Welcome to Press Start! The place where I uh, do stuff and ramble a lot about video games. I’m going to level with you guys, I have a god damn head cold that won’t quit. This entire column is powered by Sudafed and the hazy feeling that antihistamine bring upon me. In other words; it’s sort of half-assed! Apologies. You’ll never know the difference, so low is the bar I set for myself. Here is it, the five things that caught The One Dork Eye of mine this week, in no particular order, and without anything resembling sense. Hit me in the comments box with your list of happenings.

Onward! Upward!

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#1: Bioshock Infinite Gameplay Drops Ten-Minutes of Bonery Onto Fans
It almost doesn’t seem fair. Bioshock Infinite isn’t dropping until some time next year, and here we are in September staring at ten-minutes of pants tightening glory. And if you’re any sort of a fan of awesome or Bioshock, you’re going to produce a sordid amount of cream in your pantaloons. A good friend of mine crunched the numbers, and did some science, and proclaimed that this footage is in fact beyond boners. A crack team of scientists are trying to calculate exactly what the appropriate juvenile expression for this game shall be, since clearly it is something more righteous than a blood-flooded cock.

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#2: Donkey Kong Country Returns Pre-Order Gift is Strangely Erotic
There’s always something strangely erotic about Donkey Kong. At least to me. And that probably isn’t worth of remark, since I have the maturity of a fifteen year-old. But still. Today I was thinking about how the entire premise of Donkey Kong is that he kidnaps this white chick, and I presume he’s going to do some vag-splitting horror on her after he takes care of that fucking plumber.

[Aside: It also seems like a creepy Japanese manifestation over the fears of miscegenation.]

Even more terrifying is the fact that everyone is down with DK, despite his dubious beginnings. Like, now he gets to roll around kicking ass and hanging out with his brood like he wasn’t a serial monkey rapist back in the day. What the fuck is that shit?

Nonetheless.

Nonetheless, this week Nintendo revealed the pre-order bonus you get when you drop some money down on Donkey Kong Country Returns over at Gamestop. A strangely erotic glove that you can slip your Wiimote into. What exactly is the functional purpose of this gift? I’m not sure. It’s a fucking condom shaped like a banana. I find it amazing though, and can’t help but want it for some inexplicable reason.

I want a banana condom.

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#3: MTV Gets Resident Evil Actors to Quote Lines From The Game
True confessional type shit: I saw Resident Evil: Afterlife. And I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it as some exceptionally awful action movie, that you can enjoy for all of its skillfully poor execution of action movie tropes. In three-dimensions! A concept which seemed to flummox Paul W.S. Anderson, so he just used bullet time to fling things at the screen.

Anyways.

So with that in mind, I was pretty pumped to find this video. MTV News got the actors of Afterlife to act out some of the classically brutal lines from the series. Any dork worth his weight in Claire Redfield cosplay can quote these lines. Sadly. So what is the greatest thing in life? Getting the shitty actors to quote shitty lines from Resident Evil. There’s some sort of righteous meta-commentary going on here, because there are countless lines from the movie which are actually worse than these lines.

Keep giggling, Milla Jovovich. You can’t act nor are you the Master of Unlocking like Jill!

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It’s Friday. Praise the maker! And with the advent of Friday comes another edition of Press Start! It’s your look at the five things that caught my eye in gaming this week. What a busy fucking week it’s been in gaming, between the Tokyo Game Show, the launch of Halo, and the general progression towards the busiest season in pixels and polygons. As always, the disclaimer reads as follows: I have shitty tasty, and these five things are not reflective of the best or most important happenings of the week. Hit the comments box with what tickled your pink this week. We’re a community, let’s hug.

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#1: Super Mario Turns 25, Holy Shit.
The original Super Mario Bros. turned twenty-five this week. When I turned twenty-five, two years ago, I had barely lost my virginity and I was still an undergraduate. Needless to say, Super Mario has accomplished much more during his span on Earth. Twenty-five years of whipping his slave dinosaur, jumping into pipes, tripping balls on mushrooms, and continuing to fight for a princess who seriously isn’t ever going to give up the butt.

