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  City Of Heroes Celebrates Six Years With New Graphics

  NCsoft’s City of Heroes is six years old, and Paragon Studios celebrates with the release of Issue 17: Dark Mirror, a free update that brings new story arcs, huge enemies, and an extremely fetching graphical makeover. Issue 17: Dark Mirror is now live, bringing with it the promised Ultra Mode, changing the way the game…

  By Mike Fahey Published April 29, 2010
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  Death and Ethical Violence

  It is no secret that much of the world sees our beloved hobby as a nothing but juvenile, ultra-violent, and ultimately irresponsible. Some have gone so far as to coin the term “murder simulators” for first person shooters and titles like Grand Theft Auto. These statements are often met with either blind rage or immediate…

  Daniel Carbone Published April 29, 2010
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  Bungie Delivers (Another) Surprise Morning Package

  Imagine my surprise when a FedEx man left a package from Bungie, marked to be delivered first thing this morning, the day their ten-year publishing agreement with Activision was unveiled Slicing through the brown packing tape, I discovered a black Pelican case coiled in bubble wrap. Inside? Popping it open I discovered inside what looked…

  By Brian Crecente Published April 29, 2010
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  Talk Amongst Yourselves

  We would like to sign all of you to 10-year-deals to comment here on Kotaku. How’s that sound? For free, of course. Now, please talk here about video games. Confused about commenting on Kotaku? Read our FAQ

  By Stephen Totilo Published April 29, 2010
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  Can You Believe It?

  To: Crecente From: Bashcraft RE: Moooooving Lotsa news buzzing this morning — big news. Bungie and Activsion, can you believe it? What you missed last night Halo Developer Joins Forces With Activision God Of War Creators Had Different Ideas On Trilogy’s Ending [Update] GameStop: It Is Not Cool To Take Pictures And Send Them To…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published April 29, 2010
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  Bungie’s First Post-Halo Game Coming To All Platforms

  Bungie’s ten-year publishing agreement with Activision will bring the next game from the famed-developers of Xbox 360 exclusive Halo, to all platforms. “Today we are very proud to announce a ground breaking ten year partnership between Bungie, one of the greatest developers in the world and the makers of Halo, with Activision, the number one…

  By Brian Crecente Published April 29, 2010
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  These Video Game Movies Don’t Actually Suck

  By “video game movie”, I do not mean movies that were adapted from video games. Oh, no. Instead, I mean movies that have video games as a plot element. In light of the upcoming French thriller Black Heaven, now is as good a time as any to take a look back at some of the…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published April 29, 2010
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  Halo Developer Joins Forces With Activision

  Bungie, the studio that created the Halo franchise, will be partnering with Activision for an “exclusive, worldwide partnership” the developer revealed this morning. The partnership will encompass one upcoming franchise and will last for the next ten years. Bungie was founded in 1991 and was purchased by software giant Microsoft in 2000, but parted with…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published April 29, 2010
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  What If Kotaku Had Been Around In 1996?

  In case you just joined us, Kotaku has only been around this century. And yes, it’s always been based on a formula of baby-sick green and Amsterdam-hooker pink. But what if we’d been blogging in the last century? It’d look a little something like this. Except substitute the headlines for ones involving the Sega Saturn,…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 29, 2010
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  Kingdom Hearts Figures Might Be Too Damn Cute

  Kingdom Hearts fans, who we know like things cute, will surely snap up these new figures from Square Enix, which are not only based on Kingdom hearts characters, but are incredibly, impossibly cute. There are five available – Sora, Cloud, Tifa, Axel and Riku – with the catch being you need to buy them as…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 29, 2010
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  She Has A Bandage On Her Head

  The mysterious Rei Ayanami from the Neon Genesis Evangelion juggernaut gets immortalized in polyvinyl chloride. Again. Famed illustrator Shunya Yamashita, who also created the characters for Final Fantasy X, designed this particular version of Rei, which was sculpted by Mitsumasa Yoshizawa. This is the second version of this particular statue. Rei Ayanami has long been…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published April 29, 2010
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  The Giant Japanese Robot Dance Routine

  Giant robots aren’t just for fighting! They can also be used for…construction work! And…complex song & dance routines! A group of Armored Core: For Answer players have sat down and recorded an insane 18 hours worth of footage, in which the game’s giant robots do little but tap toes, swirl around and generally make like…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 29, 2010
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  If Only The Avatar Game Manual Was This Amusing

  It’s not. This is a pirated game manual. A really, really funny one. Reader Andrew noticed this Avatar for the Nintendo DS manual at the game retailer where he works. The non-legit pirated game was inadvertently accepted as a trade-in — and whoever pirated this title went as far as turning the 20-something-page instruction manual…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published April 29, 2010
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  The Muppet That Ate Your DS (And Your Soul)

  Oh God, it’s so terrifying Meet the Padded Puppet Pouch! It’s a…padded puppet pouch for the DS, that pulls two jobs as both a puppet and a pouch for your DS. Just like the name says! It’s by CTA Digital, and while we’ve chuckled at most of the company’s previous efforts in the gaming peripheral…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 29, 2010
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  Customize Your Wife

  You can customize your in-game avatar, so why not your better half? Upcoming Japanese Xbox 360 title My Wife ~ A Bride For You Only ~ lets players customize their wife’s appearance, personality, voice, name and more. There are also downloadable voice packs that include well-known voice actresses like Kana Hanazawa and Emiri Kato. Various…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published April 29, 2010
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  Civilization Creator: Social Gaming Is “The Frontier”

  I love Sid Meier. Not just because he’s a great game designer, but because he’s a generally smart guy, as evidenced in this interview with IndustryGamers in which he talks “social” gaming in terms you should all understand. “I think it’s a new frontier”, he says. “I don’t think it replaces any other forms of…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 29, 2010
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  This Is How You Promote An Adult Video Game

  With a large bus. Adult computer game Shin Koi Hime Musou ~The Legend of the Moé Commander~ goes on sale on July 23 in The Land of the Rising Sun. To whip players up into a frenzy, this large Shin Koi Hime Musou bus was spotted cruising the streets of Tokyo’s geek mecca Akihabara. A…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published April 29, 2010
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  This Meme Just Made A Fourth Quarter Comeback

  Tecmo Bowl Throwback parties like it’s 1987

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 29, 2010
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  Black Ops

  First things first, this lab makes repeat appearances. There are allusions to somebody being “revived”, and a look at that clock reveals what may well be a 2010 date (albeit in the Japanese back-to-front style). Here’s a missile launch. Hard to tell what exactly is going on, but it looks like it’s at the coast,…

  By Luke Plunkett Published April 29, 2010
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  Girls Or Tekken – Which Gets A Gamer’s Attention?

  Certainly tamer than Russian strippers grinding on Counter Strike players. At this South Korean “Tekken Crash” tournament, model Kim Ha Yui stood next to a Tekken 6 cabinet as players tried to concentrate on their match. She, on the other hand, concentrated on trying to look cute for the camera. They’ve got excellent concentration! So…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published April 29, 2010