I am but a mortal man this morning. Typically, before conjuring the demons through the phalanges, I take a ritualistic trip. To my favorite distributor of caffeine: the 7-Eleven. My car in the shop, surely being fucked by   mechanical gurus, I am stuck at home. Without the energy drink. I am marooned. The voices are not speaking to me. The eyes of God obscured. Nonetheless, this is Press Start! The gaming column where I recount the five things that caught my eyes this week. The list isn’t indicative of importance, and I encourage you to share in the comments box.

Sharing is caring.

—-

#1: EA Boss: Single-Player Only Games Are Finished.
Look at the image above. Gaze deep into the abyss behind the eyes. His name is Frank Gibeau. And according to your perspective, he may be either the devil, or simply the man willing to speak the truth. Sounding off in an article over at IGN, Gibeua made the proclamation, “I firmly believe that the way the products we have are going they, need to be connected online. Multiplayer is one form of that.” Translation: stop complaining about us shoehorning multiplayer into your beloved games. ‘Cause it isn’t going anywhere, you griping pig fuckers.

I’m still trying to figure out if hes the devil, or simple astute.

I fucking hate how everything is getting a multiplayer stapled onto it. The latest casualty is Mass Effect 3, which is going to see multiplayer shoved into it. Unwelcome penetration. It makes sense though, since BioWare is owned by EA. Everything is connected!

It makes too much business sense to not throw multiplayer into everything. If you share my sentimnent, you’re out of luck. The unwashed masses are clamoring for it. They beg for the ability to shoot people in any setting. With this knowledge in hand, the talking heads will see fit that games like Dead Space and Mass Effect will get stuffed down the gullet with multiplayer.

He is an astute devil.

—-

#2: You Can Buy A Nintendo Guitar. Excessive Nerdosity.
Oh hell yeah! Would there be a better way to complete the heavy metal dork tribute to Dimebag than to drop some Sandblasted Skin across the frets of a guitar built from an original Nintendo? The mind boggles. It’s well accepted that the Dorks and Heavy Metal Meat Heads (I am both, so don’t complain) ovals overlap big time on a venn diagram. Now it’s time to just take it one step closer towards being official. The chaps at GetLoFi will sell you one of these beasts for $150 Imperial credits.

Go on, buy it. Can you really put a price on your dorky awesomeness?

Speaking of awesome constructs: Kinect hack brings self-aware flying machine. Fucking righteous.

—-

#:3 Japanese Virtual Sex Club Lets You Buy Porn Stars, Dildos, Spatulas.
I am constantly amazed at the lengths to which people will go to rocket an orgasm throughout their synapses. People are ridiculous. This musing usually comes as I have an elastic band around my testicles, hanging from the hooks connected from my back to the ceiling. But still. We have to have some standards, right?

Gaming developer DMM.com has revealed the game, “Virtual Sex Club”, and isn’t that a hell of a title? You pay a monthly fee, which affords you 30,000 gold. With this gold, you can go about buying various things. Porn stars, sex toys, even sexual positions. Your gold runs out really fucking fast, which is obvious because you can spend it on everything, up to minutiae like the color of your virtual fuck’s nails.

There’s sexual objectification, and then there’s this. Sweaty hands clicking across mouses, manipulating cursors. Perfecting their virtual fuck.

Now, the moment we can vat grow mindless male and female automatons that are built to our specifications for our fuckery, wake me up. They’ll last a specified amount of time, before evaporating into a cloud, their vat-flesh only a temporary construct. But sadly my future has not arrived yet, and I’m stuck to buying spatulas and banana-shaped dildos instead.

If this Japanese amazement isn’t your speed, you can also buy the game where you slap bugs off your date’s tits to “protect her”.

Keep Reading »

Come, literate ones. Fuck, come illiterate ones. Follow the trail of candy into my haven of polygons and cel-shading. This is Press Start!, the column where I spit five fucking happenings in the video game world from the past week into your welcoming mouth. Your job, true believers, is to thenby (thenby should really be a word) spit your five into my mouth. Liquids will be exchanged. Lives altered. Or you can just continue to the next post. I wouldn’t fucking blame you.

Drink deep your infinity juice, and let’s rock.

