A new 2D Sonic game in HD coming in 2010. Are you excited? Don’t be a dullard!

Sonic games have blown hard for the last ten years, the original Sonic Adventure for the Dreamcast being the last one I gave a fuck about. Sonic Unleashed was supposed to be super-tight, but then somehow ended up featuring night levels where you galloped about as some stupid fucking Werehog. No, I’m not making that up.

So I’ve thrown in my hat with this franchise. It’s left me saddened as my TOTALLY EXTREME BLAST-PROCESSING friend has broken my heart over and over. This has the potential to be ballin’, but I’d bet Yuji Naka’s testicles it’s going to let us down.

OMFG, FFXIII is Japanese dated, right? Well guess what, “International Gamers”, Square Enix boss Yoichi Wada has a release date for you:

Via Destructoid:

“In the past, it’s taken a year or half a year to release our games abroad, but this time we are aiming for an international release this Spring”

Uhh…Spring? I wasn’t happy with this, so I raised my hand.

Uh, you’re like, fucking around, right? Spring? Like, sometime between March 20 and like uh…June something? Fuck, my elementary school education is lost in a pile of pills and caffeine. Seriously though, when?

And he responded,

Sometime in Spring. It may even be Australian spring. How do you like me now, addicted gamer bitch?

He then flipped me off, grabbed his crotch, and left the stage.

Spring. Well fuck. I’m starting graduate school in January, so if I may make a suggestion: Either during Spring Break in March, or at the beginning of May.

One of the reasons I’ve preferred 360 this generation over my PS3 is because the PSN sucks rotten balls. Sweaty, post-jog balls. The 360 has offered an integrated experience. I really feel like I’m logging into a community. Whereas with PS3, you’re floating in some decentralized, sleek universe. It’s gorgeous, but I just feel like I’m not within some sort of beautiful hall of nerdy sweaty douchebags like myself. I enjoy how 360’s online component is centralized, and it’s not a bunch of companies doing their own thing.

Some Sony Big Wig Guy Importantatron dude realizes the same thing:

Via Destructoid:

I think we were late to offer the platform-level support, to make the online functionality work at that level,” spills Yoshida. “We made the prior decision that you do not introduce the common centralized network names into every experience, so publishers made their own. That was fine at the start, but as more and more games have online functionality you need a unified approach.

Well, it’s always refreshing to see a company admit a mistake. The next part is fixing it! Because between Blu Ray, Sony not screwing you over proprietary hard drives like Microsoft, and gorgeous exclusives like Uncharted and God of War and Ratchet and Clank, even my deep 360 fanboy-ism is beginning to quiver. All it’s going to take is Mass Effect going multi-console and a viable online community for me to jump ships. Ian Drinkwater, he’s a fickle beast.

There’s a moment in the ending to Final Fantasy VII where Cloud hefts Tifa and her enormous bosoms on top of a cliff. They gently bounce up and down and settle for a moment. I was fourteen at the time. Without exaggeration, my cockhead almost exploded. I was in love. Well, apparently I’m not alone:

Via Destructoid:

In Japan, Konami conducted a lifestyle survey of 500 men in their twenties, just releasing the results late last month.   About 40 percent of these men said that they thought in-game love is something worth seeking out. About 20 percent of those polled actually want love with a videogame character.

Alright, actually, these dudes are actually crazier than me. Listen, I have an excuse. In 1997 I was fourteen years old. The hormones rushing through my body had me….thinking the same inappropriate thoughts that I do now about video game females. Shit. Well, yeah, but I’ve never actually thought that it was “something worth seeking out”. Holy shit, what does that even mean? Are these dudes trying to conjure up Sheva from Resident Evil 5 through some sort of mechanism that drags avatars into the real world? You know, like in All Tomorrow’s Parties?

See, and people shit on American television being a bad influence! Japan has all that god damn whacky anime, and Gozilla and tentacle porn! And now these poor warped young dudes then think pursuing love with a fictional character is worth the effort.

Fucking weirdos.

(Call me if you figure it out.)

Normally having a gorgeous girlfriend is a benefit unto itself. However, apparently I’m going to have to guilt her into winning me…uh, I mean, “us” a sweet HD gaming set-up. Peep this shit:

Via Kotaku:

If you think you’re a dead ringer for the witch, you need to submit your pictures by Sept. 30. The best looking of the lot will then be posted on Maxim.com for fans to vote on from Oct. 1 to Oct. 23.

The final winner will be selected by Maxim and game developer Platinum Games, awarding the lucky faux Bayonetta an Xbox 360, a 50 inch Panasonic TC-P50X1 HDTV Plasma TV and an Xbox 360 version of the game.

She already has the cute Bayonetta glasses, and her hair is blonde but that’s why the good lord invented Loreal or whatever that hair-dyeing shit is called.

I’m just kidding of course. She has too much class to do this. Which can mean only one thing. My hairy nerd-ass, smacking of computer chair stink and pudginess in leather.

