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Weekly Webcomic Wrapup is getting ready for the Vita

The Vita comes out on Wednesday, First Edition bundles notwithstanding, and we've been hard at work providing you with as much coverage as humanly possible to help you make an informed decision about whether the device is worth your limited time and hard-earned money. We made so much Vita content, in fact, that a lot of it never made it on the site due to various entirely factual and totally not untrue reasons.

For instance! Joystiq's managing editor JC Fletcher swallowed an entire Vita in order to covertly acquire clandestine x-rays of the device's internals, but the x-rays were unreadable once developed due to JC's molybdenum skeleton. Another completely true thing happened when Joystiq reviews editor Richard Mitchell took his Vita to the coasts of Australia to test its housing's resistance to poisonous octopus suckers, but filming permit issues with the Australian government and a complaint filted by the Australian Society for the Ethical Treatment of Poisonous Octopi (ASETPO) kept the resulting coverage offline.

My Sunny Valentine (Brawl in the Family)
Frigidity (Penny Arcade)
Valentines (Nerf Now!!)
Put On By The Ritz (Awkward Zombie)
At Least Battleships Have Guns (GameOver Nation)
Thank you for a gorgeous time (Manly Guys Doing Manly Things)
Bouncing Machine (The Gamer Cat)

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New Xenoblade Chronicles trailer shows off combat and menus

[image] Xenoblade Chronicles is still on track for its April 2012 release in North America, proving that there's nothing in this world that you can't do. This latest trailer from Nintendo and Monolith Soft shows off the game's combat, crafting and weapons systems, as well as some very large robot swords. ... continue reading.
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Kid Icarus: Uprising 'Sacred Treasures' trailer is a callback

[image] Medusa's freaky self is back in Kid Icarus: Uprising, causing all kinds of trouble for our intrepid, toga-sporting protagonist Pit. According to the relaxing disembodied voice in this trailer, Pit needs to reacquire three Sacred Treasures used to defeat Medusa in the first Kid Icarus game. ... continue reading.
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Oxeye Game Studio and Wolfire Games join Humble Bundle Mojam

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As if the basic premise of Mojang's 60 hour Humble Bundle charity programming marathon weren't enough of an incentive for you to hand over as many of your hard earned dollars as you want, the Minecraft developer is now being joined by Oxeye Game Studio and Wolfire Games, who will be creating their own 60-hour indie experiences.

Wolfire's game will be based off the same crowdsourced premise as Mojang's, which is an RTS shoot 'em up steeped in an ancient Egypt/steampunk setting. Oxeye Games, on the other hand, will be combining the second-place and second-to-last-place options from the genre poll by constructing "a dungeon crawler beat 'em up set in a post-apocalyptic World War II."

All three teams are live streaming their progress at the official Humble Bundle site, and there's still about 20 hours left to go make your donation and claim your games before the event comes to a close.

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier dev diary demos cover system, invisible dudes

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I ain't scared of no ghost, but I am completely terrified by the idea of invisible soldiers. There could be one beside me right now and I wouldn't even know it, at least not until his translucent knife perforated my windpipe with extreme prejudice. This first entry in Ghost Recon: Future Soldier's "Inside Recon" developer diary series elaborates on the animation and motion capturing techniques used to create the game, as well as the major role that cover plays during a firefight.

While you guys watch that, I'm going to go spread legos all over the floor of my apartment as an anti-ghost-soldier countermeasure. Those things smart when you step on 'em barefoot.

Just Add Water talking to publishers about Stranger's Wrath for XBLA

Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath HD has been available on PSN since last December, but its 2.1 gigabyte file size -- just .1 gigs over Microsoft's XBLA file size limit -- has prevented it from seeing the insides of the Xbox Live Marketplace. Though Just Add Water has been in talks with Microsoft to publish the game itself, it sounds like the developer will be making some alternative accommodations.

"We've basically run everything dry in terms of going some kind of first-party route with Microsoft, be it them publishing it or be it us publishing it ourselves," said Just Add Water CEO Stewart Gilray during an interview with VG247. "So we're now having to go down the third-party route."

The developer is in talks with "two or three" publishers and hopes to have more information to announce by Easter, although Gilray did not give specifics regarding which publishers may be interested in helping the cause. It's unclear how working through a third-party publisher will aid in resolving (or circumnavigating) the game's size issue, but we're glad to see that Just Add Water is still trying.

