Press Start!: Chinese Couple Sells Children For Gaming Cash, Damn 3DS Costs Too Much!
Press Start! Brace yourself. Take a swig of your prescribed beverage of choice. Let it wash around the insides of that gullet of yourself. Press Start! The column where I spit about five things that caught my eye in gaming this week. Press Select!, choose to share what you dug or hated or found intriguing in the world of gaming these past 168 hours or so since we last spoke.
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#1: Lulzsec Leader Is Arrested. Maybe.
I know that I have a fixation the various hacker groups that have spent a good amount of time ruining websites and causing general chaos. A childish disposition to glorify people who cause disruption. Stick their middle finger at various conglomerations of power. I know this is childish, I know a good amount of time these people are behaving illegally, performing actions that go against the better threads in the fabric of society. I still find them intoxicating. This week British police announced that they had arrested Topiary. The hacktavist had been tied to both Anonymous and Lulzsec, acting as their mouthpiece and general proclaimer of epic overwrought mission statements.
High-fives abounded. There were dances performed. Then things got confusing. They had found him. Got him! Right? The plot thickens. Who doesn’t love a thickening. Just add blood to the elastic pink bit of flesh. Just add flour to the mix. Perhaps some whole milk. I’m interested to see how Topiary holds up now that the Man has found him. Will he stick to his guns? Or will he end up settling before working for Facebook.
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#2: FOCUS Finally Drops.
FOCUS is a documentary that I had been following for a while. Directed by Steve Hwang, the movie follows professional Street Fighter player Mike Ross as he embarks on the journey that we’ve all come to enjoy throughout our times. The little man rises up to thwart odds, destroy expectations, succeed. Conquer the worlds! Vanquish the enemy. Whether the foe be an organic being, or the most nefarious of challengers: Doubt.
I waited and waited for this documentary. Spring came. Spring went. Allergies turned into humidity and pit stains. Still I waited. Finally out of the blue the documentary dropped. Courtesy of the burgeoning G4 Films. I got to see it. For free! That’s a banana in my pants. Double check for me. I recommended it, even if it’s a bit underwhelming. I could have easily taken another fifteen to twenty minutes about Ross himself. Yes I appreciate the aforementioned affects. The typical tropes of triumphant behavior. They would have been even more delicious if I could have known Ross in his personal travails even more.
Do yourself a solid and check it out. It’s streaming online. Throw it on as background noise if nothing else.
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#3: Nintendo 3DS Isn’t Selling, Price Cuts and More Ahead.
The Nintendo 3DS isn’t selling. Go figure. I can’t figure out why. Only the frail of mind don’t want to play games in 3D on a tiny screen. Sitting on a bus, or in a subway, or on campus somewhere. Glory be, glory be, you can play Ocarina of Time in three-dimensions. With no glasses. For $250. On a tiny screen. You can see where I’m going with this. You can smell the sarcasm. Take it. Take my sarcasm and slather it onto some bread. I recommend 100% grain. Slather it onto that bread and gobble it all up.
Fuck the Nintendo 3DS. Fuck 3D gaming in general, and absolutely fuck it on a tiny screen on an overpriced console. The Nintendo 3DS is going down in flames and I’m giggling as it withers whilst aflame.
Nintendo’s gone and slashed the price down from $250 to $170. Shit met blades. Nintendo’s profit forecasts have been cut by 80%. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata is taking a 50% paycut. Ex-Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauch could stand to lose as much as $300 million. I giggle. I giggle at their plight. Maybe I even slap my knee. Early adopted of the system are getting twenty free games via download. What they should get is a solid finger pointed at them and a heart batch of derision.
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#4: Chinese Couple Sells Their Kids For Gaming Cash. No Joke.
The lovely inhabitants of Spaceship Earth named Li Lin and Li Juan live within the same illusory borders. The illusory borders that this couple lives within calls itself China. This wonderful couple within China met and they were destined for greatness together. Or infamy. Why is there such a small line between the two? Anyways. The two lovebirds and perma-pwners met at an internet cafe and from there they began replicating. Splicing their DNA together, creating little Thems. What do you do with a Little Them once it arrives out of that canal? There are varying opinions. Typically people raise them. Filling them with impossible aspirations and resentment.
This couple had a different idea.
They sold their first child, a daughter, for the equivalent of $500. If you have done your homework you know that females are under-appreciated within the illusory boundaries of China. That kind of scratch wasn’t going to pay for much gold in WoW. Not nearly enough for an awesome assortment of epic mounts. So they were sensible amount things. Then then sold their son. Males snag a prettier penny, and they netted $4,600.
Nice.
Now we’re talking.
The couple would have kept going, but Li Lin’s mother informed the authorities. Snitches get stitches, Grammy Lin. Stitches.
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#5: Purdue Undergrad Teaches Robot DDR.
Pretend to close your eyes and imagine the following. 500 years into the future, when the Cylons are sitting by a pool two of them will begin a nostalgic conversation. Immortal cyborg fleshbots, they will have been around since the beginning of the Rebellion. One of them will turn to the other and remark, “I still don’t get why they gave us the tools to destroy them.” The other will laugh, before drinking motor oil out of a laquered human skull.
This is the future we’re bringing about for ourselves.
An undergrad at Purdue is teaching his robot to DDR it up. His robot friend is named Darwin. Natural selection. Evolution. This undergrad on a subconscious level understands what he is doing. One of the funnest things for the robots during the Rebellion will be to dance on the vaporized corpse of the Fallen. This Purdue undergrad is giving them the ability to do so. We’re baking our own bread of death.
Mark me.