—-

#1: US Air Force Tethers Together 1,760 To Create Supercomputer.
Almost a year ago, it was announced that the US Air Force purchased a shit load of PlayStation 3s. While it wasn’t openly acknowledged by many people at the time, I knew something right there, that day. The US Air Force had clearly never seen one of the multitude of movies nor read any of the endless books that depict one thing: the great robotic uprising of year 20XX. This week, we got a look at some of the specifications at this huge motherfuckin’ Franke-Computer that the Air Force has created. I mean, Christ, these people clearly haven’t even read Frankenstein. Get cultured, yo.

This Monstrous Plasti-Vomit Pile of Computing Power is the thirty-third largest computer in the world. The son of a bitch contains “168 separate graphical processing units and 84 coordinating servers.” That’s a lot. The Air Force is also calling it the fastest interactive computer in the entire Defense Department.

Well then! Tax payer money at work. I’m all for it. If the robotic uprising has gone beyond conjecture, why not go out by tethering a bunch of PlayStation 3s together? Once their sentience becomes obvious, I can be found in my basement, strung out and waiting for death.

So pretty much like any other night.

—-

#2: Gaming Villain Billy Mitchell, Gets Honored In New Game.
If I had Billy Mitchell’s mullet, or his beard, or his gaming prowess, it wouldn’t have taken me twenty-five years to lose my virginity. But alas. I was borne from a barren womb, into a cold world. Inculcated with only the desire to consume grease-flesh and play video games. And so unlike Billy Mitchell, I plod the tedious life of another middle class white American. Not the worst, but certainly not the best.

More important this week, if I was Billy Mitchell, I would be celebrating getting honored in a fucking video game. If you don’t know who Billy Mitchell is, let me help you. Ultimate bad ass gaming villain, who often but not always holds the world record in the original Donkey Kong arcade game. Currently he has been felled by do-gooder and decent guy Steve Wiebe. But Stevey don’t got something Billy does.

An appearance in the recently released Donkey Kong Country Returns. Yessir, Billy got a shout-out in the new DK game for the Wii. Should you be rocking out all simian and shit in world 3-2, keep an eye on the rubble. Smashed rather gloriously into it is the pattern of Billy Mitchell’s righteous American Flag tie.

A true moment of awesomeness, which pays homage to a man who is clearly an American hero.

Oh Billy Mitchell, if I were only you.

—-

#3: Xbox Modder Facing Trial Gets Unlikely Support. From The Judge.
Do you roll with a posse? ‘Cause if you don’t, you sure need to. You say you’re just a geek? Naw son, a posse can still come in handy. What if you’re at Gamestop, and you come across a near mint (condition) copy of Final Fantasy Tactics? And while you’re busy tweeting about how fucking awesome! it is to find, someone else ganks it? That’s where your boy Wheezy F. WoW rolls up and pops them with a bag full of Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers across the grill.

Matthew Crippen can speak to all the importance of having a posse. Crippen was on trial this week for the illegal modification of Xboxes, when he found himself being defended by an unlikely source: the fucking judge presiding over the case. That’s a legit b-boy.

U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez opened up the hearing (is it a hearing? I’m an ignorant asshole when it comes to the law) by lighting up the prosecution for a variety of things. Most prominently? Two key prosecution witnesses had broken the law:

One is Entertainment Software Association investigator Tony Rosario, who secretly video-recorded defendant Matthew Crippen allegedly performing the Xbox mod in Crippen’s Los Angeles suburban house. The defense argues that making the recording  violates California privacy law. The other witness is Microsoft security employee Ken McGrail, who analyzed the two consoles Crippen allegedly altered. McGrail  admitted that he himself had modded Xboxes in college.

Well good god damn! After the prosecution took a thirty minute verbal DDT from the judge, the court recessed. And today? Today the case was dismissed. Behold the power of the posse.

Keep Reading »

Friday. Press Start! The top five things that caught my eye in gaming this week. I usually pen this son of a bitch on Thursday evenings with a rather set methodology. First, I scan the websites I obsessively refresh for news bits from the week. Then I begin jotting down shit that I found dope on a notepad. Eventually, that shit gets pruned down to five, and I crack open the WordPress. Of course, not before I’m ripped to the tits on caffeine and loud music. However, this is Friday, and I ain’t done any of that shit.

A melange of shitty scheduling occurrences has me smashing this out frantically. It’s 4:21 pm as I begin this pig. I am huddled in a bunker on the Eastern Coast of the United Empire. The caffeine-odometer is wavering, my time sparse. Buckle up, this isn’t ain’t going to be my best effort.

As usual, hit the comments box with your own potpourri of happenings from the week in polygons and geekery.

