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  Nintendo 3DS Allows Racist, Sexist And Vulgar Character Names

  The 3DS’s “StreetPass” function allows players to automatically trade Mii Avatars with whomever they pass on the street. But the streets are dangerous, and some 3DS owners are bound to be total dicks Offensive and Not Safe for Work language to follow. “Dick” is actually a nickname that brings up a warning screen on the…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published March 1, 2011
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  Not All Social Games Have To Look Like They Were Made For Children

  If I say the words “casual game”, you probably think of something that’s on Facebook. With graphics drawn by, and targeted towards, twelve year-olds. You certainly don’t imagine them looking like this This is “A Familiar World”, the first title from developers Inemeri, which is looking to bridge a little of the gap between the…

  By Luke Plunkett Published March 1, 2011
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  It’s Boba Fett. Playing A Zelda Song. On The Accordion.

  If you can’t find something to like in this video, there amy be something wrong with you. To recap: this is a man sitting near the steps of a New York City subway station. He is wearing a Boba Fett helmet. And, upon his accordion, he is playing a rendition of the “Lost Woods” theme…

  By Luke Plunkett Published March 1, 2011
• CultureTotal Recall

  Classic PC Magazine Covers Will Scratch Your Sci-Fi Or Fantasy Itch

  A lot of people remember now-defunct magazine Computer Gaming World for the fact it was one of the world’s finest PC gaming rags. Me, I just remember it because of these badass covers. While game magazines today rely on images supplied by a publisher, or sleek, stylistic pieces drawn up by an internal art team,…

  By Luke Plunkett Published March 1, 2011
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  The Oscar

  Welcome back to the work week, Kotaku readers. It’s going to be a hell of a busy one for your tireless Kotaku editors, what with GDC 2011 kicking into full gear. We don’t actually get there until tomorrow morning, meaning early rising for those of us traveling and covering the show all day. I’m already…

  By Michael McWhertor Published February 28, 2011
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  No Regrets From The School Shooter Game That Aims For Columbine Massacre Simulation

  What kind of video game would proudly promote the option to wield Columbine shooter Eric Harris’ TEC-9 and Virgina Tech killer Seung-Hui Cho’s akimbo pistols while embarking on a murderous rampage? The unashamed School Shooter: North American Tour 2012, a new game mod “dedicated to being the best school shooting experience an angsty little shit…

  By Michael McWhertor Published February 28, 2011
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  There’s A Half-Minute Hero Coming That’s Super Mega Neo

  The excellent Half-Minute Hero, a mix of role-playing, side-scrolling shooting and strategy, all delivered in short bursts, looks like it’s making the leap from PlayStation Portable to Xbox 360. Australia’s ratings board seems to have let slip the existence of Half-Minute Hero – Super Mega Neo Climax a bit earlier than expected. With a name…

  By Michael McWhertor Published February 28, 2011
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  Devil May Cry May Come To Movie Theaters

  Dante the demon slayer may be gracing the silver screen soon, now that Hollywood studio Screen Gems—the people who make the Resident Evil movies—has acquired the rights to make a Devil May Cry movie. Variety reports that Capcom and Screen Gems have struck a deal to adapt Devil May Cry into a feature film, with…

  By Michael McWhertor Published February 28, 2011
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  A New Look At Brink: Seeing How The Other Half Lives

  What’s taking Brink so long? Why won’t this ambitious, complex first-person shooter come out already? We’ve already seen and enjoyed its “SMART” approach to speeding through levels and over obstacles. We’ve been impressed by the detail of the futuristic Ark and Brink’s teamwork-focused gameplay. Recently, we got a deeper look at what else Splash Damage’s…

  By Michael McWhertor Published February 28, 2011
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  Make a Game, Help Stop Teen Dating Violence

  Can you create a game about teen dating violence without using violence? That’s the question that the Life. Love Game Design Challenge has been asking for three years now. The results have, over years, grown from simple flash games to meaningful works of interactive education and fiction. February is National Teen Dating Violence Awareness and…

  By Brian Crecente Published February 28, 2011
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  The Next Great Era in Gaming, Cool Metroid Prime Concepts and Why the PS3 is Contraband

