Is it possible to love/laugh at a game as much as I love/laugh at 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, which unironically drops this Fall? Since Kotaku ran the newest, Awesomely Stupid Trailer, I thought I'd let you fine folks know what runs through my brains after reading the incredible press release...
The internet can be a pretty messed up place sometimes. Sure, the information super highway is a shining example of freedom of expression at its finest, but it has a tendency to expose me to things I don't want to know about.
Case in point, some guy identifying himself as smorrill1 has started an entire series of YouTube videos called $5 Assassin based on this first post in which he has constructed the hidden blade from Assassin's Creed using an old umbrella shaft and a few rubber bands:
He gets in close on his web cam, staring into our very souls with the cold eyes of a dorm room assassin and says, "There's no blade on it yet, but really I can attach whatever I want to the end."
Like what? A "bang" sign? A boxing glove? The sheer number of possibilities boggles the imagination.
I'm getting ready to complete my thoughts on Wii Fit for the next edition of Game On, and it occurs to me how stupid this all is: Nintendo dropping an exercise game on America in the middle of the most beautiful weather of the year (*claim VOID in contiguous states with shitty weather). Why in the hell would I want to hop up and down on a balance board when I could be throwing beer bottles at passing semi trailers, and running like hell? Now THAT'S good exercisin'!
Then it occurs to me, as if Shigeru Miyamoto himself whispered it into my ear, that once attention is turned from the Xbox and PS3 pissing contests that are Better Graphics and Faster Processing Speeds, the next logical step would be to move gaming outside your living room and into a real world environment.
I have a closet full of videogame stuff – literally: a closet, full. In truth it’s more of a closet-and-a-half, the boxes beginning to creep out the door a few feet into my office.
It’s a little bit of everything – old consoles (I’m especially proud of my TurboDuo modded with an S-Video output), reams of old magazines (the first couple years of Nintendo Power, practically the entire catalog of Diehard Gamefan), and a veritable Tutankhamen’s tomb of preorder bonuses and collector’s editions stretching back decades. Offhand, I’m having trouble thinking of a videogame relic I don’t own, aside from a Neo-Geo (but I’m looking).
So in a way, my girlfriend couldn’t possibly know all the shit I've got squirreled away - how could she, when even I’ve lost track?
Just the same, there are a few things I’ve made a point of her not knowing about, because... well... there'd be too much explaining. You understand. And since she only reads Joystick Division when I insist… we’ll just keep this our little secret, ‘kay?
I doubt I'm the first person to admit hoping that there would be something really wrong with Grand Theft Auto IV, just so I could learn a few valuable lessons about the corrupt, ass-kissing nature of the game review business and the general perils of buying into hype. There's just one problem: It is as good as everyone says. The graphics are somewhere between "good enough" and "damn that's pretty"; the character animations are exquisite, the gameplay is exciting, and Liberty City is, at least from what I've played so far, one of the most eye-catching, detailed and explorable gameplay worlds of all time. There's some of the usual GTA issues -- I expected and got at least one hair-pulling mission that required way too many tries, a few other missions that required some "what in the hell is happening" trial-and-error, and a fair amount of long-hike chase missions that tested my patience -- but it's more or less impossible to make a Grand Theft Auto game without those things. The real problems that drove me completely insane in the previous games are largely solved: gunfights are kinetic and easily controllable, with a useful cover system that changes the whole dynamic of what used to be a massive headache of a gameplay mechanic; icons are clear and easy to spot; navigating between checkpoints and mission markers is done through a simple and intutitive GPS system (though it still leaves you on your own to discover useful shortcuts along the way) ... you'd really have to scrape the bottom of the bitch barrel to find something serious to complain about here.
Last night, LA gallery Machine Project hosted an event where guests could try their hand at a projected, wall-sized game of Donkey Kong, Missle Command or Pac-Man using a similarly-scaled (i.e., massive) Atari 2600 joystick.
According to Machine Project’s website, the joystick – built by artist-slash-mad genius Jason Torchinsky – is 15 times normal scale, making it about 5 feet tall and all but impossible to work on your own. This results in team efforts as seen below, where you work the bottom part while your girlfriend works the actual shaft... um… what was I talking about?
I love hip hop. Since this is a video game blog, you may think I'm going to tell you how hilarious MC Chris is or something, but I actually mean hip hop by actual non-nerdcore rappers and not someone whose biggest claim to fame is yelling a lot on Sealab 2021 and insulting Kingdom Hearts (though that's still a pretty decent claim to fame if you ask me). I have over 20 hours' worth of music by Wu-Tang and Wu-affiliated artists on my iPod, seeing Afrika Bambaataa live at the Foundation ranks up there with my happiest memories ever, and if my apartment building caught on fire one of the first things I'd rescue would be my 12" copy of the "Life Is... Too $hort" single. You know why I couldn't get excited for Super Smash Brothers Melee? My version already came out years ago. Redman vs. Crazy Legs is like my Snake vs. Kirby.
That said: no no no no no no no.
24-UP intro, parts one, two, three and the video
Four Pac-Man things Billy Mitchell will never own
5 Super Smash Bros. Brawl characters that suck, and the 5 that should've been in it instead
