10:37:04 AM Cliff: So you diggin the MW2 action?

11:30:47 AM weaselbringer: it’s pretty fricking rad

11:30:58 AM weaselbringer: doubt I’ll play it multiplayer

11:31:09 AM weaselbringer: but i’ll probably do the SP campaign twice

11:47:22 AM Cliff: Yeah, I’m hooked. The whole attack on america thing is pretty wild. Not that I’m proud that one of the fights in america revolves around a fast food chain mall.

11:47:35 AM weaselbringer: lol

11:47:37 AM weaselbringer: yeah

11:47:42 AM weaselbringer: defend the burger town is pretty silly

11:47:49 AM weaselbringer: but I’m glad there’s a taco bell or whatever,

11:48:23 AM Cliff: Well its funny, you think about all the other game they’ve done and you fight for farms and churches and historic areas. Then they do one game in america and your defending the burger barn and taco hut.

11:48:46 AM Cliff: “God damnit general, save the burger barn and get me a double quarter pounder while your there!”

11:48:48 AM weaselbringer: well I’m assuming we’re defending “freedom” and not the burger hut

11:49:02 AM Cliff: Freedom Fries

11:49:22 AM weaselbringer: we’re defending our right to have people stupid enough to call french fries… that

11:49:42 AM Cliff: God bless america

11:56:21 AM weaselbringer: I believe the burger hut was bombed anyway

11:56:44 AM weaselbringer: diner also thrashed, pisstown USA will have to bebuilt

11:57:05 AM weaselbringer: Hundreds of dollars in government funding will be required before it can regain it’s former beauty

11:57:11 AM weaselbringer: HUNDREDS

11:57:33 AM Cliff: Wheres a crying eagle when you need one.

11:58:00 AM weaselbringer: or a cybernetic bald eagle riding a plymouth into uncle sams vampire mouth

11:58:04 AM weaselbringer: no wait that’s just a tattoo I wanted

11:58:56 AM Cliff: I can see it, I dig it… no wait let me get the acid then everything will make sense

12:02:36 PM weaselbringer: then it looks like a pile of lumber, acid test pre-completed buddy

12:02:47 PM weaselbringer: what about that controversial airport scene?

12:02:58 PM Cliff: Did you play that yet?

12:03:02 PM Cliff: Its the third mission

12:03:16 PM weaselbringer: Here’s a massive machine gun and for some reason we need you to “PRETEND” by killing and gunning down OODLES of innocents

12:03:38 PM weaselbringer: this is to ‘get in good’ with the terrorist, who is STANDING IN FRONT OF YOU WHILE YOU ARE HOLDING A MACHINE GUN

12:04:18 PM weaselbringer: you could burst all 5 of those jackasses and not a single civilian life lost, or you could HELP them gun down thousands, get shot in the face and start a war…

12:04:19 PM weaselbringer: hmm

12:04:40 PM weaselbringer: maybe America’s policy of ‘kill as many innocents as it takes’ isn’t as well thought out as we thought

12:04:48 PM Cliff: hah

12:05:32 PM Cliff: Well heres my take on it, they wanted you to get in close with him to figure out what was next. Maybe they thought he had a nuke or something big that could kill loads more, who knows, I’m honestly not sure if they even bring it up.

12:05:46 PM Cliff: Anyways, they send you in the get in good with him and play buddy buddy

12:05:48 PM weaselbringer: Not explained at all

12:06:18 PM weaselbringer: and I’m pretty sure he can’t use a nuke with 30 rounds in his back… which is exposed to you, the whole time, that you are… killing innocent people, to gain his favor, which doesn’t work

12:06:33 PM Cliff: What bugs me is all that “If you are compromised we destroy all evidence of your existence” that ALL other CIA movies do… I mean shit its the first thing I thought of.

12:07:03 PM Cliff: My assumption was it was a no other alternative situation

12:07:06 PM weaselbringer: isn’t the point of counter terrorism to avoid gigantic bloodbaths like… I dunno, a massive airport execution?

12:07:14 PM Cliff: Like he had the capabilities and cells that would do it for him if he died

12:07:55 PM weaselbringer: still knowing there was some guy in france with sweaty palms holding the controller for a nuke would go a long way to soothing my concerns, instead it’s “Be his friend, kill thousands… it’s WORTH it”

12:08:31 PM Cliff: *little devil on his shoulder*

This is a good idea, nothing could go wrong.

12:08:55 PM weaselbringer: little angel – Yeah, machine guns, yeah! (in a beavis voice)

12:09:01 PM Cliff: hah

12:09:41 PM weaselbringer: I have to say the game is made worth it by gangsta shooting faceless enemies while snowmobiling at roughly 200 miles per hour

12:09:46 PM Cliff: Maybe one of the writers at activision had a really bad experience at a german airport and was like “Ya know what, fuck these people” and the story goes from there.

12:09:56 PM weaselbringer: You ever been to german airport?

12:09:58 PM Cliff: lol

12:10:00 PM Cliff: no

12:10:01 PM weaselbringer: it’s like that ALL the time

12:10:09 PM weaselbringer: thousands dead daily

12:10:30 PM weaselbringer: I don’t think a plane has ever successfully landed or taken off from a german airport

12:10:36 PM weaselbringer: due to all the shootings

12:10:42 PM Cliff: I’ll have to make note of this

12:10:46 PM Cliff: Avoid Germany

12:11:01 PM weaselbringer: yeah if you’re layover is in hamburg or something like that, wear flak, go in packing and leave on a fucking snowmobile

12:11:21 PM weaselbringer: that will be the only way you’re getting to euro-disney

12:11:58 PM Cliff: Now I have the image of Mickey in the airport gunning down thousands of civilians.

12:12:17 PM weaselbringer: with his creepy laugh, now THAT would be Epic Mickey

12:12:49 PM weaselbringer: Goofy throws a flashbang and says “Garsh” before slitting the throat of yet another airport security guard

12:13:16 PM Cliff: Donald suicide bombs a concession stand

12:15:07 PM weaselbringer: which accomplishes…

12:15:20 PM weaselbringer: No it doesn’t matter

12:15:26 PM weaselbringer: I think it’s awesome

12:15:37 PM weaselbringer: I’m also going to blog this… watch me

12:16:21 PM Cliff: I can’t wait for the FBI to call me.

12:19:39 PM weaselbringer: and crotchmail.com ‘ed

12:20:08 PM Cliff: I’ve always waited for this day… my life is complete

There is a man standing at a desk, with his hands pushed flat and hard against the mahogany wood. His gaze is steely and his lips are drawn into a tight line.

“Allright guys, here’s the plot to Duke Nukem Forever”

“Finally!” The coder from 3dRealms thinks to himself.

They’ve been preparing and tweaking and updating for years and years but no one up until this point, had painted the full picture. Finally here it was, from the mouth of the big man himself.

“Okay, we’ve all waited a long time for this, but I had to wait until the technology was right, it goes down like this…”

Every eye was glued to him, every ear strained to hear every detail of his vision.

“Duke nukem walks onto a black background and lights a cigar, and then he puts the cigar out on a kids face, oh, there’s a kid there too, but he’s just there to get burned. Anyway. He kicks the kid out of the screen and pulls down his pants, then there’s a huge glow coming from his crotch. The camera zooms in and its revealed that the entire game takes place inside his balls. Then the world comes into focus and he’s fighting inside a giant vagina and his gun is so huge that it literally takes up three quarters of the screen. Every time he fires the gun a naked woman flies out and slams into his enemies at supersonic speed. Every single enemy will be different, each one will be nude spread-eagled flying-angel version of a playboy playmate from the last 30 years, in perfect photo-realistic detail.

After he fights through the vagina level, his gun overheats and he is forced to use his fists. The next round of enemies are womens liberation protesters outside an abortion clinic he punches and beats his way through the crowd and every single blow landed sends up a massive volcano of blood and each corpse will be littered with photo-realistic bruises copied from real domestic abuse videos. As he nears the abortion clinic he finds his next weapon. It’s a combination chainsaw, dildo, flamethrower, baby launcher. And he proceeds to shoot flaming babies through the acres of screaming women’s libbers. Then he kicks in the door to the abortion clinic and its actually an abortion disco, where thousands of strippers are having a satanic orgy and they’ll all stuck together. So the next enemies become groups of swingers who are attached to each other by their genitals and kamikaze run at Duke with their appendages flailing. He’ll make short work of them with the Baby-launcher but he’ll run out of ammo. That’s when he punches through a fish tank to reveal the secret switch that opens the abortion factory. He steals all the aborted fetuses and jams them into his weapon to re-load and starts really giving hell to the swinger-mutants.”

