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  Can A Super Smart Computer Teach Game Characters To Be As Stupid As Humans?

  Supercomputer Watson can best the best of us in Jeopardy, but can it make the games we play at home more challenging and fun? The day after IBM’s Watson beat Jeopardy champs Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, game designer Graeme Devine wondered on Twitter when game makers would be getting access to the technology. I…

  By Brian Crecente Published February 21, 2011
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  Green Energy Juice In My (Totally Fake) Zero-G Kitchen

  Man, does this ever happen to you? I used my iPhone to film this video in the panoramic, and it ends up clipped down the middle and turned sideways. It does make the Night Note look like it was shot in space. WHICH IT WAS. The 3DS, Torn To Pieces Later this week, the glasses-free…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published February 21, 2011
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  Catherine Is So Hard, Let’s Make Her Easy

  Action adventure game Catherine is difficult. And people in Japan are complaining. Keep in mind, that the game’s developer apparently said Catherine was not a walk in the park. The game’s Amazon Japan reviews indicate it’s much more and are littered with players saying that the game’s Easy Mode seems like your standard game’s Hard…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published February 21, 2011
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  PS3 Hacker Wants Your Money To Fight Sony

  When George Hotz isn’t rapping, he’s fighting Sony in court. And fighting Sony in court is expensive Sony is a multi-national corporation with gobs of moolah. George Hotz is just some guy, but some guy who hacked the iPhone and now the PS3. The PlayStation 3 hacking incited Sony to take Hotz to court, and…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published February 21, 2011
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  Man Deep Fries PSP, Tries To Eat It

  Tempura is typically a Japanese dish of deep-fried fish or vegetables. Here, it’s deep fried PSP. The mind boggles. The folks in this ten minute video decide to cover a PSP in batter and then deep fry it. At about a minute in, they cover it in batter. At about 2 minutes in, they toss…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published February 21, 2011
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  Amen, Is The Saints Row 3 Promotional Art You’ve Been Praying For?

  Upcoming crime saga Saints Row 3 gets promotional art. This is it, apparently.

  By Brian Ashcraft Published February 21, 2011
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  CultureTotal Recall

  Happy 25th Birthday, The Legend Of Zelda

  Twenty-five years ago today, an ambitious title was released in Japan that would, in time, become one of the biggest and most important franchises in video game history. That game was The Legend of Zelda. While it may look crude now, it’s easy to forget that, at the time of the game’s release, it was…

  By Luke Plunkett Published February 21, 2011
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  The 3DS, Torn To Pieces

  Later this week, the glasses-free Nintendo 3DS goes on sale in Japan. A Chinese site already has its hands on the hot portable, and it’s ripped it into pieces. This dissection gives a closer look at the innards that power the 3DS, which boasts more powerful graphics than the previous generation of Nintendo handhelds. Of…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published February 21, 2011
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  Does Anyone Want To Dress Like Isaac Clarke?

  Isaac Clarke, hero of the Dead Space series of horror shooters from Electronic Arts, isn’t the first man you’d turn to for fashion advice. I mean, he spends his days in an engineer suit. Covered in blood. The supremely talented Indonesian artist machine56 sees something in Clarke’s look, though, because he’s drawn up this design…

  By Luke Plunkett Published February 21, 2011
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  Real And Not So Real Arcade Companionship

  The recent The Arcade Operators Union Entertainment Expo featured a slew of prize machines — and things that can be won from said prize machines. No, you cannot win booth companions. Sorry. It’s all relative, but the biggest news from the show was the public airing of Tekken Tag Tournament 2, which seems to be…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published February 21, 2011
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  Assassin’s Creed: The After-School Cartoon Would Be A Blast

  Assassin’s Creed is a pretty serious franchise! It’s nothing but killing, war, politics, religion and prostitutes. It’s about time it lightened up. Maybe with an animated series? DeviantArt user doubleleaf has drawn this entirely fantastical series of images depicting what the characters of Ubisoft’s stealth/action franchise (in particular the latest game, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood) would…

  By Luke Plunkett Published February 21, 2011
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  Two Of The Last Great American Arcades (Might Be) Closing Down

  Fans of arcade gaming in the United States might be on the receiving end of a one-two punch, with both New York’s Chinatown Fair and California’s Arcade Infinity in danger of closure by the end of the month. For different reasons, both were seen as two of the finest arcades left in North America; Chinatown…

  By Luke Plunkett Published February 21, 2011
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  Hey, LeBron James, Why Don’t You Play Games Online?

  Caught by a gamer at the recent NBA All-Star game, here’s Miami Heat superstar LeBron James talking about which games he plays (and why he doesn’t play online). The fact he plays Call of Duty, Madden, NBA2K, etc shouldn’t break your heart. The guy isn’t going to say, “Well, on road trips me and the…

  By Luke Plunkett Published February 21, 2011
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  Final Fantasy Versus XIII Is Still A PS3 Exclusive…For Now

  The most recent issue of Japanese magazine V-Jump features an article on upcoming role-playing game Final Fantasy Versus XIII. The game is supposed to be a PS3 exclusive. The latest V-Jump begs to differ. Developers Square Enix and Tetsuya Nomura, the guy designing it, have repeatedly stressed that this game is PS3 only. Yet, in…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published February 21, 2011
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  Playing Games Is Easier Than Being A Pop Star

  Citing fatigue, pop star Hikaru Utada is taking 2011 off. She’s not touring and not releasing any new albums. Instead, she’s doing what many do when they want to relax: she’s playing video games. In particular, she’s all about recently released dungeon crawler Mysterious Dungeon Shiren the Wanderer 5: Fortune Tower and the Dice of…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published February 21, 2011
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  Culture

  Can a Controller Be Programmed to Speed-Run Super Mario Bros.?

  Long story short, this modder built a controller that, when plugged into a Nintendo Entertainment System, auto speedruns Super Mario Bros. in just a shade under 5 minutes. Naturally, commenters have shouted it down as a fake, but the Tool-Assisted Speedrun community is unanimous in calling the mod real. Modder pjgat09 provides a step-by-step, with…

  By Owen Good Published February 20, 2011
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  What’s Cookin’?

  My new morning routine: Get up, dump, prepare coffee, boil a pot of water to do the dishes from last night. I have no hot water in my kitchen sink. This will get fixed sometime this week. Until then, I’m washing plates old school, and using them as little as possible. Here’s our big stories…

  By Owen Good Published February 20, 2011
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  No Dead Island Movie in the Works

  Dead Island studio Deep Silver has said, via the game’s Facebook page, that no rights to a Dead Island movie have been optioned yet. “Rest assured, a high-quality movie is the #1 thing we’re concerned about for a film adaptation,” writes the developer

  By Owen Good Published February 20, 2011
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  And Now, Minecraft Spoofs Dead Island

  With a haunting trailer that went instantly viral this past week, Dead Island joined Minecraft as a YouTube subject where you just can’t go wrong. What happens when you combine the two? Comedy gold. Need a refresher for what the gag is? See the original Dead Island trailer here, or see it edited in forward-sequence…

  By Owen Good Published February 20, 2011
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  Shooting Stars

  Killzone 3 and Bulletstorm get their guns off on Tuesday. The third release in the Killzone series won’t have as much cussin’ in its dialogue, says developer Guerrilla Games. Bulletstorm, frankly, doesn’t have much non-cussin’ in its script. Tuesday (Feb. 22) Killzone 3 (PS3) – The Killzone trilogy brings the fight to Earth as you…

  By Owen Good Published February 20, 2011