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  You Are Going To Be Responsible For Making The Dreaded Dark Souls Even Harder

  Dark Souls, the spiritual successor to notoriously difficult role-playing game Demon’s Souls, is guaranteed to be even more punishing. So says Dark Souls director Hidetaka Miyazaki, who also reveals that players—not just giant wolves and zombie dragons—will be inflicting more pain on each other. Miyazaki explains in the new issue of Edge magazine that the…

  By Michael McWhertor Published March 14, 2011
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  FarmVille, Mafia Wars & CityVille Get Their Own Currency

  Social games maker Zynga moves one step closer to world domination, minting its own currency, the zCoin. In short, play games like FarmVille, FrontierVille, Mafia Wars, Zynga Poker and more, earn zPoints, cash those in for zCoins and grab exclusive items from RewardVille. The move comes months ahead of Facebook’s requirement that all social games…

  By Michael McWhertor Published March 14, 2011
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  Is The Zune Gone For Good?

  Microsoft’s attempt to dethrone the iPod, its music, movie and video game-playing hardware known as the Zune, may have just been put out to pasture. Bloomberg reports the Zune HD, introduced in 2009, will be the last of its kind. Microsoft will reportedly continue to sell existing versions of the Zune, but won’t introduce new…

  By Michael McWhertor Published March 14, 2011
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  Motorstorm In a Can

  SNAPSHOT | Motorstorm: Apocalypse’s review code press mailing. (Photo by me) Bedtime Stories Notorious Illegal Immigration iPhone Game Tweaks Critics With Legal Immigration Mode If turning the plight of illegal immigrants risking their lives to sneak into the U.S. into a goofy iPhone racing game didn’t amuse critics of Smuggle Truck: More » The Joker And…

  By Brian Crecente Published March 14, 2011
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  The Beautiful And Bold Concept Art of Batman: Arkham City

  How can Batman: Arkham City look so much better than its unexpectedly great predecessor, Batman: Arkham Asylum? Handsome concept art of Gotham’s streets and skylines, both gritty and gorgeous, may provide clues to developer Rocksteady’s talent for making Batman look so good. The developer released a batch of concept art for the this October‘s Batman:…

  By Michael McWhertor Published March 14, 2011
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  Prototype 2 Will, At The Very Least, Have Nice Corpse Throwing Physics

  Prototype 2 isn’t due out until sometime in 2012, so early video of Radical Entertainment’s game can easily be forgiven for being light on substance. If you’re looking forward to next year’s Prototype sequel or simply enjoy video game trailers featuring harpsichord, give this one—”Heller Throws Down”—some eyeball time.

  By Michael McWhertor Published March 14, 2011
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  Land-A Panda Is A Cannon-Based Cure For The Common Sad Panda

  Any zoologist will tell you that panda breeding is a delicate operation. It requires setting the right mood, making sure the two pandas are a good match, and shooting one of them out of multiple cannons until he lands next to his mate. Big Pixel Studios may have just cost me a job at the…

  By Mike Fahey Published March 14, 2011
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  El Shaddai, If Nothing Else, Is One Gorgeous Video Game

  The makers of El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron don’t clutter their game with health bars and point-counters.* They don’t put anything in the way of the beautiful game they’re creating, one of the head-turners at PAX East in Boston this past weekend. I hadn’t followed the game closely. Its name is alphabet soup, its…

  By Stephen Totilo Published March 14, 2011
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  The Ultimate Anti-Bullying PSA: Kid Fights Back With Devastating Body Slam [video]

  Here’s a PSA for bullies: That tubby kid you’re taking pot shots at? He might be Zangief’s nephew. [Deadspin]

  Barry Petchesky Published March 14, 2011
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  The Infamous 2 Beta Needs Mission Designers Badly

  PlayStation 3 owners can get their hands on this summer’s Infamous 2 early with the game’s newly announced beta. Developer Sucker Punch is desperately seeking beta testers, passionate people who can bang away at the game’s user generated mission design component Interested parties (based in the U.S.) can sign up for Infamous 2’s “limited release…