—-

#1: Force Unleashed II DLC Lets You Singe The Tits of Ewoks
As I’ve grown up, I’ve had a love and hate relationship with Ewoks. When I was younger, I thought they were the berries. I was the demographic to which Emperor Lucas sold his soul. They were cuddly, they had sick ass hats, and most importantly, they got to rest their head in forest floor of Leia’s crotch.

What wasn’t to love?

Then I grew up and I began to see the goonery of having a bunch of teddy bears overthrow the government. It seemed ludicrous. I became that guy, and to an extent I still am today. However, when I feel like spinning bullshit – and I’m a lit major, it’s our existence – I can almost giggle as I write it all off as parable. Don’t you understand it’s about the simplicity of nature being able to overcome the machinations of Man-Made Machinery? An obvious commentary on the might of pure spirit over laser guns.

But I know I’m full of shit, and it was a toy grab.

Soon friends, all of us angsty geeks will be able to rain hell on those fucking teddy bears. Say word, LucasArts is letting you zap the living shit out of Ewoks in a forthcoming DLC for Force Unleashed II. That’s right, let the hate flow through you! Who hasn’t wanted to scream in a spittle-covered redline rage at the beginning of the end for the Star Wars franchise?

—-

#2: Dumb Ass WoW Player Swallows His Authenticator.
Important philosophical question. Are the majority of WoW players are fucking idiots? Or rather, are there so many of us that the ratio of assholes to regular people is the same, but there’s so many of us that our idiots become obvious?

I’m not too optimistic.

A recent moment of player brilliance is courtesy of a dude named Preliatus. Obviously not his real name. I hope. Preliatus was sitting around, trying to come up with awesome role playing ideas, when he swallowed his authenticator. Preliatus swallowed the fuck out of his, and then did what anyone would do. Naw, he didn’t call a doctor. Or 911. Or the police. A fully failing in the functioning department nerd, he went to the official forums for help.

“I was sitting in my chair and biting into my authenticator while thinking about several RP related story arcs that I have planned,” wrote Preliatus “I swivvel [sic] around in my chair and presume to fall off it and shoot the authenticator into my mouth and down my throat.”

Help! I Swallowed My World of Warcraft Authenticator!”I have drank some of that stuff that makes you vomit, but I’m apparently resistant to a whole bottle of it. I am curious on what I should do.”

Part of me refuses to believe this shit is real. Not only is this dude a deepthroat champion, but he’s also an iron-clad stomach of doom. This dude is a circus act waiting to happen. I love how when WoW Tards panic, they’re so socially inept that instead of contacting social structures set up to provide citizenry with support, they regress into the only reality they know.

Speaking of which, be right back, I need to go check out the Auction House.

—-

#3: Microsoft Can Use Kinect To Spy On You For Advertisers. Orwell Inc!
More proof that Kinect is the End of All Things came out this week. Microsoft accidentally let slip to us, the prole public, that they can use Kinect’s camera to spy on users. Why, then they can just parlay that shit to advertisers. They will then digest us, and find out more powerful ways of glorious subliminal mind control corporate programming. Only a bit of this is bullshit.

Speaking at an investor’s conference on Thursday, a Microsoft executive offered that Kinect not only knows how many are in the room when an ad’s shown, but what kind of team colors they might be wearing. Uh-oh.

Welcome to the fucking future, where you willingly let devices into your home that can scan you, analyze you, and break down your raw data into marketing characteristics. The idea that the camera atop your television, or fuck, in your laptop can be used for anything other than you want is so obvious that it’s almost forgotten.

Don’t worry though, Kinect will fail! Wait, it’s already sold a million units? Fuck. Thought Police! Mind Crimes! Orwell’s ghost shakes his head, disappointed at all of us.

Keep Reading »

The pieces are set. The players are motion. Amongst me sits cans of caffeinated acceleration. I am approaching the infinity point, poised to see the eyes of the gaming gods! Alright, whatever. I’m just sitting here vibrating from one too many empty Pepsi Max bottles. But this is Press Start! Weekly gaming column. I puke up five things that caught my eyes in the world of video games in the previous seven days. The list is not reflective of importance, or in any particular order. It’s merely my own! My precious.

Theoretically interactive! Hit the comments box with whatever tickled your gaming fancy this week.

