The Spiritual Successor To Final Fantasy Tactics Still Isn’t Funded

We’re a little over two days away from the end of Unsung Story‘s Kickstarter campaign, and it’s still not funded. That’s kind of insane. When I first saw that Final Fantasy Tactics creator Yasumi Matsuno wanted to design a spiritual successor to one of the greatest games ever made, I expected instant success. I thought…

Kinect Sports Rivals‘ twisted take on motion-controlled athletic competition drops April 8 in North America, Australia and New Zealand, April 11 in Europe. Help its colorful characters triumph at climbing, wake racing, target shooting, soccer, tennis and bowling in lovely 1080p.

Wii U Donkey Kong Includes a Fantastic 3DS Easter Egg

What appears to be a charming little visual Easter egg in Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is actually so much more. Yes, DK whips out a 3DS and plays it when you leave him idle (he’s done this in the past.) But he’s actually playing Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Mario Kart 7 and even, well,…

Today’s selection of articles from Kotaku‘s reader-run community: The Many Faces of the RPG • In Which I Help A Dude With A Broken Leg In DayZ • A Quick Review Of The Latest Borderlands 2 DLC TAY Classic—TAY Open Forum—Beginner’s Guide To TAY Follow them here.

Final Fantasy XIV PS4 Beta Begins February 22. See How Pretty It Is.

Last month Square Enix announced an April 14 release date for the PlayStation 4 version of Final Fantasy XIV, but that’s not the date players were waiting for. It’s almost beta time, kids, and the game is looking fantastic on PS4. The PlayStation 3 version of the best MMO of 2013 is lovely and all,…

Classic Video Games as Romance Novels

The fine folks over at Shutterstock and illustrator Echo Chernik teamed up for Valentine’s Day, and imagined what romantic pulp fiction would look like with video game characters. Here’s The Legend of Zelda, Street Fighter, Super Mario, Pac Man and A**hole dog from Duck Hunt, appearing in a romantic novel for the first time. Head…

Sons of Anarchy Creator Says He’s Found a Studio to Make a Video Game

Unlike just about everyone in the series by now, that Sons of Anarchy video game concept will not die. Show creator Kurt Sutter is back at it again on Twitter, insisting “there will definitely be an SOA GAME.” Sutter followed that up to say “no, it’s not a board game. 1st person action adventure. HD…

Guess which game has the most BAFTA award nominations! You get no brownie points for guessing The Last of Us. Naughty Dog’s zombie survival game was nominated for ten awards (in nine categories) by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts—a curiously familiar number. Check out the full list of nominees here

China’s “Cabinet Tribe” Lives in Shipping Containers

For around $30 a month, you too can live in a Chinese shipping container. The monthly 180 yuan ($29.68) rent gets Pan Wei (below) a box… and not much else. There’s no toilet and no bathtub; however, he was able to get electricity. Winters are cold, and summers get hot. The containers are small (18…

Rust Bans Over 4,000 Cheaters [UPDATE: Developer Addresses Concerns]

Over the weekend, the developers of open-world ex-zombie survival game Rust have deployed their newly-created anti-cheat software on the official game servers. The result? 4,621 banned players. The software, called CheatPunch, is similar to Valve’s VAC system in that its bans are permanent and incontestable—if you’re banned, you’re banned. Period. No second chances. As studio…

Strider’s 25-Year History In Just Five Minutes

In 1989, marking the start of the blue-clad ninja’s two-and-a-half decade career, the first Strider game was released in arcades throughout Japan and North America. From then on, it was a road filled with cameos, curious localization decisions, and slashed-up baddies. To celebrate the upcoming reboot of the platformer series, Capcom lovingly crafted a short…

Well, Here’s Disgusting Looking Valentine’s Day Sweets

That might look like a grub. That might look like dirt. But all of it is handmade Valentine’s Day sweets for a very important person. Twitter user Shun_Lock created the dirt by smashing Oreos (sans cream) and chocolate bars with a hammer. Which resulted in realistic, yet delicious dirt. The stag beetle larva was made…

16-bit gaming lives: Here’s the latest trailer for Chasm, the Diablolike Metroidlike Castlevanialike Zeldalike retro-ish indie platformer for PC. It shows off the Catacombs level and is basically thirty seconds of pure awesome. Go watch it. And maybe check out the new website for more info.

Track: Blaze | Album: As The World Burns | Artist: Arsonists Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to—and gaming to—at the moment.