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  One Left 4 Dead Character Won’t Survive The Passing

  Valve’s poster for Left 4 Dead 2’s The Passing downloadable content finally gets a tagline: Nobody Survives Forever. And while the original survivors will be showing up at the beginning of The Passing, only three make it to the end. The news comes by way of Valve’s Chet Faliszek, speaking to Geoff Keighley at GDC,…

  By Mike Fahey Published March 20, 2010
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  What The People Behind Mass Effect And Dragon Age Are Trying To Do

  I spoke to the men running the studio behind many of the world’s biggest role-playing games a couple of weeks ago, to discuss a variety of things. I left with a bonus: The BioWare Vision Statement. Here is that vision, from the mouth of Ray Muzyka, EA’s general manager for (as he named them) BioWare…

  By Stephen Totilo Published March 20, 2010
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  Weekend Talk Amongst Yourselves

  On the weekend, you can talk about video games right here. This is Weekend TAY, which is just like Weekday TAY, except, because this goes live Saturday morning, the Smurfs might appear. Confused about commenting on Kotaku? Read our FAQ

  By Stephen Totilo Published March 20, 2010
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  Naughty Bear Does His Chest Burster Impression

  Rather than tiptoe around our nightmares, the fine folks at Artificial Mind and Movement have decided to just tear through our darkest childhood fears like so much tissue paper with their latest Naughty Bear video vignette. This is almost exactly the same as a nightmare I had as a child, only a creepy rendition of…

  By Mike Fahey Published March 20, 2010
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  Sometimes Camping Is OK

  As seen on Halolz.

  By Brian Crecente Published March 20, 2010
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  Kotaku Census 2010: You, Gamer

  OK, we are done with the tangible stuff. The machines you own, the games you play. To finish off our census, we’re going to dig a little deeper. The final questions are about your tastes as a gamer. Where you play, what you play, who you play with, etc. So if you’ve bugged us about…

  By Luke Plunkett Published March 20, 2010
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  Announcing our PAX East Party: Come Drink AND Eat

  So all of the neat things you find out when reading Kotaku on a Friday night? Take for instance news that we’ll be hosting our own open-bar party at Penny Arcade Expo East in Boston next week. Stephen Totilo and Michael Fahey will both be in town for PAX East and, much more importantly, to…

  By Brian Crecente Published March 20, 2010
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  Pole Dancing at the Game Developers Conference

  As we mentioned earlier this week, GDC got some class this year with some pole-dancing, clothes-on erotic dancers. I’m not quite sure how a cluster of scantily clad women cavorting around metal poles helps to push home the point of a game, but the place was packed when I arrived and remain packed ten minutes…

  By Brian Crecente Published March 20, 2010
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  First Impressions Of The Kane & Lynch Movie Script

  I’ve been slowly reading through a draft of the big screen adaptation of IO Interactive’s Kane & Lynch today, the movie set to star Bruce Willis as Kane, Jamie Foxx as Lynch. Screenwriter Kyle Ward has done some… interesting things. The version of the Kane & Lynch script we got our hands on dates back…

  By Michael McWhertor Published March 19, 2010
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  Kotaku Off Topic: Raw Thrills

  It’s Friday night and we’re feeling a little “off topic” right now, so let’s take a sharp turn from our regularly scheduled video game conversation and discuss other nerdy delights: film, music, comics, science, food, whatever you choose. Me? I’m going to talk about food for a minute, which may be the new rule: Friday…

  By Michael McWhertor Published March 19, 2010
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  PSP Still Winning The War In Japan

  The PlayStation Portable may not have had another stellar performance on par with its showing in Japan last week, but the PSP is still resting comfortably atop the country’s hardware chart. Sony’s portable managed to move another 39,125 units in Japan last week, according to sales tracker Media Create, outselling the Nintendo DS platform by…

  By Michael McWhertor Published March 19, 2010
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  Game Developers Conference 2010, As Told To Twitter

  What was everybody (on Twitter) talking about during this year’s GDC? Game researcher Jesper Juul offers his annual look at the most tweeted highlights from the week of GDC, during which “pocket protector” was a surprisingly hot topic. Back from Game Developers Conference 2010 and trying to get my bearings like everybody else. On the…

  By Michael McWhertor Published March 19, 2010
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  Beyond Sonic The Hedgehog: These May Be The New Sega All-Stars

  Sonic the Hedgehog may be Sega’s most recognizable cash cow—those Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games titles are huge—but the successes of Bayonetta, Total War and Football Manager may represent the new wave of Sega’s key franchises. Sega bigwig Mike Hayes tells CVG in an interview that has designs on “sequelizing” many of its…

  By Michael McWhertor Published March 19, 2010
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  Everybody Loves The Panda

  From: McWhertor To: Ashcraft Re: Your Favorite Animal Is… Did you really go to the zoo? Or was that just Night Note code for “I’m going to sit on the couch watching French films and pounding sake”? If you did, here’s an uninteresting factoid: my most recent zoo excursion occurred in Japan at the Ueno…

  By Michael McWhertor Published March 19, 2010
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  Pikmin 3 “Well Underway” Says Miyamoto

  Nintendo designer and Donkey Kong creator Shigeru Miyamoto was in London today to pick up his BAFTA fellowship award, an honor he reciprocated by delivering his acceptance speech in pure English. What did Miyamoto have to say, specifically about Pikmin? According to the tweet-reporting of the Official Nintendo Magazine UK, Mr. Miyamoto offered the briefest…

  By Michael McWhertor Published March 19, 2010
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  BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Keeps 2D Fighting Alive This Summer

  North American fans of the two-dimensional fighting game will get their fisticuffs fix with the release of BlazBlue: Continuum Shift on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 this summer, the follow up to last year’s BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger. While not a full-fledged sequel to Calamity Trigger, BlazBlue: Continuum Shift’s incremental updates—three new playable characters, Tsubaki, μ-12…

  By Michael McWhertor Published March 19, 2010
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  What Are You Playing This Weekend?

  What else? God of War III was released this week and, despite my initial apathy toward playing through another God of War game, I’m excited. That’s why I’ll be trading in a bunch of games this weekend. Oh, I’ve got a few spare copies of games that are unlikely to ever see the inside of…

  By Michael McWhertor Published March 19, 2010
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  Review Round-Up: Yakuza Greed, Street Fighter Max

  With the use of some red ink and some blue ink, we reviewed some video games this week. Links to the results are below. How’d we do? Brother In Arms 2 Micro-Review: Oh, Brother Where Art Thou? In which Brian Ashcraft could have sworn he was playing Thumbs: The Game Scrap Metal Micro-Review: There’s a…

  By Stephen Totilo Published March 19, 2010
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  To Do In Atlanta: Momocon – Anime, Comics, Gaming, And Kotaku

  If you’re in the Atlanta area this weekend, you’d be remiss if you didn’t stop by MomoCon, the largest free admission fan convention in North America, featuring anime, manga, gaming, comics, and a special Sunday panel session with yours truly. MomoCon is a free fan convention with a focus on video games, anime, costuming, manga,…

  By Mike Fahey Published March 19, 2010
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  PixelJunk Expansion Channels Demon’s Souls, Of All Things

  The stylish, HD-retro PixelJunk games are among the highlights on the PlayStation platform. But another cult favorite, Demon’s Souls, beat the series to its latest clever innovation. The spring update to the first PixelJunk game, PixelJunk Racers, will add the ability for players to summon and race against the ghost of any player on their…

  By Stephen Totilo Published March 19, 2010