As Scar says in the Lion King, Be PREPARRRRRED.

Square is “considering” DLC for Final Fantasy XIII. This company continually fucking confuses me. No, like seriously. The company is comfortable spinning their franchises off into cell phone games, toilet paper, action figures, thirteen Final Fantasy VII off-shoot games. They come off like straight-up shameless money whores. It seems so obvious. But then they do things like continue to not remake Final Fantasy VII, and now this. Dudes say they’re like, you know, mulling over the decision:

Via Destructoid:

“We are exploring the option of downloadable content, perhaps adding new areas, items or enemies, but these would not be expansions to the story, only the gameplay,” he explains. “The entire story of FFXIII will be on the disc.”

Guys. Fucking come on. Do you have any idea HOW MUCH MONEY you could make off of DLC? You know that people like me follow your releases with raging boners. You know you’ve sold me fifteen Cloud action figures. How many fucking Final Fantasy VII/VIII/X wallscrolls have I bought? We’ll buy any expansions you release. I’ll pay $5 for a fucking lightsaber for my 360 avatar. Do you have any idea how much I’d pay for a fucking Buster Sword?!?!

It’s amazing how fucking out of touch Square has become. Every company around shills DLC. It’s easy money. It’s been common hat for years now. And of course, here’s Square. Lagging behind. Contemplating shit that should be obvious and without statement at this point.

I can’t even tell you how hard I’d lose my mind for a $5 FFXIII DLC that would unlock a bunch of new side-quests and some new omega weapons. And I know people who hold my same beliefs are legion. Keep mulling it around guys, it’s only the most obvious fucking decision ever.

I have found myself continuously confused while playing Batman: Arkham Asylum. It had to do with that annoying twat Harley Quinn. I know that there’s a lot of dudegeeks out there who absolutely fawn over Joker’s spermbank. But I don’t get it. Won’t get it. Refuse to try. Normally Quinn is   just an annoying rascally bitch. But in Arkham Asylum, she enters a whole new world of suck.You see, in Arkham she’s an annoying bitch who looks like she’s going to an Insane Clown Posse concert. No, seriously:

Quinn’s new outfit for Arkham must have been redesigned by a fucking Juggalo. Holy shit. I just know dorks are beating off at her “totally hawt” cleavage “and super sploogey” nurse outfit.

Thankfully, the lords at Eidos gave us something unexpected. They made Poison Ivy gorgeous. Somehow, they did it. Even while she’s all like, chlorophyll infested and green and shit. It’s been a good year for green-skinned babes. First there was that weird green chick that Captain Kirk was boning in Star Trek, and now Poison Ivy. Behold! Viva la Green Babes.

File this under: Jealousy inspired rage.

It’s commonly known throughout intellectual circles that Spin Magazine is a pile of slop churned onto former trees. It’s for emo kids with swoopy haircuts and thick glasses and tight pants to find the newest esoteric band to worship. Doubly ironic of course because these same bands are being churned through a corporate magazine. Anyways, that’s not what I want to talk about. Through some weird circumstances, my Dad began receiving Spin after his subscription to something ran out. And so whenever I’m trying to blast out a turd, I pick it up and flip through.

That’s when I found this retarded review of Batman: Arkham Asylum today. I must preface my forthcoming rage with this – I can’t believe this douchebag, Dan Ackerman, gets to play video games ahead of time and get paid for it. It’s a nerdy rage that stems from the fact that I’m an unemployed poor quasi-academic who would kill someone to play review copies of games for free, while this hack gets to do it.

Let’s look at Dan’s brilliant review describing why Batman video games have failed:

Most comic book tales follow the ebb and flow of traditional fiction narrative

Ah, already brilliant Spin pretension. How about you write like a human being in a pop magazine, please. This isn’t the New Yorker. (Or my Derrida Superman post, shut the fuck up.)

…with character driven story arcs that build to a climax, punctuated by superhero throwdowns.

Really? Character driven story arcs? Most slop out there is generally just operating as a means to get to that superfight. Pick up a comic book, bro. As far as “Traditional fiction narrative”, what the fuck do you mean? Do you feel like defining traditional? And what venue of fiction? Would you argue that Comic Book Fiction is a beast unto itself? Surely it has tropes and consistent constructions (oh shit I’m going all Ackerman in my prose) that deviate from the standards of the usual Grisham novel.

In contrast, video game storytelling generally serves as a mere background for setting up the basic mode of play

An obvious statement. The line Dan seems to be drawing is that Batman games have failed because they haven’t focused on character development and “Traditional fiction narrative”. What I’d like to posit is that they could have been fulfilling if they hadn’t been half-cooked pieces of shit thrown out there to agree with Bat Movie X. Most of the time.

Also, I’m not really sure if I agree with Dan. Most video game story lines serve as the basic mode of play? Really? Does Half-Life 2’s storyline determine that it’s a first person shooter? Not so much. As well, it seems to imply that video games are typically unsuited for a strong traditional narrative. Or maybe I’m reading it wrong. Is he suggesting that the medium (video games) has been misused? Or that it is simply ill-fitting?

