Cats Can Also Unlock An iPhone 5S

It’s not just human nipples that can enjoy the safety and security of the new iPhone’s “fingerprint” scanners. Cats can now also sleep easy knowing their contacts and messages are accessible only to those with matching pawprints. The clip above shows Techcrunch putting the phone through its paces with a…cat. They report that while it’s…

Spelunky Was On The Emmys Tonight

Television’s night of nights is also Spelunky’s night of nights, it seems, with the brutal platformer making a surprise appearance during the awards show. The Colbert Report won for Best Writing In A Variety Series, and when they cut to one of those writers, Rob Dubbin (who also writes about games sometimes) he was…playing Spelunky.…

Hey, Aeris Is Back (Well, Her Clothes Are) In The New Final Fantasy

Did you know Square Enix likes catering to its existing fanbase? Witness this preorder bonus for Japanese customers buying a certain strategy guide for Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. It gives star Lightning an Aeris outfit. Presumably as-new, with no holes or stains. No word yet on how, or if, it’ll be made available for…

Mentally Challenged Man Beaten For His GTA V (Happy Ending Follows)

Rohan Dawkins (above, left), from Delray Beach, Florida, is a student at a local ACCESS program for adults with intellectual disabilities. Having saved up money from his weekend job at a Home Depot he, like millions of other people around the world, was able to buy a copy of Grand Theft Auto V last week.…

Cosplayer Cops Legal Threat From…Carpet Company

Even though there’s a growing business around the wares they create and parade, cosplayers rarely run into legal problems from the people who own the copyrights to the characters they’re dressed up as. Which only makes this legal problem all the more absurd. Seeing as cosplay is in essence a form of homage, and in…

Though Albert Penello, Microsoft’s director of product planning, did say you could run a PlayStation 4’s video out feed through an Xbox 360, it’s not optimal when it comes to actually playing PS4 games with the 360 as a pass-through. “HDMI latency is fine for video feeds, but not great interactive,” he said on NeoGAF.

Towing Cop Cars, Stabbing Sharks and Other GTA Myths Put to the Test

YouTube’s DefendTheHouse put out a Mythbusters-style video for Black Ops 2 earlier this year, and now returns with some sage advice for managing Grand Theft Auto V‘s bigtime threats—from sharks to police choppers. My favorite protip is lighting a gasoline trail with your turbocharged sedan’s backfire. It’s such a passive-aggressive way to blow up a…

In a Sports Video Game, There Are No Second Acts

Trailing four runs in the bottom of the ninth inning, it was apparent the Yankees were already thinking about room service. Koji Uehara, the Boston relief pitcher, barely needed the free-swinging help to extend his personal equivalent of a perfect game from 11 innings to 12 on just nine pitches. The 37 straight batters Uehara…

Every Single Hat in Team Fortress 2, Worn by a Single Character: This is only a tiny snapshot of all forty-lebem-sebemty-thirteen TF2 hats that Spy has equipped, all at once, in a drawingby DeviantArt’s AshleyLange. Trust me, the stack goes up way, way, higher than this. Can you identify them all? This guy tried.

The Week in Games: Ready for Some Fútbol

EA Sports’ FIFA series and Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer renew their rivalry with their latest releases arriving on Tuesday. Other highlights include Scribblenauts‘ DC Universe adaptation and Armored Core and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles returning to the 360 and PS3. Tuesday •FIFA 14 (360, PS3, Wii, Vita, PSP, 3DS) •Pro Evolution Soccer 2014 (360, PS3)…

Manhunt‘s Publisher Fails to Retake 10-Year-Old Promo Site [Update]

This is weird. valiant-ent.tv was a bogus VHS snuff-porn site Rockstar established way back in 2003 to promote the infamous Manhunt series until it let the registration lapse. Last month someone took over the domain and they’re using it to flack a petition for a sequel. Now Manhunt‘s publisher is trying to regain control of…

Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Canine Countenances

Alright, I’m back from vacation. I didn’t say it was a vacation because when you publicly state you’re out of town, people tend to come over and borrow things. Permanently. But thank you all for the impromptu ‘Shops of my activities while I was away; it’s always nice to be missed. This may not be…

Users of Older Xbox 360s Say Grand Theft Auto V Crashes Their Console

It seems the launch week of a hotly anticipated game can’t pass without a problem keeping some folks from playing. Several tips and complaints we’ve received, and a long forum thread backing them up, allude to a specific problem facing Grand Theft Auto V: the game appears to crash on older models of the Xbox…

Sunday Comics: The Best Medicine?

Welcome to Kotaku‘s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics. Remember to vote this week in our annual remake of the page. We need at least two new features, and you get to choose them. Nerd Rage by Andy Kluthe. Published Sept. 20. Read more of Nerd Rage Penny Arcade by Jerry Holkins…

College Footballers Show Support for Those Suing EA Sports and NCAA

Several college football players yesterday showed support for the National Collegiate Players Association, writing the initials of the group’s slogan—”All Players United”—on parts of their uniform. It’s a show of solidarity with those suing over the use of player likenesses in the NCAA Football series.

Those who have Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 might want to jump in at some point this weekend to take advantage of the double XP boost in online matches, and the free trial of the game’s Uprising DLC, which offers four maps, plus the “Mob of the Dead” mode.

NBA Live Dribbles Out a First Look at Actual Gameplay

NBA Live 14 announced its launch date earlier this week—Nov. 19, which is curious, as that is four days after the PlayStation 4 launches and still there’s a PS4/NBA Live 14 launch bundle (currently sold out) due to drop on Nov. 15. OK, well, while we get that sorted out, here’s the first look at…

The Legend of Zelda’s abysmal CD-i adaptation from 20 years ago—Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon—were KGB’d out of Hyrule Historia, the series’ canonical volume. MTV Multiplayer asked series director Eiji Aonuma why, and got a rare comment from Nintendo about one of the worst games of all time.

Yep. Madden‘s Eyebrow-Shaving Bet Was B.S. After All

We said we’d keep any eye on this nutball wager between Madden endorsers Colin Kaepernick and Russell Wilson, who met last week. Looks like no one lost anything, thanks to the magic of digital editing. Check out the comments on that YouTube video. Some folks are seriously hacked off that Kaepernick didn’t do the deed…

Why I Created the ‘Washington Whiteskins’ in a Football Video Game

A few months ago a guy reached out to me over Twitter with a common question, but for an unusual purpose. He asked if gamers can create or rename teams in Madden NFL. No, I replied, that hasn’t been a feature for several years. His reason for asking is probably why: the guy wanted to…