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Check out this student-made Flash advertisement for… an iPod skin? We'll take it! Mario and Luigi cope with an invasion straight out of Lemmings and Space Invaders before reinforcements from everyone's favorite Mars-bound marine. Things get 3D, and decidedly less innocent. More »
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Pirating new video games is a crime. But there's long been a rather grey area around the piracy of old games. And when I say old, I don't mean 2008 old. I mean 1988 old. More »
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Ever wonder how much retro game idol Haruna Anno loves video games? Enough to make a retro gaming museum. More »
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The video above is supposed to be an homage to the 1980s graphic adventure games published by Sierra On-Line. But, if you watch the whole thing, you'll spot some characters who weren't part of that defunct publisher's stable. I've had the pleasure of seeing 8BW perform live and they put on a great show. They'll be performing at the Gamefest event that celebrates the opening of The Art of Video Games in March, so go check them out if you can. More »
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Last year Kotaku readers were enthralled by the daring exploits of Shinya Arino as he desperately attempted to finish a dozen of the most brutal retro games Japan has to offer. Now we're giving you one last chance to watch before Retro Game Master goes away forever. More »
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You did vote to get your favorite games into The Art of Video Games exhibit, didn't you? If not, don't crying that Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom didn't make it into the show. Anyway, we're only two short months away from the exhibit's opening of at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Smithsonian's announced that they're holding a two-day celebration. More »
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The same folks who made that amazing Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening animation in Mojang's hit sandbox construction game have come back with yet another homage to an old-school classic. MinecraftA2Z managed to recreate Punch-Out's first bout—where series hero Mac trades blows with Glass Joe—by manipulating millions of blocks frame by frame, in the same manner as the Super Mario Land clip. More »
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I am sure you have Pac-Man skills. We all do. I'm sure you're good at turning the corners of getting Inky, Blinky & Clyde to trail you just as you're approaching the power pellet. More »
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Alamagordo, New Mexico. Fifty miles southeast of Roswell, the most famous UFO site in the nation. Also the scene of the most infamous landfill in video game history. More »
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You've seen the photos. Porn star Ron Jeremy dressed as Mario. The images weren't simply some silly cosplay photo. Rather, they were promotional images for a dirty movie—a dirty movie that's difficult to find. More »
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Hot on the heels of the near-mint Deluxe Edition NES we posted about today comes word of an even rarer Nintendo artifact. Placing multiple popular games on one single cartridge, the Super Nintendo Campus Challenge cartridge was created for promotional competitions all over the world. There are reportedly only three in existence and one's shown up for bidding on eBay. The innards of this cartridge have been laid bare for all to see, making the slots where F-Zero, Super Mario World and Pilotwings plainly visible. More »
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Nearly pristine. Frozen in time. That's what the claims are for a rare 1985 edition of the Nintendo Entertainment System being sold on eBay. Wrapped in plastic in a handled cardboard box, the NES up for grabs is apparently in the same state that retailers received it more than 20 years ago. More »
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The Legend of Zelda is one the most successful video game franchises to ever come from Japan. It's been mostly made by Nintendo studios in Kyoto, with some added efforts by Capcom, which is based in Osaka. More »
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It's a delicate subject but one that will inevitably come up for any parent, and you've got to be prepared. In this age of bright and shiny high definition games, how can we force our children to play through the games we grew up on first? This is commenter Balmung's question in today's Speak Up on Kotaku. Now eat your video games, kids. More »
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For years, fighting game fans in the New York City area gathered at Chinatown Fair, to hone their skills at the location's stand-up machines. That all ended earlier this year to the dismay of many. Chinatown Fair's legacy lives on across the river in Brooklyn's Next Level but you can relive the glory of days past in a new documentary. Directed by Calvin Theobald, King of Chinatown features competitive gamers Justin Wong and Daigo Umehara, too, and shows the pivotal role Chinatown Fair played in their relationship. It's been out for a while but you can get it on iTunes this week. If you miss Chinatown Fair or love fighting games, give the film a look. More »
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You've gotta love a game that makes a sly reference to 2010 indie darling Limbo. But, further perusal shows that Pid's not going to be like PlayDead's hit game. It's got color! Energy! Localized gravity fountains! The retro-styled release happens on a remote alien planet where you'll need to jump, solve and float your way past the local fauna—or are they automata?—through multiple levels of platformer action. Pid's the result of a partnership between developer Might and Delight and production company Beefy Media. Collectively, the guys who make up Might and Delight have titles like Mirror's Edge, Battlefield, and Killzone on their resumes, but their most relevant experience in this instance is their joint work on the first Bionic Commando: Rearmed release from Capcom. Pid will launch into orbit on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC next year. More »