“Um Sir” the technicians hand went up tenatively

“Now just let me finish Kevin…” The exec waves his hand absent-mindedly

“My name isn’t”

He is interrupted

“So! Level Three is actually a giant metal bald eagle but like 30 miles wide in real-time dimensions so it takes like seven hours to go from wing to wing, and you fight your way forward through a field of land mines and you take steroids so that you rip apart your enemies with your teeth for the entire level. All the enemies are mimes that shoot rainbow bazookas that turn you gay. If you’re hit by one of the gay-rays your vision turns black and white and you speak every line with a lisp. The only way to reverse the gayness is to swallow viagra bottles whole or pick up copies of “Cheri” that are strewn about the level. For a boss you actually swing below the eagle and castrate him with an ice-cream scooper made of uranium that’s attached to his beak.”

Now several hands go up, they seem more insistent.

“I know! I know!! You’re all excited, but wait for the finale! The final level is where duke nukem gets shrunk into a tiny size, and he actually climbs inside his own gun and into a bullet, and it gets fired and he spends the whole level inside a bullet fighting microscopic aliens that are all transvestites and they crap in their hands and throw it at you. The real coup-de-grace is, that you have to beat the level before the bullet hits paris hiltons face, but you don’t want to save her!! So you just stay alive long enough to the let the bullet hit her and then you blow back up to normal size, but while you’re inside paris hiltons ass and you make her explode from the force of growing back to full size and then you start doing push ups in her entrails while the credits roll. Oh yeah and the entire soundtrack is the Metallica “Black” Album but re-mixed into house music.”

“Sir! I really…”

He awakes from his fevered reverie long enough to point vaguely at one of the developers…

“Sir…. I’m at a loss, even if we were able to do all this stuff, we haven’t been working on this for the past 8 years, we’re using the Unreal 2 Engine, this is in such bad taste that I’m pretty positive we’ll get banned, and you’re only talking about roughly four levels, that could be completed in less than a few hours. Also, there’s no plot, no connection between one area and the next, most of that doesn’t make sense, and I think you’re drunk”

His eyes are wide in surprise, the executives mouth opens and closes a few times with no sound coming out…

“Well I uh..”

The Young Technician continues “Furthermore, I think you’ve been giving everyone busy work while you play the original Duke Nukem in your office all day, and this is the first indication of a plot that we’ve had in eight years and its so bad that it sounds like you just made it up on the spot. You give no concept of reality and completely ignore the capabilities of the system we’re forced to work in, and you made everyone come in on their day off and you ordered pizza but all of the pizza is locked in your office, you’re not wearing pants, and I for one am sick of this shit… I’m leaving!”

The technician storms out, and the exectutive dismisses the rest of the crew for the weekend, assuring them that we’ll “Start Fresh” on Monday morning. The rest of the crew shrugs and walks back to their cars, with dazed looks on their faces. The executive walks back into his office and starts eating pizza, he waits until the building is completely empty, and then he shoves the pizza boxes aside to reveal a large diagram written on top of the desk. It reads,

Employees confused into leaving: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Employees scared into leaving: XXXXXXXX

Employees that have a nervous breakdown: XXXXX

He carefully scratches another X into the top row and taps his pencil with an amused look on his face.

This is a continuation of “Stupid Video Game Plots” which focused on the odd and generic storylines that are so deeply embedded in video game plots.

1. Silent Protaganist (…)

Maybe it's for the best....

In many games the hero of the game is made to represent you. Since the game doesn’t know what you’re going to say it simply leaves the dialogue of your character blank and empty. For one this is a cheap cop-out for not having to write the dialogue of a MAIN character, and for two, the picture this draws in my mind is almost unbearable. Picture this: Since you provide your characters dialogue, the game writers must assume that you’re literally talking out loud to your video game vainly trying to “play your part”.

So I can just picture a pudgy 14 year old with a controller wedged into his hands, screaming at the tv “NO WAY!” or “That was my bag of gold you theiving elf-creature!” or “No dad please don’t die of your vicious dragon wounds”. Case in point, what we will come up with probably won’t be as good as the writers of the game, so you should just write the fucking main character and stop calling laziness “immersion” because the only time I’m yelling at the TV is when I’m drunk and calling mario a fucking jizz-mopper for over shooting that last power-up. And I don’t think that’s plot related.

2. Rock Collecting

Now go get 7 more, bitch

Sigh, oh video games, how you’ve wronged me. Does this sound familiar? “In order to defeat the evil and gigantic dragon/fish/talking-tree/demon/politician you will have to run ALL around the fucking world and pick up an assload of pieces of crystal/rock/magic-beans” Yeah. I figured. There are so many games where the goal is dead ahead, right in front of you, THERE’s the bad guy, let’s go kick his ass.

But a straight path to the bad guy does not a long game make (in the words of asshole yoda). So rather than pounding on some slimes and leveling up and punching big baddie in the face. You’ve got to travel the world (inevitably by foot, then canoe, then boat, then airship, then teleportation that’s poorly explained) on a long-winded quest for some power crystals or whatever.

This ALWAYS accomplishes one of two things. Either they’re so powerful that the bad guy wants them, and he steals them and you fail, and you have to defeat him anyway, which means this whole trip was pointless. OR you do get the crystal and they bond into a magical mcdonalds toy of powerful magick, which then proceeds to do absolutely nothing except to actually LET YOU fight the last boss, but last i checked you never actually throw the fucking crystals at him or anything, so what was the point?

3. None at all?

The new Shape of Fear

How many people know the story of Tetris? No not the made up one you had in your brain, the actual story. None of you, because there is none, but puzzle games are too easy. There is a countless number of games with almost no plot or none at all. Sure some games throw you the sword of smiting and send you off to the red dragon’s lair. But seriously. What. The. Fuck. Is. Going. On….

Far too many games sit on the fact that they MADE a game and decided a plot was overworking the concept. Even some high level A-list games give the illusion of depth but it’s not until the very end that you realize the obtuse character development NEVER coalesced… Have you ever finished game and went “Wait… what? that’s it?” Basically if the game companies have gotten you to buy it, and maybe even finish it, their work is done. Who cares who killed professor plum or why you’ve been chasing your evil anthropormorphic homo-twin across the galaxy, you win, end of story. Come on guys, who keeps writing this crap?

4.  Do it for Love, or whatever

Love is a many gendered thing..

So many times the love of your life is snatched away, your sweetheart is in peril, and the girl you just got the nerve to ask out is kidnapped by cyborg parrots that spit lasers. (that would be cool). But I think that battling across the whole of existence into the heart of hell/mordor/france/mushroom kingdom had better warrant a fine shiny piece of ass. If this bitch isn’t the LOVE of your LIFE why would you do all of this? Nobody is that nice. Plus half the time it’s just some girl you like, or are supposed to love, but there’s no real reason? Is she a world class chef with a blowjob addiction? Does she shit diamonds and do windows? Why is this girl worth fighting for? Why do you love her, or the character. I’ve done some damn near suicidal things for sex, but these games take the concept to a whole new level. Plus sex is never mentioned. Unless that black they’re always scrolling behind the credits is actually part of a censored bar covering up the worlds greatest orgy…

Long story short, there are people whose WHOLE job is create a plot and a story and they fail miserably. But I guess it doesn’t matter, after all, World of Warcraft is like the jesus of gaming and to the best of my knowledge the entire plot consists of “Go fetch me these apples/horseshoes/skulls/coins etc. and I’ll give you a piece of armor I can’t use anyway” Truly this is the stuff of epic legend. I can imagine why these stories will be told throughout the ages, about you, the retarded dwarf errand-boy who fetched things and became really good at mining. Yeah, that’s entertaining.

That’s not to say there isn’t a huge surplus of stupid video game plots, some of them are so generic I can apply them to dozens of games simultaneously. So we’ll start with the general plots.

1. In Space, with Aliens.

Why do they hurt me?

As Halo, Space Siege, Starcraft, and about a billion other games will tell you. Aliens are bad. I guess this is based off the assumption that as soon as WE get our act together enough to unite the human race, build faster than light ships and break all formerly known boundaries of humanity and technology, that what we find on the other end of our billion year evolution is a bunch of dickheads. Yup. Infinite potential for interaction and growth between interstellar species and the most interesting thing we can think to do is shoot the shit out of each other. Usually it’s their fault, they attacked us, they drove us to the brink of extinction, etc. But ya know, we’re just as likely to do that. How about a game plot that doesn’t make us sound like the only non-bastards in the galaxy? Or better yet, a game about aliens and humans tag teaming on a bunch of Nazi’s because hey, no one likes them…

2. Someone is kidnapped

Why did I rescue you?