I’m going to give Dan the benefit of the doubt, and assume he just means that they’ve been misused. Even still, Arkham Asylum isn’t groundbreaking in that regard. Maybe he means groundbreaking for a Batman game. Or maybe nothing at all, he never uses that work.

The entire review is opaque though. I know that there are word limits, and you have to squeeze as much as you can into as little as space. And perhaps that’s my problem with this article – you need to get the fuck over yourself, dude. Don’t try and argue a thesis for the differentiation between the “traditional fiction narrative” and the narratives used in video games in some shitty three-hundred word review. And then I begin to wonder how much of the game the guy has played:

After Dan discusses the aspects similar to God of War, he goes on to say:

But you’ll need ample brainpower to follow a suspect’s DNA trail or find the many hidden clues

Really? Ample brainpower? What an ugly sentence for starters. And then, how much of the game did you play, dude? There’s hyper-exposition by the character Batman in the game that constantly keeps the gamer on his path. If anything, from what I’ve played, the game seems surprisingly dumb and linear. Not to say it isn’t fun, but brainpower? I mean, surely with your phrases like “traditional fictional narrative” and “reconciles these two formats’ disparate aesthetics”, you must have excelled. Seriously. What a bunch of pretentious garbage.

I know that at Spin the writers seem to fashion themselves as cool hunters and reject anything that doesn’t sound like a shitty thesis paper for any sort of article, but it just seems absurd. A half-baked review that is more interested with textual wankage than actually serving a good review. Listen, the mouthbreathing assfucks who are reading the magazine in their Extra Small t-shirts and their black jeans that cut off circulation are two things. Fucking dumb, and hyper impressionable. Not only are they going to not understand your crap, but they’re going to start thinking this kind of awful prose is acceptable.

And oh yeah, you have that job and I don’t.

I’m playing through Arkham Asylum like any diehard Batman fanboy should be right now. It’s a pretty tight, but I’ll save my impressions for the review I’m working on over for Mishka Bloglin. What I wanted to comment on though, is how fucking jacked Commissioner Gordon looks in the game. No, seriously. The dude looks like a sixty year-old pile of muscles. Just stare at the dude. There isn’t a doorway on Earth that the guy could fit through. He looks like he’s training with Brock Lesnar and eating whole cows for dinner.

What the fuck is going on here?

It’s not confusing for any egghead who knows the engine the game is running on. Eidos is using the Unreal Engine 3. You may recognize it as the engine that brought the world the anatomical impossibility that is Marcus Fenix and the rest of the Gears of Wars cast. The engine is renown for building the enormous, Vin Diesel, HGH-popping body type; and then using it as the default shape of any male in the game.

I just didn’t think it would be used to craft Jim Gordon into the dude who not only runs the police force for Gotham, but probably also can fuck your mother while carrying her up a flight of stairs.

Bravo, Unreal Engine 3!

File this under: What the fuck?

So, apparently new Mass Effect DLC came out today. It’s called Pinnacle Station. Did you know? Yeah, me either. The new Mass Effect DLC was released with little to no fanfare. This is coming off the heels of the details of said DLC being leaked by the Swiss XBOX Live site. It seems to me like there was some sort of “Fucked, the god damn Swiss leaked it? Better shovel that shit out there!”

Want some details about the DLC? Since, like me, you had no idea this shit existed until either yesterday or today? Sure, here you go:

Test the limits of your combat prowess aboard a remote, top-secret Alliance space station. Do you have what it takes to hold the top spot amongst the best of the best? This module includes a new land-able space station, 13 exciting combat scenarios, and approximately 2-3 hours of game play

There you go. Sounds pretty lame, doesn’t it? Also, it sounds pretty much like a cheap rip-off of Fallout 3‘s Operation: Anchorage DLC. Wait, you go into a simulation, tear shit up for a bit, and then get some new gear? Yeah, Bethesda did that back in February.

It seems pretty fitting that this new, uncared about DLC would mimic Fallout 3’s. Why, you ask? Well, since Fallout 3 has been released, it’s done DLC like a pimp master. While Bioware has dropped the ball continuously. Since November of 2008, Bethesda has churned out five excellent DLCs. With over a year’s extra time in the market place, Mass Effect has been capable of churning out two bullshit, bootleg abortions. Pretty depressing.

I am a huge Mass Effect fan. It’s a binky of mine, and despite all my bitching, I’ve already downloaded this piece of crap. It’s depressing to see Bioware drop the ball of the DLC, especially since we were promised rich worlds and shit to explore after the release, and all we’ve gotten is a couple of thrown together pieces of mush. Hopefully this is just a sign that Bioware has turned its attention fully to Mass Effect 2, which, when I think about it, arouses a semi-erection in my pants.

Until, have some slop, and imagine a world where Bioware learns some lessons from Bethesda when it comes to DLC.