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  Culture

  My Favorite Japanese Commercial of 2011 Has a Plastic Fist

  Toriko is a Japanese manga that follows a “Gourmet Hunter” named Toriko who is on the hunt for rare food. This is an ad for a “Toriko Snack Pulverizer”. You put snacks in it, pulverize them, and then sprinkles them on food. It’s totally awesome. This summer, Bandai Namco released a new Toriko game, which…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published September 29, 2011
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  Why the Next Game From Braid’s Creator is Skipping Consoles

  The Witness, the next game from Braid creator Jonathan Blow, is coming out on PC, and it’s coming out on iOS. It’s not coming out on Xbox 360 or PS3. Why is that? Blow told Edge magazine, “We like 360 and PS3, but their specifications are over five years old now, and that’s a lot…

  By Luke Plunkett Published September 29, 2011
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  Nintendo’s Cutest Game In a Long Time is This Little Puzzler

  One reason why we haven’t had a new Wars game in a while is that Nintendo studio Intelligent Systems has been busy working on other projects. Like Hiku-osu, this adorable puzzle game for the 3DS. There’s not much to it: you push and pull giant blocks around to build steps and platforms so that you…

  By Luke Plunkett Published September 29, 2011
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  Controlling Four Players at Once Looks Tricky (But Also fun)

  This indie PC shooter is called Signal Ops. If you’ve ever played, say, Space Hulk, it may look slightly familiar, with the same mechanic of giving you control over four people at once. Only, it looks way more complex. While it obviously owes a lot visually to Team Fortress 2, notice what happens at the…

  By Luke Plunkett Published September 29, 2011
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  Being a Female Professional StarCraft Player Ain’t Easy

  It’s hard. Just ask StarCraft II player Kim Shee-Yoon, aka “Eve”. StarCraft is huge in Korea. Pro gaming is big, too, but it’s dominated by male players. Eve isn’t the first female professional player, as e-sport has already seen the likes of ToSsGirL According to website The Mary Sue, Eve was selected for Korean StarCraft…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published September 29, 2011
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  Battlefield 3’s Beta On the 360 is EXPENSIVE

  With the clock having just ticked over to September 29, eager users are reporting that a link to download the Battlefield 3 beta on the Xbox 360 is up. And looking a little worse for wear. Namely, that only executives, rap stars and professional athletes will be able to afford to download it. A glitch…

  By Luke Plunkett Published September 29, 2011
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  How Japanese Cosplay Is Moving Closer to Porn

  Its beginnings were humble. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Japanese fans went to manga and anime conventions dressed as their favorite characters. There’s a long history of people dressing as their favorite characters in the West, too—notably, Trekkies. Those were innocent times. As the 1980s wore on and turned into the 1990s, the…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published September 29, 2011
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  Don’t Expect Blizzard’s New MMO at BlizzCon

  As World of Warcraft begins its slow, inevitable decline, people will want to hear more about the company’s next big MMO. People might be hoping that this project, code-named Titan, will be spoken about at this year’s BlizzCon. Those people will be disappointed. A Blizzard representative has told IGN that the company’s “‘unannounced MMO’ will…

  By Luke Plunkett Published September 29, 2011
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  Wizorb is out, Still Looks Brilliant

  Hey, kids. Wizorb is out today on the Xbox Live Indie Games Channel. You should, uh, check it out. You can contact Luke Plunkett, the author of this post, at [email protected]. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.

  By Luke Plunkett Published September 29, 2011
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  Heavy Rain’s Creator Doesn’t Sound Stupid at all

  You’re right, David Cage, creator of games like Heavy Rain and Indigo Prophecy. You do sound stupid. But just the kind of stupid this industry needs more of. He’s right, turning down the chance to make a sequel to a successful PS3 exclusive is, from a business standpoint, bananas. But too many publishers and too…

  By Luke Plunkett Published September 29, 2011
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  CultureTotal Recall

