Welcome to Press Start! Pow! Holy fuck. What’s going on. This is the column where we, the interwebs collective, discuss the happenings in the gaming world this week. Presented as a sprawling, unedited fart licking Top 5 list, I encourage everyone to point out the sort of occurrences that slipped my mind. My list does not reflect importance!, only that which caught my bleary eyes.

Boom!

—-

#1: Diablo 3 Has A Release Date. Kinda
My (Dark) Lord, it looks like Diablo 3 is finally going to splash across my welcoming teats. It’ll be doing so in the balmy summer air, too. In some sort of Corporate Stock Investor teleconference call, the Head Minions at Blizzard divulged that they expect the son of a bitch to drop in Q2. Using my crack skills (of reading the rest of the article), I was able to determine that this means it’ll arrive by June 31. The year of the Mayan Oblivion Event.

Aside: WoW has lost another 100,000 subscribers, but their base is still insanely swollen.

Such glorious news! gets me bouncing in my fart-drilled computer chair. This summer is going to be fanboy gloryhood. All them comic book movies with the strong-muscle men simians and their objectified female counterparts dancing across the screen, and then some infinite-loop dungeon grinding to come home to. Just playing man!, the air wafting through the open windows and greeting my neatly shorned testicles, rip and reddened for my Dark Master.

—-

#2: Skyrim Sizzle Reel Shows All That Could Be
Skyrim! Speaking of addictions that leave me covered in bread crumbs, open-crotched and gleefully staring at a television screen. Fuck, there’s a lot of those addictions in my life. But I suppose that’s neither here nor there. Skyrim’s executive Producer Todd Howard took to the stage at DICE this week and dropped a video guaranteed to send those of us who spent way too many hours laughing Arrow to the Knee jokes into a euphoria.

Once The Game Of Last Year was wrapped, the worker bees at Bethesda were given a task. Spend a week with Skyrim, and do anything you want to it. Add anything your little heart desires, tweak anything including ogre nipples. Yeah!, yeah!, yeah! The results fantastic. Dragon mounts, man. I would give anything for them. How about seasonal foliage? Also astounding. Kill cams for arrow shots? On and on and on. Check out the video and silently pray to Diablo that some of these ideas are implemented in future DLC.

Because it insisted on breaking fucking tables, see it here. Jump to 21:25.

—-

#3: Tim Schafer Wins At The Internet
Schafer’s always been a god amongst gamers. Churning out esoteric hits that have become Cults unto themselves throughout the aging process. Monkey Island. Grim Fandango. Psychonauts. Now the dude and his studio Double Fine have straight-up outdone themselves. Earlier this week they took to Kickstarter to ask fans to help fund an old school point-and-click adventure. He asked the gaming world politely. They responded by destroying Kickstarter records and laying waste to any accusations that Schafer’s following had wilted in the past few years.

They’ve raked in over $1,000,000 in donations in one day. Obliterating the number of first-day donors and money pledged. Double Pow!, take that one off the tits. Tremendous dedication, and a testament to the potential of the internet. I say internet since you know, he’s famous as fuck. No one seems to be funding my Horse Skull Body Armor kit I’m trying to build out of solid gold. I’m even offering you fuckers free jousting lessons if you donate $500 and still no bites. Fucking recession man, stomping the dreams of the Everyman.

Seriously though: this is rad as Hell.

(more…)

This is Press Start!, the only weekly column guaranteed to feature my dumb ass sprawling on, and on, and on about the past seven days in gaming. I mash the sumbitch together in a chintzy Top 5 list, and then solicit you to share everything I missed. It’s a square deal, man. Or woman. People! Humans! Sentient electronics. Everything-one-stuff is welcome. Let’s party.

—–

#1: Microsoft Getting Rid of Their Virtual Currency. Fuck You, Gates!
Intellectually, I know that Bill Gates doesn’t run Microsoft anymore. He’s too busy (obviously) building his space colony on Mars. There him and the rest of the Illuminati will control our destiny before culling the majority of us and using the rest of us as feed-stock and slave labor. However it still feels good to kick him in the proverbial jimmy for every Microsoft ill. So fuck you, Bill Gates! Fuck you for Microsoft points. Thank God they’re going to be phased out. Forcing our asses to buy $5 in space points every time we want to snag a $1 equivalent avatar item – shut up, I need my Mass Effect gear – was wallet banging and I didn’t appreciate it. No sir. So while it may seem a bit trifling of an issue to some, I did a genuine fist-pump when they announced this.

