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  The First Great Cosplay of 2012, in Video Form

  Earlier this month, Katsucon went down at the National Harbour resort in Marlyand, just outside Washington DC. There was loads of great cosplay, but since I’m in the middle of a “best in cosplay” series on Fancy Pants, haven’t been able to get to it in that weekly gallery. So in its place, here are…

  By Luke Plunkett Published February 28, 2012
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  Dead Space’s Navigation System is Now a Reality

  If Dead Space is to be remembered for one thing, it should be its navigation system, where pressing a button triggers an illuminated “path” in the game world showing you your destination. I don’t know if it was the first game to do this, but it was certainly the first to do it so prominently/so…

  By Luke Plunkett Published February 28, 2012
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  A Twenty-Minute Documentary About the Gender of Final Fight’s Poison

  Reader Andrew points us towards this documentary. Which goes for twenty minutes. And which is entirely about the seemingly endless debate over the gender of Final Fight’s Poison. While it gets a little “high school paper” in parts, and is something we’ve pondered over once or twice ourselves, it’s still a fairly interesting watch, if…

  By Luke Plunkett Published February 28, 2012
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  Justin Bieber is Being Sued Over an iPhone Game Called “Joustin Beaver”

  Video game developers RC3 have a harmless little game called Joustin Beaver for sale on the App Store. It’s $0.99, and it’s turned the teen heartthrob into a beaver. Something Justin Bieber’s attorneys aren’t very happy about. Representatives of the Canadian pop star sent a cease-and-desist letter to RC3 over the title a few weeks…

  By Luke Plunkett Published February 28, 2012
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  Mr. Shepard and Little Miss Shepard Will Save the Galaxy With Sweetness

  Roger Hargreaves’ classic children’s book series head into the future, where no doubt some anonymous commenter on the future internet will make a joke about them being their favourite pieces of children’s literature on the citadel. howtocarveroastunicorn [howtocarveroastunicorn, via Gamefreaks]

  By Luke Plunkett Published February 28, 2012
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  Journey, Flower Developers Looking Beyond the PlayStation 3

  Sony has done a great job with its exclusive PlayStation Network titles of promoting the kind of games you wouldn’t expect to see promoted on a modern video game console. Games like Flower, and Journey Sadly, at least for Sony – and this will be heartening to anyone who doesn’t own a PS3 – the…

  By Luke Plunkett Published February 28, 2012
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  Buying all of Mass Effect 3’s DLC Will Cost You $870

  Downloadable content is serious business. Well, with the amount of time and money developers spend on it (and ask for it), you’d think it was. Stuff like Mass Effect 3’s DLC, though, is more of a joke. With various weapons and skins spread across pre-orders, toys and PC accessories, if you wanted to own every…

  By Luke Plunkett Published February 28, 2012
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  CultureTotal Recall

  Prepare for a Good…Sponking? Spanking? Oh Sega.

  Going by the old adage “it’s not racist if it’s France”, this Dreamcast commercial plays on one of Europe’s oldest rivalries in an attempt to sell the Brits on the console’s pioneering online play. And if the French can’t rouse them? Germans stuffing their faces with sausages should do the trick Total Recall is a…

  By Luke Plunkett Published February 28, 2012
• CultureTotal Recall

  Chris Rock Could Have Been in Jak and Daxter

  It is the year 2000. Comedian and actor Chris Rock is nearing the height of his powers. Sony’s stable of video games, on the other hand, was not. Sure, the PlayStation had been a breakthrough, but the world-devouring juggernaut that was the PlayStation 2 was in its infancy. So you can maybe understand why, when…

  By Luke Plunkett Published February 27, 2012
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  Want to Learn Saxophone? Put Down the Duckie

  Hello there, Kotaku, and welcome to the Monday evening Open Thread! We’ve got some links here for ya as usual for before you begin your conversations. Here goes: Put down the ducky if you want to play the saxophone – Aw, Mr. Hoots. Preach it! (Thanks for reminding me of this, Steve.) How piracy built…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published February 27, 2012
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  The PlayStation Network is About to go Down for a Day

