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  Giant Gundam Returns With Giant Beam Saber

  Ready to slice you up! After being erected this past summer in Tokyo’s Odaiba, the life-sized Gundam statue is returning. With an beam saber. The huge 18-meter statue will be once again erected in the city of Shizuoka this July – specifically, the east exit of Japan Rail Higashi-Shizuoka Station. The beam saber even lights…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published March 22, 2010
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  Mass Effect 2 Characters Get New Wardrobe Options

  Let’s see, let’s see…do I clothe Mass Effect 2 nutjob Jack in tattoos and some packing tape? Or do I go the Kanye West route, and opt for sci-fi sunglasses and jeans? Decisions, decisions. Tomorrow, Bioware will release yet another piece of downloadable content for role-playing masterpiece Mass Effect 2, this time consisting of new…

  By Luke Plunkett Published March 22, 2010
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  Brazilian Kratos Has Magnificently Painted Man Boobs

  To mark the official launch of God of War III, Brazil did it in style — complete with Kratos cosplay. What sells this dress-up of the God of War III protagonist isn’t just the bald head or the muscles, but the fantastic make-up job. Bravo! Midnight Kratos @ SP: Eu fui! [Hadouken]

  By Brian Ashcraft Published March 22, 2010
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  Swiss Government Cracking Down On Violent Game Sales

  According to a report on Gamesmarkt, Switzerland’s National Council has just passed a pair of bills that seek to restrict the sale of violent video games within the country. The first, put forward by Evi Allemann, of the Socialist Party, wants to stop the manufacture, advertisement, importation and sale of any game that promotes as…

  By Luke Plunkett Published March 22, 2010
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  No More Neon Genesis Evangelion News Reading

  Launched in June 2009, The Misato Katsuragi News Project had Neon Gensis Evangelion character Misato read the news. As Kotaku posted previously, the news program runs on software that collects news from real-life news (politics, the economy, sports and, yes, the anime industry). A Cellius voice synthesis engine is used to have Misato read said…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published March 22, 2010
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  Get Inside The Real-Life Yakuza

  With the release of Sega’s Yakuza 3 going down well with many, let’s take a look at the actual Yakuza, Japan’s “mafia”, and see just how powerful – and accepted – they are in contemporary society. American author and journalist Jake Adelstein knows more about the Yakuza than most Westerners, having studied them closely for…

  By Luke Plunkett Published March 22, 2010
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  Mario Creator Has Never Called Video Games “Art”

  Are video games art? Or are they entertainment? Let’s see what Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda. Last week, Miyamoto was in London to receive a British Academy of Film and Television Arts Fellowship at the GAME British Academy Video Games Award, reports the Associated Press. “It’s a great…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published March 22, 2010
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  Mario Papercraft? More Like Paper Mario

  Here we were, getting a little over the practice of folding pieces of paper into figures resembling video game characters, when Ignatius’ Mario piece blows our socks into the 22nd century. Depicting Mario’s trademark pose from Wii fighting game Super Smash Bros. Brawl, it looks like something that the average person just wouldn’t have the…

  By Luke Plunkett Published March 22, 2010
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  Five Health Care Games to Make You Healthy (Or Get You Sick)

  In the United States, health care has passed. Some people are pleased, some are not and others are even indifferent. So let’s talk about video games! To mark the occasion, here are five doctor-type games. SimHealth From the folks who gave us SimCity and The Sims, SimHealth: The National Health Care Simulation was released in…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published March 22, 2010
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  Xbox 360 Console Spammed With Child Pornography

  A couple from Dublin, Ireland had to call the cops last week when their Xbox 360 console was spammed with images of child pornography. With their real names withheld due to the nature of the case, “Amy” said her boyfriend had been playing a game when a message from another user popped up. Upon opening…

  By Luke Plunkett Published March 22, 2010
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  Awkward: Zelda Music On Reality TV Show

  There’s a big TV show called America’s Got Talent. Britain’s Got Talent, too. Even Norway has it, and we like Norway’s the best, as it’s the only one with uncomfortable live renditions of a song from Ocarina of Time. The real action begins at 2:20 in the clip above, but if you’d like to sit…

  By Luke Plunkett Published March 22, 2010
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  Kotaku: Census 2010 Closes Tonight

  Just a reminder that if you’d like to take part in our Census 2010, which is polling users about their video gaming likes, dislikes and secret feelings, you’ve only got a few hours left. The polls should be closing at around midnight Sunday, MT. We’d have loved to leave them open for a bit longer,…

  By Luke Plunkett Published March 21, 2010
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  Not Owen

  To: Luke From: Not-Owen Luke, I am not Owen, though I do sometimes watch sports. Not much sports, but I do like boxing. I caught the replay of the last Pacquiao fight this morning, and boy was it dull. My wife has been trying to watch some NCAA men’s basketball tournament this weekend, but I’ve…

  By Stephen Totilo Published March 21, 2010
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  The Legend of Zelda Invades Farmville

  With all of those multi-colored bales of hay in Farmville why aren’t more people doing this? Or maybe they are and I haven’t seen it yet. [Thanks Dom8bit]

  By Brian Crecente Published March 21, 2010
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  People Watching Me Discuss Video Game Journalism

  “Members of the gaming press are always working. For instance, that picture I took at the beginning of the panel? I’ve already uploaded it and posted it on Kotaku.” The audience at my MomoCon panel on game journalism. Nice-looking bunch!

  By Mike Fahey Published March 21, 2010
• CultureSplitscreen

  ModNation Racers Has Four-Player Splitscreen Possibly Thanks To You

  post What’s the point of a beta test for a video game these days, other than to drum up publicity? The makers of upcoming PlayStation 3 game ModNation Racers say it got them to add a feature. During the Game Developers Conference earlier this month, game producer Dan Sochan told Kotaku that the public beta…

  By Stephen Totilo Published March 21, 2010
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  Week In Games: Just Caves

  If you have any funds left over from the previous weeks’ blockbuster video game releases, perhaps you’ll be interested in what this week has to offer, namely another use for your Wii MotionPlus and Just Cause 2. For the more discriminating video game enthusiast, the long in the waiting release of Cave Story on WiiWare…

  By Michael McWhertor Published March 21, 2010
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  Cheating At Pokémon And Walking At The Same Time

  Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver both come packed with the Pokéwalker, a nifty little device that promotes good health through Pokémon mastery. Then this lazy yet inventive individual comes along… I know I shouldn’t call the creator of the Pokéwalker cheat device lazy. For all I know he or she can’t walk, and this is a…

  By Mike Fahey Published March 21, 2010
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  MomoCon Cosplay Gallery: Atlanta Gets All Dressed Up

  MomoCon has filled the campus of Georgia Tech in downtown Atlanta with cosplayers, and video game fans are there in force. Check out characters from Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Miles Edgeworth, BioShock, Brutal Legend, and more! It was nice to see a couple of games represented that you don’t normally see that often being cosplayed.…

  By Mike Fahey Published March 21, 2010
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  A Week With Bob

  This is how you make friends and influence people in the Information Age (as a writer, anyway): You write something, you twitter about it, you religiously check your mentions and retweets, you follow the people who mention or retweet you, you keep on the lookout for your new friends tweeting about their own writing, you…

  Tim Rogers Published March 21, 2010