Yeah Mario knows all about this shit. But who else doesn’t? From prisoners of war, to habitually snatched princesses, to out and out random kidnappings, there’s always someone gone missing. It’s not usually a cool way either. Basically someone got punked walking out of their house made of innocence and flowers and will spend the next 200 hours waiting for you to destroy millions of human/alien/turtle/nazi lives to get to them and pop them out of the empty room where they’ve been rotting, with no apparent after-effects. How about a game where you spend 2 hours finding the kidnapped person and then 2 years rehabilitating them and helping them to overcome post-traumatic stress and agoraphobia? We’ll call it “Rescued: Afterwards”

3. Big bad guy

Your Next Boss?

When Hitler/Bowser/Darth Spoonmaker each come into their own, they suddenly have an armada of bad guys, generals and mini-bosses. Who is following these people? Why is the majority of each fantasy world populated with sheeple who are magnetically (and possibly erotically) drawn to the most obvious epitome of evil within 1000 miles? It’s like walking into a party and bee-lining for the ugly girl. Or meeting like 30 celebrities but just talking to Andy Dick. What kind of charisma and people skills do ANY of these Pyschotically evil, oversized, cybernetic, spiked and fire-breating bastards have over thousands of creatures destined to become your enemy? Why sign up on team “Countless waves of cannon fodder”? why not start your own evil cult? Get it together evil!

4. Good Vs. Stupid

But BEFORE I kill you....

You’re an angel sent from heaven. A small boy with a good heart. A lowly sword-expert/turnip farmer. You are torn from the thigh of Zeus and destined to be everything cute and wonderful. Your enemy? Hulking, dark, smelly, evil, and infinitely more powerful than you. But he’s content to sit in a place very far away. He doesn’t even notice you I guess. When he does he sends some barely adequate enemies your way. Why are the bad guys always stupid? Or so aloof or busy they can’t be bothered to wipe out you, the hero, who has sworn vengeance on them for the destruction of their wife/house/turnip-farm? Especially in games (JRPG’s I’m looking at you) Where the main baddie actually SHOWS UP TO TAUNT YOU.. Really? You’re going to open a rift in the universe to end all life, killing billions, but you stop short of killing me to call me a douchebag and fly off on a dragon or something? Why doesn’t the boss show up early on and try to punch you in the face, but you barely escape and end up on the run, or he’s a pansy too and that way you both have to grow into massive armor-clad ninja magicians to do epic battle later?

5. You fix it, klutz

Wow a Sword! What could go wrong?

Secret of Mana springs to mind, but along with a shit-ton of other rpg’s and games. This sound familiar? You’re a teenager-ish kid who’s frolicking in the dangerous woods near your village, doing cute kid things when something goes unfortunately wrong and you:

A. Trip and Unleash hell and millions of demons

B. Remove the holy sword/wand/dildo/McDonalds toy/gerbil from its sacred spot that no one bothered to fence off or wall-up which THEN unleashes hell and turns everyone for 200 miles into hellbeasts.

C. Trip and fall into an unknown basement, where there’s a box.. that… unleashes… hell….

D. Read from the dark demonic big book o’ hellfire summoning by accident and then hell, um, unleashes..

Regardless of these many possibilities, there’s always one outcome. No one wants to help you, and they send you off alone armed with a stick to fix the problem. Sure you’re 14 and a virgin, but you alone must travel to the crystal city to see the king of everything besides hell, to simply have him tell you, that you have to go get the magic whatzamajizzit to close the gates of demon spawn that are pouring into the world. Meanwhile, I’ll just stay here with my thousands of guards who could kill you in an instant and hope it all goes to plan. It’s always your problem. Despite the fact that inaction will likely end the entire world and all hope for salvation rests of the pimpled shoulders of a level 1 dipshit who fell in a hole or picked up a sword. Apparently the necessary skills to become the worlds greatest hero is having all four limbs and bad luck.

Well, check back next time, when I pick apart SPECIFIC stupid plots.

Time and time again I read about the objectification of women in Video games. How real women don’t actually have quadruple D breasts and the ability to backflip through the air in a miniskirt while slaughtering thousands. Well you know what, I don’t CARE. Jesus Christ people, ease up a bit will you?

I'm staring at her guns...

From the days of Tomb Raider when a busty heroine kicked her way onto my PC I loved women in games, do you know why I loved women in games? Because the chick in the game had huge tits. Look at the cover of any video game with a female lead, they’re HOT. They’re anime, gravity-defying, ridiculously hot. Why is this a bad thing? So some women feel alienated… fine. The lead of every game since the dawn of games has been a muscle-bound strapping greased up man and you don’t hear men complaining about how they don’t look they live in a gym. Video games are an acceleration and increase in reality. You can no more complain about hot women in games than you can complain about superpowers, infinite ammo, the ability to die and keep fighting or any other uber-reality touch in gaming.

You can cry your eyes out that chicks don’t look like they do in real life, but we don’t WANT that. Most gamers are guys, and if its because we objectify women, then how do you explain games like Doom, Crysis, Gears of war, where the men are stacked with muscle and guns and essentially move like olympic runners. Does this make me feel inadequate? Maybe if I had no life and envied the lives of video game characters, but I don’t.

You don’t buy a porno with ugly people in it (unless thats your thing) – you don’t watch hit movies with actors that look like shit, and you don’t read books about heroes who have a hair-lip and a beer belly. You don’t want your games populated by ugly heroes of yore either. At this point, some people have gotten the idea and started doing female leads that look mostly normal (Half Life 2/Portal) and this is fine too, you see, there’s only one thing I care about. That they KEEP making games with huge titted porn-star assassins as well as feel-good 6 out of 10 heroines. There’s room for diversity, as far as I’m concerned we can progress as a gaming culture and make games about our feelings and make hug-simulators all day long.

Yes we play for the game...

I for one, won’t play those games, or maybe I will, but then I’ll have to watch porn first. There’s a growing niche genre of games where you care for a puppy, or raise pinatas or some such shit, and I think that’s great. But every girl I know who loves Super Mario, has no trouble saving the princess, and if the princess had a huge rack and fuck-me lips I think they’d go right on saving her. I know I would fight a little harder to save her.

The point is, there’s a hundred other examples of beautiful better-than-reality people in every Vanity Faire, People Magazine, Hollywood Movie, XXX flick and of course games. Why is it all of a sudden, up to video games, to bear the moral burden of bucking the human races’ trend of materialism and lust? Its just another medium and sex sells, so keep right on selling it. This is no excuse to make a crap game, but I think we’re smart enough to dodge around games that just use sex to compensate for quality. Now, if you’re using sex to enhance quality, or hell, just throwing it in on top of a good game… I’m all for it

All the problems of a mustachioed Italian plumber and his plucky brother don’t amount to a hill of mushrooms in this mixed up crazy world. We’ve all watched Mario break countless bricks, collect billions of coins and generally roll around in the spotlight while Luigi cries and masturbates to 8-bit photos of Princess Peaches’ snatch in the darkest dives in Mushroom Kingdom… But how much do we actually KNOW about Mario, and what makes him SUPER anyway? Why does Luigi get shunted to the side despite his obvious jumping superiority (SMB2!)? We’re here to tell you, all the things you didn’t know about SUPER MARIO

1. Drug Problems

Many have watched little Mario suddenly devour a mushroom and become HUGE with power, have seen him stomp countless bad guys in the face and break millions of bricks with his fists, head, and even ass. Does NO ONE question this? This man has a problem! When he’s not so whacked out on PCP feeling no pain from endlessly slamming his hands and feet into blocks of solid BRICK, he’s dressed up as a Bee, Raccoon, Frog, or Frenchman like he’s on his way to a god-damned mascot orgy. When you can get him somewhat normal he’s eating mushrooms almost as big as HE IS and growing tremendously overweight from an extreme overdose of hallucinogenic mushrooms. This man is the cultural icon for a billion people worldwide and he does more drugs than 28 clones of Keith Richards at the Playboy Mansion. There is something very wrong with idolizing what is essentially an un-killable drug-addled plumber.

2. Money, where does it all go?

Along with poor Mario’s plight in other arenas his finances aren’t what they used to be either. Despite endlessly collecting gigantic gold coins from countless locations around the globe, Mario is forced to make sequel after sequel just to simply “Pay The Bills”. But why? From a single game alone he must collect millions of points and coins right? Wrong. Nintendo

is the Columbia Records of the video game industry, sometimes giving their main characters as little as 10 percent of net profits from a successful title (this was especially bad during the 64′ era, when there WERE no successes). He’s lucky to walk away with enough points to make a mortgage on a castle thats plagued with fungus and portals to hell. Couple this with his lifestyle choices of drugs, dating princesses and the collateral damage levied against him by the Peoples Republic of Mushroom Kingdom (or PRMK) for blowing up national monuments and 1000 year old castles. He is also racked up more than 4 billion in fines from the WildLife Preservation Society for Endangered Enemies (WPSEE) for decimating the natural balance of innocent goombas and turtles, his request for leinancy was denied due to his excessive cruelty in kicking most of the dead turtles carcasses across great distances for fun and profit.

