Press Start!: Kim Jong-il Snorts Ritalin. Farms Gold. Your Mom Is Pissed.
Someday my children will not understand what a start button is, and that saddens me. Their wrists affixed to controls with duct tape, my commands clear. Play my little bastard spawns of my testicles, play and master the games. I want you to win gaming tournament, I want to be the gaming world equivalent of Jimmy Hart. Taunting the competition of my children. “Dad I have to pee!” they’ll lament. “Shut up, press fucking start!, and earn your nightly gruel!” They won’t know what I mean. “Start…?” and I’ll curse progress and yell “Press that button that looks like a triangle! To the right of the X!, fuck.”
Such is progress.
Until such a time, I hold you close. My gaming friends. This is Press Start! The weekly gaming slop culture fiasco, where I highlight five things that are this week only tacitly connected to gaming. What caught your eyes the past 7? Hit me.
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#1: Back In 1991, Parents Pissed About New Nintendo Console
One luxury that my children will be afforded that many have not through the years is that I shall purchase them the newest of gaming systems as they are rolled out into existence. Surely Tiger Woods’ dad didn’t deny him new golf clubs. This is an investment. I have plans. I shall unwrap these new consoles and drink deep the smell of plastic, getting high momentarily while berating them to hook up the gizmos quicker. To dance faster. There are plans. There are plans.
No they won’t have to endure the rigors of fighting with parents for a new console. Look at those jabronis in the video above, angered that the NES gave way to the SNES so quickly. Don’t they understand, this is the price of progress. Forever churning. Forever eating the past and regurgitating the shiny and new.
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#2: Kim Jong-il Has Gamers Farming Gold To Fund Nuke Development. Seriously
Undoubtedly in my endeavors to forge the perfect gamers, I will come under assault. There will be those who question my tactics, impugn my parental edicts, my way of raising my offspring. They may call me fascist. Comment that my children don’t see the sun. Of course they don’t, work to be done. Comment that my children are stapled, clothing to chairs. Of course they are, they have to concentrate.
Yet I am no evil man, not like Kim Jong-Il. It’s come out that Kim Jong-il has a crack team of gold farming wizards. These gold farming wizards have “made $6 million, 55 percent of which went to the hackers, and some of that to Kim’s agents in Pyongyang, Seoul police said. Officials believe the hackers report to a mysterious Communist Party agency named Office 39”. This man is evil. Why is he evil? Because he’s using the money to fund nuclear arms development? (Which he really is, no seriously, check out the article.)
No.
He’s evil because he’s using gold farmers to destroy the economy in Lineage. Hemingway would not think this man has courage. He is not true. He is breaking the game with his wizards all in the pursuit of monetary gain. You claim I am raising my sunlight-deprived, stapled-to-chairs children for the same thing? You don’t get it, plebeian.
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#3: FIFA 12 Gets In-Game Hair Transplant
Every once in a while, a friend or so of mine will try and tell me about this soccer thing. They yell it over the telephone, over the din of the white noise machines running in the basement dungeon that my children practice their prowess within. The white noise machines must run, must continually blot out the Irrelevant. These kids have a mission. I have a plan.
“Soccer?” I’ll say. “You mean that sissy game they have the kids play in pre-school?” “Yeah, it’s getting really big! It’s huge in Europe.” I laugh. I laugh at sissy liberal friend referencing silly socialist continent. This week I realized, maybe it really is big, that weird UK-Eurasia-Something Place really loves the fuck out of it. Respects its players.
You see, there is this man Wayne Rooney. He plays for “Manchester United” and is a “Striker” which I always thought was a word only reserved for a Mortal Kombat character. Get this. This Rooney, he gets a hair transplant. I know what you’re saying, what sort of soccer player is important enough for this. Well he does get this hair transplant and then EA of all people acknowledges this by updating his hairline in FIFA 12.
Tremendous. A child’s game getting a man millions, placing him as a prominent figure. If such a ludicrous happening can occur within our space time, I am reassured. My children-slaves will be famous. Rich. With never-ending and persistently refreshing hairlines. The future is beautiful.
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#4: Kid Snorts Ritalin To Continue Gaming, Ends Up In Hospital
Look at this amateur. This rookie. Some kid in New Zealand took to snorting Ritalin to continue his gaming binges. The allure of the ghostly green boot-up screen of his Xbox 360 called to him. A Siren’s call. Johnny Kiwi couldn’t resist. I don’t blame him. There is glory to be had. He had to continue. He decided to do so like the amateur he is, the sort of mush my children will stomp with their gaming boots with nary a recognition. Lightweight.
I approve of his (new)zeal(and), but his approach was all wrong. The bloodstream has to be monitored. Caffeine levels constantly carefully calculated. Their pupils must be dilated with the fury of the Cosmos, but they cannot crash. They cannot tip over the edge either. The nurses that I have lured into my dungeon with promises of Sick Children Come Quick Come Quick! will see to this. They will see to the Delicate Balance. The never-ending perfect rush. Maximized response time. Science. Progress. Leading to success.
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#5: EVO 2011 ‘Moments’ Video Is Feel Good Gaming Time
The end game. My children. Honed through years of caffeine-fueled dungeon practice. They take to the stage and crush their competition. No mercy. No quarter. Their gorgeous green life bars throbbing with their fullness. Lush with greenery. Their opponents, a diminished empty rectangle, pointing out how dominated they are. This is is, the culmination of the duct-tape-dungeon practice.
They will be featured prominent in a video like this. This video from EVO 2011, showcasing a gathering of glorious geeks drinking in the excellence of their brethren. It’s a pretty video. Touching music. I could weep if I didn’t have my tear ducts replaced with caffeine dispensers. Humanism is passe, we must embrace progress. This video is excellent, showcasing the pinnacle of the league.
My children at this video, plotting the destruction of their comrades scoff at the players. While eyeing them with contempt, and best of all, jealousy. Soon my children.
Soon.