Then I remembered I’m in line to till the Plutonium fields on Mars in twenty years once Billy and the New World Order unleash their master eugenics plan. What can you do, eh?

—–

#2: Resident Evil 6 To Feature Man-On-Man Plowing; Zombies
Technically this shit was announced last week, but I was busy blathering about the Super FX Chip. Capcom has announced that Resident Evil 6 is dropping this year, and it’s going to feature the mother of all team-ups. Leon Kennedy and Chris Redfield! Cyeah, boi! I’m really desperately hoping that they flood this installment of the game with an unprecedented amount of homoerotic posturing. We’re talking way, way more than the Fast and the Furious franchise. We’re talking Rocky III levels.

In-between stern Bro Looks and standing arm-locks, Leon and Chris get each other’s back and shoot a lot of death out of their metallic phalluses. (Yes I know they’re not going to be co-op partners, but maybe they’ll meet in Act 5 and provide my dreams with solidity.) In addition to my hope there’s a pretty fucking awesome trailer, and some co-op details.

My body is ready.

—-

#3: Blizzard Has Week of Failure, My Fanboy Ass Is Lost
Blizzard. Blizzard owns a good amount of the children in my testicles. They are consistently spilled over their products, splashing over keyboard keys and packaging alike. Or should I say were consistently. These days shit is rough!, rough man. All I want more than anything is to open my chasm to the glory of El Diablo Trey, which in French translates to Diablo III Wonder-Time. Last week it was announced that they were gutting the fuck out of Diablo III’s core systems. Alright, whatever. Maybe that means they’re simplifying it. Then this week with the subtlety of a jimmy-thwack the news dropped that the game’s senior producer quit.

I am Caffeine Powered’s concern for this game. I give him agita and make him more deeply tongue-kiss his Sarah Kerrigan plushie while dreaming of better days. As well, not that I would attend but the company isn’t even holding a Blizzcon. Which translates to “we don’t have shit to show you, fanboys and fangirls. Dig deeper into your bunker and pray for us.”

(more…)

If there’s one thing I was certain about when I was a young kid gaming it up back in the day it was this: that advertisers were obviously pretty smart people who had my best intentions in mind. They saw me, they knew it. I had these guys and gals over at Marketing Place 101 to thank for my awareness of all the latest and greatest in the 16-bit era. It was a pretty simple relationship. Through various devices they’d transmit the objects I absolutely needed to have. Commercials with lots of yelling? Fuck yeah! Magazine advertisements with convincing arguments. Why yes, Atari Jaguar. Yes. 16 x 4 does indeed equal 64. You win, you win the round. I’d proceed to roll around on the floor tear-soaked and tell my parents I couldn’t possibly, at all, hope to ever, ever, be a real gamer if I wasn’t blast-processing on my Sega Genesis-CD-32X.

Weren’t they good parents?

Didn’t they understand?

So I amassed my collection of gadgets, appreciating them all for the fleeting amount of time a 10 year-old baked under the sun of a Materialist Culture can expect to appreciate anything. Over the years though, even as I fondly reflect over my times rocking out to Knuckles’ Chaotix for the 32x or even at the time being confused as to why I ever wanted Sewer Shark for the Sega CD, one thing has become clear: The Super FX chip is the unsung hero of the gaming gadget diarrhea blast of the 16-bit generation.

Nintendo didn’t really get the edginess thing going on in the 1990s. I’ll never forget that they took the blood out of the original Mortal Kombat. Oh Jesus Christ did that not fly in the playground. If you were one of those poor sons-a-bitches who couldn’t rip off an errant Kano skull with Sub-Zero you were the consummation of a mating ritual between a pussy and an idiot. A term which used to carry a lot more gravitas. Nintendo’s inability to read the field carried over into the whole marketing of their wunder-chip (and also their desire to continue using cartridges but that may have been hubris too – alas) that they were popping into copies of Star Fox. Super FX chip? Really? While Sega was screaming “Blast!” and slapping a pretty edgy inexplicable X onto things, Nintendo was so tame.