The man is something of a hero.

It’s hard to fathom a world without our favorite mustachioed fuck. The original Super Mario Bros. is iconic beyond reason. Somehow a quarter of a century later, we’re still humming the opening notes to the first few levels, and kids who didn’t grow up blowing in cartridges and the world of two-button controllers can appreciate the only plumber that’s ever been reasonably respected. It’s a trip, man.

I’ve grown up with this son of a bitch. Some of my earliest memories are watching my cousin play through the game, in a sort of confused splendor. I didn’t know what was going on in this dungeon levels, but I knew that the fireballs and that leaping lizard were clearly up to no good. As I got older, the boy-o stuck with me, and I can tell you with an open heart that I think I broke down and wept openly at the beauty that was Super Mario 64. My balls tingled, and maybe it was because I was thirteen, but that shit changed me.

If it weren’t for Mario, his clumsy fucking brother, a legion of douchey dinosaurs with airships, and a rotten ass Peach, I may not be penning this column today. I’d probably be doing something constructive, but what the fuck can you do.

Happy birthday, you fat fuck.

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#2: Asura’s Wrath Debuts At TGS; A God Fingering Looks Hot
The Tokyo Game Show was this week, and there was a general amount of hotness that was displayed. I have stopped paying attention to Japanese developers for the most part, and perhaps this convention flung the egg right onto my face. My bad! I grew up with Capcom, and Konami, and Squaresoft owning my soul. But over the years, I’ve drifted more towards Western developers, gradually coming to suck on the teat of studios such as BioWare and Bethesda with an outrageous passion. And a little bit of teeth.

This week at the TGS, Capcom dropped the trailer for Asura’s Wrath. It’s something of a spectacle, that reduced me to a slobbering mess. The most reductive means of describing it would be to call it the “Japanese equivalent of God of War” – and while that may be accurate to a degree, the amount of absurdity lost in that description is not acceptable. In the trailer, a dude is impaled with roughly ninety-three thousand spears, which you rip out via quick-time commands, and when that doesn’t stop him, his nemesis summons something. The god damn finger of a God, which rockets down through orbit towards him.

It’s the sort of insane concept that, frankly, really isn’t done much in the Western development world. (I’m sure you all have a dozen examples proven me wrong, sry.) My friend watched the trailer and told me it was “too anime”, and I already feel bad for the young child who finds his body behind the dumpster. I have a bit of a temper.

This shit has me percolating.

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#3: 72% of Parents Support Violent Game Restrictions, Refuse To Parent
Perhaps as old as Super Mario is the debate over violent video games. So it seems fitting that in the same week that Mr. Mario turns twenty-five, yet another survey comes out regarding the dastardly concept of video game violence. According to this poll by Common Sense Media, 72% of adults support restrictions that would prevent kids from buying violent video games.

Another poll, taken by myself, and administered by myself, found that I generally believe that 95% of us human beings (including me) probably should not smash sperm into egg and replicate. God forbid, if, after we make that most grand of mistakes, we should actually have to parent the hellspawn we ripped out of canal. That would be like, crazy, you know?

Now listen, I know there’s something to be said for preventing Little Todd the Pukestain from buying a video game that features ass-fucking and machine gun fire. I just think that an at-counter restriction should probably be the last line of defense. Maybe parents should a) prevent their kid from buying the game themselves and b) have the capacity to explain to them the different between a virtual and real world. Though, given the progress of society, and our continued integration with augmented-reality, this may require a Ph.D in cultural theory by the time Lil Caffeine Powered is wrought unto this world.

Just sayin’.