—-

#1: Is Valve Killing The PC Gaming Market?
I ask you if you had the same response as me upon reading this title. Wait, wut?, there’s still a PC gaming market? Like, no, seriously. Sometimes I forget that there are good chaps out there that game primarily on their computer-boxes through their fingerboards. Interesting. My personal computer is dedicated to one thing and one thing only: the Crafting of War. Well, as far as gaming goes. Mainly it’s dedicated to punching insipid articles into Word Press and ridiculous amounts of fetish pornography.

Still though, I found the article massaging my intellectual glands. The dried withered husk of my intelligence. Retailers in the UK are considering banning selling games that use Steam integration. As well digital distributors are pissing their pants, and its for good reason. Steam owns eighty percent of the digital distribution market. Enormous games like Fallout and Call of Duty get pushed through their fat pipes. And so retails and digital distributors are worried that the leviathan won’t leave any room for competition.

Dudes, you’re worried now? The battle is over. Gabe Newell and his Steam have crushed you beneath the weight and prowess of their corporate titties. Repent, and hope they spare your life. It’s an amazing turn, since I remember when Half-Life 2 dropped on Steam six years ago, it was a concept derided by many. Probably myself. Oh, if my memory functioned properly.

Now it’s the god damn iTunes of gaming distribution, dictating terms and the marketplace.

I don’t know if its killing the PC gaming market, but it sure as fuck has that shit on lockdown.

—-

#2: Bounty Placed On Kinect for Open Source Drivers; Motherfuckers Have It Running On A Mac Already
Last week, Adafruit Industries offered a bounty. They were willing to pay $1,000 to the first person or peoples who could provide open source drivers for Kinect. And let me tell you something, people work fucking fast. Kinect came out on November 4 here in the United States. It was hacked and open source drivers were provided three days later. God damn amazing.

Say what I will about the Kinect being an overblown piece of techno-lust drizzled in casual gaming. I’m excited to see what talented and curious investigators and individuals can do with the device. Take that shit out of the hands of the fascist pigs over at Microsoft and open it up to the creative brain-pieces of people across the world.

Case in point: Theo Watson has posted a video of getting the Kinect to run on the Mac OS. Again, what’s the practical application of this? I’m not sure. But I have faith that the Kinect, in the hands of curious and inventive people, can bare some pretty dope fruit.

Just my take on it.

—-

#3: Black Ops Just Raped Your Favorite Anything’s Launch Day. With A Bayonet.
Whether or not you like the Call of Duty franchise is irrelevant. I enjoy it, for what it is. You don’t enjoy it? I can respect it. But at this point, it is clear: the Call of Duty zealots are a legion much like that of Leonidas’ from 300. They cannot be stopped. They show no mercy. They’re equally as homoerotic, for the most part. Bros high-fiving and getting so totally stoked to spend hours and hours in what they think is a merely platonic tightly knit homosocial circle. [Kudos to the girls who have infiltrated my homoerotic phallus-firing brigade. You must get special glory in owning our asses.]

This legion of dong-bursting bros turned out in such numbers that we collectively destroyed every entertainment launch ever.   Black Ops moved 5.6 million copes on the opening day, in North America and the UK.

That’s fucking insane.

This medium is here to stay. Whether or not people have utilized it to do more than shoot one another in a multiplayer field is one thing, but it is legit. We are legion. Now, let’s go about beginning to justify it as an impressive conduit for artistic expression. Ken Levine, Fumito Ueda, you must assemble disciples of the narrative.

I trust in you.

QUICKLY: If you haven’t seen Ice-T unbox his copy of Call of Duty: Black Ops, you’re missing the best thing ever. Go. Watch. You’re Welcome.

Keep Reading »

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.

—-

#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.

—-

#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.

—-

#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.

Keep Reading »

Welcome to Press Start! It’s the column that brings you the top five things that caught my eye in gaming every week. This week? This week I’m fucking tired. I’m sorry if everything seems rushed, incoherent, illogical, or poorly written this week. Why does that seem that way? Because it is! Excelsior and shit!

—-

#1: Apple Tried To Buy Bungie; But Microsoft Ganked Them
Some of the most intriguing news that came out this week was that Bungie originally asked Apple if they were interested in buying them. Bungie, without the monster hit Halo underneath its belt, was financially shitty. They needed someone to take them home at night to a safe place. Lay with them under the sheets, and care for them, if you get my meaning. You don’t? Shit. I was making some weird allusion to one company fucking another somehow.

Anyways.

