Category: Gaming

Really? There’s a nude Zoey mod for Left 4 Dead? Really?

If you’re curious what it looks like in-game (and how Zoey maintains her landscape) here’s a video, you pervert. Pixelated naughty bits always make me nostalgic for downloading porn in the days before 56K modems.

Because it’s vapor, motherfucker, and you can’t grab vapor. Unless you have a containment unit of some sort, then I guess it’s possible, but still unlikely.

Oh right, and apparently Duke Nukem is not dead. At least, not according to 3D Realms CEO Scott Miller, who doesn’t know the meaning of the word dead. But that’s more a commentary on his level of education than his determination to make this unnecessary franchise successful again.

I’m not even going to bother summarizing what’s going on in that link, because it doesn’t matter. The games are never coming out and even if they do, nobody will give a shit. Like we need a one-dimensional character spouting ripped off quotes in oh-thank-Christ-for-yet-another first person shooter. Duke’s been dead for a long time, Miller and his employees just keep flogging him like he isn’t.

From the makers of Off-Road Velociraptor Safari comes Minotaur China Shop. The game is supposedly releasing today. It’ll be free of charge, and could be very much worth your time. Keep checking Blurst if you’re interested.

*Update* – It’s out. Enjoy waiting ten years for the unity media player to install while 8 million people simultaneously download it.

I haven’t received a single complaint regarding my blatant whoring of the 360 console on this site, which means that I’m not doing my job effectively. Someone must be pissed off that I’m not talking about whatever bit of nothing is happening on the PS3 this week, right? No? It’s that, or nobody fucking reads this site anymore. I’m guessing it’s a little bit from column A, and a little bit from column B.

For those of you in column A who still read and don’t give a shit about my 360 whoredom, you should go ahead and buy yourself N+ on XBLA today. 800 points (just say ten bucks Microsoft, you’re not fooling anyone) for an astoundingly awesome game, online multiplayer (co-op and competetive) and a level editor to share your ridiculously stupid creations with everyone else. Sounds like a bargain, but then again I’m an impulse buyer of such extraordinary magnitude that I can actually feel my intelligence go out for coffee once an opportunity to open my wallet arises. Long winded diatribe aside, buy the Goddamned game.

Also, Gears of War 2 will be coming to the 360 in November, according to Microsoft/Epic’s announcement at the GDC this morning. There’s really nothing else to say about that, other than my brain will much enjoy the coffee break once it comes time to order it.

There’s no regularly scheduled Zero Punctuation this week, instead Yahtzee Croshaw will be doing some sort of special GDC series of videos over at Escapist Magazine tonight at midnight Eastern, or 9PM in the area of the country that I actually give a shit about. In the meantime, try to enjoy this mediocre little bit of Yahtzee from Ken Levine’s speech about Bioshock this morning. It’s all you get for now.

My apologies for the misleading headline, but there are no updates on the status of my genitals at this time.

A few months back I heard about that deal at Amazon or wherever, selling the 360 HD-DVD drive for super cheap and with a pack of free HD-DVDs. Naturally, I told my fellow 360 owner and enthusiast cousin about it. He jumped on the deal, whereas I hesitated just long enough to miss out on the deal. Poor me, right?

…Right. Sorry about that one, cousin.

It’s that time of week again, where Ben tears some game a new asshole on Zero Punctuation. This week it’s Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles for the Wii.

Also, in case you didn’t already know, Rez HD and Chessmaster Live hit Xbox Live Arcade today. 800 MS points apiece, but well worth it for the outstanding Res, or if you want to have your ass handed to you by myself in chess.

My cousin and I have been getting together once a week to play some co-op 360 games and were tragically forced to give Kane & Lynch a try. While it’s certainly not bad enough to have earned itself all of the bad publicity it earned during the Gamespot Gerstmann fiasco, it’s certainly not good. You have to forget about any sort of plot, because there’s no real motivation for anything that you’re doing other than standard video game instincts implying that you should murder anything that moves. The real bitch is the controls and the camera. I can honestly say that I thought we were done innovating in the field of awful video game cameras, but this game takes not just the cake, but the whole fucking bakery. Unlike in most games, using the “target” button to focus in on your crosshairs will not help you out very much, as it seems to zoom in on the back of your characters head most of the time. And I have to applaud whoever set up the cameras for two player co-op on any of the levels where you’re in a vehicle. Those levels were just a masterpiece of god-awful camera work. I’ve never had a split screen game confuse me as to which screen was mine after a solid hour of gameplay, but somehow the development team pulled it off. Kudos.

As a followup to yesterday’s video from Fox News slamming Mass Effect, I thought I’d mention EA’s response to Fox detailing the inaccuracies and blatant lies that were spread during the report.