The Super FX chip could have done a lot better if they had called it something like “Smash-Cannon Technology!” That would have gotten all of us little monkeys picking at the snot-bubbles in our ass hair for spare change. “Smash-Cannon Technology! Pumping out more power per cartridge than ever before!” Someone get me the time machine, I’m going to make some money.

Even with its weak-ass name and non-existent marketing domination, I got into the Super FX chip. I was a completionist. The same kid who was buying every fucking holographic tin-foiled gold-plated limited edition variant cover of Gen-13 #13a there was out there. I had to. It was something told to me from the Lords Above, or at least my buddies in Advertising. Cooing to me as to how I could dominated adolescence and arrive at Contentment. Years later it’s quite clear I’m not particularly over how I was handled by my friends there. Alas.

So I played the games, and they were just games back then. Games. Eh. I played countless games. Looking back though, it’s pretty obvious: The Super FX (Smash-Cannon Technology!) was fucking beastly. The Little Chip That Didn’t Really was the core processing power behind Star Fox. Drink that shit in! Don’t tell me you’re not down with The Fox. At least OG Foxxy. Most people don’t make the correlation between Smash-Cannon Tech and Fox McCloud. That’s why I’m here. Every time I wind up underneath some Fox furry in some seedy bedroom getting service, I scream, at the top of my lungs, “SUPER FX”. It’s only barely audible over the groans, moans, and lurking thuds of subwoofers. But it’s there. I know it.

There were there other games too. Stunt Race FX: about as much fun as a young kid could have driving a batch of goofy Disney looking cars around for hours. Doom! Doom was dropped, and it was as if Nintendo was all of sudden your Dad when he realizes he’s not cool anymore. All of a sudden Nintendo is Dad is telling your friends that he once smoked weed and trying to show them his album collection,  ”I don’t like blood in my games? Take this! Fucking Doom!”

Smash-Cannon Technology (boom!) was responsible for all of that. All of that, and perhaps one of the most under-appreciated games ever: Yoshi’s Island. Oh sure around gaming fanatics it is respected, even coveted. Ask the general asshole with no taste for gaming history! (holy fuck I’m getting old and ornery) and I’m sure they’ll look at you slack-jawed. Derpa derp, is that a CoD map? Then I light them on fire with my eyes. Fuck yeah. You think that rolly-poolly scaly bosses would have been possible without a Super FX chip coursing through the cartridge’s guts? No. Way. No way.

It may have never had the dopest of names. Smash-Cannon Technology-X^X it wasn’t. It came out right when Battle Arena Toshinden was getting to strut into the world. Yet the Super FX chip deserves a beer for bringing the world the Glory of McCloud and Yoshi’s own fucking Island. Here’s to you, Super FX chip. May you someday receive the publicity you deserve.

It’s the end of the year. News is slow. Leisure has temporarily supplanted effort for a majority of people within the comfy confines of the Western world. By the time the gift certificates have been burned and the clothes returned and the sales capitalized upon, we realized it’s no longer Christmas but it is almost assuredly New Year’s Eve. So since everything is but a trickle out of the Echo Chamber’s anus for the past week, I figured it’d be worth mentioning the most notable thing that happened upon my writhing gaming ass in 2011. This was the year spectacle gaming died for me.

I’ve always been up front about my love for the wizbang! The high-definition flat plasma 5.1 shake your ovaries action. It isn’t that I don’t appreciate or seek out the smaller, more quiet releases. I’ve just always gotten a kick out of ripping off an artillery shell as my subwoofer sterilizes me and my girlfriend covers her ears and generates a point in the multiverse where she isn’t dating a man-child. I’m unapologetic about it. Throw me on a fucking rollercoaster ride saving the Country from That Eminent Threat. Demolish buildings and grant me access to some roid-headed fuck with phallic gun-saws and let me carve up my fucking duty.