3. Love Life – Hardly

Throughout most of his career Mario has endlessly chased brides across the world and back, following one princess after another. Bailing them out of prisons, dungeons and tough situations. However each year the princess is captured or lost again, or Mario is called out to solve some other horrible crisis like re-aligning the planets or resurrecting dead stars which can go on for MONTHS. It doesn’t leave a lot of time for the good life. His marriage is a shambles due to the fact that he is physically incapable of having children, exacerbated by his long-time friend and prolific breeder, Yoshi. Peach was never happy with their situation, but when you’re an oft-kidnapped child of privilege you can only take things as they come. She’s had several affairs with his arch-nemesis Bowser and even some rumored flings with Koopa from the 90′s. So with a life riddled with lies and deceit he walks a lonesome road.

4. Bad Company

But what about his friends? Stalwart and with him to the end? Not true. Mario has had several falling-outs with his ne’er do well brother Luigi to the point where they no longer speak and often compete against each other in dangerous Kart Races. His other long-time friend Toad has moved on with his life and only comes out of retirement and recluse for the occasional cameo and then its back to the farm. Yoshi is often cited as Mario’s best friend but anyone close enough to see their repartee first hand will tell you that a single attack from an enemy will send Yoshi fleeing the scene like a panicked schoolgirl and will have to be physically captured and restrained to help again. He was also admonished not to see Yoshi again by his agent after it was discovered that Yoshi’s egg throwing ways had labeled him “Pro-Abortion”.

In conclusion, the revered rock-star of video games does not lead the life of luxury we’d all like to believe he does. His past is riddled with bad graphics, lame bosses, a brief addiction to side-scrolling porn, and the personal train wreck that was Mario Sunshine. His new game “Super Mario Galaxy” is due out soon and we can only hope that this aging and much put-upon hero can rise to the challenge, find his lost whore of a princess, and kick some serious ass. Here’s to you Mario.

The Game Dame

Attention all gamers! You may or may not know of “The Game Dame” But she’s a deadly beautiful gamer-geek-girl who can frag your heart into little tiny gibs. So rarely does someone fill my life bar like her, that I had to do an interview. So without further ado, I present the exclusive “GAME DAME INTERVIEW”

( see her site at www.thegamedame.com )

Question 1: What is your name and Occupation?

I write video game reviews and industry tidbits as The Game Dame.

Question 2: Who would you say you’re biggest demographic is?

The same demographic that knows what show the following quote is from without having to do a Google search: “I’m so excited! I’m so excited! I’m so… so… SCARED.”

Question 3: Who would win in a fight between an astronaut and a caveman? (no weapons)

Caveman. No doubt. It’d go down like this: The astronaut would try to calculate the best method for destroying the caveman… drawing out blueprints and all that. While he’s busy hypothesizing, the caveman would come over and bash his head in.

Question 4: What are your physical measurements? (What are your spiritual measurements)

Left wrist: 5.75″ around,

Right pinky: 2″ long,

Length of blank space between my shoulder tat and tramp stamp: 13.25″

Question 5: Do you name your breasts? (If so provide names, If not provide names)

Okay, let’s name them now.

Left: Itty

Right: Bitty

Other?: n/a

Question 6: Ever play D&D? (Live action or Table Top ­ give detail)

Nope.

Question 7: What is your Favorite Video game weapon and why?

Anything that causes such an explosive impact that it sends rag doll bodies flailing through the air (rocket launchers, grenades). Those flailing bodies make me laugh. Does that make me a bad person?

Question 8: Describe your ideal alien abduction

Ignignot and Er would pick me up and spend a day teach me their advanced ways. We¹d probably start the day flying around doing art installations like the one they did in Boston. DAMN, YEAH!

Question 9: What is your Favorite Color/Number/Ice Cream/Food/Game/Actor?

/Pink

/9

/Talenti’s Toasted Almond Gelato

/Human Souls

/Of the moment? Pac Man C.E.

/Parker Posey

Question 10: In many movies a suitor will perform an amazing stunt to impress the girl and gain her hand in marriage, Like jumping a motorcycle through a ring of fire and into a dinosaur’s mouth who has halitosis. What stunt would I have to pull off to win YOUR hand?

The motorcycle stunt is sooo 2006. Girls like me really have to be impressed. You’d have to somehow defeat the ultimate God of Cool: Chuck Norris. It’s not easy. But neither am I.

Question 11: Give me an example of a question you definitely wouldn’t answer here.

“Were you the one that put the empty milk carton back in the fridge yesterday?”

Question 12: Want to Fight?

I’d hate to embarrass you on your own turf.

Question 13: Cats like to eat fish right? So they make fish flavored cat food. Now dogs like to eat cats right? So why don¹t they make Cat flavored dog-food?

I wish I knew. This will be added to the list of questions that keep me awake at night. Also on my list of sleep-depriving questions: “If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done?” and “Why is the letter “W” called double u and not double v?”

Question 14: What is your ultimate goal Career/Personal?

I’m working on putting together a Game Dame show. I’m tired of watching girl video game news hosts who have no connection to the words they’re reading off of the teleprompter. If everything goes as planned, I’ll help redeem the reputation of the girl gamer TV personality.

Question 15: Write a Haiku about yourself

Gamer. Writer. Nerd.

Introducing the Game Dame.

The Game Dame (dot) com

Question 16: Biggest Accomplishment thus far?

I’d say it’s a pretty big accomplishment that people want to interview me. I think that’s weird.

Question 17: What would YOU do for a Klondike bar?

I’d play a round of Mario Kart 64 for it. Winner gets the ice cream.

Question 18: Some People only know you as the goddess-shaped-woman-of-their-dreams, so whats something embarrassing about yourself to knock you off your high and mighty throne?

When I was in middle school, a bunch of the cool kids invited me to hang out with them at the water park. I had a humongous crush on one of the guys in the group, so I was trying to impress him all day. I’d even bought a new bikini for the occasion. About halfway through the day, it became pretty obvious that my crush had no mutual interest, so I gave up on the courtship and went on The Lazy River ­ a 20 minute or so inner tube ride ­ with a group of the girls. At the end of the ride, you go down this slide and splash into the pool. I splashed, came up out of the water and started walking back to the cool kids group. They’d all gathered together at a picnic table. Walking up to them, I noticed that the entire line of people waiting for their turn on the Lazy River was looking at me. And smiling.

They seemed impressed. I started feeling cocky about it. Forget about that stupid crush, that whole line was interested! That’s when one of the girls ran over to me and pulled my bikini top back down over my boobs. I’d just flashed about 100 people and about 20 of them were from my school. I was mortified.

Question 19: Your Favorite Expletive?

Shit. It’s such a great word. It starts off with “sh” as in “shut up” and ends with “it” – a short, no questions asked conclusion.

Question 20: Ask your own question of me here.

If you could hang out with any cartoon character, who would it be and what would you do together?

Reply: Picture this: I’m sitting at the bar toasting with my buddy and a girl walks up and says “Hey who’s your friend?” and I smile and look at her and reply “CAPTAIN “N” BITCH!” and then high-five my cartoon homeboy captain N, and then maybe he shoots her with a light zapper or something.

======================================================

A Thousand thank you’s to “The Game Dame” who remains my hero and she’s totally *promised to show up naked at my door carrying the classic Golden Zelda cartridge and a bottle of whip cream. Kind of makes YOU wish you’d done an interview huh?

*-Promised = Not said at all

“PacMan Wants a Mistress” [Email PacMan]

Age: 48

Home: PacCity, Illinois

Eyes: Giant and Black

Hair: None

Weight: 300lbs

Height: 4’00″

Marital Status: Widower

Children: They’ve all gone off to maze college.

Occupation: Retired Pellet eater and ghost chaser/chasee.

Education: 4 Years of Maze college and All-state Track champion (83)

Interests: I enjoy Buffets, eating pellets, occaisionally fruit. I love to EAT.

About Myself: I’m retired now, but I feel like I’ve done my part (a million times over). Hunting ghosts and eating a hell of a lot of pellets. Thats what things were all about back then. Eating pellets, running away from the ghosts. But that just doesn’t interest me anymore. I think I’d like to open my own pellet shop some day and settle down, stop all this running around.

About My Perfect Match: I’m looking for a older gal. I used to be married but Mrs. Pacman was taken from us in a horrible ghost chasing accident… I don’t really like to talk about it. But if you like wearing bows and eating, then look me up anytime.