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It’s that time of the week again! Slightly past noon on a Friday. Deadline staring me in the eyes. When I have to knuckle down, and vomit up, Press Start! What’s Press Start, you ask? Well, aside from an excuse to make childish references to sexual positions and attractive clusters of polygons? It’s the column that drops every Friday, detailing the five things that caught my eye in the world of gaming this week. Standard rules apply: list ain’t in any particular order of importance or relevance, and may result in a declining moral standard for my generation. As always, I encourage you to drop your gaming happenings in the comments box.

#1: My Prayers Are Answered: Wii Sex Toys Arrive
Sex toys and the Wii seem like fucking peas and carrots. The Wiimote looks like a god damn phallus that you constantly wave around. But despite my patience and prayer, I have been kept waiting. I didn’t understand. Why did the iPod get a sex toy, and not the Wii? Why couldn’t I finally put a god damn Wiimote in my pants and get down? Why did the lord hate me? Well this week, god dammit, it happened: Wii-based sex toys.

There’s a small caveat: you don’t actually need a Wii to use these sex toys. But!, they use the Wiimote, so it sort of counts.

How does it work, Ian? I’ll fucking tell you!

The device is connected to an accessory port on the Wiimote, which then connects to a Blue-tooth enables PC. And then we party “using Mojowijo’s patent pending  Motion2Vibration  technology, the device is able to transform the varying motions of the control into appropriate vibration signals and send them to another selected device.”

So in other words, I turn my Wiimote, and it reacts to the other sex toy across the room, globe, internet, cosmos. It sounds a lot like mutual masturbation in the modern world. If you’re sequestered from your loved one, or uh, booty call, this allows you to manipulate their genitals holding something that looks like a torture rack device. Nothing screams “pleasure” like “I’m turning my crab-like device, can you feel the sensory feedback in your mush parts?!”

Modern love, yo. It’s glorious.

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#2: Be A Dickbag And Buy A $435 Mario Sweater
Oh to be rich! I would buy dope ass clothing like this all the time. You know, $435 for a sweater? Pshaw, ain’t no problem! I spent that shit on Microsoft Points last week just to cheese up my GamerScore with popcorn games! God damn I wish I was cool and rich and not covered in saltine crumbs and tears. To sleep, perchance to dream!

These sweaters are from the online store of Shigesato Itoi. You may know Itoi, the dude was the creator of Earthbound. The game being a seminal piece of Dork Masturbation for gamers of my age. You know, a quirky RPG with a sequel that never came out over here and shit. It’s like, a recipie for geek lore.

Well now the dude takes his game up a notch by offering these sweaters. Knowing myself, even if I got one of these, I’d do it a simple injustice. I can’t eat popcorn without wearing it, and if I’m eating some sort of sauce, it’s down my shirt. I ain’t a slob, I’m just clumsy. That’s what I tell myself. I’m a refined gentleman in the body of an oaf. God dammit!

If you’re rich, and you can pull off looking dope, I suggest you buy one of these. Take a picture, and send it to me. I’m going to use it as my Facebook profile pic.

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#3: Microsoft Executes Fanboy Rape, Raising Live Cost By $10
I was pretty stoked last week when Microsoft announced that they were going to improve the voice chat quality on Xbox Live. I mean, nothing says “Gaming Fun” like having a twelve year-old calling me a “Dick sucking idiot” while he schools my fat old ass in Modern Warfare 2. It does a ton for my various psychological problems. And with that in mind, what could be more fun, other than having it comes through in a much higher quality chat?

Nothing!

What I didn’t realize is that the rise in voice chat quality was going to be followed the next week by a fucking ten-dollar increase in Xbox Live. Now, listen. I know it’s a raise to the premium Gold service. And that you can get Silver for free. But let’s be honest about nothings. You need Gold to play online with people, and therein lies the rub. Ain’t no one going to downgrade to Silver over the price increase if they’re serious online gamers on the Xbox. Even my pathetic, talentless ass is addicted to multiplayer.

I’m feigning the obvious connection between voice chat quality and the price increase. What the obvious connection is, is that Microsoft knows it can ass-charge a lot of gamers, and god, making $10 off all of us is a ridiculous amount of cheddar. I lament, yet I acquiesce. I am a part of the problem, as usual. Some shit never changes.