Your headline above the televised story read: “New videogame shows full digital nudity and sex.”
Fact: Mass Effect does not include explicit or frontal nudity. Love scenes in non-interactive sequences include side and profile shots – a vantage frequently used in many prime-time television shows. It’s also worth noting that the game requires players to develop complex relationships before characters can become intimate and players can chose to avoid the love scenes altogether.

FNC voice-over reporter says: “You’ll see full digital nudity and the ability for players to engage in graphic sex.”
Fact: Sex scenes in Mass Effect are not graphic. These scenes are very similar to sex sequences frequently seen on network television in prime time.

…This isn’t a legal threat; it’s an appeal to your sense of fairness. We’re asking FNC to correct the record on Mass Effect.

Nice one EA, that’s definitely going to earn some respect over at Fox. I can see it now.

*Scene – Interior – Fox News Mailroom*

Fox News Rep: “Let’s see, right winger fan mail, left winger hate mail, bills, bills… WHOA! Heavens to BETSY! An inaccuracy in a Fox News report?!? Sweet Jesus in a birchbark canoe, we can’t mislead the public, this is serious business! I’d better file this in the urgent pile, right away!”
Fox News Rep: *puts letter in shredder*

EA might as well call the fucking Better Business Bureau while they’re wasting their breath.

Meanwhile, the Internets are taking a more direct approach and attacking Cooper Lawrence, the condescending bitch who kept running her mouth about a game she’d never played and quite obviously didn’t comprehend. Her book on Amazon is currently suffering a plague of 1-star reviews and scathing commentary. Amazon has apparently caught on to the gag, and is now eliminating the ability to give the book a 1-star rating. I’m guessing that they’ll attack her website or Myspace page next, provided no new pariahs decide to throw their hat into the ring. Lord knows the internets are a fickle bunch, and easily distracted.

Nice legs on that ill-informed twat though.

Ho-lee shit.

Never let it be said that being a chubby undersexed Asian guy was all bad. Sure, it probably sucks for him, but look at what we get in return. His work is already inspiring other awesome projects, like these Minority Reportesque gloves. Hopefully some enterprising developers are watching, and learning. None of this tech is exactly new or revolutionary, but it’s awesome to see how easy it would be to implement for the Wii. Now all we need is a Miyamoto-designed game to go with it.

The latest Zero Punctuation is online, and this time Ben tears into “The Witcher.” Normally I’d just link to the page, but it seems to be loading like ass, unlike the video. So here you go, sweet embedded goodness.

Also, if you are a 360 owner don’t forget to cash in on your free download of Undertow. You’ve got until Sunday.

Speaking of the 360, I spent a fair amount of time cruising around Paradise City in Burnout Paradise with Bongweasel last night. The game is occasionally fun, and ridiculously gorgeous, but it’s amazing how much they fucked up a good formula. This whole open-world scenario may be great in theory, but in practice it is incredibly tedious. After your first race loss leaves you halfway across the map from your original starting point, and you realize that you must now haul your mangled car all the way back there just to get another crack at it, you’ll curse the fuckwits who decided to implement this concept. And why are there no fucking laps anymore? If you’re not going to give me the option of restarting a race, you could at least use laps so that I wind up back where I started. I don’t know when “annoying the user” became a hip new game developer meme, but believe me guys, it needs to go the way of Uwe Boll’s financial backing, post haste.

And finally, there’s nothing like combining my lust for gaming and my lust for baked goods. Check out this ridiculously awesome Katamari cake, and these Mario and Pac-Man cupcakes. The latter two were baked by a lil’ Australian chick, and I’m very happy to say that she is not particularly attractive. Not that she’s ugly, but definitely not hot, and that is a Harry Knowles sized relief. That would just be too fucking much for me, a hot slice of pie baking me nerd-centric cake goods would just completely screw up my expectations for the female of the species. It’s kind of like how Bolt is always saying that the first girl who blew him was a fellatio champ, whereas every subsequent mouth has brought the tragic taste of disappointment. It’d be like that, but with enough weight to inspire crippling depression and eventual self-imposed celibacy.

Actually, that last line sounds like most nerds that I’ve met over the years.

I’m not sure whether I should be offended or amused by this Fox News piece on the “gratuitous sex scenes” in Mass Effect. At the moment I’m a fair mix of both, with a dash of confusion. It just amazes me how often these news outlets will hire just about anyone to comment on controversies such as this, and not allow the one person on camera who has actually played the game to throw his two cents in. Sorry darlin’, we don’t have time for your rebuttal because we need to cut to a panel of (hilariously) uninformed “experts” who lament that in these modern times, we actually have to monitor what our kids are given access to.

That’s OK though, because the trailer for Off-Road Velociraptor Safari should perk us all right the fuck up. Does anyone else really miss the Carmageddon series right about now?