  Going to War Like Only Nintendo Can

  Even though Zelda has killing and even Mario has head-stomping, when you think about it, nearly all of Nintendo’s first-party properties are harmless affairs. Bright colours, innocent storylines, big-eyed cartoon mascots and candy-coloured fantasy worlds where everything turns out just fine With one exception: the “Wars” series, Nintendo’s only foray into, well, war. In the…

  By Luke Plunkett Published September 29, 2011
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  Internal PayPal Email Points to Nov. 15 for New Xbox Dashboard Release

  In May, Microsoft revealed that PayPal would be added as a payment option for Xbox Live transactions such as subscriptions and Microsoft Points purchases. This week, an internal email to PayPal employees asked them to test the service, and pointed to Nov. 15—the 10-year anniversary of the original Xbox launch—as the date the new dashboard…

  By Owen Good Published September 28, 2011
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  Ghost Dad

  Hey Kotaku! Thanks for sticking around. My gift to you is tonight’s open thread, in which we might talk about ghost movies, we might talk about Star Trek: The Next Generation and we might talk about Skrillex. Maybe we’ll even talk about video games! As we approach Halloween, I’m starting to get the horror movie…

  By Michael McWhertor Published September 28, 2011
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  Looks Like Super Mario Land 3 is Next Up on the 3DS Virtual Console

  GoNintendo dug up a current Australian rating for Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, pointing to it as an upcoming release for the Game Boy Virtual Console on the Nintendo 3DS. Remember, early adopters “ambassadors,” you get 10 VC titles for free in addition to the 10 free NES classics you downloaded at the beginning…

  By Owen Good Published September 28, 2011
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  Burgertime Reboot Delayed to Deliver Beefier Multiplayer

  Burgertime World Tour is being held a little while longer as it tests online multiplayer features, publisher MonkeyPaw Games told fans via Facebook on Monday. That means the game won’t hit Xbox Live, PSN and WiiWare until late October or early November. “We’d like to apologize for not getting the game out yet,” MonkeyPaw said.…

  By Owen Good Published September 28, 2011
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  Battlefield 3‘s Producer Is His Own Viciously Hard Critic, Says He’s ‘Ashamed’ of Bad Company 2

  Patrick Bach, executive producer of upcoming shooter Battlefield 3, is in little danger of having his ego run wild on him. Instead, he sounds positively self-loathing when talking about his studio’s last game, Battlefield Bad Company 2 In an interview with Wall Street Journal’s Tech Europe that’s largely about the QA process for Battlefield 3,…

  By Michael McWhertor Published September 28, 2011
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  Chinese TF2 Knockoff Drafts Tomb Raider Alum to Vouch for It

  Ahem. Well, back in July, we were introduced to Final Combat, China’s homage to ripoff of Team Fortress 2. The game won’t have a western release, but for any Chinese who managed to defeat the Baidu censorship and learn of the game’s true origins, we have Troy Horton, formerly of the Tomb Raider series, to…

  By Owen Good Published September 28, 2011
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  Felicia Day is Just What Gaming Needs

  As I watched Felicia Day interact with a video game version of herself, I was struck by the degree of existential weirdness that was going on in front of me. What must it be like to come face to face with a pre-recorded, interactive version of yourself? I tried to imagine having a branching, BioWare-style…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published September 28, 2011
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  NBA 2K12‘s Legendary Teams Are Pay-to-Play for Online Multiplayer

  Earlier this month Kotaku reported, per 2K Sports itself, that the historic teams featured in NBA 2K12‘s “NBA’s Greatest” mode would not be available for online play. That turns out not to be the case. A Twitter photo from someone with the game already shows that gamers can take the 1993 Chicago Bulls or 1986…

  By Owen Good Published September 28, 2011
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  Golden Modern Warfare

  Gone Gold –A celebratory picture taken by Infinity Ward producer Pete Blumel used to Tweet that Modern Warfare 3 was officially complete. Credit: Charlie Intel Somehow, They Turned Chemistry Into the Next Video Game You Should Play A friend who was recently planning his amusement for a 14-hour flight asked me for a game recommendation.…

  By Brian Crecente Published September 28, 2011