I really love on Live!, so I’m wont to continue using it. I love the integration of it into the system’s UI, in stark contrast to that of the PSN. When I log onto PS3, I feel like I’m floating in an ethereal cloud of quasi-sleekness. Xbox Live? I feel like I’m warmly ensconced in a community of fellow unwashed perma-juveniles! They welcome me! So warmly!

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Welcome ya’ll to your den of nerd iniquity. A palace of horrors so wretched, you’re going to beg to have your mind-raped by a less absurd nerd. This is Press Start!, the gaming column of your nightmares. Every Friday I run down the top five things that caught my All Seeing Eye this week in the world of Blast Processing and Super-FX chips. The list is in no particular order, and it reflects nothing in the ways of ranking importance in the gaming community. That would necessitate a keen eye and analytical powers. I’m raw nerd stupidity, yo. Hit the comments box with your nerd highlights of the week.

#1: Nerd Organizes Legit Orgy Around PAX Convention
The gaming convention organized by the dudes from Penny Arcade is pretty righteous unto itself. A place where nerds can congregate. You know, sweat profusely, wear cosplay that shows folds and flaps of skin no other human being wants to see, and play some unreleased video games. I ain’t trying to sound disparaging, I would actually give a flank of skin to be able to fly out to Seattle and indulge in this creamy gaming goodness.

But I’m broke and Mom says at 27 I can’t get an allowance no moh’. Fuck.

So even with all this awesomeness, one dude has seen fit to kick the nerd depravity up a fucking notch. A chap even a bit more salacious than myself. He’s organizing a fucking orgy for nerds during the convention. Interest? Well, hit up his Craigslist advertisement and get in on the debauchery.

How fucking radical is this shit? I mean, seriously. After a long day of awesome Q&A Panels, video game playing, perhaps a nerd concert, what’s the best way to unwind? By gathering with a bunch of other like-minded individuals and filling a room with fluids and the stank of nerd balls and vaginas.

As perhaps predicted, the dude has already updated the Craigslist Ad with something along the lines of “Eh yo! Horny Dudes! There’s like a zillion of you, and unless we’re going to get into a wonderful chain 69 of dude on dude action, I gotta stop taking your replies and wait for some chicks to get in on this goodness.”

Please God, someone at least go to this for inquisitive means and get back to me. You don’t have to partake, you just must take notes. A casual observer.

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#2: Talented Dude Recreates Sonic Level In Gorgeous 2.5D Widescreen
Being a fan of Sonic the Hedgehog is tough. Like, real tough. With a solid decade of suckery under his belt, any glowing feelings I had for him have eroded. Like a dudebro’s chances of getting into that PAX Orgy. Dried up in withered in a puddle of tears. But videos like this bring me back to the hay-day of Sonicy goodness. A good chap by the name of BlobVanDam went out of his way to recreate Sonic & Knuckle’s Mushroom Hill Zone in glorious modern visuals.

I don’t know what sort of Gaming Voodoo or Black Geek Magic he employed to recreate the level, but it’s a fleeting glimpse into what every single failed Sonic game in the past painful ten years should have looked like. It’s side-scrolling bonery. Dear Sega, we just want to run really fucking fast collecting things as one of the greatest examples of X-TREME 1990’S culture. I want to fly furiously through a level of Sonic the Hedgehog and then read some Rob Liefeld X-Force.

Like the good ole days.

When I wasn’t getting rejected for nerd orgies.

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Yo, ya’ll! Welcome to Press Start! Home to insanity, caffeine, and poorly constructed lists numbering five. This is the location where I tell you the five things that caught my eye in the Gaming Geekosphere from the last week. The list is in no specific order, utterly subjective, and I hope you’ll hit me with your own happenings in the comments box.

Get some.