Bit.Trip Saga UK launch pushed forward to March 16

Ah, the rare anti-delay, a happenstance so seldom seen in the gaming world that its occurrence should be marked by fireworks and a ticker-tape parade. Those things cost money, though, and our budget is still tapped out from smuggling our Editor in Chief out of South Africa, so this post will have to suffice.

Bit.Trip Saga's UK release date has been changed from March 26 to March 16, according to Pocket Gamer, and while that's still 6 months after the North American release, it is earlier than we were all expecting.
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Double is Skullgirls' final, grossest character

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You didn't think the entire Skullgirls character roster was going to be comprised exclusively of buxom cartoon vixens, did you? Reverge Labs had to do something to balance this stuff out, so what better way to show that it's what's on the inside that counts than to add a character whose insides are on her outsides?

Double, the terrible, moist hand/mouth creature above, is actually much more disgusting in motion, as you'll see in the walkthrough videos after the break. A shapeshifter, Double's fighting style is an amalgamation of the other styles in the game: She morphs into other characters to perform tweaked versions of their normals, and most of her specials are moves that didn't make it into their respective character's final moves list.

She's got some really original stuff as well, like a level-5 super that transforms her into an Easter Island head that spews bullet-hell projectiles from its mouth. We're intrigued, but also a little nauseous.

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Tekken Unlimited Tag Tournament 2 announced for Japanese arcades

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It may not be hitting consoles until sometime this fall, but Tekken Tag Tournament 2 has been in Japanese arcades since September of last year, which in fighting game terms is a hundred billion years. The next step in the fighting game chain of evolution is, of course, the upgraded/altered/enhanced version, and thus Tekken Unlimited Tag Tournament 2 is born.

Unveiled during this year's AOU Amusement Expo in Japan, Tekken Unlimited Tag Tournament 2 allows for 2-on-2 battles like the original TTT2, but also 1-on-1 fighting like traditional Tekken games, as well as 1-on-2 fighting. The game's character balance has been adjusted to ensure that 1-on-2 battles are mechanically fair, according to Andriasang. Arcade owners who have already purchased Tekken Tag Tournament 2 will be able to upgrade to Unlimited free of charge. Let's hope these additions and improvements are reflected in this fall's console release.
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New Pokemon Plus Nobunaga's Ambition trailer rewrites history

[image] We don't remember Oda Nobunaga's blood-soaked conquest of Japan being quite so cute and fluffy, or having so much to do with scantily clad ninja women and so little to do with murder, but what do we know? It's not like we double majored in History and Applied Pokeology. Oh wait, we totally did. ... continue reading.
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Amnesia follow-up teased with ARG, more clues

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Fans have been working around the clock since a new teaser site appeared for Frictional Games' suspected follow-up to the acclaimed indie horror title, Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Not only has the blurred image been revealed as a freaky tunnel entrance, with what looks like a limbless corpse (ew), but fans have tracked down the latest hint, which leads to a tower in Seattle called Smith Tower. Inside that you'll find The Chinese Room, named after the furniture it houses, donated from the Empress of China herself. Speculation suggest the new game may have some connection to China and its history.

Fans have also uncovered an interactive feature on the site, which has since revealed the picture above (called "fragment_ebola.jpg"), and a coded series of letters: "P F C I N C M I O I S G G."

Some guess it to mean "GIF PICS COMING," which would suggest more clues are on the way. Research is being headed up on this forum thread, so have at it. Our contribution? The letters above can also be rearranged into "SICCING OF GIMP." You should probably download everyone's favorite image editor posthaste!
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Nexuiz gameplay trailer quakes with rockets, jetpacks

[image] Nexuiz, a guest to the XBLA House Party on February 29 for 800 MS Points ($10), recently shot out a trailer featuring the most gameplay we've seen yet. We also have a preview of the twitch shooter if you're looking for more. ... continue reading.

Uncharted: Golden Abyss TV spot runs for its life

[image] We don't think Uncharted: Golden Abyss is quite this immersive, but you get the idea. ... continue reading.

