Press Start!: Shigeru Miyamoto Meets Pee Play
Jambo, my friends. Welcome to the column that never ends. Save for weeks where I’m buried in graduate work, crying to the stars and the God that doesn’t respond. Despite the shrines of pubic hair and headless dolls I build. He never responds. That’s okay! I have ya’ll. We’re going to talk about video games here in Press Start. The column where I expound immaturely about the past seven days in gaming in the form of a trite Top 5 list. Share your own findings! I wait with baited breath, staring through your window. You’re so pretty.
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#1: NMA Takes On UK Urinal Games
Following in the footsteps of future-seeing Japan, the UK has rolled out some glorious urinal-based video games. ‘Cause nothing says fun like half-sloshed pissing on yourself trying to dominate a game where a minty menthol piss cake should be. Them motherfuckers at NMA offer their own interpretation of the ramifications, and it is as unhinged as everything else.
I feel like I’m missing an opportunity of a lifetime not writing these skits for them. They’re the perfect mix of madness and uh, well, just madness that I could just slide into. Sliiiiiiiiiiiiiide into frreal.
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#2: Everything Skyrim!
Yeah brah, Skyrim isn’t a video game. It’s a lifestyle. It’s a blackhole. A time machine. It’s the point of no return for many of us, and fuck. Fuck! If I have to write this column, then I’m going to leverage it into blathering about the game. First off, Bethesda: fix the fucking dragons. It’s a testament to the glory of the game that the focal point, dragons, can be utterly fucked. Flying backwards and shit. I need the dragon scales for my armor. I hurt. I yearn. Then there’s the Skyrim Arrow To The Knee dubstep. And tattoo. The meme has jumped the shark, but I don’t care. Or how about the waiter and the boss mode tip request that one waiter left. It’s the Christmas season. Pay it forward and buy someone you hate Skyrim, it’ll ruin their life.
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#3: Microsoft Launches New Dash, Is Total Dick.
Microsoft dropped their new dashboard this week, touting tons of shit. Most notably Kinect support up the ass! Down the throat. Out the mouth. I dig the new dashboard aesthetically, but there’s some serious shit surrounding it. The Microsoft Corporo-Pigs didn’t waste any time leveraging the shit out of this nonsense. Let’s see. First off there’s a new agreement afoot that prevents you from suing them. That you can’t opt-out of, word! They didn’t stop there.
No sir.
They’ve also ruthlessly buried indie games. You can check the video above for that full shit of bullshit. I love the Ultra-HD-Flat-Plasma experience as much as anyone else, but fucking shit. Give some love to the independents who push the medium. But it goes on! They’ve also filled the dashboard with advertisements. It’s fucking ugly, but thanks to people out there can be circumvented.
Lame sauce afoot for what Microsoft cronies are calling the biggest launch of the year. The only feature I was sweating was the HBO Go app, which of course didn’t drop on time. I wanted to watch Cersei and Jaime Lannister bone in my apartment, on my parents’ dime. I suppose Live isn’t all worthless though, it can help a motherfucker out during a home invasion.
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#4: Miyamoto Sort Of Announces Retirement. People Freak.
In an excerpt from a Wired.com interview this week, Miyamoto sort of announced he was retiring. Didn’t even use the words. Said he may step down, and work on something smaller. I thought it was a dope announcement, as I’d like to see the dude untethered to monolith franchises. Other people didn’t take it so well. Some speculated it was a graceful demotion. Nintendo’s stock dropped 2% and the company was on the offensive dismissing the claims.
More than anything there’s going to come a day when the dude does step down. What a weird as fuck moment that’s going to be. Miyamoto, his Corpulent Plumber and his Mute Fairy Guy have carried me through decades. Childhood, puberty, and comfortably into my arrested development.
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#5: Fans Recreate FFVII Opening With Unreal Engine.
Not my strongest finale, what can do you? I’m a FFVII fanboy, though lately I’ve been contemplating a replay of FFIV. The sweet, sweet Demon Wall calls to me. Just another tip-teasing glimpse at a Final Fantasy VII that isn’t a mush of textures and saddening CG. In an alternate world I wrote about Mordon Freeman, the greatest mash-up of Half-Life and Lucius Fox ever. Ever. Or the kids that won $100,00 with help from Kinect.
But I didn’t.
The window is closing, my attention span evaporating. The Nords call to me, beckoning me to spend hours smithing. Or perhaps skinning the shit out of wolves and wearing their flesh as faces. All in time, all in due time.
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What caught your eyes this week, good lads and lasses? Hit me.