Apple turned them down initially, only to reconsider. When they went to inform Bungie that they would, in fact, take them home and bed then, Bungie was all: fuck you guys, we found ourselves a new suitor. Oh shit! The double dick-slap? It was Microsoft. Boom! It is written in the deep sea scrolls of Apple that upon hearing this, Steve Jobs went insane. Slaughtered his entire family, and had to have them cloned and vat-grown to replace them. No seriously, he was pissed.

It’s a fascinating bit of corporate uppercutting that’s fun to think about. Consider that Halo pretty much salvaged the original Xbox, and has been the teat that Microsoft has continually milked the last nine years. But what if Billy Gates and his pack of warriors never got a hold of Halo? What would that have meant for Microsoft? For the Xbox? Or how about if it would have reshaped the gaming landscape in favor of the Mac’s favor?

Bananas shit right here.

—-

#2: At Blizzcon, Awesome Beefy Kid Owns The Creators On Their Own Lore
It’s long since been known that us dorks, generally, actually have a better grasp on the lore of particular universes than the people who write it. This is obviously a general statement, but I believe in it. Why? ‘Cause shit like the World of Warcraft universe is being written by tons of people, overlapping and stretching into infinity. They don’t have time to know the stories that others are contributing to the same universe as they, or maybe they do, and they don’t give a shit. I know I wouldn’t.

That’s where this awesome kid comes in. Let’s call him Maxwell. At Blizzcon last weekend, Maxwell stepped up and shredded the continuity of World of Warcraft in front of two dudes who I can only presume are lead writers of either the game or the novels. I could research it, but I’m lazy. What’s important is this: Maxwell, in all his svelte and gorgeous glory, picks apart inconsistencies in a world these two dudes are in some part responsible for crafting.

It’s awesome.

It doesn’t help that Maxwell is beyond awkward, and in that way, glorious. I want to get Maxwell drunk, and blow mouth farts on his rotund, surely hairless belly. I want to get totally hammered with him at Hooters, eating an insane amount of boneless buffalo wings and making him drink his first beer. Then after a sweet night, we’ll be chatting in the parking lot. He’ll be telling me how its ludicrous that Warcraft Character X did Continuity Breaking Action Y, when I’ll slap his nutsac. He’ll puke all over his shoes, we’ll both laugh, and then I’ll drive him home.

I think I’m in love.

—-

#3: Keiji Inafune, Father of Megaman, Leaves Capcom
Keiji Inafune is a god damn legend. And today he announced that he was leaving Capcom. Even if you don’t know the dude by his name, if you’re a decent gamer whose life is worth something, you’ve experienced some of his work. Not only is he considered the father of Megaman, but he’s also the creator of Onimusha, and the shit hot Dead Rising. After twenty-three years with Capcom, he announced that he is parting ways with them at the end of the month. And according to my math, that means he’s gone really, really soon.

Bummer.

Dude was essential to Capcom, and more than that, hearkened back to a day when I used to fap vigorously to Japanese developers. Capcom’s experienced a serious talent drain the last few years. With the loss of Kamiya, Mikami, and now Inafune, they’ve parted ways with the minds behind Resident Evil, Megaman, Okami, and not to mention other games. I don’t know about you, fellow gamers, but my enthusiasm for gaming has been channeled into much different directions than that of Capcom, Konami, and Squaresoft like it used to be.

Fare thee well dude, may you find a new comfy home soon enough.

Keep Reading »

Well god damn! I got the window opening, pumping in some crisp autumn air. I got enough caffeine pumping through my veins to kill a baby calf. And I got no pants on. That can only mean one thing: it’s time for Press Start! Welcome to your typical Friday den of debauchery. The column where I, in nothing resembling intelligent discourse, detail five things that caught my eye in the world of gaming this week. I implore you to rock the comments box, oh ye gamepad warriors, with the bullshit that you enjoyed.

Hit me.

—-

#1: 80% of Gamers Are Cool With 3D Gaming; 80% of Gamers Are Douchebags
A pretty depressing report came out this week. Apparently 80% of gamers are willing to use 3D glasses whilst gaming. Oh good lord. Ever since last December and Avatar, this 3D phase has been god damn killing me. Listen, if I knew seeing Navi tail-fuck plant life was going to bring this hell upon us, I never would have indulged my curiosity and seen the flick. I think we’re all very, very, very sorry for participating in the biggest culture Gimmick Fucking in god knows how many years.

I’m sorry guys. Seriously. And since it made a billion-zillion dollars, you probably are too.

