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  How Super Mario Bros. 3 Works

  Millions of people have played Super Mario Bros. We’ve run, jumped and some even used the game’s special shoe. How’d we learn how to play it? How does this game teach so much with so few instructions? Game designer Radek Koncewicz recently broke down the way the game’s first world teaches players 30 fun things.…

  By Stephen Totilo Published January 5, 2011
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  Where Do You Buy Your Video Games?

  The daily Speak-Up on Kotaku doesn’t have to be an essay. Sometimes all it takes is a simple question. Commenter Rueli is fed up with GameStop, and wants to know where everyone else goes for their retail gaming fix. Gamestop finally broke the last straw. I’ve dealt with their crap for too long and now…

  By Mike Fahey Published January 5, 2011
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  1990s Bullshot Detector

  How to recognize a faked screenshot of a video game back in the 90s, as seen in NextGen magazine, via The Fort90 Photo Dump. Some of those impossibilities sure are possible now.

  By Stephen Totilo Published January 5, 2011
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  Bonk! TurboGrafx Classics Come To The PlayStation Network

  Japanese PSN users have been enjoying PC Engine titles since 2009. Now it’s North America’s turn, as Hudson readies ten TurboGrafx-16 classics for release as TurboGrafx Classics for PlayStation Network. Now the Christmas card makes sense! Bonk’s Adventure is just one of the ten titles being released individually this winter via the PlayStation Network, representing…

  By Mike Fahey Published January 5, 2011
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  This Could Mean A New He-Man Video Game

  Mattel is the company behind some of the world’s hottest toy brands, including Hot Wheels, Barbie, Fisher-Price, and Masters of the Universe. Now the company hands over the rights to create video games on those properties to THQ. Up until now, several different companies have handled the creation and distribution of video games based on…

  By Mike Fahey Published January 5, 2011
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  CES 2011 Can Only Get More Impressive After This

  Out in Las Vegas for CES 2011, our guys have spotted the En-V. It’s sort of a car. It’s a vehicle made by GM. Our friends at Jalopnik have wondered if it is The Pac-Man Like Future of Urban Travel. It sure is odd. So’s CES, the year’s biggest tech and gadgets show. Microsoft and…

  By Stephen Totilo Published January 5, 2011
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  Catherine Gameplay Is Quite Puzzling

  Beneath the distorted screams, surreal visuals, and sexy cutscenes of Atlus’ Catherine lies some intriguing puzzle-platforming gameplay, along with plenty of exploding sheep. This is not at all what I expected from Catherine gameplay-wise, but I’ll take it. I figured with it being a Persona spin-off it would play more like a role-playing game, but…

  By Mike Fahey Published January 5, 2011
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  The DC Universe Online Beta Ends With Epic Battles

  The DC Universe Online beta goes out with a bang today, with tonight’s cataclysmic “Battle of the Legends” paving the way for the MMO’s January 11 launch. Will you side with Batman and Superman, or The Joker and Lex Luthor? The end of beta testing is a big event for a massively multiplayer online role-playing…

  By Mike Fahey Published January 5, 2011
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  A Video Game Mt. Rushmore

  Last month, we started wondering what a video game Mt. Rushmore would like. Into it would be carved not the faces of U.S. Presidents, but the heads of four gaming icons. We liked the idea of a mountain that featured the titans of 2010 video gaming. That made us realize that the mountain itself had…

  By Stephen Totilo Published January 5, 2011
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  Talk Amongst Yourselves

  This right here is Kotaku’s official forum. Join the conversation about video games in the comments below. Thanks to reader Ethan Kerr for today’s image. Submit yours to #TAYpics

  By Stephen Totilo Published January 5, 2011
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  The Future of Crayons Ditches the Placemats, and the Fun

  Crayons have been around in one form or another since the time of the ancient Egyptians. But there hasn’t been a major tech breakthrough for the stick of colored wax since the 19th Century. Until now! No longer will children be forced to color on placemats, bits of scrap paper from mom’s purse or the…

  By Brian Crecente Published January 5, 2011
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  1991-2010

  Brett Favre may have actually retired this week. For good. To give you an idea of just how long this guy has been playing football, check out what he was doing on draft day back in 1991. Gameface is a photographic celebration of the people who make, play and love video games.

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 5, 2011
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  Chocobos Do Not Wave Glow Sticks

  To: Brian From: Luke Here’s what you missed: Colorbind Is The Excellent iPhone Game I Meant To Buy Portal 2’s Robots Are Trying To Escape Its Box Art Why Minecraft Is So Damn Popular Modern Warfare Creators Taking Damage From Legal Fees You Can Now Install Your Own “Custom” PS3 Firmware Gaming’s Newest Console Is…A…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 5, 2011
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  Follow The Fortunes Of Fighting Game Fans

  I don’t know what it is about fighting game fans that makes them so passionate about their genre of choice they go and make documentaries about it, but I like it. “Run It Back” is a short doco by Zaid Tabani, which takes a look at a group of Street Fighter players working their way…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 5, 2011
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  Not A Creature Was Stirring, Except For These Video Game Heroes

  We know, Christmas was so last week, but indulge us. This is so good it doesn’t matter what time of the year you watch it. This is “8-Bit Holiday”, by Andrew Jive, and shows what the video game characters of yesteryear get up to in the dead of night while we humans sleep and wait…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 5, 2011
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  THQ Raids Mattel’s Toy Box

  Publisher THQ just got the rights to make video games based on a whole range of Mattel toy properties. Think Barbie, Hot Wheels, Fisher Price and, most promising, Masters of the Universe

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 5, 2011
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  Blowing Up Blocks Rarely Looks This Good

  Would it be premature to say this already looks like one of 2011’s prettiest games? It’s Voxatron, an indie shooter in development at Lexaloffle. Sure, it’s a bit sparse, but games don’t look good on the basis of how many textures and models you can cram on the screen. They look good by virtue of…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 5, 2011
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  From Boring Laptop To Awesome Arcade Cabinet

  Lenovo – yes, boring old Lenovo – has one of the more interesting gaming-related products on show at this week’s CES: a box that transforms a laptop computer into a pint-sized arcade cabinet. All you do is pop the stick open and there’s room to slide in a laptop. Close it back up and you…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 5, 2011
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  Kinect Can’t Just Read Your Motions, It Can Capture Them Too

  We’ve already seen one way Microsoft’s Kinect can be used to help bedroom game developers, but here’s another, just as practical way: it can allow for home-grown motion capture. For professionals, motion-capture work is time-consuming, highly specialised and expensive. Indeed, it’s one of the big reasons Rockstar’s LA Noire has been so long in development…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 5, 2011
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  Gaming’s Newest Console Is…A Bunch Of Blocks?

  Meet the newest video game console on the market. It’s for kids and casual gamers, looks like a bunch of building blocks and is the most original piece of gaming hardware we’ve seen in years. The Sifteo is the brainchild of former MIT students David Merrill and Jeevan Kalanithi, who wanted to develop a gaming…

  By Luke Plunkett Published January 5, 2011