It was always so simple.

This year something happened though. As game after game hobbled through their final installment in the omfgodepic trilogy, I found myself nonplussed. Gears of War came and went. I did something and stopped someone and it was all very loud and catastrophic and I’m sure excellent. Modern Warfare 3 blew out of the caverns in the side of the wall and fucked me with its guns and demanded that I pay supplication at the altar of Every Awful Action Movie Cliche ever. It was a demand I was expecting, and one that I had been happy to pay in the past. Yet as these titles came out, I feel something different for them. Or rather, I didn’t feel anything. I churned through the set pieces, consuming the garbage time vapors and farting them out almost immediately. Can’t remember what happened. Didn’t hate the games. Were momentarily sort-of entertained. Then they were gone. Apathy. I felt apathy for the enormous zillion-dollar budgeted experiences that I had used to enjoy. Enjoy for what they were, mind you. I never defended them as high art. Or art at all. I just considered them supplementary titles in my rather (I thought) well-rounded diet. Fuck if I can play Braid and Bastion and Limbo and Portal 2 and throw down money for El Shaddi and Child of Eden and regret even more indie titles I haven’t played then I can totally definitely indulge in some fat-headed red-blooded roid-necked nonsense. Rationalization a-go-go!

Something was amiss though. The spectacle didn’t do anything for me. I said maybe it’s just the titles. Then I hit a buzzsaw. Uncharted 3. Franchise I loved. Love. Maybe still. Same thing happened though. Played through it, its scenarios involving Something Crumbling and People Shooting and the game’s Camera Tilting. Then it ended. I sort of shrugged, felt a sadness at my own apathy and moved on. It seemed that my days in the Spectacle of Gaming was coming to an end.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate Spectacle. I do. I just don’t think it is enough to carry the load for me anymore. It can’t be a primary source of entertainment in a game. Maybe. Or maybe its that by the third installment of the same franchise in one generation I’ve already memorized the polygonal nooks and crannies of the title’s labia. Noted over and over the wart on the base of their shaft where it used to tickle the roof of my mouth. I’m bored now, man. Bored.

Conversely, my favorite title of the year was still big budget. Blow-out advertisements all up and down ESPN like a mofuckah’. Gorgeous graphics. Widescreen. 5.1. You know the game of which I speak. Fucking Skyrim. However this joint didn’t bore me. It engrossed me. My ADD-fueled brain was somehow capable of pouring hour after hour into a solitary adventure in a subdued environment. Fuck man!, I scaled hills for hours on foot taking in scenery. See, while all the titles I’ve mentioned have been gargantuan-budgeted monstrosities, Skyrim offered something the others didn’t.

(more…)

Oh, hello there friends. How is the Internet treating you today? Reblog that animated gif of the cat skulking quick on Tumblr and come back to me. I’ll wait. You here? Aiight, ballin’. This here is Press Start! It’s a gaming column turned Nonsense Collective where we chat about the week in gaming. Pour yourself a glass of your favorite drink – but Jesus Christ if you’re a friend of Bill W. don’t break your fucking sobriety this close to Christmas on my accord – and let’s chat the Light Polygonal. I list five things that caught my eye in gaming this week, and you retort with clearly superior choices. I’ll nod, praise you, and we’ll all leave happy.

Why Miles Davis? ‘Cause with swag that hard he goes where he wants.

—-

A: Indie Game: The Movie Gets a Sundance Trailer
I didn’t mention this last week, but I’ve got a serious case of the gamer goosebumps for this movie. A documentary about a collective of dudes and dudettes (I hope) who aspire to do nothing more than unleash the wave of their creativity on the world courtesy of a video game. I love my widescreen flat plasma, don’t get me wrong. A lot.

I’m guilty of the pop-culture-corpulence nonsense just as much as anyone. However as someone who churns inept word after inept word in blog posts in hopes of…something?, I have to bow at the tootsies of creators in the indie gaming community who have muscled through hardships to see their vision through to its fruition. You’ve probably already seen this trailer, but it’s all new to me.

Click it. Watch it again.

