I know, I know. You think XBL, you think slurs and adolescence. I get it. But still — imagine being the motherfucker who conceived and implemented the gaming juggernaut online service bonanza (at least last generation)? Boyd Multerer is that dude. And he’s outtie-5000 from Microsoft.

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Suicide is a big problem at product plants around the world. Our shiny iPhones get produced for us, commodified, and we seldom stop to contemplate the shiznit that goes into making them! Alas. Things are getting serious at a Microsoft plant, with mass threats of suicide.

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When it was announced that PS3 was getting cloud storage for saved games, I was all, ‘that’s dope, but not worth paying for.’ Well now it’s coming to XBL, and the good news is this: I’m already paying for it. Maybe like a dummy, but it’s all gravy! Cloud-based saved games was just one part of an assload of new features for XBL, including ‘Beacons.’

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Someone call the fucking Thought Police, cause Kinect is staring at you, reporting you to Big Brother. Seriously, how fucking creepy is this?

Kotaku:

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.

How Orwellian is this shit? This sounds amazingly like the point in 1984 when everyone has to go through their morning exercise routines while the television prompter watched. Except now, they’ve merely tricked you into playing Dance Central Titty And Dong Shake Time. Yessir. It’s the same deal. They’re spying on you. But they wised up, and they’re not as obvious about it as they were in Orwell’s novel. They wised up, and drizzled their eerie spying in glitter and pom-poms!

Creepy shit! I mean, instead of being forced into this creepy Big Brother environment, we’re instead giving the keys to our souls willingly to giant corporations and marketing entities. But watch the fuck out next time you’re boning your hand in front of your Kinect! Kinect sees all. Kinect knows all. Kinect is selling your attributes to the highest bidder, so they can stream advertisements subliminally into your skull while you sleep at night. Laugh all you want, it’s fucking happening!

Well, snap! I figured that when EA gobbled up BioWare, they’d be porting a cash cow like the Mass Effect series onto multiple consoles. But! But then Mass Effect 2 came and went on the 360 and nothin’ happened. Well, such sentiments were portentous, just took a bit longer than I expected. January, 2011, Mass Effect 2 comes to the fuggin’ Playstation 3.

Kotaku:

During the EA press conference at GamesCom in Cologne, Germany, BioWare’s Dr. Ray revealed that the second game in the Mass Effect series would hit the PlayStation 3 in January.

Is there anything else to say? It’s Mass Effect, and it’s coming to the PlayStation 3. Let’s hear us some cheers, PlayStation 3 owners!

UPDATE: The official press release for the PS3 edition includes the line: “The PlayStation 3 edition will include the full Mass Effect 2 game and hours of bonus content.” We’ve asked an EA spokesperson for clarification about whether that refers to new gameplay sequences or what.

Good news for all my scrub friends who only own a PS3. However, this shit could be bad fucking news for my wallet, if the PS3-port comes with anything resembling new content. Son of a fucking bitch! If there’s even a single new scenario, my fanboy ass is going to have to double-dip. Which means, they know that there are people like me out there, and it will in fact include marginal new content to rope me in.

Fuck. Hit the jump for the Playstation 3 teaser.

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[pixelation | weekly gaming & life column every wednesday or uh thursday]

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Evan King never stood a chance, that poor son of a bitch. The tragic part was as he lay vaporized in a pile of his own mush-guts, was that it was all for nothing. I stood over him, rummaging through his belongings looking for his motherfucking house key.

Fuggin’ nothing. Inconsequential bullshit to the point where I don’t even remember what was in those shitty wasteland pants. But it wasn’t his fucking house key, that’s for sure.

One self-particlized stupid son of a bitch, a town cowering in fear, and my karmic meter droppin’ like woah.

Shit had gone downhill quickly.

Let me fill you in.

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Ah, Dude Huge. A man of my own heart. Not only is he the guy behind the HGH-Super-Boner-Testosterone-Fest that is the Gears of War franchise, but he’s also involved with Bullestorm, which is shaping up to be my most retardedly anticipated game of 2011.

How can this dude get any cooler? He can sound like he writes for Omega Level, and use masturbation metaphors to describe gameplay mechanics:

via kotaku:

“I’ll always be a staunch and loyal supporter of everything we do, but at the same time, as a creative, I always know we can do better,” Bleszinski said in the Official Xbox Magazine. “That’s actually one of my criticisms of Gears 2. I think we got a little too hung up on the scripted sequence, and that was always the joke: You don’t want the game to be masturbating…”

You don’t want the game to be…masturbating?

“… There’s a couple of instances where you’re fighting a bunch of guys and suddenly the chopper comes along and finishes them off and you’re like: ‘Fuck! I wanted to finish them off. You just finished the game for me.’ Or certain things with the truck where you can just hang out and let the game play itself without any fail conditions. There’s definitely a note to be taken from that to keep in mind moving forward.”

Preach on, playah! I know exactly what he means, too. There’s nothing worse than taking on some insurmountable boss, and having it cleaned up for you by some scripted sequence. There’s a thin line between epic action sequence, and the game feeling like a ride at Disney, where you have very little input. The difference between OMFG, Epic!, and Yawn, This Is Thunder Mountain.

[click image for full size]

The cover for this month’s Game Informer is out, and it proves one thing: chicks can be jacked freaks of nature too! Go post-apocalyptic equality! I’ve made my feelings on the Unreal Engine abundantly clear.

Multiple times. But I love it.

I can’t wait for Gears of War 3. It’s going to make my balls hurt with testosterone, and apparently estrogen fury.

For years, Xbox fanboys have clung to Bungie. The studio has severed as a legit binkie for all sorts of choads and dickwads to use in their PS3 vs 360 argument. Now all that shit is going to change. With Bungie leaving Microsoft and signing a deal with Activision, the motherfuckers who made fat dudes and dorks ejaculate onto their Halo 3 Ridiculous Edition Spartan Helmet are going multiplatform. You can almost hear the screams of the legions of unwashed masses.

So how about Sony, who is obviously going to let Bungie slither into their disc tray with a grand smile. How are those fuckers feeling? Fucking fantastic:

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Yo! EA Games and Visceral, I’m a big fan of Dead Space. Huge fan. One of my favorite games of the generation. So feel free to send me shit like this:

via destructoid:

Reader Brian Hackney gets some weird stuff in his mail. He just shot over to us some strange Dead Space 2 material that showed up in his real-life inbox the other day. The documents include notes from a doctor who seems to be taking care of someone who is undergoing transformation into a Necromorph, a Rorschach test and an envelope with a stain on it that resembles the silhouette of a man.

Sounds pretty fucking rad and creepy. The day I begin receiving mysterious viral packages from gaming companies is the day I’ll consider myself a success. Until then, feel free to mail me your video game accessories and pictures of Christina Hendricks.