Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Rasta Banana

Let’s spare a word of charity for Henry Gribbohm, who redefined “booby prize” when he spent his life’s savings trying to win an Xbox 360 at a carnival game and instead walked away with an enormous dreadlocked banana, at the effective price of $2,600. That fairly calls for ‘Shop Contest immortality, wouldn’t you say? So…

A Real Man Knows How to Turn on the N64 and Push Its Buttons (NSFW)

Well, now. This .gif series gets a big ole George Takei “Oh my …” It’s just someone doing suggestive things to a Nintendo 64 controller, is that NSFW? Well, yeah, because I’d probably get arrested for showing it to a minor. Update: The .gifs were ripped from this video, “Hardcore Gamer,” uploaded in February by…

Sunday Comics: Canon Fodder

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. Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira. Published May 2. Read more of Nerf NOW!! Penny Arcade by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik. Published April…

Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Pot-Man: The Winners

Last week, Luis Tyler beat all you ever saw, gettin’ in trouble with the law with 55 pounds of marijuana packed into a Pac-Man cabinet. This was a grand time to introduce him to the Kotaku ‘Shop Contest, and it resulted in a first! The first ever tag-team overall No. 1, thanks to all-stars Sciteach…

Thanks to the efficiencies afforded by Linux, “we skipped Valve time,” jokes Valve, and the Left 4 Dead 2 Linux beta is available right now. Access to authoring tools and a beta dedicated server come with it, if you own the game already.

Call of Duty Blamed as Boy Admits Killing Mom with Birthday-Gift Rifle

It’s been a cheerful day for video game crime news, hasn’t it? First was the teenage father who sawed a former friend’s neck down to the trachea over some Xbox Live name-calling. Now an Iowa boy says he killed and attempted to rape his mother after she took away Call of Duty. That’s according to…

Madden NFL continues to teach Europeans how to play football.

Celebrate Star Wars Day with a Livestream of Battlefront III [Update]

This just popped up on Twitch.tv, it’s a livestream of pre-alpha gameplay of the long-lamentedStar Wars: Battlefront III, by Past to Present Online Though reports suggested the game was “99 percent done” when LucasArts scrapped it, obviously you’re seeing something in a pre-alpha state here. Word is that this version, by Free Radical, came eight…

Meme Creator: Wouldn’t You Be Sued for Using Scribblenauts‘ Copyright?

People howled when word spread that the creators of Nyan Cat and Keyboard Cat were suing Scribblenauts over the unauthorized use of those memes in the series’ latest game. Frivolous lawsuit! Bullshit! Well, think of it this way: Big Video Game is finally getting sued by the little guy—for copyright infringement. That is how Christopher…

Injustice yesterday copped to adding in Batgirl as a DLC character, so that’s one down, two to go on that rumor (the others are believed to be General Zod and Scorpion from Mortal Kombat.) There will be gameplay video of her “next week,” but no specific release date was given.

Moneysaver One-Shot: May The Fourth Be With You

That’s no moon, it’s The Moneysaver. Looking for the current Moneysaver roundup? Click here May the deals be with you. The first thing you need to know is that it’s FREE Comic Book Day. Click for all the details. We’re rounding up the best deals today on everything Star Wars, and if you find a…

Throat-Slashing Blamed on a Gears of War Relationship Gone Bad

A 14-year-old admitted to slashing a 13-year-old’s throat in an assault Scottish authorities blamed on a soured online friendship developed over Gears of War. Of course the game itself is blamed but when the 14-year-old already is a father, you’re not talking about someone with good decision-making and impulse control. The Daily Mail is all…

This Week in the Business: What Have You Done For Me Lately?

What’s happened in the business of video games this past week … QUOTE | “If your latest game doesn’t do well that’s probably the end of it for you no matter whether you’re big or small.”—Dan Paladin, developer of Castle Crashers, talking about how unstable the industry is for both large and small developers QUOTE…

What’s that you say? Today is Free Comic Book Day? Why yes, I’ll have that copy of Tales to Astonish #27 then. Oh, so some are free, but that one isn’t. OK. Well, then why don’t you call it “Free Comic Book Other Than Tales to Astonish #27 Day”? (Find your nearest participating store.)

The Best of Kotaku, The Week of April 29th

There were some exciting video game happenings this week! Grand Theft Auto V got three new trailers—one big trailer?—for the three protagonists you get to control in Rockstar’s next game. Bossman Stephen Totilo checked the game out for the very first time, and came away with a ton of details written with a ton of…

This Is No Ordinary Thor’s Hammer Prop. It’s Actually Electric.

Making Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir, as a prop is one thing. Lots of people have one of those. hackaday wanted to go further than that. From the YouTube description: I worked with Staci Elaan to build this hammer that has a solid state tesla coil inside. When you push the button, 80,000 volts of electricity arc…

You Can Do Special Fusions Via StreetPass In Shin Megami Tensei IV

Shin Megami Tensei games have typically always let you collect demon minions which you can then use in battle, ala Pokémon. You can “fuse” these demons to make new ones, but that’s typically a solitary affair. In the upcoming Shin Megami Tensei IV, other players will allow you to perform special fusions via Streetpass. Streetpass…

How Many Games Made It Into Apple’s Top 100 Apps of All-Time?

With the iTunes App Store quickly approaching the 50 billion downloads mark — that’s about six or seven apps for every person on the planet — Apple is showcasing a list of the top 100 free and paid iPhone and iPad apps of all-time, or as I like to call it, 47 gaming apps and…

35 Minutes With The Next Game From The Makers Of Heavy Rain

David Cage was nervous last Saturday night. And with good reason. There he was, about to unveil a sizable chunk of Beyond: Two Souls in front of a packed house at the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival. This was only the second time that a video game was shown at the annual celebration of cinema founded…

A Video Game Where You Walk Through A Graveyard And Look At Graves

Some games are all about shooting. Some games task you with exploring new worlds and embarking upon crazy adventures. And some games… let you walk through a graveyard. Boon Hill, a new Kickstarter project created by a guy named Matthew Ritter, wants to be that game. There’s no way to win or lose in Boon…