“Yoshi Wants to Lick You” [Email Yoshi]

Age: 20

Home: Yoshi’s Island, Snes city

Eyes: Green/Black

Hair: Spikes

Weight: 333lbs

Height: 6’9″

Marital Status: Single!!

Children: None.

Occupation: Mighty Dinosaur Steed, Egg Layer (weird I know).

Education: I have an 8 foot tongue.

Interests: I like to exercise, try new foods, any and all kinds of food. I love to party and I’m looking to party with YOU.

About Myself: NO, I don’t think you’re understanding me… I have an EIGHT FOOT TONGUE. I can pick you up with my mouth. We can’t let this go to waste. Call me, we’ll hook up you can go for a ride on the YOSHI TRAIN awww yeah I think you know what I’m saying. I also sometimes lay eggs, I’m still a guy though, its just a Yoshi species thing… Don’t let it bother you.

About My Perfect Match: I’m looking for someone who likes a little tongue action (or a lot). You should find dinosaurs sexy and probably no gag reflex would be a plus. Please no men calling! Yes I lay eggs, but I am in fact… MALE and hetero. (Trust me I’ve heard every joke you can make about making men ride me).

“Giant Apes Need Love Too” [Email Donkey Kong]

Age: 36

Home: Millstone Mayhem, DK Country

Eyes: Black

Hair: Everywhere

Weight: 527lbs

Height: 7’3″

Marital Status: Single – Never Married

Children: Donkey Kong Junior was adopted…

Occupation: Giant Ape / Tie Model.

Education: Barrel Throwing Certified…

Interests: I like throwing barrels, kidnapping the occaisional princess, a bit of rope climbing. Hanging out with my partner Diddy Kong.

About Myself: This has taken a long time to come to terms with. I’m Gay. There I said it. I love men, big hairy, oversized and over-sexed men. This is something that caused a lot of pain in my life until I came to grips with it. I came out last year, and gramps was NONE too pleased. It strained things with my best friend Diddy Kong, because he kept remembering all those times we were pressed together in a mine kart for hours at a time… Hee actually I remember those times too.

About My Perfect Match: I’m looking to experiment. I really want to find myself. I’m a big hairy sub if you can believe it and I like to be dominated. King of the Jungle I’m NOT. But I’m new to the whole scene, I’ve spent too much time in the Jungle and not enough at the clubs. So I want to go out, dress up in my favorite tie and love EVERYBODY.

“MegaMan seeks MegaWoman” [Email MegaMan]

Age: 27

Home: Robot City, Michigan

Eyes: Sorta Blue or yellow

Hair: Brown, but usually wears a helmet

Weight: 167lbs

Height: 4’10″

Marital Status: Single

Children: None unless you count my Robot Dog.

Occupation: Robotic hero designed to defeat Doctor Robotnik Wily, also a part time pastry chef.

Education: Got my GDE and have some college credits I earned at the JC on auto repair and electrician stuff.

Interests: I like Powering up my mega-blaster for ultimate fun! I love to jet ski, and snowboard. I sometimes run horizontally for hours on end shooting and killing small robots and insects.

About Myself: I am a well known superhero, I had a TV show in the 90′s that didn’t do so well, but my games have gotten more than a dozen sequels, most can’t say the same. I think of all the other 8bits out there, I’ve got the most ‘Staying Power’ also, I was designed with EVERY contingency in mind *wink wink*.

About My Perfect Match: I’m looking for a chick who is hot, Its okay if you’re robotic, organic, or cyborg. I’m open minded. I like to party and play hard. You must love power ups and mini-bosses. Oh and your favorite color HAS to be blue.

“Metroid looking for Metro” [Email Samus]

Age: 24

Home: Planet Metroid, Galga System

Eyes: Dark Green

Hair: Blonde

Weight: 132lbs

Height: 5’9″

Marital Status: Single

Children: None.

Occupation: Super Suited Heroine and arch nemesis of Mother Brain.

Education: Have been implanted with education surpassing yours.

Interests: I run both vertically and horizontally. I like rolling into a ball and dropping a lot of bombs. I’ve been known to do some acrobatics as well and I’m a crack shot. I also do a bit of light gardening.

About Myself: Did I mention that I can actually ROLL INTO A BALL? I’m not kidding, an actual ball, its smaller than me, I don’t even know how I do it, it doesn’t seem physically possible. Although I’ve found its a really bad idea after a Buffet. Oh I also run around in full combative battle armor at all times. The armor only comes off during the end of the day and on some holidays, or while escaping from an exploding planet.

About My Perfect Match: I’m looking for someone who doesn’t mind bulky armor. I like a guy who cuddles and isn’t intimidated by my collection of weaponry. I may have a freeze ray but I melt at the sight of puppies or those cute little flying brains with tentacles that aren’t evil, I want someone with similar tastes. Must love chinese food too.

“Princess needs a new Prince” [Email Princess Peach]

Age: 33

Home: Final Castle, Mushroom Kingdom

Eyes: Black sometimes Blue

Hair: Blonde

Weight: 127lbs

Height: 5’3″

Marital Status: Divorced

Children: One little mushroom at home, I’m a single mother.

Occupation: Former Damsel in Distress, Currently single mother in distress.

Education: Very little except basic ‘princess training’.

Interests: I like wearing big pretty dresses, getting kidnapped every 9 or 10 hours, and I sometimes like to float.

About Myself: I used to be married to a certain well-known shiftless layabout plumber. He ran through 20 kingdoms to save me and then I’d just get kidnapped again. After he knocked me up and I was kidnapped for the 23rd time, he just stopped coming for me. He sent his no good brother to bring me the divorce papers WHILE I WAS PREGNANT IN AN EVIL CASTLE. So yeah I’ve been jilted but I’m thinking there’s still someone out there for me.

About My Perfect Match: I’m looking for anyone who is willing to give me a chance. I’m still technically royalty so a prince would be nice but isn’t required. You cannot be a plumber/electrician of any type. I’m sorry the memories are just too painful. Take a chance and give my love life a 1-up.

People want the PS3, they want it so bad they’re willing to crawl on their bellies through broken store windows, drink the blood of virgins, swallow live hornets and punch through the stomach of their grandmother to get one. Is there no end to your Madness? You can watch the news in real-time online pop up instance after instance of PS3 related violence. It’s inciting riots and causing people to implode and explode simultaneously. This console launch literally inverts the very laws of thermodynamics and physics themselves.

L. Ron Hubbard must be the marketing genius behind Sony’s strategy, to the point where he will actually fake the death of the console to gain public solace for its plight in being too damned incredibly sexy and unattainable. The PS3 will now feature in its own cross-genre rap group called “Players-Station” featuring “Small E. Squared big dog-poppa chedda’ snack-crisp” It will be featured in the centerfold of playboy showing off its high-powered internal components to the WORLD. It’s shiny surface will stoically reflect the diverted eyes of the entire United Nations Committee as they concern themselves with what this console means to the world.

I know you’re thinking this may be overkill, but you have obviously not gotten on the hype-wagon!!! We are talking Mega-Toyko-3d-Ape Crazy-Xtreme-Volleyball-Fujitsu-nazi FUN! The Japans have given us big big console, so round and shiny. It will only fit on top of your component stereo system because of its bulging technology and rounded curves of PURE POWER. Which is only fitting as it will stare haughtily down at your Receiver, VCR, DVD player Emitting dangerous hissing cat noises from its slot loading ‘Blu-Death-Ray WONDERchozenDRIVE!”

The cell chip has already folded protein, solved DNA, FOUND JIMMY HOFFA, its eight harley-engine powered simultaneous cores will solve 8 of your problems before you turn it on! Once activated the Cell processor will solve 8 further problems every nano-second until the number of solutions literally hit the ceiling of math. Pi cowers in its tiny-numbered hovel as the Cell tracks the future wind shapings of every grain of sand in the sahara for the next 4000 years. If left on for too long the world will become terminally content, robbed of its will to survive from having its problems all solved simultaneously for all-time. The fabric of reality and cognitive capabilities of every god from every religion will bow before its vertex-parallell-processing VOODOO.

Its surface is so reflective its said that it if you cross your eyes when you look upon you will see back in time. Bullets will actually slide off its surface and increase its power. The finish is buffed in by thousands of blind Taotion Monks using the skin of babies farmed from a special factory in Beijing. Each console is rubbed from top to bottom with over 7 million strokes of loving affection from a bonafide CATHOLIC SAINT OF JUSTICE.

