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  Talk Amongst Yourselves

  It’s Wednesday! Now go Talk Amongst Yourselves, but please keep the topic to video games. I know. What a silly request. Special thanks goes out (again!!) to Incursor for today’s image. Wanna get your TAYpic on Kotaku? Submit your pic to #TAYpics (Read this thread for directions on how to do a TAYpic.)

  By Jen Schiller Published June 22, 2011
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  How the Wii U One Ups Television

  The master controller for Nintendo’s Wii U was born not of a desire to replace television, but to fix one of television’s very small problems. Those few second between when a person presses the power button on a remote control and when a television blinks to life prevents gaming consoles from becoming the sort of…

  By Brian Crecente Published June 22, 2011
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  1-Bit Ninja is a Sublime Paper Mario, Super Mario Mash-Up

  At first blush 1-bit Ninja looks like another iPhone game knock-off, but spend ten seconds with the game and you’ll dismiss that notion. Spend a minute with it and you’ll be ready to toss your phone at the wall… and then pick it up and keep playing. 1-bit Ninja is a sort of mash-up of…

  By Brian Crecente Published June 22, 2011
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  Beatles or Stones? Pick!

  Sympathy | JULY 1968: The Stones on the set of Jean-Luc Godard’s documentary. (Photo: Keystone Features | Hulton Archive) PS3 Hacker Resigned to Prison Sentence after Money Dries Up American hacker George Hotz got all the headlines for his exploits trying to bring Linux back to the PS3, but he was only one of many…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published June 22, 2011
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  Report: Dragon Quest X to Surface on Wii U?

  Nintendo is working on a new console. Square Enix is working on a new Dragon Quest. See where this is going? This past May, Dragon Quest composer Koichi Sugiyama seemed to indicate that DQX will be out in 2012, saying, “I’m aiming for next year and am in the middle of composing music for Dragon…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published June 22, 2011
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  When Did Sony Start Giving Birth to the PS Vita?

  Kotaku already broke that Sony had a ¥25,000 pricetag in mind when it began work on the PS Vita and that the company almost dropped the rear-touch feature. Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida filled in more details with Famitsu, like that work began on the Vita in spring 2009 and that the current button layout was created…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published June 22, 2011
• Culture

  The Dangerous Art of Tomb Raider

  The new Tomb Raider game flips everything we know about Lara Croft on its head, turning one of gaming’s most dangerous superstars into a broken, vulnerable human being. Just like the rest of us. To really nail that sense that the world is a dangerous place, the game’s artists needed to make sure the landscape…

  By Luke Plunkett Published June 22, 2011
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  EVE Online is Selling Horse Armour. In Space.

  It’s been over five years since Horse Armor, and still, developers and publishers are struggling with how much to charge for downloadable content. Just ask EVE Online developers CCP. They’ve got no idea A new EVE Online store opened this week (along with major new updates like an interactive “Captain’s Quarters”), with a new currency…

  By Luke Plunkett Published June 22, 2011
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  The Control Pad of Your Nightmares

  When I need to use a control pad with my PC, I use an Xbox 360 pad. It’s reliable, it’s comfortable, and best of all, it’s subtle. This controller? Not subtle. It couldn’t even tell you what subtle meant, let alone spell it. It’s the Warrior, a USB control pad for PCs that takes a…

  By Luke Plunkett Published June 22, 2011
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  Team Fortress 2’s Scouts Get an Update

  Still no “Meet the Medic”, but continuing the festivities this week, Team Fortress 2’s Scout class has gotten an update, adding three weapons to the smart-mouthed guy’s arsenal. [TF2]

  By Luke Plunkett Published June 22, 2011
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  How Big Are Life-Size Monster Hunter Monsters?

  They’re big! Yes, yes —we know Universal Studios and Capcom are teaming up to recreate Monster Hunter this August in the Osaka theme park. Here are some more details. According to Capcom, the collaboration will produce 1:1 scale versions of monsters like the Rathalos Rare Species, the Silver Rathalos. It will be over 20 meters…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published June 22, 2011
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  Well of Course Halo: Reach Can Play Pinball

  Using the game’s in-built level creation tools, Halo: Reach player Pete_the_duck has been able to construct a working pinball game within the Xbox 360 shooter that uses sniper rifles and land mines to get the job done. Halo, Pinball Edition [Halo, via GameSetWatch]

  By Luke Plunkett Published June 22, 2011
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  How Many Yakuza Games Are in Circulation?

  Now that Yakuza: Of the End has moved 400,000 copies, Sega has shipped over 5 million copies of the Yakuza games worldwide since it debuted on the PS2 in 2005. [ファミ通]

  By Brian Ashcraft Published June 22, 2011
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  PS3 Hacker Resigned to Prison Sentence after Money Dries Up

  American hacker George Hotz got all the headlines for his exploits trying to bring Linux back to the PS3, but he was only one of many working towards the same goal. And while Hotz today walks free, not everybody is so lucky. Fellow hacker Alexander “graf_chokolo” Egorenkov, whose home was raided in February by police,…

  By Luke Plunkett Published June 22, 2011
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  The Wii U Could Have Been a Handheld Console Instead

  The main appeal of the Wii U, other than the promise of Mario and Zelda in HD, is its large controller with a fancy touch screen. That controller wasn’t ordained to be a controller from the start, though. “During the roundtable discussions there were such arguments about should we make it capable of being a…

  By Luke Plunkett Published June 22, 2011
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  Is Lady Gaga Taking Cues from a Virtual Idol?

  This week, pop superstar Lady Gaga arrived in Japan, sporting the aqua colored hair she’s had for weeks now. She’s in the country for a Japanese earthquake charity event. She wore wrist bands that read “Pray for Japan” in English and Japanese. But as soon as she stepped off the plane, her Japanese fans wondered…

  By Brian Ashcraft Published June 22, 2011
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  Online Game Suffers “Catastrophic Hardware Failure”

  Sucks to be a Heroes of Newerth player this week (or next week, or the week after), after the game’s servers suffered what’s being called “a catastrophic hardware failure”. The DotA clone, a popular online game in the niche PC strategy genre, will be out of action without an estimated time of return after the…

  By Luke Plunkett Published June 22, 2011
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  Mother Accused of Beating Son to Death After Wii Game Breaks TV

  A 21-year old Bronx woman has been charged with murder and manslaughter after the death of her five year-old son, killed after he “broke the television while playing Nintendo Wii”. Kim Crawford stands accused of murdering Jamar Johnson after telling police she struck him on the chest and back “harder than I’ve ever hit him”…

  By Luke Plunkett Published June 22, 2011
• CultureTotal Recall

  A Look at Decades of Nintendo Controller Innovation

  The upcoming Wii U is hoping to change the way we think of controllers forever. Whether it does that or not is anybody’s guess, but if it does, it won’t be the first time Nintendo has pulled off that coup. While Nintendo’s franchises and consoles often get all the praise for the company’s success, let’s…

  By Luke Plunkett Published June 22, 2011
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  What Are You Reading?

  Good evening and good Tuesday, Kotaku readers. Tonight’s open thread is of a themed variety, in which I might ask you a question, you might want to answer. Tonight’s recurring question is “What are you reading?” Me, I’m still bearing down on Don DeLillo’s Underworld, an activity that I don’t seem to have much time…

  By Michael McWhertor Published June 21, 2011