  I flew back from a half week in New York last night. We got home about 11 p.m. Tomorrow morning I’m flying off to San Francisco for the Game Developers Conference. I’ll be joining Michael McWhertor and Stephen Totilo as we report, interview, and write our way through the week-long show. Looks like there’s going…

  By Brian Crecente Published February 28, 2011
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  Child of Eden Has A ‘Beauty’ Unlike Rez And A Vibrating Belt

  The moment that Child of Eden, the follow-up to Sega’s trippy musical shooter Rez, starts to look evolutionarily different from its predecessor is during the level known as “Beauty.” It’s a trip through a softly colored, garden-like alien world, full of bizarre abstract creatures. Child of Eden still plays just like Rez, however. It too…

  By Michael McWhertor Published February 28, 2011
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  Vagrant Story Brings A Riot To The PlayStation Store This Week

  This week, PlayStation 3 owners in North America will be able to enjoy one of the greatest role-playing games of the PlayStation generation: Vagrant Story coming to the PlayStation Store as a “PSone Classic.” For those of you who haven’t played this SquareSoft great, Vagrant Story is a fantastic mix of dungeon crawling, puzzle-solving, rhythmic…

  By Michael McWhertor Published February 28, 2011
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  Killing Tasty Animals The Windows Phone 7 Way

  After the initial lineup of Xbox Live-ready games for the Windows Phone 7 platform debuted, new releases have slowed to a crawl, and crawling is just want you’ll need to do to score a kill in Deer Hunter 3D. Like many Windows Phone 7 games, Deer Hunter 3D is a port of an older iPhone…

  By Mike Fahey Published February 28, 2011
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  Metroid Prime’s Coolest Concepts From The Cutting Room Floor

  What could Metroid mainstays Mother Brain, Crocomire and Kraid have looked like in the beloved Metroid Prime video games? See for yourself in some recently excavated art work from the artists behind Nintendo’s first-person Metroid adventures. My personal favorite may be the Galactic Federation super suit seen above, a concept sketch from artist Sammy Hall…

  By Michael McWhertor Published February 28, 2011
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  Ping-Pong For Perverts, Another Secretly Smart Video Game Innovation

  It’s an odd scene to be a part of. I was sitting on a couch in the penthouse of a Manhattan hotel, a guy who works for video game publisher Sega at my side. A bunch of other men stand near us. Everyone is watching the TV, which runs a video game that is mostly,…

  By Stephen Totilo Published February 28, 2011
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  Serious Sam 3 Gives You 16 Player Co-op This Summer

  Make the next Serious Sam game official. Developer Croteam is bringing the next entry, Serious Sam 3: BFE, to PC and consoles this summer, a “glorious throwback to the golden age of first-person shooters,” they say. That’s when “men were men, cover was for amateurs and pulling the trigger made things go boom,” according to…

  By Michael McWhertor Published February 28, 2011
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  Rift Combats Massive Player Influx With Massive Server Additions

  Response to Trion World’s MMO Rift has been overwhelming, with the 17 servers allocated to North America for last week’s head start blossoming into 39 to combat long login queues. The game launches tomorrow, with more servers on the way. My Dwarven warrior Oprah might be exaggerating a little, but not much. Since the Friday…

  By Mike Fahey Published February 28, 2011
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  Another Glimpse At The Most Ambitious Kinect Game

  Call it Project Milo. Call it Milo & Kate. Call it, last we heard, canceled. You can also call Lionhead Studios’ attempt to use the Xbox 360 Kinect sensor array to let players interact with a virtual boy a more ambitious effort than anything else we’ve seen using Microsoft’s popular new tech. But we’ve seen…

  By Stephen Totilo Published February 28, 2011
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  European Customs Seize PlayStation 3 Shipments

  Tens of thousands of PS3s were seized by customs officers last week in the Netherlands as part of an ongoing contentious court battle between LG and Sony, the Guardian reports A ruling by the civil court of justice in the Hague surrounding patents related to the playback of Blu-Ray discs means that all new PS3s…

  By Brian Crecente Published February 28, 2011