You might think some of the things you’ve heard about the PS3 are simply and irrevocably impossible… They ARE and Sony has done it anyway. It plays games from other dimensions. It automatically builds the levels of unfinished games from 1983, it emulates 883 different game consoles. It’s volume goes to 11, and it can beat Battletoads for the NES by ITSELF. Sure you’re telling yourself there aren’t even 883 game consoles in existence but you’re dead wrong, and that shirt looks terrible!

I can’t be troubled to speak of its glory anymore, This is the new messiah, it has won the war on terror, terraformed mars, and its incredibly reasonable price will actually allow you to watch movies that are SO high definition that you will get punched in the face… NO SHIT. So go out and fire a loaded combat shotgun into a nun convention to get to the back of the 4 day line at your local best-buy so you too can get a rain-check voucher to maybe someday touch a demo unit inside a bullet-proof case in 4-6 weeks.

Or you could wait 2 months for better games to come out and easily buy one at the store around the corner without all the fuss… but we’re pretty sure that makes you a FAG.

by Adam “Sony OMG” Aragon

Jamie sat at ease in her leather high backed chair, one leg draped lazily over the armrest. Her very poise defining ‘at rest’. She was bored and decided to try calling again. The phone jangled with a tinny blurting noise as her cell phone reached across the radio waves to invade the partnering cell nestled snugly in the pocket of Jake, who finally tore his hands from his keyboard to flip it open and utter a single annoyed word.

“Speak” he sighed briefly.

“Finally! I’ve called you like 23 times and I’m so damned ready you better do what you promised and do it now” Jamie rushed all the words out like an auctioneer nearing the end of a bid.

He took another breath and firmed his voice “You know what I’m capable of, and I’m not going to do it until I’m ready, but it just so happens that you’re lucky today, and I just happen to be ready”.

Jamie felt the breath rush from her in a little whine, but stayed silent as she expectantly waited for what happened next. Jake already leaning away from the phone barely bothered to whisper “Get On”

She hung up even faster than he did and let her Cell phone clatter noisily to the floor, already forgotten. She was already 6 inches from the screen, the computers mouse gripped tightly between her thumb and forefinger. Her lips were moving forming silent sentences, making no sound.

The title screen came up with bold flourishing music she clicked right on through and began searching for him. “Right… There!” She practically moaned it as she accessed his location.

GrrlKilla: found you

MageMasta: I’m level 24 and you’re my bitch, you wait until I find YOU

GrrlKilla: I brought you the (20) Malachite you asked for

MageMasta: That’s good baby, real good

GrrlKilla: I’m waiting

MageMasta: sry auction! NEway how about we slip out of this armor?

GrrlKilla: Ok!

MageMasta: Yeah I love your blue skin, turn around for me.

GrrlKilla: like this? you like that?

MageMasta: OMG thatz hot!!1

GrrlKilla: word! Check my style

MageMasta: U R such a xxx bi*ch!!

GrrlKilla: ??

MageMasta: ??!?

GrrlKilla: Ima what? bitch?

MageMasta: a hot 1!

GrrlKilla: RU a guy?

MageMasta: yeh duh ur girl y/n?

GrrlKilla: No I thought you were a girl…

MageMasta: WTF??? Jamie?

GrrlKilla: Who TF is Jame? dood this iz chris

MageMasta: Y the hell is your tar a GRL?? F@g!

GrrlKilla: ura F@G!! Lamerz! (@)*#*@#)$*^!!

MageMasta: IM so gone, kik rocks a$$-munch

::: Remember Kids: Warcraft is no place for CyberSex, come to think of it, The internet is no place for cybersex either. If you think I’m the lamest person on the planet for writing fake pr0n just keep in mind that I’m making fun of WoW addicts and keyboard jerkers everywhere, and you probably are one. ::::

This is an open letter to Sony, regarding the PS3 and its strategies.

Stop! Please stop. I beg of you Sony, the lackluster presentations, the gargantuan amounts of bad press and obscure psuedo-mysterious tactics regarding information. Rumors fly and every one is about your absurd pricing, the CEO’s excuses claiming that the priveleged few who are rich (and or dedicated to saving almost a grand to get rolling), forcing blu-ray down our throats and making us pay with ridiculous cost and short supply at launch.

Here’s what I don’t understand, your ‘spin’ on the marketing drive of the PS3 console (or lifestyle as you’d have it) doesn’t seem to make any sense. You admit that your console is out of reach for the average consumer, that its more of a luxury item than a household appliance. But just how the hell do you plan to make money? The PS2 was expensive when it came out but the price increase was in-line with inflation and somewhat reasonable. It sucked when it came out, had glitches and hardware revisions. While it had a bucketful of hype to go with it, It made its money off the games, off the software and the millions of titles that were sold and the huge library of 3rd party games supporting the PS1. So riddle me this Sony, just how the hell do you plan to make money when a tiny portion of your original user base can afford the new console (and its price increased games) and you not only don’t deny it, but embrace the marketing driven values of “the finer lifestyle”.

Its like selling affordable well performing cars and then making the next model impossible to attain for all your customers thus far. Unlike the long lived lifespan of cars, your former customers can’t standby on the same console for another 5 years and expect quality performance. Your tactics thus far have been obscure, rude, inconsistent, and show the symptoms of a massive internal breakdown in your once-great company. I am simply trying to offer an objective point of view. I have no preferred console, I have no hidden agenda, but I do know that you can’t turn around without running into some sort of disappointment on Sony’s part in the last 2 years.

If its not a disappointing Cell Chip yield, it’s a Blu-Ray diode, if its not the Blu-Ray copyright protection scheme problems, its the lack of true 1080p support or content, and if its not your 1000 dollar Blu-Ray Drives making your 600 dollar console look like a good deal, then its the rumors of 70-80 dollars games, controllers without vibration functions and a blatant and weak rip-off of the wii’s control style thrown into the mix to make your bloated shiny box seem ‘fun’. (And on a completely random side note, lose the Spider-Man font on the console, everyone thinks its stupid.)

I know that if reduce myself to plain rudeness and insults that there’s no chance my message will get heard, so I struggle to remain calm, but your actions are a constant and consistent slap in the face. I offer instead of my many critiques… a solution to these many problems. Looking at the facts here, your company, as a whole, has egg on its face. You have already embarrased yourself, disappointed millions of fans and fallen short on numerous promises. If you were a politician I would opt to have you impeached. But we don’t have that option in this consumer driven world, and I do feel that the PS3 is a powerful and solid product that SHOULD find its way into the hands of players everywhere. Here’s how.

First off, the radical backfire that you’ve seen from your price quotes should be sign enough. If you don’t think we’re serious or represent a small portion of the population, go ahead and launch, you’ll get a batch on hype and then start down-down-down grading features and pricing when you realize… its just not worth that much. The limited movie library, start-up online service, and limited media player capabilities (20-60gigs? My media server has 700 and its full). I can tell you that I made a throat clearing noise and sat up straight with indignation when I read rumors of 70 dollars games. The days where Sony can just redefine genres with its overwhelming bulk is over and done. I mentioned earlier a solution.

Besides simply biting the bullet on pricing, which will play a large role in showing your goodwill toward your offended customers. There is a need in the market for services that make sense, and the need to offer those services with a minimum of confusion. Every company likes to play their cards close to their sleeve. But I think the time has finally come that warrants a open door policy on Sony’s part. There are so many rumors of all shapes and sizes, a large amount based off your shortcomings, that your stock and reputation could only be improved by coming clean on your status with the console and its problems. The truth couldn’t possibly be worse than the huge amount of bad press that is getting tossed around now. We wouldn’t be stuck with theories and forced to forecast your dismal end by your dismal performance so far.

Sony manhandled the process of the next-generation of console gaming, much like Microsoft has handled their new operating system “Vista” by adding to a bloated and outdated marketing and design model that will crush itself under the weight of its resistance to change. When the PS3 was planned it should have taken a note from Nintendo and focused on what consoles and video games really mean “Fun” Its not status, hi definition video, or making a playstation the center of the universe. You’ve seen the horrific effects on your previously untouchable standing by doing things as you’ve always done them. Xbox 360 was out way in advance and from all reports is still close enough in power to match the PS3 in most counts, and isn’t nearly as difficult to program for. The “Wii” will be available in abundance and seems extremely promising despite being underpowered and underpriced.

Meanwhile the PS3 will stumble onto the stage amid a massive shortage of units and a blurry veil of mystery, so thick, that people won’t know if its worth trying desperately to get one at all. Ironically they probabaly won’t be able to get one even if they did want it. As I’ve tried to demonstrate with my words, I’m not fanatical about any one company, console, or platform. I actually am still looking forward to the capabilities of the PS3, however my anticipation is now ridden with doubt, sadness, and misgivings as to everything it represents. If you want my advice for the next generation, change your tactics ENTIRELY, but if you want a word of help about this launch, come clean, give us all a much needed break from your gigantic ego, and show us the tiny shred of humanity that will let us trust you, as a company, again.

