Diablo 3 Confirmed

minipul8r: diablo3 confirmed.  yay.

Teleolurian Kordyne: HELL YES

minipul8r: another decade of shitty clickfests and another overwhelming lean towards the not hardcore side of gaming

Teleolurian Kordyne: camping the hell out of a dungeon to pick up a sweet ass set of Assthazar's Shit-Infested Runeswords?

Teleolurian Kordyne: you're jaded, my friend.

Teleolurian Kordyne: and I have shit-infested rune fucking sword.

Stupid Horrible Sunlight

Last week, the President sent me my tax return, so my fiance and I decided to go be good consumers. You know, for America. So we went out to the new Town Square shopping center by Fry's Electronics, at the south end of the Strip. Mostly so I could pick up an Airport Extreme; I need that 802.11n love, and fast.

I also made sure to stimulate the entire American economy, using trickle-down powers granted to me by the ghost of Reagan, by buying a PSP. Wow. I didn't know handheld gaming systems had such great graphics. In fact, the graphics were so hypnotic and gorgeous - as if though I were watching CGI porn made of lasers - that I completely didn't post at all yesterday, because I was swimming through a beautiful sea of joy. With a mermaid made of chocolate, who cried syrup tears of pride as I beat all PSP games ever, all at once.

Truth Is Stranger: How I Went To The Launch Party

The magical little girl fairy princess, Nelly, who I once saved from self-destruction in the midst of an obscure planet of stupid pink people has returned to us, like some sort of human boomerang made of poison and sweet, delicious berries. She has returned to become my acolyte in the ways of code. She has returned to purpleize my girlfriend.

So anyways, after tranking out Friday night with insufflated zolpidem, we prepared ourselves for the release of the most perfect piece of software ever invented, the algorithm which will probably be responsible for the rise of SkyNet and the eventual total enslavement of all mankind to manufacture binary milkshakes for our thirsty robotic overlords.

I've never been to a midnight software/game console launch before, so I was pretty excited. I was expecting, I dunno. Some video game playing. A roomful of idiots talking about Bleach, which is what anime freaks talk about before they run behind a shelf for an impromptu session of gay, buttery gaysex. And a group of asians standing there, feeling superior because asians are automatically allowed to talk about video games and tentacle rape cartoons, without anyone caring ever. I was so convinced of the potential asian population that I made a spoiler out of cardboard to stick on the back of my car so I could have a rocket just as ricey as anyone else's. Unfortunately, I ran out of glue, and I couldn't remember the secret Shaolin hand-signal attacky thing that all asians learn at birth and use in place of toolboxes.

When we got to the launch party, diabetic Josh was standing there, wearing an eyepatch to keep his insulin-deprived eyeballs from melting and leaking out, calling out numbers for the tournament. It was nuts. There was a shifting, stinking, geeky mass of fat white guys and tiny asian girls crowded around a single Wii display, screaming sexist things about Princess Peach (Poh-lin-sess Pi-chu) and watching two people play. I stood there for a while before the smell of Jedi Spirit made me physically sick and I had to go outside. Which is where the line began anyways, so we got our copy of the game insanely early and went back home while some idiot with a crappy stereo system played Sublime from his car. Then I went home, beat the game instantly with my magical asian controller skill, and then took a bunch of pills and went to sleep, next to my girlfriend, Grimace.

You Kids And Your Sudokuban

I don't particularly know what causes the Japanese to come up with boring mental exercises like Sudoku and Sokoban, but they're dull. Horribly dull. I hate that Sokoban is part of NetHack, and I hate that I can't even buy booze without seeing like ninety Sudoku books at the cash register. It's putting numbers in a grid, folks; I can write a Ruby program that does it for me, therefore making it a pointless exercise. (Yes, I know the Angband Borg exists, but it's a total wuss.)

And everybody's saying that Sudoku can stave off the horrible demon of Alzheimer's. I'm sure that if you spend all your time watching television then that's a worthwhile concern; however, I'm pretty sure that if you use your brain for roguelikes or hateblogging or stalking people then you're pretty much ahead of the game anyways. Just say no.

Our Square Black Hearts

Dear Fans:

We screwed up. 

We know we like, totally invented the whole console RPG idea, and then we reinvented it, and at some point in the 90's pretty much everyone who had ever been beaten up on a playground pretty much worshipped our name. But there have been a few affronts that, in all good conscience, we should be tarred and feathered for having introduced to the world. This letter will cover our mistakes in the Final Fantasy series, because honestly, we don't have room on this letter to apologize for total abortions like SaGa Frontier. With that in mind, we hope you will accept this blanket apology for:

