Press Start: Of Monkeys and THE MAN
This week’s pressing questions in gaming are:
Why don’t more women play games? Probably doing something productive whilst I jerk it to polygons.
Why did they delay GTA V and does this somehow relate to rumoured plans for Rockstar to form a Bioshock-esque rogue state?
Just how powerful is the new Playstation going to be and is it going to include the Fleshlight extension that I’ve been petitioning for some months now?
New Bioshock Infinite video from the mysterious past.
Hey, you remember that thing? The, uh…past. Well, this new ‘viral’ video promoting Bioshock Infinite claims to be from there. It’s a video from the past made in the modern day to promote the release of a future game. Holy shit we just experienced three astral time planes at once; particles have been shattered, we are pure energy no longer constrained by restrictive concepts such as ‘time’. (___)
Smash cameras, win a vague sense of freedom, prizes.
They watch you when you sleep. They watch you when you stumble a little and scowl at the protruding paving stone as if it had a malicious will of its own. They were even watching you that one time you took a huge piss outside of that GWAR show because you thought it would make you seem like a funny, sorta-crazy fun-time guy. Really, what you should have done is kept cool and gone back inside to piss like a normal, civilised human being.
Who are they? The MAN (men?) of course and dammit I’m sick of this omnipresent lurking. Vandalism and activism are two serious-sounding isms until you make a game out of them, which is exactly what Camover does. This game challenges players to rip down surveillance cameras in Berlin. Each camera scores you points and a sense of righteousness.
The game is real-life Grand Theft Auto for those tired of being watched by the authorities in Berlin; points are awarded for the number of cameras destroyed and bonus scores are given for particularly imaginative modes of destruction. Axes, ropes and pitchforks are all encouraged.
Real-world games equal real world prizes. For the winner, a very special prize has been reserved: getting to be on the frontline of a protest. Enjoy taking that tear gas canister to the gut, buddy: you’ve earned it.
Chubby Street Fighter animation encourages hack games blogger to make ‘I have a chubby’ jokes.
This beautiful slice of chubby CG animation comes courtesy of Brazilian artist Victor Hugo Queiroz and serves as a teaser for his upcoming Street Fighter III fan film. As a huge Street Fighter fan, this is something of a relief: sick as I am of seeing fan films that equate to little more than two semipro martial artists flailing around in a forest whilst surrounded by questionable usage of After Effects. A universe with a visual language as vibrant and as striking as Street Fighter’s is the perfect fit for animation, something which I’ve craved more of ever since the classic Street Fighter II anime and what’s even better now is that I get to see my main man Hugo is all his super-deformed glory.
Weep for the lost potential of racing games.
It’s a sad fact that most racing games bore me. Little has captured my attention over the past decade, seeing as so much falls short of capturing the multiplayer carnage of Mario Kart, or the slick arcade precision of Metropolis Street Racer. Sure, there have been pretenders to the throne, but nothing I’d consider special. With that in mind, cast your wanton gaze over this footage from a cancelled Bizarre Creations project. Since their progenitive work on MSR and the Project Gotham series, the team have worked tirelessly to reinvigorate the racing genre with mixed results: see the luke-warm reception of the oft-overlooked Blur.
Enjoy and weep, for this project, and the company, are no more. Perhaps if we weep loudly enough, some savvy publisher will respond to the demand for dynamic racers that feature the ability to drive along the faces of ultra-modern skyscrapers. Then again, maybe not.
Valve meets Monkey Island and the world suddenly feels like a better place.
Seeing as I’m in the mood for delivering audiovisual goodness this week, why not enjoy this piece as a send off? With Monkey Island being one of the best games in existence, and Valve being the perpetual darlings of the games industry, it’s hard to fathom the amount of exploded scrotums and ovaries that this clip has resulted in. Take heed of those words and find a suitably protective housing for your reproductive system as you gaze upon the magnificence of the ‘I wanna be a Pirate’ scene re-created with Source filmmaker. If this titillates you, immediately go and download Ron Gilbert’s The Cave, you can thank me later.
—
It’s with a tear in my eye and a severe case of pizza-butt that I must now leave you. I’d love to trawl the internet for more overlooked gaming news, hell, I’d even love to regale you some of my more articulate anecdotes concerning the industry, alas, no-one is going to download all of the big butt photography on my behalf. Some things I just have to do myself. Come back next week for another unwanted peek into my internet-heavy existence and possibly games.