As I write this review, my copy of Shadows of the Damned resides in the dark recesses of my local Game store’s used drawer. Appropriately, it’s been banished to its very own version of hell, not for its flaws, or for a lack of quality, simply because that was always its destiny: what it was designed for.

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Goodness gracious, I am not worthy. Here’s two E3 trailers for Mass Effect 3, and they have me positively losing my cool. There’s a ‘found footage’ one of the Reapers arriving, and another one that’s straight-up gameplay porn.

Hit the jump for the trailers.

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NeoGaf user Lakitu found Mass Effect 3 artwork on the EA store, and the poor box cover was singed deep down into its soul with a phrase that makes me want to vomit. “Better with Kinect Sensor.”

No!

No, no, no!

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Mass Effect 2 was recently patched for the PlayStation 3, and said patch may have tipped BioWare’s upcoming DLC hand. Fuck yes! Want to know more? Hit the jump where the trophy descriptions have some mild spoilers. I’m spanking.

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One of my favorite parts of the Dead Space series is upgrading my suits. There’s something about the clinking and clacking of armor coming together that milks the techno-g spot. Every time that gorgeous salt and pepper bastard Clarke gets an upgrade, I get a little dribbly

Artist machine56 understands this, and designed a hoodie based around Clarke’s advanced suit. Now it isn’t real yet, but Jesus Fucking Christ I would pay good money to garb myself in it.

Hit the jump for the pure swank.

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OH SHIT, I’m coasting on some caffeine. Cracked open Dead Space 2 yesterday. Played it for about…an hour and a half? Thoughts: it’s fucking radical. Like, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles radical. Tubular, even. Initial fears over Isaac Clarke having a prominent speaking role? Dismissed. Cast aside. Having him play a larger role is fantastic, and he’s also apparently a sexy lad. Yeah, I don’t know why I’m mentioning that. Ripping this shit off the tip of consciousness. A consciousness polished and aimed with a caffeinated machine gun spray.

MY FAVORITE PART SO FAR?
The setting. As much as I liked the whole Event Horizon-Alien-Whatever tip of the original, I love the Sprawl more. Why? ‘Cause if you ain’t in the know, son, it’s a cyberpunk homage. There’s no way the name the Sprawl isn’t a head nod to William Gibson’s Neuromancer. The setting itself reflects this homage, the whole thing looking like a cyberpunk orgasm that channels Gibson and Blade Runner and other bonery.

GAMEPLAY?
Like the original, but adrenaline charged. A lot more enemies coming at you at once, and Jesus they seem to be running a lot faster. Maybe it’s because I played it after a long day, but I was (enjoying) having a harder time corralling all of the little demons charging me.

HAVE YOU PLAYED IT?
I’m only on the third chapter, but I’d be interested to hear other people’s thoughts-in-progress.

Electronic Arts is going with a pretty amusing “Your Mom Hates This!” ad campaign for Dead Space 2. They show the game to the average Mom. Then they catch the Moms on camera as they shit their pants, and run back to their lives of fupas and super-processed hair. I dig it.

What do I dig more? Dino Ignacio’s Mom. Ignacio is the user interface designer for Dead Space 2, and he decided to show his Mom clips of the game. Is she  appalled? Hardly. She chuckles as she watches poor Isaac Clarke get dismembered and die a zillion horrible deaths. Outstanding.

Reminds me of my Mom, after spending twenty years in a house with my brother and myself.

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The culturalpocalypse is coming. Have you heard of the Madden Curse? If you’re one of the three people who hasn’t, it goes like this. If you’re put on the cover of Madden – the preferred video game of millions and millions of people – you’re fucked. Every single person who adorns the cover generally suffers malaise and awfulness that season. It’s become such a part of my generation’s collective conscious that the inevitable has happened:

EA is looking to exploit it.

In the form of a movie.

The project is being spearheaded by EA Entertainment VP Pat O’Brien, and the storyline seems simply riveting. This wonderful high-concept certain-abortion would “follow a former Madden video game champion who is forced out of retirement just as he finds himself on the corner of the game’s cover.” Whatever will he do then! It’s the sort of insane scenario that Max Barry riffs on in his novel Syrup, which if you haven’t checked it, you should. Shameless whoring of a favorite book of mine. Get some.

The culturalpocalypse? It’s sort of fun.

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.

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#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.

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#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.

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#: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”.

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So, there was the announcement of a teaser for BioWare’s next big game at the Spike VGA. Then there was a teaser trailer for the teaser trailer released. And now? Now some rumor mongering may have officially just blown the entire thing wide the fuck open. Words are that the next big game by BioWare may be a Mass Effect spin-off in the vein of Call of Duty.

Kotaku:

The BioWare project teased earlier today by Spike TV’s Video Game Awards is not an early look at Mass Effect 3, according to a development source, but the multiplayer-focused Mass Effect spin-off currently in the works at BioWare Montreal. That Mass Effect game is not a massively multiplayer online version of BioWare’s sci-fi RPG series, but a game that’s designed to appeal more to the Call of Duty market, according to that source.

We’re told to expect player progression in the vein of Activision’s wildly popular online shooter along with some sort of single-player component that does not feature Mass Effect’s Commander Shepard in a leading role.

I’m torn. Any sort of Mass Effect is good Mass Effect in my book. In addition, I love me some Call of Duty. Combine that with the financial sense it makes to go this direction in a spin-off, and I guess I can’t complain.

But! Ha, I got you, there’s a but!

I don’t know man. I guess if there were other Mass Effect games, I’d prefer them to be closer to the feel of the series. I mean, I’m a fucking whore for BioWare, and the franchise, so I know I’ll pick it up no matter what. But I feel a reluctance at seeing them deviate too far from the space-faring epic that I love so much.

Who knows.

Maybe it’s the most ballin’, illin’ shit ever. Maybe it’s not even true.

Thoughts? Impressions? Sage-like advice? Hit the comments box.