—-

Fist Pump: Skyrim Dominates UK Charts
Skyrim dominated the “Christmas Chart” in the UK, and dammit I’m fucking floored. It takes something special to dethrone Mindless FPS: Covert Banality, and the Rimjobber came through for the lot of us. Listen, I know this a bit of Mothra defeated Godzilla. Both franchises are leviathanian in nature. I think what is special about Skyrim is the fucking cottage industry of personal stories and interesting interactions that proliferated throughout the internet after its release.

Everyone had their own ridiculous tale to share, their own moment to tell the community. Not to mention the relentless memes, guides, iOS apps and more. Instead of “you’re a fagit gay ballz lover” (an accurate accusation) coming over my headphones, it was neat to spend a month just rocking out with other gamers in a world that thrived because of the fuckin’ experience itself.

(more…)

Jambo, my friends. Welcome to the column that never ends. Save for weeks where I’m buried in graduate work, crying to the stars and the God that doesn’t respond. Despite the shrines of pubic hair and headless dolls I build. He never responds. That’s okay! I have ya’ll.

We’re going to talk about video games here in Press Start. The column where I expound immaturely about the past seven days in gaming in the form of a trite Top 5 list. Share your own findings! I wait with baited breath, staring through your window. You’re so pretty.

—-

#1: NMA Takes On UK Urinal Games
Following in the footsteps of future-seeing Japan, the UK has rolled out some glorious urinal-based video games. ‘Cause nothing says fun like half-sloshed pissing on yourself trying to dominate a game where a minty menthol piss cake should be. Them motherfuckers at NMA offer their own interpretation of the ramifications, and it is as unhinged as everything else.

I feel like I’m missing an opportunity of a lifetime not writing these skits for them. They’re the perfect mix of madness and uh, well, just madness that I could just slide into. Sliiiiiiiiiiiiiide into frreal.

—-

#2: Everything Skyrim!
Yeah brah, Skyrim isn’t a video game. It’s a lifestyle. It’s a blackhole. A time machine. It’s the point of no return for many of us, and fuck. Fuck! If I have to write this column, then I’m going to leverage it into blathering about the game. First off, Bethesda: fix the fucking dragons. It’s a testament to the glory of the game that the focal point, dragons, can be utterly fucked. Flying backwards and shit. I need the dragon scales for my armor. I hurt. I yearn.

Then there’s the Skyrim Arrow To The Knee dubstep. And tattoo. The meme has jumped the shark, but I don’t care. Or how about the waiter and the boss mode tip request that one waiter left. It’s the Christmas season. Pay it forward and buy someone you hate Skyrim, it’ll ruin their life.

—-

(more…)

Hello, friends. How you doing? Are you stuffed to the brim with Thanksgiving food? Is your bowel movement the consistency of corn-flavored soft serve ice cream? Then kick your feet up and read this edition of Press Start!, the column where I mouth off about the events in the previous week of gaming. It’s a list!

You like lists. Santa likes lists. Everyone is partying in lists. Unbutton them pants, let the stink of your overworked groin-parts lull you into a state of semi-consciousness, and open your gaming Third Eye to me.

—-

#1: Fake Christian Site Trolls Skyrim, Gets People Riled Up
In a world where immature gaming columnists reference stool movements and PETA does at least absurd thing a week, it’s sometimes difficult to discern who is fucking crazy, and who is fucking around. This week the faux-Christian Banana Cakes website ChristWire dropped an article proclaiming that Skyrim was turning all the gentle children of the Erf into quite the gays. My initial reaction was similar to most peoples, a laugh at the absurdity of these close-minded fear-mongering Wingnuts. Joke was on my ass! They were absurd, but it’s all part of a very Onion-esque site. I got rolled! Alas. The article itself was pretty fucking magical right off the bat when I thought it was legit, and its wunder continues on through knowing its a satire.

On a more serious note, if Skyrim can teach me how to perfect the ancient art of Rimming the Jobs, then it’s yet another reason I need to play the game. Much like Othello, it seems an easy move to learn. Yet a lifetime to master.