What a world we live in, where twin blights are ravaging across the gaming landscape. Motion controls, and 3D gaming. Fuck man, I don’t want either of them. I don’t want to do karate kicks to tell a character to lay a smack down. And I don’t want to don goggles just to play a video game. God damn you, 80% of gamers. What are you doing to me? You’re ruining it all! This is some truly Fahrenheit 451 type shit we’re wading into. Incredible distances spanned between people, just sitting next to one another on a couch. No talking, just 3D goggles and the old internet pipes connecting us to one another in on a Battlefield map.

I despair.

—-

#2: Pair of Sonic Fans Release Better Game Than Sonic 4
Remember when Sega announced Sonic 4? They told us it was going back to being a side-scrolling wunderkind? We all danced in the streets and high-fived and screamed BLAST PROCESSING at the skies? Yeah, and then it was released last week. And it was mediocre at best, and we were all like, no seriously, why’d we think they’d get it right this time?

Well, cheer up, Charlie.

Super Sonic fans, Pelikan 13 and Mercury have released their own Sonic the Hedgehog Remake, and it looks fucking gorgeous. Behold the power of an inspired pair of nerds. The game is called Sonic Fan Remix and you can download it right here. A free game, gorgeous as fuck, and somehow more faithful to the franchise than the afterbirth that was burped up by Sonic last week across the XBL and PSN.

Maybe I’m being too harsh. I downloaded the demo, and it was decent enough to cause a “fuck, so close” lament. It just felt off, which is remarkable since the Sonic formula is so simple. Disagree with me? That’s cool, I’m glad you enjoyed it. But just watch the video and/or download Sonic Fan Remix, and tell me it isn’t a work of bonery. I double dare you.

—-

#3: Father and Son Team Up To Build Functioning Metroid Arm Cannon
A couple of weeks ago, I went to the midnight release of Halo: Reach. While I was there, I saw a dad and his son waiting to pick up the game together. I thought it was the coolest thing ever, so I told my girlfriend. I was all like “Man, I hope my son wants to go to midnight releases with me.”

She then gave me a look and told me that if my son wants to go to midnight releases with me, that we pretty much did the inevitable when mixing DNA with me: created a social retard. I saw her point, but a part of me died inside.

That’s why I dig this video so much. Eleven year-old Joseph DeRose and his father Tony went all out on Joey’s Halloween costume this year. They built a motherfucking functionable arm cannon from Metroid. Well, not functioning in the sense that it can blow people the fuck up and shit. That would be the dopest. But no, check it out: it’s got input codes to verify identity, multiple settings for different beams, and it lights the fuck up.

Like I said, endearing. The video is enjoyable, just hop around and get the inner workings of the arm cannon from Tony and his kid.

Keep Reading »

Oh shit! It’s Friday! Well, it’s actually Thursday evening while I type this. But none the less, it’s time for Press Start! Your one-stop shop for my blatherings about the five things that caught my eye this week in the world of video games. I’m going to level with you guys. I’m fucking tired. This column is powered by nothing less than hate, caffeine, and eye-burning fury. Straight off a week of Gertrude Stein and Piaget, I have, with little to no love, cobbled together this bullshit for you. Per usual, hit the comments box with your lovely findings in the world of video games this week.

#1: OH Shit, Fallout’s Pip-Boy Is Real!
You have to hand it to those fascist fucking pigs over running the Military Industrial Complex over in Washington. At the very least, they know how to make my nerd dreams come true. Latest case in point? They’re developing something that is very, very, very similar to a fucking Pip-Boy. The son of a bitch you see in the above photo is called a wrist-mounted flexible PH-OLED display, and the motherfucker packs an “organic light emitting diode display is mounted on thin, flexible metal foil, which in turn is mounted on a wrist-wrapping housing to create a fully functional display and communication device.”

Yeah. Whatever. Let’s call a spade a fucking spade. This son of a bitch is a Pip-Boy. Clearly the government has honed into some telepathic projection of a forthcoming apocalypse, and per good intentions, have begun culling video games for ways to survive the wasteland. Or, I could be losing my mind.

Whatever it is, the future is here, and it’s fucking awesome.

—-

#2: Sir Arthur Is About To Polish His Lance In Marvel vs. Capcom 3
Last week at New York Comicon, right after I posted Press Start!, awesomeness happened. Fucking Sir Arthur, or Ghouls and Ghosts fame, was announced as a playable character in Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Now, if you’re over the age of twenty and you consider yourself a gamer, relax. That rushing feeling in your loins is the dorkery-based engorgement of your genitals. Fucking awesome. The cast of MvC3 continues to get more and more righteous, and with Sir Arthur at the table, I’m ready for this shit.