  By Michael McWhertor Published March 14, 2011
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  45 Minutes With Star Wars: The Old Republic, My First MMO In Four Years

  I haven’t played a massively multiplayer online game since the single Saturday afternoon I spent four years ago raising a World of Warcraft Tauren Druid to level 12. I expected to break my MMO fast some time this year, either by trying WoW again or by giving in to the appeal of one of these…

  By Stephen Totilo Published March 14, 2011
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  Kinect’s Most Dangerous Hack Is ‘The Evil Genius Simulator’

  It may not be the most useful of creative Kinect hacks, but for underlining a point about your plans to conquer the world with a pair of Tesla coils, Bright Arcs’ Evil Genius Simulator can’t be beat. The concept is simple in this hack on display at Maker Faire UK: throw your hands in the…

  By Michael McWhertor Published March 14, 2011
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  An Assassin Infiltrates The Killzone

  Events like last weekend’s PAX East lend themselves to video game crossovers you’d never see outside of real life. Gameface is a photographic celebration of the people who make, play and love video games.

  By Mike Fahey Published March 14, 2011
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  Portal 2‘s Newest Character Is Hilarious (And Possibly Malevolent)

  At some unspecified moment in Portal 2, we’re going to hear from Cave Johnson, the man who founded Portal research lab Aperture Science. Why we’re hearing him is a mystery still unexplained. Portal 2 takes place some time after Portal 1, but is Johnson alive? A recording that’s been played back? Cave Johnson is voiced…

  By Stephen Totilo Published March 14, 2011
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  Reviews

  Dragon Age II Trades Epic Adventure For Gritty Action

  While the heroes of Dragon Age: Origins were busy saving the world, Hawke and his family were running for their lives. Their tale of survival and triumph amidst a city on the verge of turning on itself is the focus of the darker, grittier Dragon Age II. Fleeing from the Darkspawn hordes to the neighboring…

  By Mike Fahey Published March 14, 2011
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  Kinect Aids in $4 Million Research Into Mental Disorders

  The University of Minnesota has saved more than $100,000 in research funds by using the Xbox 360 Kinect to aid in research on the diagnoses of mental disorders in children, according to a Minnesota Daily and AP report The Institute of Child Development, the University of Minnesota Medical School and the College of Science and…

  By Brian Crecente Published March 14, 2011
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  The Xbox Live Arcade Lineup As Vintage Movie Posters

  During PAX East this weekend Microsoft hypoed up their attractive upcoming Xbox Live Arcade lineup with a series of limited edition postcards transforming each title into a classic action movie poster. Can you tell which movies the posters came from? Limited to a print run of 700-or-so, chances of getting your hands on these sexy…

  By Mike Fahey Published March 14, 2011
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  The Creators Of RuneScape Take-On Massively Multiplayer Transformers [Update]

  Autobots wage their battles to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons online next year, as Hasbro grants the power to create a massively multiplayer online game based on the robots in disguise to Jagex, the folks behind popular free-to-play MMO RuneScape. Now there’s nothing wrong with RuneScape. Cambridge, England, based Jagex Game Studios has…

  By Mike Fahey Published March 14, 2011
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  Earthquake Relief, 99 Cents At a Time

  It was like a freight train hit the building. Wil McLellan was in the boardroom of New Zealand game developers Stickmen Studios when he felt the room start to vibrate. Then it whipped to the side. “People were thrown from chairs and the rooms without windows went pitch dark as the power went out,” McLellan…

  By Brian Crecente Published March 14, 2011
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  How Can Good Triumph Over Evil When Evil Is So Awesome?

  It’s more than just blue lasers versus red lasers in our Monday installment of Speak-Up on Kotaku, when commenter KingKellogg the Waffle Haggler ponders the eternal question: Why is being evil more exciting than being good? Boredom the Path to evil!! When playing choice games where you aren’t allowed to kill random civilians I tend…

  By Mike Fahey Published March 14, 2011