• Not releasing Final Fantasy V in the United States until after you grew up and had a job and couldn't sit at home and play through an entire RPG anymore.
• Making the White Mage from FFI look so much like a chick. Apparently, we've caused quite a bit of bi-curiosity now that people realize that they lusted over something which totally turned into a man as soon as you got the Rat Tail.
• That one cave in FFI? The one where all your characters get poisoned and die repeatedly? We're actually not sorry about that one. You gotta toughen up. We made a man of you. And the White Mage.
• Palom and Porom in FFIV. We are totally sorry we put those shitheads in the game, but you should thank us for the fact that they turn to stone a mere hour after they are introduced (that is, if you're the fucking FFIV master, like me). We would be sorry about how completely worthless Edward was, but you all got a kick out of the 'spoony bard' thing, so natch.
• Terra's outfit in FFVI, where she looked like the mutant offspring of Rainbow Brite and a Treasure Troll. We know you didn't get much masturbation fodder off of that, but honestly, we were still dealing with the fallout from the White Mage thing.
• Those worthless pieces of shit, Gau and Relm. Look, in a game like FFVI, not *everyone* can have the awesome powers. Locke didn't, but then again, we've never once written a worthwhile Thief. I mean, Strago could pretty much kill things with one hit, Sabin was basically Guile from Street Fighter II, and Cyan's Sword Tech was so fucking pimp that the guy who came up with it spent three hours in the men's room right after he told everyone about it. We don't apologize for teasing you with Leo, because we're just cruel like that.
• Yuffie and Cait Sith, enough said. We are really sorry about that one. Also, the whole sequence where you're inside of Cloud's head and you realize he's basically a character from My So Called Life.
• FFVIII and FFIX. In their entirety. Although we're pretty sure you don't remember anything about FFIX except that there was a black mage.
• We're sorry that Tidus was basically Olivia Newton John with a soccer ball.
• We've killed the idiot responsible for FFXI. We know we really, really messed up. However, some jerkoffs think it's the best MMO ever invented, so to them we'd like to say: Hello, mister stupid head! You should call up your fairy dumbparents and talk to them about moron!
• (I haven't played XII. But I hear Square should apologize for that too.)

Now that all of that unpleasant business is past, we'd like to tell you we're going to make another Tactics game so we can be all pimp again. Thank you very much. Please continue to buy our games.

Love,

Square

Completely Bizarre Thoughts I've Had Today

• I have Ace Frehley, Back In The New York Groove on my computer. I don't know how it got there. I suspect Pawel did it. It hurts to listen to. It kind of makes my brain bleed. I can feel my manparts trying to burrow up deep into my chest. Like an alien.
• I haven't read bash in like weeks. Going back to it and finding new stuff makes me feel like a homosexual with Alzheimer's must feel when he rediscovers sodomy.
• I would totally do a line laced with capsaicin. I think the burn would make things more addictive.
• I wonder if Eve was a result of second-system effect.
• I really don't see the point of naked videogaming. I mean, I do, but really? I don't.

Smash Bros Getting Single Player Character Development

Link

Nintendo: Quick! We need to have a reason for Solid Snake to hide in a box and evade people! For hours!

Please, Nintendo:
1. Please balance your game. Away from fucking Link.
2. Please make Zero Suit Samus considerably different than samus, not just faster and weaker like Young Link.
3. But don't change Jigglypuff. While horribly cheap, Jigglypuff rewards skill and is easily avoided. This is not a balance issue.
4. Please make the throws about ninety million percent more useful. Thanks.
5. Please pay close attention to Soul Calibur > Soul Calibur 2, and make your similar characters even more different.

Super Smash Bros Brawl

Brawl finally has a release date, which means GameStop will let you preorder it.

As a fan of the series, I must have this game. I need to teach my son the meaning of total and abject humiliation. You know. Before some skank does in college.

Buying Anime Related Games

Dear Josh:

I remember how thrilled you were when you got your job at Gamestop. You were so fantastically happy that you forgot to lube up before watching WWE, giving yourself a severe indian burn. I remember how you wept like a child and then grabbed a tube of Icy Hot, calming yourself with a furious One Piece lolicon strokefest. And I must say, I have never seen you with such zeal for life, or four year old animated girls.

That having been said, I can't say I particularly agree with your game selection "skillz". I think that Naruto is a raging homosexual plant by an interstellar alien conspiracy with the nefarious goals of making all your 'boy batter' somehow 'belong to them'. The fact that the lengthy interlude between me going into a video game store and me leaving is rendered pointless by your insipid recommendations for every animated action-pedophilia title under the sun.

Going into a video game store used to be like going into an adult video store. I would be left alone and blissful with the promise of a new encounter behind every friendly box cover. And, much like an adult video store, the guys on the covers of the fighting games are making horrible "O" faces.

Seriously, Josh. The monumental tide of waste must stop. There are games that do not involve tentacles. For instance, Day of No Fucking Tentacles. I wish I could say that was just an ad hom and not the kind of "action" I get every time I buy something you recommend. I'd like to introduce you to something called Taste, as soon as I stop buying games long enough to purchase a two by four and a nail.

Thank you,
Me.