posts by Don
Don

Peripheral Disdain

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Hate Goes HERE

My girlfriend is pretty solid into Mario Kart. This was made clear to me when we started dating, that any attempt to usurp her Mario Kart dominance would be met with pure and unfettered force; the kind you would expect from the core of an exploding sun.

Not one to back down to that sort of challenge, I wrapped up my attempt at her throne in a pretty bow and gave it to her, a shit eating grin slapped on, for her birthday along with Mario Kart Wii and an additional wheel. This additional wheel, it was for me. For me to use to kick her ass.

Before you lose your dork-load trying to tell me how amazing the GC controller is and how lame we are to be using the wheel it should be mentioned that her golden path of pwnership was swathed wide with a wavebird, and that these wheels we got – we got them for fun. →  Readalations: Persona

Why is my UT so pretty?

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ut3 teh sam3z0rz

I’ve got UT3. I’ve played the shit out of it. Surprised, right? I know, me too.

I’m not allowed to write a review on the thing because my editor isn’t very comfortable with sixty pages of what would likely be strikingly pornographic adulation being posted as a legitimate review. I don’t know that I could do anything like an objective review, though, so I guess he has a point. I am not kidding you when I say that I want to have sex with this game. No dinner, no movie, not even a few choice words about its pretty hoop earrings and swanky nightgown; my junk wants to be in this game’s trunk. Plain. Simple. END OF LINE.

This is the point where the adroit few of you take a small break while the remaining headshot fodder comes up with any way they can to make the above sound like I want to press up against dudes. →  This post are sick.

Diary of a Guitar Hero Loser

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Guitar Loser

Recently I wrote of my relative experience in the area of playing the video games and how it related to my ability to enjoy Halo 3. My cocksure countenance and, frankly, fairly insulting prose garnered a respectable number of responses whose general flavor I would describe as mired in absolute and laser-focused ire. Ire mired, as it were.

It is now weeks later and I own Guitar hero 3. I purchased the Wii version because I thought that plugging my Wii-mote into the Les Paul would somehow be more awesome than gaining achievements or playing friends online with less than thirty layers of fucking moon cryptography between myself and those people Nintendo just assumes are trolling the Wii-nternets looking for kids to say nasty things to. It is unfortunate that I must report to you that there is absolutely no reason to go this route. →  Prince of Postia: Article Within

Review – Halo 3 campaign

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You kids like your Halo. I’ve read, in scores and multitudes, that it’s the bee’s knees, really. All manner of laud, pomp and, indeed, circumstance was made at the Halo 3 launch.

Just here in Chicago, in fact, like, a billion total nut-job game dweebs sat for hours both inside and out of any number of gaming venues through the eve of release just to snag a copy at midnight-plus-one. This is, I presume, because they were all of them mistaken; thinking, perhaps, that there was some sort of limited supply of the new nectar and that this wait would somehow result in an assurance that they get the rare and beautiful flower which, to be sure, couldn’t simply be stamped out by the billions for pennies at the press.

It was like a goddamned hardware launch only the following morning the mass of those proprietors overrun by game dorks just hours earlier would be rich with bloom; their walls stacked to bear out those morsels to which Bungie executives owe their Hummers, Audis and yes, the occasional EVO. →  But the future refused to change.

The Bioshock Occlusion

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HateComputer

My PC is stout. A 3.2ghz Quad core, 8gb RAM, GeForce 7950 SLI (x2) beast with a raptor managing triple boot, 2tb of SATA storage and a 1000 watt PSU to keep the cheesy blue cathodes and 8 case fans humming wildly in PC mod rapture. I can run any game at any resolution (yes, even with the months old 7950s) at hundreds of FPS. It makes little girls cry, old men shit themselves and, if the moon is just right, can grab hold of the minds of all within a forty block radius and twist them to my devious desires.

So I guess it only makes sense then that I bought Bioshock for the 360.

I was given a choice, you see. The PC version was right there next to the xBox version on the special Bioshock end-cap at my local blue-shirt-crap-shack. →  Contains 10% more consonants than comparable articles.

