new treasures await PlayStation 3 and PSP owners this week on the North American PlayStation Store? One Red Faction spin-off, a game called StarDrone, a multiplayer demo for SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy SEALs and cheap-cheap Angry Birds. Look for plenty of downloadable content for games like Yoostar 2, Test Drive Unlimited 2, ModNation Racers…

  By Michael McWhertor Published April 5, 2011
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  Sega Teases ‘Something Big’ For Sonic The Hedgehog On His 20th Anniversary — Is It Sonic Generations?

  Hard-working Sega mascot Sonic the Hedgehog turns 20-years-old this summer. Surely Sega must have grand plans for the “Blast Processing” pioneer, right? Right. And we’ll find out what those plans are this week—or have we already? Sega has begun prepping us for exciting announcements, warning that “There’s something big coming this week to the Sonic…

  By Michael McWhertor Published April 5, 2011
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  Sequence Lets You Kill A Yeti With Dance

  How the hell do you mix an RPG with a rhythm game? Iridium Studios’ Jason Wishnov shows us how upcoming Xbox Live Indie Game Sequence works. I’ve been looking forward to Iridium Studio’s Sequence since I first heard about it earlier this year. I’ve also been a bit confused. How does dancing cast a spell?…

  By Mike Fahey Published April 5, 2011