Jaffe walks through the Twisted Metal car customizer web app

[image] You've had Twisted Metal for a few days now, and you're already sick of Sweet Tooth's vanilla-style ice cream truck. Frankly, you want a cheetah print one. And series creator David Jaffe is happy to walk you through just how you'll be able to do that in a yet-to-be-released web application, as ... continue reading.
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Curt Schilling visits Conan, shows off Kingdoms of Amalur

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Former baseball player turned 38 Studios founder Curt Schilling made a visit to Conan O'Brien's late night talk show this week. After discussing his beautiful with Tom Arnold and telling a story about some US soldiers playing Call of Duty while at war, he showed off a special "Irish American" version of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, featuring a virtual Schilling squaring off against "Gnomon O'Brien." You can watch the short interview and clip below.

It's cute, even if it's not a good representation of what the game is actually like. Then again, it is a late night talk show, so eliciting a chuckle and getting the name said a few times is probably worth it.

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WRUP: Playin' la Vita loca

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The PlayStation Vita launched this week with the "First Edition" bundle, but the mainstream hardware launch will take place next Wednesday. Check out our Vita launch guide page for easy access to our reviews and other details regarding the PSVita.

What's everyone playing this weekend?

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Indie devs launching XBLIG app for WP7 because MS hasn't

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The Indie Games section of Xbox Live has been a point of contention for indie developers since its launch, in part because the app was hard to find and confusing to navigate. Microsoft has since made improvements -- with the most recent dashboard update, even -- but a group of indie devs and industry enthusiasts are speeding up the process with a new app for Windows Phone, tentatively called the XBLIG Companion.

The XBLIG Companion scrapes the RSS feeds of XboxIndies.com and gathers the XML and CSV data for every applicable game, updating the app's listings as the games are updated themselves. XBLIG Companion will offer easy browsing of Xbox Indie Games' selection and will allow users to purchase games for their consoles directly from their phones.

Created by Casey Young and organized by Dave Voyles, XBLIG Companion is currently in beta testing -- anyone with a Windows Phone 7 can check out the prototype now by contacting Dave [at] ArmlessOctopus [dot] com, and leaving feedback right here. Now that wasn't so difficult, was it, Microsoft?

Starbreeze lets 25 go after finishing Syndicate

Having completed Syndicate before EA ships it next week, Swedish developer Starbreeze has let several employees go. The company employed 93 individuals while working on the FPS reboot, 25 of which have been dismissed, according to GamesIndustry.biz (registration required). Starbreeze chairman Peter Tornquist has also reportedly resigned.

"It is sad that we are forced to make staff cutbacks affecting employees. But we have to reduce staff after the final delivery of the Syndicate," CEO Mikael Nermark told GI.biz. Layoffs at development studios on the cusp of shipping a title has quickly become the norm for the industry. We don't like to see anyone lose their job and hope the individuals in Sweden affected by our least favorite tag find new work as soon as possible.

Saints Row: The Third throws Gangtsas in Space on Feb. 21

[image]The next in a line of classy, reputable DLC packs for Saints Row: The Third is Gangstas in Space, and it's lifting off from Xbox 360, PS3 and PC on Tuesday, February 21 for $6.99.

Gangstas in Space is the second of three downloadable add-ons included in THQ's Season Pass, which snags users 15 percent off the total price of the DLC packs when bought separately.

Gangstas in Space sees the Boss and new character Jenny Jaros attempt to make a movie... in space. A series of new missions (that may or may not include blow-up dolls) will feature an alien invasion, which shouldn't be too different from the Earthbound missions. The aliens will probably be wearing less outrageous clothing than any of the people you've fought previously.

Dragon Ball Z Kinect rated in Korea, start practicing your Fusion Dance

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We're not even ashamed to admit we're excited about "DragonballZ Kinect," an unannounced game rated by Korea's Game Ratings Board. Usual Dragon Ball Z game publisher Bandai Namco is listed as the publisher for this game.

It's not hard to imagine a Kinect-based Dragon Ball Z game, all yelling into the microphone to "power up" your character, making wild flailing motions to throw Kamehameha Waves and Spirit Bombs at smirking, airborne jerks with tall hair, and maybe even walking in place to pantomime the destructive stomps of a crazed space gorilla.

Whatever we imagine this game includes, the real thing's going to be so much goofier. We can't wait to find out.

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The Joystiq Show - 025: PlayStation Vita talk

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