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Video Games. What ideas or images flashed into your head when you read that phrase? Were they memories of yourself spending quarters at an arcade machine? Or maybe spending hours behind of a Guitar Hero drum set. Maybe you’re a typical parent who thinks of an evil device that erodes your children’s brains and turns them into head-shooting Nintendo-worshiping zombies. Or maybe you are one of those zombies and that phrase brought back all the great times you spent killing virtual people.

Okay let’s get serious, video games deserve the same respect any other entertainment medium has. They may have not had their Citizen Kane yet, but we’re all sure that point is not too far away, maybe in the year 2016 or so. If video games are one of mankind’s greatest creative and technological achievements, why does their very name carry so much negative baggage? →  Finger lickin’ read.

Books. They are good at stories right? But books are cheating because the imagination does half the work. The written word allows for a great number of freedoms that other media have yet to gain (parenthetical comments only work in writing). Films? Not so hot. In fact quite rubbish. Even the greatest films are totally inept at dealing with the big issues or telling good stories without the overuse of coincidence or predictability (take for example the new ‘Crash’, ohhhh I didd no dat racism was so complex them shits is deep).

Books and movies are over. Done. A new form of storytelling is here and it is a game. Not games in general, you understand, because games couldn’t tell a story if the whole industry depended on it. RPGs get over this by telling stories that are so long that your mind condenses all the bullshit bits – like talking to dogs or statues or boring cutscenes – into a story that seems to make sense. →  There is only one really serious philosophical problem, and that is games.

Consoles have come and gone, hardware market leaders have become laughing stocks and whole game series have gone from groundbreaking innovation to tired old rehash. Yet one thing has always remained constant in modern gaming: Capcom will remake the original Resident Evil. However, today no reports have come from Capcom on any kind of planned remake causing some to speculate that there won’t be one for up to quite a while.

In 1996 Resident Evil was released on the Sony PlayStation to widespread acclaim and simultaneously gave birth to the survival horror genre (paradoxically, before the earlier released Alone In the Dark). The game then went from strength to strength: with a director’s cut for the PS and a port to the Saturn and the PC in 1997. The game then saw a remake on the Gamecube in 2002, which, at the time many gamers and industry top dogs saw as a risky move. →  Professor Layton and the Diabolical Post

An open letter to Nintendo:

Dear Nintendo (umm Pokémon division?)

My friend and I are Pokémon fans, Pokéfans if you will. Adult Pokémon fans. Is there a sadder thing? Probably. People who are into team sports. All those people who invested their money in property instead of your series of children’s videogames (at least I still have my Marshstomp hah!). But we’re not going to make any excuses for our sad sorry selves. Not to you. Of course we could argue that the whole series should be championed by gamers for it’s visionary approach to RPGs and the ability to take your favourite characters into games that span a number of console generations. For fellow RPG fans how nice would it be to be able to keep transferring your favourite characters from one game to the next without having to start over from scratch? →  In the beginning games created the heavens and the earth.

So Eidos and Square Enix are now in cahoots. Considering both these guys are huge players in the industry, this merger is considerably underwhelming. It was actually made even more underwhelming when it was announced that Squeenix were not going to change the way was Eidos was working (at least in the first year). Personally, I was hoping for a radical name change along the lines of “Squeidos-X” or “Eidarenix”, but no…

When I originally heard of the buy-over, I originally thought, “Nice! Maybe we can have some cool Squeenix/Eidos crossover titles.” However, when I started to think about the possible franchises I was underwhelmed yet again! I mean seriously what do Eidos have to offer in the way of franchises?

Well there is one big one, Tomb Raider, but all the recent ones have been bug-ridden, Lara-raping, soulless ca$h-ins. →  Welcome to read.

Today a number of video games started to quarantine characters in fear of the spread of Swine Flu. Here is the latest news our surviving reporters could get:

Sea islands off the coast of the Kingdom of Hyrule have been hit with devastating losses so far. One eye witness account illustrates the horror in the cel-shaded kingdom: “The pigs were going fucking mental man. Snorting, squealing and grunting all over the place. There was blood everywhere. Fortunately, Link was there. He was trying to save them with some kind of pork injection but it wasn’t working. They just kept dying. Oh man the blood.” On going to press, weird rumours report popular pederast, Tingle, has dressed as a pig and is looking for Link. More when we get it.

Meanwhile, in Beyond Good and Evil, shallow stereotype depicting all men as pigs, Pey’J is totally fine. →  You fool. Don’t you understand? No one wishes to read on…

Oh my holy mother of all that is pure and good!!

Marvel vs Capcom 2 on XBLA!!

For those of you who don’t know what Marvel vs. Capcom is, it is a 2D fighter where characters from the Marvel and Capcom universes* can battle one another. The Marvel characters range from the heroes such as Spiderman and the Xmen, to the villains such as Venom and Magneto (even the sentinels).

The Capcom side, of course, has the 2D fighters from the Streetfighter and Darkstalkers games, but it also includes some other characters from the Capcom universe including the likes of Megaman, Strider and our, infrequent-if-you-can-convince-you-partner-to-dress-up-as-her-but-realise-that-taking-off-the-clothes-will-ruin-it-so-you-just-go-for-some-oral-favours-but-after-you-dump-your-plasma-and-a-little-bit-gets-on-the-pristinely-stitched-beret-you-feel-ashamed-that-you-have-defaced-and-humiliated-the-one-and-only-image-that-you-should-have-kept-on-a-pedestal-and-make-a-note-that-next-time-you-should-try-for-Ada-as-we-all-know-she’s-filthy-and-if-you-go-for-Resident-Evil-4-Ada-you-can-get-access-under-her-dress, favourite character: Jill Valentine.

The game has 3v3 combat which allows for tagging and assists. And this one is gonna come in a super smooth, velvety, just lubed enough, spank and it dribbles, honeydew glistening, moist, sweet, pleasant, HD version. →  Readius III and IV

It’s official. Lego themed games are slowly killing the entire Lego Systems franchise.

Lego Rock Band can be expected this “Holiday 2009” on the Wii, XBox 360, PS3, and supposedly the Nintendo DS (although I cannot say for sure if that includes the Nintendo DSi, which lacks the GBA slot presumably needed for a strumming widget), as announced this week by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Traveller’s Tales Games, Harmonix, MTV Games, and I think your mom is involved with the project too. Seriously, I feel like some sort of “stacked like legos” jab is in order in respect to the collaboration efforts of this motley crew, but you know what? I can’t even muster that much effort.

Let me get right to the point. Beyond my cynicism, I can see some value in this game. →  Lose belly fat now!

Target has decided that it is time to face the competition head on and get into the business of game preorders. However, as is common with Target, they have decided to put their own spin on the process. To reserve a game with them you pay one dollar for a fancy “collector’s” reservation card. When you bring the card to pay for the game, you get a new kind a card – a five dollar gift card, that is. Here is a link to all the facts at VerticalWire, as well as the Kotaku coverage of the story, which actually contains some interesting comments.  Questions include “Will this actually guarantee me a copy?” and “How does $1 down and five free bucks in merch help on a product with an already tiny profit margin?” →  Xenoblade Articles X