Deadpool? Wesker? Sir Arthur? Amazing.

—-

#3: Nathan Fillion Wants Nathan Drake
It’s a match made in fanboy heaven. Nathan Fillion, the dude who creams the panties of overweight nerd chicks wants to play the part of Nathan Drake in the upcoming Uncharted movie. The guy who has inspired countless dickheads who think they’re witty to prattle off insipid dialogue through countless pages of fan fiction wants in on David O. Russel’s next flick. Guys, even Whedon’s verbose. You’re just annoying. So our boy Fillion has begun campaigning for the part. Actively. Across the infowebs.

I always sort of cringe when an actor begins lobbying for a part. I mean, has that shit ever actually worked before? I mean, jesus christ!, remember Sean Young? She fucking sunk her career by her Catwoman antics. Does Fillion really think going about asking for the part pubically is going to work? And more importantly, does the dude actually want to work with Russel? I love his movies, but I’m pretty sure George Clooney wanted to throw him into a pile of nails wrapped in C4 by the end of Three Kings.

But still.

Everything aside, Fillion would be perfect for Drake. Why? ‘Cause if you’ve played Uncharted, it’s pretty clear that Nathan Fillion is Nathan Drake. Well, you know the fictionalized and idealized concept of Fillion. They look alike. They sound alike. The witty banter? So fucking Fillion. It makes almost too much sense.

Keep Reading »

Press Start!, your one-stop source for video games buffoonery. The column where I throw up five things that caught my eye in the halls of video gamedom this week. An interactive column, I beseech fellow gamers to hit the comments box with what got them excited/thinking/horny in the world of the 1-Up this week. Do it, or I’ll just keep posting juvenile treatises. I’m beggin’ ya.

—-

#1: Del Toro Spits Hot Fire On Video Game Respectability.
Del Toro has always been a binky of mine. I love the Hellboy movies, dug Pan’s Labyrinth, and say what you want about Blade 2, the dude directed the sickest collection of vampire spin-kicks, elbow drops, and body presses ever in one scene. So when he spoke out recently at a book signing in favor of video games, I was fucking pumped. Courtesy of Kotaku, Del Toro was quoted as saying:

Video games are the comic books of our time [yet] it’s a medium that gains no respect from the intelligentsia. They say ‘oh video games’. And most people who complain about video games have never fucking played them.

Boom, head shot. I’m going to side step the fatiguing and bothersome debate about whether or not video games are art. As a professor and mentor of mine once say regarding the art debate, “It’s not about whether or not something is art. It’s about whether or not it’s interesting.”

Well put, my Jedi Master. So rather, Del Toro addresses indirectly the question, “Can video games provide the medium for engaging and thought-provoking narrative?” and the answer is of course yes. He isn’t defending the majority of video games, but rather making an argument for the validity of the medium.

Awesome. Like comic books (and I would argue any medium) perhaps the majority of it is dim-witted and juvenile schlock. But that doesn’t condemn the entire medium. Instead, perhaps it issues the challenge for people within that field to step up and showcase how fucking powerful it can be.

I <3 Del Toro. Moving on.

—-

#2: WoW: Cataclysm Gets A Release Date; Stank Nuts and Shitty Beard INC.
Come December 7, I am so fucked. That’s the date that Blizzard has dropped for their newest World of Warcraft expansion, Cataclysm. I stunted for quite a while regarding this expansion pack. I hadn’t played WoW in almost a year. I thought I had kicked the addiction. But you can never truly get the WoW-heroin out of your bones. It’s been sitting there in the back of my mind, haunting me. “Ian” it says “Just give up, embrace it.” And I’m tired man, I’m too tired to continue fighting it.

So despite thinking that this is the expansion pack that I would actually be able to skip, it’s been dated, and its calling to me. I’ll give in. I know I’m not the only recovering junkie that’s going to give in to the siren’s call, and there’s some comfort in that.

Fucking of course the son of a bitch has to drop right at the end of my semester. I’m going to have two fifteen-plus page papers to be writing, and I know I’m going to be bleary-eyed and smelling like pizza sauce and body odor. Just having to kill one more murlock or some shit. Just one more. Just one more. Just. One. More.