  The PlayStation Network undergoes maintenance all the time. Usually, though, it only lasts for 2-4 hours. On Thursday, the network is undergoing some serious maintenance, because it’ll be down for most of the American day. Starting at 8am Pacific and running until an estimated 10pm Pacific, almost everything PlayStation-related that uses the internet will be…

  By Luke Plunkett Published February 27, 2012
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  OnLive Gains Cred With Free Indie Games Festival Nominees

  While members of the video game industry and press are attending the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco next week and getting a chance to view the Independent Games Festival awards ceremony on the show floor, OnLive is giving you a chance to feel included, and this very fortunately involves playing games. As of today…

  By Tina Amini Published February 27, 2012
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  Reviews

  Asura’s Wrath: The Kotaku Review

  Asura is an angry, angry man. It’s right there in the title, really: Asura’s Wrath. The game tells the story of one man’s rage-fueled superpowers, as he seeks revenge on those who betrayed him, kidnapped his daughter, and left him for dead. One can’t really blame the guy for feeling wrathful. Asura certainly lives in…

  By Kate Cox Published February 27, 2012
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  Hawken Team Given $10 Million Because Hawken Looks Awesome

  Indie multiplayer shooter Hawken, which stole my heart, stuffed it in a mech then begged me to come get it back, has always attracted attention for how good it looked despite it being the product of a small studio, Adhesive Games. Note I say small and not poor, because the guys who are working on…

  By Luke Plunkett Published February 27, 2012
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  The Best Film of the Year Didn’t Need Talking. Do Video Games Need Graphics?

  Last night at the Academy Awards, a silent film won best picture. Michel Hazanavicius’s The Artist, a movie about silent film star George Valentin, is itself a classic silent film—for the most part, it has no sound effects or dialogue, just music and on-screen action. Several new video games like the Move-enabled competitive game Johann…

  By Kirk Hamilton Published February 27, 2012
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  The Creator of Final Fantasy Just Wants to Have Fun

  Hironobu Sakaguchi doesn’t worry too much about the future, he said in an interview with Eurogamer published today. He worries about the now. The creator of Final Fantasy, whose latest game The Last Story hit European stores last week and will invade the U.S. this summer, says he doesn’t have any specifically pressing goals or…

  By Jason Schreier Published February 27, 2012
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  Okami-Inspired Fan Art Will Be Your New Wallpaper

  Foxified | Okami is not a fox, sure, but this is still awesome. (Sakimichan) Pokémon Black and White 2 Catch All the Western Gamers This Fall Announced this weekend for a June release in Japan, the first pair of main series Pokémon titles with the number two in the title will be hitting North America…

  By Tina Amini Published February 27, 2012
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  Heisman Winner Robert Griffin III Earns NCAA Football 13 Cover

  Former Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin III will star on the cover of NCAA Football 13, publisher EA Sports said today. The Heisman Trophy winner and projected #2 NFL draft pick will join one of eight other athletes on the game’s box art. EA said in a press release that starting March 12, fans will be…

  By Jason Schreier Published February 27, 2012
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  No Need to Love Lucy; Just Like Her Facebook Game

  There is always another television property out there that can yet be mined for its game tie-in potential, it seems. I Love Lucy, 1950s classic and staple of late-night reruns for decades, will be making its entry into the Facebook game space soon thanks to Entertainment Games, Inc. In a press release, the social and…

  By Kate Cox Published February 27, 2012
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  Every Action Has a Cost in I Am Alive

  The latest developer diary for Ubisoft Shanghai’s I Am Alive goes behind the scenes of the game’s creation. A huge disaster has dragged a city back to instinctual basics, and “90% of the human race is gone.” The diary shows off a handsome amount of footage as to how you’ll survive, using what’s in your…

  By Pierre Bienaimé Published February 27, 2012