—–

#2: EB Games/GameStop Removes Used Gaming Section, Mixes All Titles Together
In a move of ripping doucheosity, EB Games/GameStop has removed their used gaming section. Now all those titles that mongoloids like myself have breathed on and touched with sticky seminal fluid fingers are out in the wild. Floating around with the pristine copies that you’re hoping to get your fingers on. It’s a genius corporo-diabolical move, getting you to pay close to fucking total title value for something that’s already been bought and sold. #OccupyGameStop?

I got shoveled a used copy of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood this year, and my caffeine-soaked brain piece didn’t even realize it until I got home. It didn’t bother me that much outside of the principal. That is, they didn’t fucking ask, and I wasn’t planning on buying a used copy. I imagine this all becomes even trickier with Online Gaming Passes and free DLC that you get when you snag the title for free.

Pigs!

(more…)

Into the Teeth of the Storm we march! The November Blitz Krieg, obliterating the Paris of your Wallet. Onwards! First World Middle Class Problems. Everyone duck, ignore the sirens. We’ve earned this through patience, g’damnit. There’s too many video games to ever hope to tackle, but fuck if I ain’t trying. Some games (Skyrim) I’m not even approaching until semester break. Some games (Modern Warfare 3) I lowered the right shoulder and blasted through.

This is Press Start! I’m Caffeine Powered. I play the video games. I babble about the week’s happenings in said world. I hope you’ll join me. Flap your lips, slap your gums, mash your fingers.

—-

#1: The Xbox Turns A Decade Old.
The Xbox. Microsoft’s enormo-console that seemed to be birthed up out of the heaving chasm of American bloat. I spent a good message board post or two deriding it before snagging it for Christmas back yonder in the annals of 2001. I mean it had Dead or Alive: Something Such. Jiggling boobies enticing my virginal hog. Can’t turn my back on that. Not in good conscience.

I didn’t get much out of that console, but what I did get titillated my taint with the leathery pleasure of a thousand masseuse’s fingers. Knights of the Old Republic. Panzer Dragoon. Jet Set Radio Future. The original Halo.

Here’s to the largest console ever. The only console I’ve ever used to repel a velociraptor attack and used as a bullet proof vest.

—-

#2: Nintendo, EA, and Sony Sponsor Internet Censorship Bill.
Look at these three fucking twats right here. The Stop Online Piracy Act is a nefarious-assed bill, parading as a measure for stopping online piracy. Now as someone who likes downloading the Music Album Things and the Television Experiences, I can’t really say I don’t blame companies for not wanting this sort of rampant pilfering to continue.

The problem?

Well, if you want to understand the problem more clearly I suggest watching the video above. Basically it’d give the US government free reign to firewall the fucking fuck out of shit whenever there may be something piracy-related. They’d totally use it for good, though, right? Can’t see the government exploiting something like this.

Winky. Wink.

(more…)

“In a few weeks’ time, you’ll be gathered around the Thanksgiving table, breaking bread with your friends and family in honor of Pure Pilgrims’ triumph over the Scary Savages. Before you stab your kid brother in the neck with the salad fork, take a peek at all of the celebrants – each one of them is a goddamn gamer. Your meathead, pigskin-huckin’ cousin is a Call of Duty fiend. Your fat little sister gets down with DDR. Gramps delays death with WiiFit. Hell, even Auntie Craggy plays Farmville and Fat Uncle Drunkard has a Sudoku app for his mobile. This is the future. And we’re all gamers.”

This is Press Start.

—-

#1. Mass Effect 3 Beta Leaks Early
You have to understand that the only thing that leaks early for me is my penis. I’ll be sitting here on my computer chair Geek throne, awash in caffeinated bladder time. One more refresh of a pointless page!, I say to myself. Eyes watering. Have to piss. One more! Then the penis, it dribbles. Leaking. Early. I’m jealous as a mofuckah’ at those who got the Mass Effect 3 private beta early. Now that’s a leak. The piece of shit leaked through people who go to preview the new Xbox Dashboard. Another thing I did not get to participate in. I have sunblock and anal nitrate guys!, let me play.

The Mass Effect 3 story also leaked this week, so if you feel like ruining the conclusion to the dopest most ballin’ sci-fi gaming space opera since Example X Here, you can do so. Me? I’ll be awaiting. A-peeing in anticipation.

