Ding! FAA May Roll Back Stupid Restrictions on Electronic Device Use

Good news for the flying, gaming public: The Federal Aviation Administration’s bullshit, insulting-to-the-intelligence rules for the use of “approved portable electronic devices” are due to be relaxed, allowing for gate-to-gate use of your iPad, 3DS, Android phone or whatever. This could come as early as September. That’s according to reports by the Wall Street Journal…

Sunday Comics: A Pocket Full of Whoopass

Welcome to Kotaku‘s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics, chosen by our readership. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon in the lower right corner. Brawl In The Family by Matthew Taranto. Published June 21. Read more of Brawl In The Family Penny Arcade by Jerry Holkins and…

Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Roll Out the Barrel: The Winners

Plenty of great entries for this week’s ‘Shop Contest, drawing on a dynamic trio photo-op comprising Nintendo’s Satoru Iwata, Reggie Fils-Aime, and Shigeru Miyamoto. How do you win with that exploitable? I’ll give you advice: Go to E3, screw up like I know you will, and wind up in a barrel, like dystopika! If you’re…

Mind-Controlled Pong is One Step Toward a World Cup Kickoff

Controlling games with brainwaves is a vogue research subject—Patricia Hernandez herself tested out a demo that involved tossing trucks telekinetically—but a team of researchers have applied it to a competitive game—Pong—with the goal of allowing a paralyzed person to make the ceremonial kickoff of the 2014 World Cup. Duke University showed off its work to…

‘Tactical Marketing Decision’ Means It’s Just Dragon Age: Inquisition

What was Dragon Age III: Inquisition has now got rid of the eye-eye-eye. Losing el numero three-o may seem like a minor thing, but to Electronic Arts, it was a “tactical marketing decision.” Frank Gibeau, the boss of EA Games, acknowledged to IGN that there’s a debate over whether numbers in sequels work, don’t work,…

Again, NBA Live Quietly Distances Itself From Past Failures

Reading between the lines of an open letter by NBA Live‘s new executive producer, one understands that whatever comes next in that franchise is really no continuation of last year’s effort, which, like its 2010 predecessor, was aborted a few weeks before its assumed date of release. Remember, at the time, EA Sports said it…

Dinner with Dr. Doom Is My Favorite Panel from This Week’s Comics

New Avengers #7: This series has been all about putting the best and brightest minds in the Marvel Universe down an incredibly slippery slope of good intentions. So far, the slide has been breakneck with a universe-threatening event—and just a little bit more moral erosion—happening just about every issue. Things quiet down a little bit…

Alaskan Tribe Starts Video Game Studio

They could have put their money into more traditional businesses, like a funeral home or a dry cleaner or real estate development. Instead, the Cook Inlet Tribal Council of Alaska chose to fund a video games company. They say it’s the first one in the United States owned by indigenous people. Upper One Games announced…

David Dreger, a contributor to Rooster Teeth and its Achievement Hunter video series, was found dead in a Vancouver park on Thursday, concluding a nearly monthlong search. He was 28. A cause of death has not yet been determined.

This Week in the Business: A Price Cut Already?

What’s happened in the business of video games this past week … QUOTE | “We expect the Xbox One to sell as many units as the PS4. If we are wrong, we think that Microsoft is prepared to lower price next year.”—Analyst Michael Pachter, reacting to Microsoft’s reversal of policies concerning connectivity and used games…

The Best Of Kotaku, The Week Of June 17th

E3 is over! Kotaku Selects—where I round up the best stories we posted from the week—is back. Fahey was a trooper last week running home team while a bunch of us were running around LA like madmen. The chaos was a little overhwhelming, so Kotaku Selects missed a beat (as did Ask Kotaku—sorry guys!) but…

This Is How You Sell A Starship

I had my eye on a new Jeep Cherokee, but this ad for Origin Jumpworks’ new 300i series has me sold, both on the ship and Chris Roberts’ Star Citizen Okay fine, I was already sold on the game, and this is just proof that my money is on the right trajectory. Only one man…

If Game of Thrones Characters Had Dating Profiles

What might those profiles look like? Well, the folks over at Team Pwnicorn reckon they’d look a little like this. Funnily enough, not only do important characters like Daenerys and Jaime get profiles, but so do characters like Hodor and the wall. Yes, as in the wall that’s there to keep the white walkers out.…

Live Out Your Medic Fantasies By Performing Surgery on TF2’s Heavy

The medic might’ve lost his medical license, but that doesn’t mean he can’t lend his medical expertise out on the battlefield…or in this case, the surgery room. Previously limited to the Meet the Medic video, now we have a chance to poke around the Heavy’s internal organs in Surgeon Simulator 2013 thanks to an upcoming…

Three Weeks In Gaming Apps, In Case You Thought We Forgot

In the last exciting episode of The Week in Gaming Apps, the feature apologized for wanting to kill you. Afterwards it was so ashamed it hid for three weeks. Guess who gets to write-up 20 fresh mobile games? Not The Week in Gaming apps, certainly. It’s just an idea. A thought. A sometimes murderous thought.…

The World Needs A Cat Version of Street Fighter

Cats can be combative, albeit playful jerks—which makes them great choices for a fighting game, no? Well, if nothing else, this utterly silly (but fun!) rendition of a cat version of Street Fighter by ThePetCollective puts a smile on my face. Street Fighter Parody – Cat Fighter [The Pet Collective]

Watch A Fox Reporter Demolish A Hackneyed Anti-Game Argument

Today, an old man went on television and complained about video games. Then someone proved him horribly wrong. Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham and current head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, went on the John Stossel Show on Fox Buisness to tell why he thinks violent games are abhorrent and deserve to be…

E3 Aftermath, And Other Popular GIFs This Week

Jokes referencing the villager character of the new Smash Bros. started to get stale a few days after E3. Then, suddenly, hilarious videos like this popped up, squeezing out the remaining potential of the character. Outside of E3, newly announced and newly released games inspired people to capture the best moments as animated GIFs. Let’s…

Moneysaver One-Shot: BEYOND: Two Souls for $35 [GONE]

It’s just been brought to my attention by @HOTD2Dreamcast on Twitter that BEYOND: Two Souls is available for pre-order for $35 at the Sony online store. We’ve seen the game once or twice for 52 bucks, but this is a huge, almost 50% discount on the game’s $60 price. No idea how long the sale…

They Mastered Rhythm Games. How Does iNiS Handle Tower Offense?

Japanese developer iNiS — the name’s an acronym for “infinite Noise of the inner Soul” — has spent the past decade and a half perfecting the art of the rhythm game. From classics like Gitaroo Man and Elite Beat Agents to not-so-classics like last year’s DLC-packed Demon’s Score, iNiShave mastered the melding of sound and…