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  How The Great Gatsby Became A Long Lost NES Game

  The Great Gatsby—the “NES” version, that is—started its strange life as a single screen shot, a pixelated recreation of Francis Cugat’s iconic cover art for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s great American novel. “It was just too funny,” says The Great Gatsby NES lead developer Charlie Hoey of that artwork “all NESified and blocky with PRESS START…

  By Michael McWhertor Published February 21, 2011
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  Looks Like More Mass Effect 2 Is Coming With ‘Arrival’

  Plans for even more downloadable content for Mass Effect 2 is hardly surprising, given BioWare’s extended post-launch support for the role-playing game. Somewhat surprising is how we’ve learned about Arrival, via a patch for the PlayStation 3 version. Kotaku reader Vamplosion spotted something strange after updating his copy of Mass Effect 2: three new PlayStation…

  By Michael McWhertor Published February 21, 2011
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  Blockbuster Is Up For Sale

  Bankrupt movie and video game rental chain Blockbuster has put itself up for sale. Cost to you is just $290 million for the business.

  By Michael McWhertor Published February 21, 2011
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  Well Hellooooo PC Gaming

  I got my boutique-built gaming computer in the mail today. It was a monster, packed in a wooden crate and ensconced in a sheath of black cloth. It worked for almost four hours before I ran into my first issue…. sigh. (Don’t worry, I think it’s a static issue I’m having with USB ports.) Can…

  By Brian Crecente Published February 21, 2011
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  Xenogears, A PlayStation Great, Becomes A PSone Classic

  Well, we can’t say we didn’t see it coming, but the arrival of PlayStation role-playing game classic Xenogears as a downloadable PSone Classic is still welcome news. The official PlayStation.blog heralds the release of Square Enix’s turn-based RPG on the North American PlayStation Store tomorrow.

  By Michael McWhertor Published February 21, 2011
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  Historic New York Arcade Closure Is ‘Rumor Started By A Moron’, Though It’s Kinda True

  The phone has been ringing repeatedly today at New York’s Chinatown Fair, a beloved arcade in downtown New York, thanks to word on Facebook that the place was shutting down. Not true, not really, well … probably not really. “That was a rumor started by a moron,” Chinatown Fair manager Valentino Ventura told Kotaku on…

  By Stephen Totilo Published February 21, 2011
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  The Uncharted Movie Director Explains The Method To His Madness

  The director of The Fighter and I ♥ Huckabees is hard at work on transforming Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune into a movie, much to the chagrin of some fans of the PlayStation 3 game. What does David O. Russell have to say to his early haters? Slashfilm took that question (“How does it feel to be…

  By Michael McWhertor Published February 21, 2011
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  The Hacker Who Stole Half-Life 2 Is ‘Very Sorry’

  In 2003, Axel Gembe got his hands on the game everybody wanted, Valve’s Half-Life 2. He hacked into the developer’s network and swiped the game’s source code—which eventually wound up on the internet. These days, Gembe says he’s “very sorry” about that. The German hacker’s actions were in-part responsible for the highly anticipated Half-Life sequel’s…

  By Michael McWhertor Published February 21, 2011
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  The Mushroom Kingdom, Hyrule & Castlevania In Mini-Ecosystem Form

  Pixel artist Jude Buffum mixes terrariums with the familiar flora and fauna of Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda and Castlevania, illustrating what’s required to keep a Hylian fairy and Piranha Plant alive at home. Buffum’s prints are available at his online shop and at next week’s Game Over IV show at Giant Robot…

  By Michael McWhertor Published February 21, 2011
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  You Are This Japanese Dancing Queen’s Only Hope

  Cat-eared Japanese idol Toshi loves to dance, but she’s forgotten how to walk. Only your mastery of physics and bullets can get her to the dance floor before she dies a horrible, dance-less death. Or just shoot her. Your choice. If anyone is surprised that I’m checking out an iPad / iPhone game that uses…

  By Mike Fahey Published February 21, 2011
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  Final Fantasy X Was Less Complex Than It Seemed

  I played Final Fantasy X all the way up to the end boss and loved upgrading my characters by activating nodes in the game’s massive, complicated sphere grid. Little did I know that the sphere grid was really a group of primarily straight lines that masquerade as something more convoluted. FFX is an attractive game…

  By Stephen Totilo Published February 21, 2011
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  This Is What Dead Island (The Game) Looks Like

  Last week, the makers of zombie action game Dead Island released an unforgettable trailer for their upcoming game. They also released new screen shots of this undead paradise and they look pretty damn good too. Developer Techland has a lot to live up to, based on the excitement surrounding their cinematic trailer, but these new…

  By Michael McWhertor Published February 21, 2011
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  How Realistic Is Video Game Drunkenness?

  I’m just going to come right out and say it: I love drunk video game characters. The slurred speech, the blurred vision, the ragdoll physics as they fall backwards down a flight of stairs which somehow never results in paralyzing spinal fractures – I’d much rather nurse a digital person back to sobriety than my…

  Lisa Foiles Published February 21, 2011
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  The Scott Pilgrim Video Game Could Have Been A Big Adventure

  When comic book series Scott Pilgrim came to video game form last year—as Ubisoft’s Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game—it played like an old-school beat ’em up, with pixelated style. But it could have been a very different adventure. According to the comic’s creator, Bryan Lee O’Malley, episodic adventure game makers Telltale Games proposed…

  By Michael McWhertor Published February 21, 2011
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  Command & Conquer Reborn Under The Flag Of Victory

  The brief appearance of a staging site for the new home of Command & Conquer on the web revealed that the beloved real-time strategy franchise will be born again under a brand-new EA development studio, Jon Van Caneghem’s Victory Games. While the current Command & Conquer homepage is still online and fully-functional, a new site…

  By Mike Fahey Published February 21, 2011
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  Control A Video Game By Kissing Passionately

  We sit here stunned, amazed and just a little bit skeptical that artist Hye Yeon Nam has found a way for people to control a bowling video game by French kissing. Kissing and playing video games were just never fun enough on their own, now were they? Even watching a video of the Kiss Controller…

  By Stephen Totilo Published February 21, 2011
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  Bungie on Watson and the Future of Gaming

  Watson’s victory over two Jeopardy champs last week isn’t just the first step in human domination by machines, it could also be a step toward better, more interesting video games. We spoke with Chris Butcher, the engineering lead in charge of establishing the future technology direction for Bungie, about what all of this could mean…

  By Brian Crecente Published February 21, 2011
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  Kinect Will Connect To PCs Better (And Officially) This Spring

  Microsoft is going to give amateur and professional programmers expansive tools to program its Xbox 360 sensor system for Windows 7 computers this spring, according to details dropped to our friends at Gizmodo. Translation: Better Kinect computer hacks coming soon!

  By Stephen Totilo Published February 21, 2011
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  Official Minecraft Coming to iPhone, iPad, Android

  Rejoice miners! An official version of Minecraft is coming to the iPhone, iPad and even the Android. Speaking with Kotaku earlier this month, Mojang’s head of business development Danial Kaplan said that while the developer had discussions with third party developers, in the end they decided to “do the iOS/Android version of Minecraft inhouse.” The…

  By Brian Crecente Published February 21, 2011
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  Driving A Car Using The Power Of Your Mind

  German engineers have rigged up a Volkswagen Passat so it maneuvers using only the driver’s mental directions. This technology could lead to a new age in which people actually use their brains while driving. The technology Autonomos Labs uses to mind control the modified Volkswagen Passat Variant 3c should be quite familiar to long-time Kotaku…

  By Mike Fahey Published February 21, 2011