• Kotaku East

  Microsoft Rejects Game Because it Made Toilet Sounds

  A Windows phone game, developed by Austrian Christian Zangl, has been blocked from release in China not because it contained contentious political commentary. It’s been blocked because it featured the sound of a flushing toilet. According to Microsoft, that makes it offensive to the Chinese market, and “Content that is offensive in any country/region to…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 23, 2012
• Kotaku East

  Controversial Idol Commercial Leads to Complaints about Homosexuality

  Japan’s biggest girl group, AKB48, starred in a new series of candy ads that aren’t only raising eyebrows, but also ire. In the ads, the girls passed pieces of Puccho soft candy to each other via their mouths, making it look like they are kissing. The commercial has been getting complaints from parents concerned about…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published April 23, 2012
• Kotaku East

  Kotaku East Starts Now!

  Kotaku East runs from 4am to 8am Eastern. For more info about Kotaku East click here

  By Brian Ashcraft Published April 23, 2012
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  Portal Daleks Would be Great at Exterminating

  Dr. Who and Portal get an unlikely crossover in this 3D image by Aussie artist David C. Simon, who actually works as a writer at BioWare’s Austin studio. Aperture Daleks [The Dalek Factor, via technabob]

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 23, 2012
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  Read Valve’s Employee Company Handbook. It’s Amazing. [Update]

  On Friday, a user on the Flamehaus forums uploaded a very convincing pdf, complete with accompanying photo, of a new book called Valve: Handbook For New Employees Joining the pdf is an apparent email from Valve’s Greg Coomer, saying it was written to “make it as easy as we could for new people to join…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 23, 2012
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  A Stormtrooper Reflects on the Biggest Mistake of his Career

  Forget Noir. Forget LA Noire. This is Star Noir. Or, as I’m going to call it, Episode IV: A Noir Hope When Obi-Wan gets Luke and the droids past an Imperial roadblock, it’s good for a laugh and we, as an audience, move on. We never once pause to think about what happened after, to…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 23, 2012
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  Hey Capcom, This Five Year-Old Kid Has Some Ideas for New Mega Man Games

  Capcom is out of ideas (or at least the willpower) for new Mega Man games. Little Mark here, though, Mark is a fountain of ideas. Not only does he know everything about the Blue Bomber and his games, he knows exactly what he wants from a new Mega Man game. Bonus: I know it’s long,…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 23, 2012
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  These Dolls are so Damn Big They’ll Destroy Your City

  That is, unless your city is Tokyo, and Godzilla can stop them. Royal de Luxe is a French performance art company whose centrepiece are enormous marionette dolls, so large they need an industrial-size frame to control and which end up scaled more on a “Stay Puft Marshmallow Man” size than a “Doll for Little Girls”…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 23, 2012
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  Captain America’s Life-Like Action Figure, Reporting For Duty

  Just in time for The Avengers, Hot Toys has released images of its stunning Captain America figure. While it won’t actually be released in time for the superhero flick, it will come with two interchangeable heads, two shields, four sets of hands and a very fancy gun. He’ll retail for over $200, and will be…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 23, 2012
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  This Week’s Cosplay: Mass Effect Steps Out in Style, Pokémon Dreams Come True

  Mass Effect is fancy, don’t you know? Fancy enough to wear suits. And all it takes is a fancy camera and a wonderful costume to bring Pokémon ladies to life. Those, and more hard truths in cosplay, can be found in this week’s Fancy Pants roundup. We’ve also got an incredible Cloud from Final Fantasy,…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 23, 2012
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  That Gorgeous Sonic 2 Remake Has Been Cancelled

  A false alarm related to keylogging, which seemed like a pretty raw deal for a promising fan remake of classic platformer Sonic 2, turned out to be just the tip of a giant iceberg scientists have named “Drama”. One that’s now sunk the promising game. We later learned that the project, once a community-developed game,…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 23, 2012
• Culture

  The Cast of Tekken, in Glorious Sketch-o-Vision

  Japanese artist Shunya Yamashita is to thank for these sketches of the cast of Tekken Tag Tournament 2, used as promotional art for the 2011 arcade fighter. Interestingly, they’re also forming the basis for Kotobukiya’s fancy “Bishoujo” line of Tekken figures You can see the entire collection at the link below. Tekken Tag 2 –…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 23, 2012
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  Pokémon Black & White 2: Gameplay Trailer 2

  Just over a week since we last got a good look at the game/s, Nintendo has released a second proper trailer for the upcoming Pokémon Black & White 2 Both games will be out in Japan on June 23, and in the US and Europe sometime in the Fall.

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 22, 2012
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  Sony Wants MMO Players to Meet Each Other In Real Life

  Sony has applied for a strange little patent that streamlines the process via which online friends in an MMO can meet up in the real world and become real friends. It’s not doing this out of the kindness of its heart – the “technology” is aimed at getting them together at what sound like marketing…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 22, 2012
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  On May 1, A New Call of Duty Game Will be Revealed

  A new Call of Duty game reveal? Already? It’s OK. I’m as shocked/speechless/breathless as you are. Activision has updated Call of Duty’s official site with a new splash page saying that, on May 1, there’ll be a “World Reveal”. Given the increasing buzz/chatter flying around it’s probably for either Black Ops 2 or, as was…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 22, 2012
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  Riot Cops, Student Protesters Lock Down THQ’s New Video Game Studio

  On Friday, THQ’s Montreal Studio – the big, fancy new setup that Patrice is running – spent part of the day locked down as students and riot police clashed on the street directly outside their offices. A few developers stuck inside looking down on it all sent us links to images from the showdown, which…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 22, 2012
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  Ever Wanted to See a Portal Turret go Skydiving? Well, Here You go

  Reader Alex went skydiving the other day, and aside from taking his good self, packed an inflatable Portal turret to go with him. Both then proceeded to jump out of a perfectly good aircraft at 13,000 feet. Alex says that, thanks to air pressure, the turret was actually really tough to keep hold of, and…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 22, 2012
• Culture

  Anti-Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find

  The Prototype narrative picks up with James Heller in the lead role of Prototype 2 this week, smashing, slashing, and beating ass galore in New York Zero. Other highlights include the Euro 2012 mode for FIFA 12 and Xbox Live Arcade title Bloodforge Tuesday • Risen 2: Dark Waters (PC) • Prototype 2 (PS3, 360)…

  By Owen Good Published April 22, 2012
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  Fez‘s Soundtrack is Full of Mysteries, Too

  The soundtrack to Fez officially released on Friday, at a pay-what-you-like price (with a minimum of $7). Because the entire game is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, some enterprising folks went and opened the sound files in a spectrogram and, voila, they found even more clues. Or they’re Easter eggs, or…

  By Owen Good Published April 22, 2012
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  Gotham City Impostors’ Next Update Delivers a Third Batch of Free Content

  The gang in charge of Gotham City Impostors wants you to know another wad of cool content is dropping soon, all for the affordable price of $0.00. It has yet to release, but that video above has, which means the title update is on the way soon. You’ll get a new map, the East End…

  By Owen Good Published April 22, 2012