Many of you have heard the recent announcement regarding Dead or Alive the movie, based off the beloved (by some) game fighting series featuring large chested women. Which is a little mind blowing, because up until 2004 it was absolutely mandated by law that movies of this caliber were to be played on USA UP! all Night, crammed between Porkys #24, and The same three ‘Car Wash’ Movies played for eternity. But apparently America has grown to like breasts more (or they’ll throw buckets of money at anything) because now there’s a multi-million dollar movie contract.

But this all old news, the focus of today is the Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball game is getting a sequel. Known by people who have never gotten laid as DOA:XBV (Tecmo coincidentally is entering the Worlds Most Convoluted Acronym Contest Ever, Put on my our friends at WMCACE:USA/gg/LOL/STFU!) Not only does this sound like the worlds most intellectually devoid game of all time, but it IS! We’re assuming the conversation at Tecmo went a little something like this.

Marketing Guy: Okay boss, we’ve got a great idea to expand the DOA franchise.

Tecmo Manager: Great, let’s hear it.

Marketing Shill: Okay, here’s our idea *deep breath* We take the all the girls from Dead or Alive and drop them on a desert island, where they’ll play and run around and we’ll have them in skimpy bathing suits, and they’ll prance like retards and splash water on each other and perhaps we’ll even put in some sort of volleyball game to the make the tit physics work better and convince people we’re not just selling an anime porn simulator, What do you think?

Tecmo Manager: Isn’t that the exact premise of DOAXBV?

Marketing Assmonkey: Yeah! But we’ll call it part 2 and put it on the PS3.

Tecmo Manager: Brilliant!

Marketing Child Rapist: Thank you sir, here’s the contract and a cookie.

Tecmo Manager: oooh! Where do I sign.

And so on. This I assume is actually for the format for almost any conversation in a japanese gaming company for a new product, except sometimes they don’t get a cookie. But that’s why they work harder than us. Anyway my point being, does the world really need another, higher resolution, more tit-filled sequel to a game about Triple-D Fighting whores playing volleyball and slapping each others asses? While yes it could very well be that this is a total neccesity, feel free to comment, Is it stupid, fun, perfect, game-porn, or some combination? Your opinions don’t matter in the least, but we’ve love to make fun of them, so send away.

The Bounce, keeps bouncing back (I love their tagline)

Posted by Adam on Monday,
May 01, 2006 at 3:17 PM

Let me sum up here, The crew of GamerNode.com and myself are currently in Los Angeles. By hook or by crook a staff of roughly 12 writers, managers, photographers, and canadians managed to get here by plane, and carpool on a budget of none to cover E3. It’s been a long, hard road, a glorius week, a bonding experience and sort of like that itch under your balls that’s too far back to scratch so you just wobble in your seat and the girl next to you stares and thinks you have herpes.

We arrived last Monday, (some were here earlier,) And planned and fucked around and ate pizza. The Show itself was a blast, an absolute maelstrom of video games, screens, booth babes, free shit, interviews and walking around in constant circles. Speaking of which I’m convinced the LA convention center was invented by a co-op between the Rubix Cube inventor, Lucifer the prince of Darkness and M.C. Escher, apparently you can actually walk in a perfect square and end up in Minnesota, but if you turn around and re-trace your steps you’ll actually be in the center, then the roof almost simultaneously, needless to say this building is harder to navigate than Bermuda.

Not only was it hard to find your way around, but I for one am fucking sore, there was so much standing, waiting, walking, standing, waiting, that it felt like you’d played 83 rounds of DDR on Extreme Japan Fag mode while wearing bricks with thumbtacks in them. But I’m off topic, the wet dream of every kid who’s ever known the contra code, who’s ever actually beat ikari warriors, who’s ever made the ROB Nintendo Robot look like he’s jerking off a plaster bust of Jesus (but I digress), is E3.

E3 stands for the Electronic Entertainment Expo, or possibly the Expounding Entropied Emu’s. There’s really no way to make that funny. What is funny is that it’s just about the worlds biggest video gaming convention (and there’s no way to make that sound sexy) and it’s sexy. We saw stars like Steven Spielberg, Paris hilton (cum stains and all), Adam Sandler, Hideo Kojima, and that Japanese guy who screams and throws ice cream on the hit show “Japanese people are seriously fucking disturbed”. We got to see promo’s of upcoming games, consoles, hardware, peripherals of all shapes, sizes, quantity and quality.

Some of my favorite items were the SplitFish Pig-fucker (working title) which is a way to make using console controllers for First person shooters seem like a good idea by sheer shit comparison. (it’s basically a split controller with laser sighting and 2 ps2 joysticks.) The Fanatec steering wheel controller which wobbled and made a makeshift steering wheel, the Emagine head tracking VR helmet, so you can make people on airplanes think you have epilepsy AND no social life. And other such sex-preventing toys.

Software wise, there was the very impressive Crysis by EA, the disappointing Battlefield 20,420,200,03.03. Disgaea 2 for strategy goodness, god of war two, where a muscled man in a loin cloth jumping around like a gibbon and wrestling mythical creatures, ISN’T gay. The PS3 demos were right in the middle, some awesome, some crap. Squaresoft has actually done me a favor, by confirming that it’s just not my imagination that they’ve recently hired a bunch of chocobo worshipping, tight lipped, lily padded cocksuckers. Half the crew knew nothing about the games, and the other half made it their life’s mission to keep you from taking pictures or accidentally learning something about their solid gold game franchise spin-offs.

Nvidia’s booth was cool, Sin episodes was cool, The booth babes were not up to their wonderful slut antics but there were at least 3 or 4 buxom beauties that you’d stab your grandmother in the face with a running hedgetrimmer to get a chance to get your greasy gamer hands on. The swag was cool for us, but sadly lacking from previous years by all reports… (Sony I’m looking at you… You Yo-Yo dishing shit cannons) lots of little trinkets, t-shirts, knick-knacks, but no flame throwers or Xbox branded dildo’s.

The week has drawn to a close, E3 has drawn to a close, we’re all leaving tomorrow AM, to our various places around the country, including a few of us to the Godless neighbors above Canada (cough… Ian) Who know what i’m talking Aboot. This has truly been a bonding experience for all of us. The GamerNode crew as a whole has a renewed sense of purpose, a reinvigorating kick in the nuts of comraderie, and a newfound respect for all their peers in all their aspects of making this company great on sheer willpower. I think everyone one of us will look back with great memories and a profound respect for everyone who took the time and money to make it down here. Except Ian, he’s from Canada.

So with no further ado, I salute you GamerNode (check out the new site at www.gamernode.com ) and it’s many members even the ones who couldn’t make it this week. And for all of you who read this, and gamernodes site. It was a total blast and we’ll all be here with bells on for the next E3 without a doubt. So that’s some Steve Harcum in your eye.

Posted by Adam on Monday,
May 01, 2006 at 3:17 PM

Some of you may be familiar with the Dead or Alive fighting game series, whose intense focus on epically busty women beating the shit out of each other in a myriad of creative fighting styles has of course made it huge worldwide (especially in Japan where they can pretend the red-headed Triple-D Ninja is 14). All of this is great. No really, I love titties and fighting games, it’s a match made in heaven.

But then I find out that they’re making a movie. WAIT! Before you gag violently and start loading the guns, it’s NOT Uwe Boll. (He’s probably buying the movie rights to Bubble Bobble casting Keanu reeves as the Cannon) But it’s not much better than that. The Director “Japenese randomfucker” has decided this is what he wants his 98 minute film career to be remembered by. That and maybe peeing in the mouth of a congress-woman. But you gotta have goals.

I’ve seen the trailer, and basically the best comparison you can make it Charlie’s angel’s with less talent, more fighting, a lower budget and slightly more breasts. I can’t imagine wanting to pay money for this travesty without the absolute guarantee that one of the C grade actors (with the Exception of Jamie Pressley who must have thought her role in “My name is Earl” was too classy and needed a downgrade,) would blow me while doing a backflip. As this is about as likely as this movie being even ‘decent’ we won’t hold our breath too long.

From what I gather the plot is somewhere along the lines of “In a strange place, on a beautiful island made of ninjas and volleyball courts, these glorified Tit-Pedastals will attempt to act and maybe even fight with a number of faceless and uninteresting charactors sharing the names of your favorite players from the game.” (Which by the way has no spoken plot beyond FIGHT and YOU WIN/LOSE and “I WILL DEFEAT YOU” ad infinitum) They will probably even be in bikinis and their underwear!

