Ah, Geohot. Fuck you, kid. You thought you were so ballin’ cracking the PS3 and giving out its root key. So confident you put up a painful YouTube diss track talking shit about Sony. Clearly you’re now feeling the heat that I predicted. The law, and more importantly, the robot ninjas are on your tail. And you’ve fled, fled to South America.

Read the rest of this entry »

Man, Princess Peach is getting fucking hefty these days. She’s always cooped up in some fucking dungeon. Stuck in a cell with nothing to do but wait for the Koopa family to run the train on her and then go fight that fucking persistent plumber. No shit she’s going to eat her feelings.

This is Press Start! A lightning bolt of stupidity directly into your thinking-pipes, your winding brain machinery. In this column I give a rundown of five things that caught my attention in the world of gaming this week. The list is half-baked, poorly-constructed, and subject to my whimsy. Don’t see something you dug? Good, hit the comments box. Let us have some constructive dialogue.

—-

#1: Kinect Hack Creates A Superman VR Simulator.
It has to be at least two fucking weeks since I mentioned a Kinect hack. Two weeks. In the span of the video game universe, that’s practically an eternity. No doubt there’s a plethora of content out there, but nothing has been catching my eye. Until this. A good collection of dudes over at the University of Amsterdam got together and hacked the shit out of Kinect to produce a Superman VR simulator. No doubt they were getting lit in their Fortress of Solitude on some of the goods those Dutch have appropriately liberated and came up with the concept.

This thing doesn’t just come off as Oh Hey Neat Idea!, it actually seems fun to play. With a solid Super Fistpump, you take to the skies. And depending on which side of the VR goggles you tap, you either activate your Frost Breath or Heat Vision.

I know that I’m totally dorking out on my love for this shit. Admitted. Guilty. Throw some spandex on me and send me into combat. However, I can’t be as lame as PS3 hacker Geohot. The same dude who let the world see the PS3 rootkey spent this week conjuring up a white boy diss track aimed at Sony. It’s all fun and games until you’re sodomized by the katana of Sony’s robot ninjas, duder.

—-

#2: Former Director of GTA Planning Game Based On Iranian Revolution.
Navid Khonsari is a man who knows a thing or two about generating  controversy  through video game narrative. Motherfucker was the director of GTA III, Vice City, and San Andreas. So yeah, the guy has caught some heat in his day. Say what you will about the actual content of the games, the dude has weathered the storm, and persisted in telling his tales. Even with that in mind, I have to ruminate on the thunderously large set of testicles he has for attempting his next game. Khonsari wants to make a game about the Iranian Revolution of 1979, and the hostage crisis that surrounded.

Like I said, brass balls.

Khonsari spoke with Joystiq, and elaborated on his vision:

Khonsari described  1979 as a “social political game” that, in addition to open-world, sandbox environments, could feature “strategy elements with the use of AI combatants.” Once in Iran, additional player-controlled characters would be introduced, “allowing you the ability to play a number of different roles,” he added of the game’s lofty design goals. And he wasn’t finished: “The multiplayer aspect is something I am really excited about, but is still in the works.”

If it was executed well, it could be a concentration of video game rock. If there was a seriousness to it that concentrated on using the facets of gaming to execute framework for telling a unique spin on the tale, it could be something special. Or, it could be the usual hyperviolence nonsense that we got from GTA III. Call me an optimist.

Read the rest of this entry »