(Also leaking since I last saw you? The GTA V map.)

—-

#2. PETA Claims ‘Battlefield 3′ Will Turn You Into An Animal Killer
PETA thinks that the ability to kill a rat in Battlefield 3 will turn you into some sort of blood thirsty animal killer. ‘Cause you know the corrosive moral implications of being able to stomp a rodent in a video game. It’s a slippery slope. One minute you’re doing that, the next you’re posing in the intestines of your horse with your bat-shit crazy girlfriend. Naked! That you had to euthenize. With a rifle. Slippy slopes guys, slippery slopes indeed. Dante wasn’t fucking around.

At this point, PETA just needs to shut the fuck up. There ain’t been no game that made me want to kill an animal. Outside of Super Mario Bros. I hate Goombas. If I ever saw one of those motherfuckers in real life I wouldn’t hesitate to stomp that son of a bitch until its brain-pieces were shit-muck. Stomp! Smash! I would smile as I felt their feeble spinal cord give way underneath my 200 lbs of Pure American Muscle. Muscle crafted through supplements and hormone-soaked beef and Cheese Products.

Fuck Goomas. No-arms always-lurking lackey bastards.

—-

#3. Next Microsoft Console Codenamed “Loop”
Microsoft’s next console has its own codename, so you know that shit is getting real. The name isn’t as cool as Project Dolphin which was the nickname for the GameCube in-house at Nintendo back in the day. But what is? Besides, reading the title as an accurate text for the predicament of the console-generation, it makes a lot more sense. The Loop!

“The Loop! Welcome to Microsoft’s Everything Center! A closed-circuit cycle of multimedia entertainment! The Loop! A labyrinthine nexus of the distractions you love in one convenient place! You’ll never, ever want to get out of the Loop!, and you couldn’t if you tried! Give way to the diegetic absorptions that keep you if not happy, complacent! Gaming into television into the Internet back into the gaming! You’ll love it! You have to! Otherwise there’s only the darkness and oblivion of the status quo! The Loop! From Microsoft.”
(more…)

Lords of the Joystick, deliver me from critical analysis. Let me find myself in the next soothing great misdirect, awash in stimuli and polygon. I’m but a man, with strained (brain) stem I hunger for video games as escape. Dedicated to the Temple, I scavenge weekly for details pertaining to this World I love so much.

The remnants, the scraps, pulled together into something is this banal Top 5 list. It’s not much, but it’s easy.

—-

#1: Video Games Help a Little Girl Walk
In stark contrast to the diegetic wunder-bliss that video games offer to the unfathomably discontent middle class white male like myself, they on occasion participate in something more grand. Take this fuckin’ shit for example. Grace Windrum is a five year-old girl. She’s also an unfortunate reminder that us flesh bags are here by chance, suffer a rather inelegant design, and often come without fully functioning parts. Enough to drive someone into a Brothers K-sort of madness pertaining to the need for such things to serve as balance for the glory of the world.

Anyways.

Grace can’t walk, suffering from cerebral palsy. Her parents needed some legitimate dough to get an operation performed that would allow her to walk with the assistance of crutches. That’s where games developer Big Ideas Digital came in, running “a promotion for its Say What You See: The Collection puzzle game (available on iPhone and iPad), which contributed a further £21,000.”
Fucking solid. Mark one for the good guys.

—-

#2: What If Quake Was Made In 2011?
It’s a simple enough premise, what the fuck do you want me to say? I’m just setting up the clip, man. The talented guys and gals who devised the spoof are doing the heavy lifting on this one. It made me chuckle. A bit of the (non-literal) LOL if you will. Anyone who has had the pleasure of trying to play a game these days can at the very least silently nod their head in agreement with the satire. Saying yes. Yes, this makes a bit of sense.

Far be it for me to be too jaded about how gaming has changed. I still have my G(aming)-Spot rubbed all too often. There’s just been certain…shifts towards hands-holding, infinite slicing of a game’s content into its DLC and other unfortunate things that the game amusingly comments on.

Just watch it.

(more…)