We can’t really be this stupid

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ReggieHatesYou

When my fiancee tells her friends that she’s engaged to a fairly devoted gamer she is almost universally met with reticence; those ‘I feel sorry for you’ little smiles, vacant head bobs and the ubiquitous ‘oh… that’s, um, cool’.

This is because, even though G4 Tech TV, Spike and the Sci-Fi channel would have you believe otherwise, we are not mainstream. Realize that even though you know more gamers today than you ever have in your life, the majority of our country still asks if we use Nintendo Tapes(???) for our xBoxen. We are gaining momentum, yes. Our industry is becoming a huge cash generator and more people than ever are joining the cause, but we’re not at the point just yet where more than 10% of the populace doesn’t think of us as basement dwelling dweebs. →  Professor Layton and the Diabolical Post

Suck It, 3D Realms

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Skesis Nukem

I have been very tight lipped about the Duke Nukem Forever situation. I have been for a decade. When speaking of the project I have only ever defended the guys at 3D Realms. Making a game can’t possibly be an easy undertaking, especially a game established in success, steeped in expectation and absolutely festooned with the hopes and dreams of thousands of loyal fans.

My only real expectation has been that they release a good game that they have packed full of a love of the franchise and dripping with Duke Nukem goodness. Just as Duke Nukem 3D was the obvious evolution of the Duke Nukem platformers, so too should DNF be the obvious evolution of D3D.

At every engine change or design reboot or announcement that it was just a few months away those associates of mine who had already given up the ghost, their collective DNF will depleted, would chatter like the Skeksis at feast about the turgid state of the development process, its distention fueling rage. →  Postgaea 2: Cursed Memories

namageM: AB

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AB2

Christian’s extremely informative review of the Metal Slug Anthology reminds us that sometimes anthologies can wrap in their splendor those thorns that might serve to sully and distort our otherwise wonderful memories of a franchise.

Though Metal Slug Anthology’s load issues, weird menus and interesting controller choices may serve to take the edge off of an otherwise perfect arcade port, there are some cases, indeed some entire franchises, where these issues are not merely — as those that would use the word ‘niggle’ might say — a niggle.

I purchased the Mega Man (Megaman, Rockman, Blue Bomber, etc) 20yr Anniversary Collection for the GC with, literally, a big toothy grin. I have tiny little teeth, and this sort of thing is hard for me — but I did it. Though I had obliterated each and every one of these games on each and every (three, actually) platform, I was absolutely ready to take them all, 1-8, out behind the work shed and show them what’s for. →  Go ahead, read my day.

Worm$

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Worm$

I know the argument about microtransactions has been done to death. As such, let me get my view out of the way before delving into a subject that I think has been avoided publicly for too long.

I like microtransactions and think that the idea has merit. I like buying VC games for a few bucks. I have a job and can afford to buy my TG-16 collection over again for pennies on the dollar. I know this isn’t the case for everyone; I am not writing from everyone’s point of view.

I like buying add-ons. I like Live Arcade and I like picking up schwag/gear/icons/whatever for my games. I endorse monetary obfuscation by way of numeric transmogrification; I think it is a neat idea that my American dollar is actually equal to 80 crazy moon credits and I like spending those moon credits on pointless crap to enhance my gaming experience. →  Read awhile, and listen.

C4T4N!!!1!1!11one

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C4T4N!

This is not a review. You’ve played Catan and you love it. If you haven’t, you will. If you don’t there is something broken with the gamer inside of you and it needs to be fixed. Let me suggest an age old cure: Play Catan.

I spent Memorial Day settling Catan. A great time, to be sure. Fun was had, Catan was settled, achievements unlocked and a whole lot of settlements were built. What was not fun, however, was finding out that Microsoft’s xBox Live skill based matchmaking service is actually a portal to a goddamned other dimension; one whose petulant inhabitants do things that resemble settling Catan but interpret any reciprocal action as some sort of lurid farce and act on what seems to be merely impulse when entering any sort of communicative contract. →  [post launches in virtual reality],[put on your VR headset now],[left click on your mouse to open the remainder of this post in your web browser on your digital computing device]