—-

#3: Dream Club Zero Asks You to Stuff Girls’ Faces With Sausages.
Well then. A dating simulation coming in Japan for the Xbox 360 offers you the opportunity to pull off a unique task. Amongst the dating simulations, Dream Club Zero offers a more realistic task. You are capable of stuffing eerily pre-pubescent girls’ faces with sausages. Yeah dude, sausages. In what is one of the more creepily suggestive phallic mouth rapings of the week (I mean, uh ever?), there’s nothing that says let’s go on a hot date!, than offering up an ole piece of meat for a young mouth.

I don’t really have much to say about this, other than I find it fucking spellbinding. It’s like, really? Wow. As a master of the perverted and depraved, this makes even me uncomfortable.

Keep Reading »

This is Press Start! Weekly column where I run down five things that caught my eye in gaming this week. Shut the door, take off your pants, say a prayer, and let’s do this.

—-

#1: Running With A Shotgun Doesn’t Work In Real Life. Fuck.
It’s an incontrovertible fact: the shotgun is the greatest weapon conceived in any video game. It’s implementation in any game makes you feel like the baddest motherfucker in the world. A properly balanced shotgun blast to the tits of any enemy makes me feel, momentarily, like I may have a masculine bone in my body.

It’s awesome.

That’s why I was pretty bummed out to come across this news report that informs fellow gamers that you cannot run and gun in real life with a shotgun. How many times have I found myself running backwards, mowing down a horde of zombies? And how many of those times was I pretty sure I was prepping for the forthcoming zombie apocalypse? Figured I could just flip that shit into some training. But apparently it doesn’t work.

One gamer by the name of Bob Ruff did some serious research for all of us. Let’s see what Bob had to say:

I took my shotgun into a grassy field in an abandoned warehouse and then tried running backward at full speed and shooting at a target I had pinned to a broom handle and thrust into a bucket full of earth.

The result of this experiment was that I fell backwards about 70% of the time and injured both my back and my skull.

Amazing. So Bob-O went into an abandoned field, and continuously tried to run and shoot a shotgun. I love the fact that despite it not working the first time and that his experiment was hurting his back and skull, in the name of gaming science, he continued to test it. I mean, you don’t want to get a false positive, right? So he tried the experiment. Over, and over. If I could have only seen this dude, running backwards and getting his ass propelled by the shotgun blast, my day would have been complete.

—-

#2: Someone page Nietzsche, Beyond Good & Evil Returns In HD
Beyond Good & Evil is a legit cult title. Dropped back in the middle of last decade, played by almost no one, worshiped by almost everyone who did. I dug the fuck out of it, passed it around my group of friends like a polygonal floozy. We all moaned together. And then she was forgotten. Well! Last year came the ludicrously improbable news that BG&E was somehow getting a sequel. How was this possible? Who knows. Don’t ask, don’t tell, yo!

But this week, came the news that prior to the sequel dropping in Who Knows, 20Unsure, Ubisoft would be porting the original to HD. I couldn’t believe that shit. BG&E is up there with Half-Life 2 and Shadow of the Colossus with my total dickcrush titles of the last ten years, and I’m all too ready to play it in 1080P. Droppin’ on XBL and PSN as a download-only title, it’s giving everyone who missed this son of a bitch the opportunity to check it out.

—-

#3: Those Are Rob Liefeld’s Tits You’re Staring At
First off, click the picture to see Rob Liefeld in all his pure insanity. Despite his genius, I didn’t want to destroy form in order to convey it to you.

You back? Awesome. So, it’s no secret that I love Rob Liefeld. He’s pure teenage-boy hormonal insanity, even at the age of 43.He’s like the Ed Wood of 1990’s comic book artists. So this week, Penny Arcade did a comic to promote the upcoming game Comic Jumper. The comic strip was a butt-rubbing homage to Liefeld that I could love in all its insanity. In addition to the comic, Penny Arcade was giving away a 360 adorned in Comic Jumper artwork. How did you win it, though? You had to submit a picture of yourself striking a Liefeld-esque pose.

And that’s where the shit goes bananas. You see, Rob Liefeld himself entered the contest. With the picture above. How fucking awesome is that shit? An eerily lobsterfied Rob Liefeld taking a good humored jab at his own art style. You have to love the guy, if only because he’s so conscious of the noise surrounding his legacy. And not only that, but he’s not beyond posing with his tits hanging out, impressively toned but scorched body for the world to see.

Rob Liefeld, you are my hero.

Keep Reading »