While this whole concept is silly I’ll tell you what I see missing from this project – other than the obvious – BIGGER titties, they should just go balls-out with HUGE tit models attempt to kick each other while rubbing their erect nipples with flavored lubricant and moaning names in japanese. Or just 2 hours of naked porn stars playing volleyball and going Hiiii-ya! That would drop it squarely in the generic porn bin, where there’s at least a CHANCE I would be inclined to purchase it from. Instead of that bin in the back of Blockbuster where they sell overstock of Navy Seals, and All dogs go to heaven #4.

Needless to say, there will be titties and fighting and probably not a decent amount of either one in any quality. So if you’re 10-15 years old or Asian in any way, get your DOA jiggle fest on, in the theatres soon. The bounce is back, indeed.

Posted by Adam on Monday,
May 01, 2006 at 3:17 PM

There’s been a lot of talk about the upcoming “Console Wars” See our earlier article about Xbox360 vs PS3.

We think it would be better to focus on the future of gaming, or some similar nonsensical string of buzzwords, like the “Paradigm of Virtual Life” You see I’m so clever I could just title this article all day long. But the future can’t wait! (zing) Here are my predictions.

The New Names:

We all know the new consoles are now called the “Xbox 360″ and the “Playstation 3″ and “Nintendo Revolution” But what will the consoles AFTER that be called? Here are some predictions for Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo.

Sony 4th Generation console name ideas
1. Playstation 4 XP
2. StationPlay -4
3. PS The footnote
4. The Not X-box
5. The Silver Baboon
6. Megatron

Microsoft 3rd Generation Console name ideas
1. Xbox 720!
2. SeXbox
3. Apple Mac G6
4. Xbox 3: XXX State of the console
5. YBox
6. AlmostPC

Nintendo 6th (sorta) Generation console name ideas
1. GameSphere (you heard it here first!)
2. Maximum Revolution Demolition
3. The “Please buy it”
4. Pokemon Platform
5. Wacky Fun Thingy
6. Playskool will buy it and call it *babysitter box*

Now that I’ve asserted my Genius we can all rest easy but what Features will be included with the New wacky digital wave of techno virtual-buzzword filled gaming superfuture?? (phew thats getting long winded)

Featuring Features!

Sony Playstation4 –

Up to 37 wireless controllers!
So you can all have postage stamp sized segments of the screen and go blind within MINUTES!
19 Quad Core cross parellaxed CellX Processor Magix
This is case your Sonybox needs to calculate Pi every 1/130000th of a second or run that SETI crap, whatever…
Cock-Slot Memory sticks
Simply insert your genitalia into the Blo-Job memory slot to have your game progress embedded in the shaft of your penis with hydraulic force! And they say gaming isn’t sexually diverse, girls can play, they just can’t save without the “Sony-Strap-on Pro Duo Cards”
Organic Storage Unit 1x
In an effort to cram more storage into a small medium we’ve decided to utilize the endless potentional of the organic genetic structure. Your games will now come on small slimy sentient creatures that vaguely represent a seahorse crossed with a monkey. When the new storage medium is upgraded you can simply breed your games for instant upgrades (or mini-games)
Spotlight AC adaptor
Sony likes style, hell sony almost SPELLS style if you’re dyslexic or retarded. And they like to make the best looking hardware on the planet. So to exemplify their mission statement (To make the world sexier and to use memory sticks) The Ac adaptor for the wall plug also includes a flexible 2000 watt halogen spotlight to direct at the console’s highly reflective sexually deviant profile.
*Note: pointing the Spotlight AC at any object other than a Sony product will result in fragments of white-hot bulb glass flying into your pets and children.*
**NOTE:note::this may happen anyway Sony is a harsh mistress**

Microsoft Xbling 3

FREE Forklift!!
The Xbox has gotten smaller but with the increase in density and technology the next generation of xbox will weigh in the neighborhood of 7 tons, (right next door to Oprah! oooh) And you need some way to get it to your friends house short of forming a cadre of slaves to lug it.
Wireless Wired controllers
The current Generation of consoles feature wireless controllers, but what happens if you lose them? There’s no tracking down player two in your filthy hovel of an apartment, what’s a game geek to do? Well we plugged the parameters into Microsoft Logic 2009 (now with thinking!) and it suggested we tether the wireless controllers permanently to the console so you’ll never lose your wireless controllers,
*Note* Tether is 27 inches long and cannot be removed
Now with John!
As technology plummets inevitably forward, we are faced with more and more of a steep learning curve for the current wave of technology. Well focus groups have shown that people are comfortable with “Real People” And so the New Xbox will come with your very own Microsoft Technician. They have all been brainwashed and named John for your convenience. John is very helpful and not allowed to stray more than 3 meters from your console, he also can survive on sawdust for several weeks at a time.
Media Connected Pre-viewer
With Xbox already becoming a media hub in the home, we’ve taken it one step further. Instead of old fashioned “Tivo” functionality. The new Xbox will actually watch TV for you and tell you what you want to watch! The commercials (and parts of the show) that Xbox finds ‘boring’ will be replaced with still images of Bill Gates vacation to India!

The Nintendo Embolysm (7th gen)

Will come in Fuschia…
Mauve and Taupe coming soon.

Well that’s all the time we have for today, we hope that this will give you all some perspective on the current trend of videogaming and realize that you don’t have to leap naked out your bedroom windows to buy the latest and greatest console. Because there’s always something overhyped and slightly better in the distant horizon. I guess in this sense, it’s like marriage. Gee I think we’ve all learned a lesson today. Don’t get married or stick your genitalia in a pre-4th generation console… Unless you’re married to the console.

-Dick

[10:59] WeaselBringer: Xbox 360 had perfect dark zero for a ‘halo style flagship game’ but they lost it due to delays, so they’re trying to decide what the flagship game will be, which means the first main game they force down our throats will probably be a racer
[10:59] WeaselBringer: neato
[11:00] WeaselBringer: Maybe they’ll have like Halo 2.5 the 1024x Edition, Now with shiny things!
[11:01] BriggsinCali: well, halo certainly was fun
[11:02] BriggsinCali: yea, i really hope Sony comes out with something nice once they finally release ps3
[11:06] WeaselBringer: of course sony decided to embrace blu-ray 2x speeds for the ps3 – (extra 100$ cost per unit for sony)
[11:07] WeaselBringer: meaning the ps3 should be out in 7 years and cost 203,000 dollars
[11:07] BriggsinCali: yea, that worries me a bit
[11:07] BriggsinCali: by the time it comes out, it won’t be special anymore
[11:08] WeaselBringer: you simply give the store your credit card, and they don’t give it back, and then you use the handy ‘employee branded ritual blade’ to offer blood sacrifice to the console, then you ask it what game it would like to play to show it that you’re not being bossy and willing to let it make it’s own decisions, then if you can coax it into it’s harness and get it to the car, you too will own your very own ps3
[11:09] BriggsinCali: hmm, i hope they sterilize the blade
[11:11] WeaselBringer: they’ll probly be like cheap ‘funco-land’ keychains with disposable razor blades on them, and they’ll let you keep it, ya know…. just in case the ps3 gets angry and doesn’t like the size of the enclose you’ve chosen for it’s rotund oval shaped “no components will fit above me” form factor (copyright)
[11:11] BriggsinCali: ha ha
[11:12] WeaselBringer: do you think that’s a sly way to make sure that the ps3 alwasy ends up on top of your stereo components or at least gets it’s own shelf, or do they really just have to make oval motherboards with egg-ram or something
[11:12] BriggsinCali: well, the xbox 360 isn’t much better
[11:13] WeaselBringer: they keep this up the ps4 will be a cylinder that you can roll around, and the ps5 will actually be a ball! (Then nintendo will sue them for stealing their ‘gamesphere’ idea)
[11:14] WeaselBringer: And the xbox 360 looks like they hired the guy that made the Ipod and beat the shit out of him with a sack full of hammers while he tried to make their 17 pound console pretty
[11:14] BriggsinCali: wow, quite the rant today
[11:14] WeaselBringer: (and it looks like they got F@tali1y’s mother to design the front of it)
[11:14] WeaselBringer: yeah I’m sorta ranty today
[11:16] WeaselBringer: maybe I’ll just post this whole conversation on my website
[11:16] WeaselBringer: so I don’t have to repeat it all
[11:16] BriggsinCali: well, your half of it anyway
[11:16] BriggsinCali: i’m typing in between gluing sessions
[11:17] WeaselBringer: sniffing glue?
[11:17] BriggsinCali: fuck yea
[11:18] BriggsinCali: although it takes a lot of wood glue do have much of an effect
[11:18] WeaselBringer: I bet try cramming the tube in your nostril and hitting it with a hammer (the tube not your nostril)
[11:19] BriggsinCali: that might just do it