Press Start!: Video Games vs. Schwarzenegger, Fight!

Don your goggles! Prepare your stave of dismemberment! Summon your courage.   As I type this, it’s Thursday night. I have my lucky underwear affixed to sticky nerd crotch. I have soda en masse at my side. This is Press Start! My guide to the five things that caught my attention in gaming this week. Imma level with you chaps and do-gooders. This week’s gaming news can be broken down into two categories: fetid bullshit pertaining to Microsoft Kinect, and the Supreme Court case currently being held regarding video games. However!, I promise you turd consumers five. So I will deliver. But if you find them particularly weak sauce, I have a special place in my sticky nerd panties for you.

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#1: Microsoft Launches Kinect, Dickheads And Assholes Rejoice
That ass clown bench pressing his solid stick of plastic shit is Peter Gonzales. I know this, because Kotaku knows this. No matter how much of a valuable contributor to the community he is, or donor to good will he is, or sterling husband he is, Gonzales is a douchebag. I’m sorry Pete. You’re probably a great guy.

But you’re a douche.

Peter waited in line for two days to get his Microsoft Kinect. That’s amazing. You want to know why? ‘Cause I was at Target today, and they had them stacked up by the register. I’m not even fucking fronting. So for all your fist-pumping, and your assuredly stank ass wafting through the store as you cheered, and those retarded clerks clapping, it was for nothing. You waited two days to buy a piece of shit that they’re probably stocking at your local Walgreens.

Maybe they clapped when the first dude stapled his ball bag to a plank of wood and then tried to snowboard with it. I don’t fucking know.

Kinect dropped, and I still waver between hating it, and finding it a neat, overly-expensive bit of techo-wankery. Actually I hate it, but I find myself vaguely drawn to it. It all works out in the end though, because of all the people I despise on Spaceship Earth, I loathe myself the most.

Get ready for an onslaught of clapping vapid monkey men and women on Good Morning Today USA Show, as they gesture wildly pretending to pet a tiger or throw a volleyball or some shit. Awkward middle class white people are going to eat this shit up. Pretend to care about playing it at parties while they try and discuss post-colonial literature, which they also don’t care about. Dancing like goons, while hoping the wine will take hold of everyone, and they can start slapping grimy genitals on the overly expensive oriental rug.

Fuck Microsoft Kinect.

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#2: Even Madden 11 Knows Donovan McNabb Is An Out of Shape, Pukey Suck-Ass
If you follow football, one thing should be apparent to you. Despite being cute, and able to sling a football really well, Donovan McNabb is overrated, and barfs up all over himself in big games. Like, no, literally. Do a Google Search. He did it at Syracuse, he did in the regular season, and he did it in the Superbowl. And his running of a two-minute drill is astonishing. He just sort of pukes as he walks, while flinging errant pass after errant pass. By the way, McNabb, thanks for blowing it. I still wear my greasy Patriots championship t-shirt, years of sweat caked into the armpits, years of semen caked into the fabric near the tummy area.

For some reason, Mike Shanahan didn’t know this when he traded for Donovan over the summer. But he realizes it now. Oh boy, does he. On Sunday, McNabb was pulled with two minutes left for the inestimably untalented Rex Grossman. What follow was a stunning display of bullshit reasons by Shanahan, the most decided of which was that McNabb’s got shit cardiovascular.

The best part? With the next roster update, Madden 11 is dropping McNabb’s stamina from a 95 to an 87. I don’t play Madden, nor do I give a fuck, but I still find it amazing.

Apparently the drop is almost inconsequential, but it’s great that shit talking and a coach’s comments can effect a dude’s video game attributes. Tough luck, Pukey McVomitsalot.

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#3: Star Wars Goes Augmented Reality In iPhone Game
Augmented reality is radical, yo. Like, really radical. Vertigore Games realized this, and they channeled that incontrovertible truth into a fucking dope game coming out for the iPhone. Star Wars: Falcon Gunner works through the phone’s camera, projecting tie fighters onto a cityscape of your choice. It’s so basic, yet so incredibly dope.

Augmented reality! When the fuck am I going to be able to look through lenses built into my ocular parts and see a projection of Princess Leia getting down with Jabba the Hut? And upon manipulating the images in front of me, the force feedback electrodes strapped to my crotch will get convincingly erotic feedback. The future is coming, Jesus Christ, it’s already here.

#4: Video Games and The Terminator Storm Capitol Hill In Landmark Case
This week, the United States Supreme Court heard its first case pertaining to video games. The case is The State of California vs. The Entertainment Merchants Association and Entertainment Software Association, but we can just call it Terminator versus Video Games. The shit they’re bandying about in the court rooms is whether or not violent video games should be treated like pornography. The ramifications of which would be that there would be a type of video game that would be legal to sell to an adult, and not to a child.

At first I was all, “Well, I may mentally be a child, but I’m also twenty-seven, why the fuck do I care?” But as Stephen Totilo pointed out in an excellent article,this ruling could influence how comic books, movies and other forms of media are handled as well. In fact, he states that “the main trade groups for the movie industry, the music industry, the comic book industry and others have filed briefs to the Court siding with the video game industry. The gaming industry has gotten a mountain of support from Activision to Microsoft, from the American Civil Liberties Union to the United States Chamber of Commerce.”

Fuck yeah, everyone team up, and let’s rock! God damn fascist government, telling us what our kids and cannot buy, based on something as arbitrary as age! I don’t understand the nuances of the case, by any means. But the implications that this case could determine if anyone under 18 across the entire nation could legally buy an M-Rated game, and how that would affect other mediums, makes it important as fuck.

The decision is expected next June.

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#5: People Still Take Pokémon Really Fucking Seriously.
After all these years, people take Pokémon pretty seriously. Still. Take the above video. This dude is seriously dedicated to the craft. I think? I’m pretty sure that he’s full of shit, but the first few minutes of him laying it down is amusing. Anyone who compares Pokemon to the Bloods and Crips is amusing me.

But more seriously, take this dude from Japan. Makoto Sekiguchi was a seemingly solid dude, and on the first of September he leaked some pictures of characters from Pokémon Black and Pokémon White that weren’t supposed to be revealed yet. Oh shit! Sekiguchi dude, you’re playing with fire! Probably dinosaur-esque creature fire. You’re going to get lit up, bro. Everyone knows that Pokémon characters are actually real life, grown-ass creatures bred in labs underneath Nintendo, right? How else do they get such exquisite detail and movement? Motion capture, fucking duh! You say the graphics are rudimentary at best? You know nothing!

Sekiguchi dropped these pictures two weeks early on the joyous faces of fans around the world, but the Chikusei City cyber patrol (I’m not making this up) rolled up and turned the dude onto his tummy. Patrol style!

You don’t fuck around with Pokémon without paying the price. Son of a bitch is lucky to be alive.

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Well, that’s my wordy vomit pile of gaming entertainment news for the week. What caught your eye?