#1: Gaming Blitzkrieg Hits Gamescom
This week was Gamescom, the European gaming convention set in Cologne, Germany. I wish I could get really amped up over a ton of shit from the convention, but for the most part it was just a collection of new screens and details regarding games that I’m already sweating. Enough Fallout: New Vegas info to make my ass pucker, some Dead Space 2 news, even some shit about the white whale herself, Diablo III.

Aside from that, it didn’t have the megaton reveal of say, an E3. Or perhaps, you know, the most impressive thing for revelations these days: a cover story on Game Informer.

Still though, it’s worth bringing up, innit? According to Mr. Wiki, this son of a bitch is the biggest gaming convention in the world.

What dope shit from Gamescom got your juicy bits inflamed?

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#2: Oh Shit! A Portable Dreamcast?
What’s better than a Dreamcast? Yeah, a fucking Dreamcast. Home to a million little esoteric games that are close to my heart, perhaps none more than Phantasy Star Online. Why, how about a portable one? This effort in awesomeness is the lovechild of Techknott. I’m guessing that’s not his real name. But when you build portable Dreamcasts, I suppose you can name yourself whatever you want.

This ain’t the first endeavor he’s made at making a portable version of Sega’s finale console. In fact, its his third. Now, I ain’t seen any of his other ones, but I can vouch for how tight this one is. This son of a bitch has AV outputs, a VMU that actually works, a CD drive, and more.

God damn, I find all of that so impressive. I’m the sort of guy who gets flustered when looking at instructions for some $10 Ikea coffee table. The fact that our boy Techknott can pull this all together is impressive as fuck.

Well done, good sir.

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#3: Scare the Shit Out of Children With Bioshock Masks
If you want to be well on your way towards coming off as a child-diddling weirdo, then I suggest you pick up the Bioshock Gift Pack. Sold at Toys R Us of all places, the gift pack will bring you a Splicer Mask, and miniature figures of Agent Delta and a Little Sister. I know, right? What a…weird grouping of objects for a gift pack, no? I mean, they’re all sort of neat, but what exactly is the theme that ties them all together. Oh wait, Bioshock!

We can prattle about the gift pack, but let’s talk about the splicer mask. Can you imagine the human being who wants to wear that? I mean, it should be some sort of test that you take before working with children, and one of the questions is simply, “Do you want to wear this mask?” Depending on their answer, you’ll be able to ascertain whether or not they should work with children.

Hint!: If they say “Yes”, then they probably spend a good amount of time hiding in the wastebins behind a Kentucky Fried Chicken, and waiting for someone to pour garbage on them, an act which pushes them into the throes of ecstasy you and I can’t imagine.

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Yo! Welcome to Press Start! The column where I choose five things from the gaming world in the past week that have tickled my pink parts! I smash those sons a bitches into a list and present their mushed parts to you. As always, the list isn’t representitive of the top five biggest or most important stories, but rather an eclectic reflection of my demented brain stem. I encourage you to drop your delicious gaming morsels of the week in my gaping comments box.

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#1: Duke Nukem Rises From The Ashes of My Puberty?
The most ridiculous thing I came across this week is the rumor that Duke Nukem Forever may rise from the ashes like some sort of Phoenix. A phoenix featuring ridiculously-sized guns and chicks with impressive racks. After twelve years of development and one official cancellation last year, I was ready to give up on the Duke.

But then Gearbox Software stepped in. Maybe.

Earlier this week there was a raging rumor rampaging the webs stating that Gearbox Software had quietly stepped in and taken over the thought-dead title. The fact that the studio didn’t vociferously deny this shit lent credence to the rumor, and I got stoked. Super-stoked. Bonerized, even. Why? Gearbox ain’t no band of scrubs, yo! They’re the studio behind Borderlands. So fuck, if any studio can capture the ridiculousness of Duke and his Band of Bullets and Babes, it’s Gearbox.

Double-points to Jesus Christ Allah Lord Deity Person for apparating this news the same week as Sly Stallone’s Expendables dropping in the theaters. If there’s a movie that may capture the absurdity of the Duke, it may be this flick.

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