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Remember R.B.I. Baseball? The classic sports title for the Nintendo Entertainment System? This gamer is so confident that he can defeat anyone at it, he or she took out an ad in a local Oklahoma newspaper. More »
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This isn't something done for internet shits and giggles. It's an "official conversion" of awesome death simulator Canabalt running on...the Commodore 64, one that will soon be going on sale. Like, it'll come on a cartridge. Amazing. More »
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It's just two minutes and twenty-two seconds of black and white video. In it we see a play-through of classic 80s Game Boy title Super Mario Land. Pretty bland stuff, until you hear how it was created. More »
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Coming soon to iOS-powered devices from the wonderfully named and logo'd Mighty Rabbit Studios, Saturday Morning RPG might be the only turn-based role-playing game in which the protagonist can transform into a truck and ram faux Cobra troopers. Color me intrigued, but not the official colors so I don't get sued. More »
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Your Dovahkiin may be all sorts of bad-ass, but this video features the cutest Dragonborn of all. Thrill to this imaginary game's pixilated vistas! Gasp at the exciting downhill skiing sequences! Wish that someone makes this into something actually playable! More »
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Spotted by game localizer and author Matt Alt, this Namco ad from the mid-1980s originally ran in a toy industry trade publication. In it, an android looks up a woman's skirt. More »
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Artist João Victor G. Costa took Warcraft and added old-school color graphics. The result is beautiful minimalism. More »
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Old-school heads out there may remember Iron Helix, a sci-fi CD-ROM game that did survival horror in the FMV format that was all the rage then. If you played it, you'll remember how the music tweaked your nerves with a tense layering of synthesizer chords. More »
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Next week G4TV.com will begin streaming dark takes on a trio of video game classics. More »
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When you first start Mega Mash, the latest flash masterpiece from the folks at Nitrome, it seems like you're about to play a 7-in-1 game cart filled with clever homages to classic games. Then everything goes wonderfully haywire. More »
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RayStorm, the classic 1990s shooting game, always felt like it got somewhat overlooked compared to the spate of shooters released that decade. More »
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Before the infamous crash of console gaming in the early 1980s, third-party cartridge development was somewhat a wild-west affair. Development costs were negligible compared to present times and, without the need for a presence in online distribution channels, a garage-built game might actually turn a profit on door-to-door sales. Thus Extra-Terrestrials was born. More »
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Totally wrong. But bless you. More »
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When Italian TV wants to go all out and make an awesome commercial, it goes all out. More »
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Blik, maker of fine stickables, and Namco Bandai, the people who own Pac-Man, are combining their respective powers to bring Inky, Pinky, Blinky, Clyde and other memorable 8-bit sprites to your wall. Starting today, you can put only the finest of Pac-Man decals on your walls, safely and stylishly. More »
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Wait! Stop. Don't watch the video yet. First read the included bit of fiction sent along with the trailer. More »
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Last week we wrapped up our first experimental season of Retro Game Master. More »
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A laser-cut Double Dragon II as seen at the Old School Video Games Show at Gallery 1988 Venice. The image was laser-cut into plywood and then framed in bambo. More »
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NHL 12 is not just a critically acclaimed game for its simulated play; it's also a fun time for armchair talent evaluators and kitchen-table franchise managers. Giving credit where it is due, the series' producer says the game took its inspiration from an old, old old-school NES title. More »
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Movie to video game adaptations of the early 1980s were difficult things. Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, and The Empire Strikes Back were as hard to master as they were hard to genuinely enjoy. More »
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Last Friday, comedian Shinya Arino of Retro Game Master fame met fans in Los Angeles. Some of those fans contacted Kotaku, retelling their experiences meeting the man behind the powder green worksuit. More »
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There's a reason why the world has the PlayStation 1 controller it does. The reason is that the other PS1 controller prototypes were dumb-looking. More »
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You love it, you know it, it's crap. The Cheetahmen appeared on the dreadful Action 52 cartridge, and it was supposed to be like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It wasn't. More »
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