Video Double-Penetration

Think that's vulgar? Go fuck yourself. Today is a bad day.

The user vids section of gametrailers.com turned this pair of gems today though. Salivate away, ya dogs!

First up:

An interview with what I can only describe as some sort of Gay Warlock. I don't know what he's talking about, but you can see some in-game footage of Resident Evil 5.



Next up:
A slide show of screens from GTAIV's multiplayer. Not sure which of the proposed 16 modes this is, but it's nice to see it's a reality. Reminds of of Kane & Lynch, hopefully it will heal the wounds that game left on me.



Also, everyone please give a big Split-Screen welcome to The Mowley and thank him for sharing his cherry-popping experiences with us as well as inadvertently showing me how to use the labels system on this website. I think I only overlooked it for about 5 months maybe. *sigh*


The Faux Bot

PS3- First Impressions ( the non fanboy opinion )- Part 1

OK... So I got my PS3 finally and I'm pretty impressed. Firstly, I have a 360, I game on 360, I love a 360 and the reason why I got a PS3 is because I can finally afford to and though "why not". Im not a fanboy of the best system but rather games :D. 

So I bought my PS3 for UT3, Warhawk, Eoj, MGS4, GT5 and all those other games that the 360 won't have ( I know the 360 is getting UT3 but I couldn't wait so fuck  you :D)

The reason why I'm even writing this on these flame ready forums as I wanna give a first day impression from what I'd like too think is a very UNBIASED source... I'd like to think I'm fair in my points and that I back everything with reason, here we go:

1. UNPACKING:- I like the way it was packaged, it's alright, nothing special. I wasn't as blown away as I was when i got my 360 in that little box. When I opened my 360 I got a semi, I'll admit that... BUT... soon as you get the ps3 out, OMG! full hard-on. It looks like a v high end piece of equipment and I was impressed. There is a size difference, but the 360 is a ugly skinny chick and the PS3 is a sexy larger girl. So each to there own on that one I guess :D

2. SETUP:- It was a piece of piss. I had a PS2, so it took all of 3 min. The 360 took a little longer, like 4 so there pretty equal there.

3. INITAL SETUP:- Both the same APART from the update to 2.20 on the PS3 which took ages (or what seemed like it). The 360 just felt like it got you up and gaming quicker out the box. I think I turned on my PS3 at 5pm and was browsing the PSN store by 6 where as when i got my 360, was playing multiplayer on live in pgr3 with in 15 min from setup.

4. Menu First Impression:- PSN WINS! hand's down. as soon as that little piece of classical music starts you think WOW, this is such a mature product, and that XMB bar is so sexy, so efficient, it lovely. Don't get me wrong the XBLA menu is nice, but thats all... It's nice, not wow.

5. Signing up to PSN:- OMG! This shit felt like it took an age, it felt longer then it needed to be BUT this was speeded up by using a keyboard and mouse. So it balances it's self out. XBLA felt like it was much easier to set up. Also psn is free wOOt! +1 

6. Adding a friend:- Both pretty much the same, I only went to add summa ( Mate I know with a ps3 ) cos I knew his tag

7. Starting a game:- Same, put in a game, it plays... I don't know, but is there an option to stop the game from starting when you put it in? 

8. PSN store Vs XBL store:- I can use my switch card... and just pay for what I want? I don't have to pay for points? so if i was PJM for 3.50, I don't have to spend £10 on a card. Yep, point made, it's amazing. I love it, already bought warhawk and omega pack, gonna get pain, PJM and tekken. I really like you don't have to use points. BUT the UK store on PSN don't have as much as XBLA. When it does then the psn store will be even stronger.

9. In game menu:- Quit Game, turn off controller, or PS3. Thats what the Playstation button does so far in games. Yes the XMB in game will make it a lot better but i do like the way 360 does this. Changing in game music on the fly, getting messages, seeing friends etc would make it much better. 

10. Controller:- OMG, after using my 360 and PS2, the PS3 controller feels like something fisher price made, there's no weight there. I've already been on play-asia and ordered a DUEL-SHOCK, I need to feel like I ain't gonna break the thing. On a plus, In built battery AND the usb charger makes it a very cool extra.

These are the only points I can write about so far, as I've had it A day, and the only reason why i'm writing this and not playing is cos warhawks downloading other wise you won't see me for dust :D

FINAL THOUGH:- I see my PS3 as blueray player and something I can play all the games I can't get on 360. I'll still use my 360 as I still got live for a year, all my mates are on it, and it does have the better online service atm

These are my first impressions, and if you don't agree, make a time machine, go back to when I got my ps3 and change my view, but until you do that, suck my nuts :D

-- Mowley

We could save Take-Two

One of the biggest criticisms that I've noticed getting levelled at the gaming community is that generally speaking, we are apathetic and don't have the balls to stand up for what we believe in and what we dedicate so many precious hours of our lives to. I for one, am anything but apathetic. I maybe misguided and idealistic, but no-one could ever deny that I was passionate about my hobby.
Here, I present to you my most heartfelt post ever:

EA are actively seeking to buy Take-Two interactive - the company best known for publishing the Grand Theft Auto series. They have offered $2 billion, which was turned down by T2. To secure their company, Take-Two offered their shareholders the very generous price of $25 per share. EA then offers them $26 to start in motion a hostile takeover. If EA acquires 75% of the shares, Take-Two will be theirs.

Rockstar have flatly said that if this acquisition goes through, then they will not develop any more Grand Theft Auto games. EA will own the franchise and with it the ability to whore it our to whichever developer they feel will do an o.k. job. Grand Theft Auto will be effectively dead in the water, along with it, one of the most outspoken and independent voices in the videogame industry.

It is very easy to sit here and complain, and I often tell people to shut up for doing so. It's pointless and ineffective without some sort of action. I'm going to practice what I preach and do the only thing I can think of. I'm going to buy shares in Take-Two interactive.

If there are enough passionate shareholders, then EA will be stopped in their tracks. It's the only thing that I can do, so I'm at least going to try. I don't want to live in a world where every single game is published by either EA or Activision.



Feel free to join me.

Actually, please do, I don't want to seem aloof, I really, really care about this.



The Faux-Bot

Go here for more: http://www.mcvuk.com/news/29710/EA-offers-to-buy-Take-Two-for-2bn

Speaking of Sonic....

I'd like to believe that somehow, the Games industry watched this blog like a flock of hawks, eager to tap into the mindset of gamers and shape future releases to our will. In honesty, that is probably not the case, but what a coincidence that just a few days after my Sonic rant, footage of the brand-new Sonic Unleashed surfaces.



Uncanny timing aside, I find it hard to be impressed by this. I'm definitely intrigued by the idea of a new 'proper' Sonic game, and I live in hope that with all his recent failings, at least some lessons will have been learned. The throwback camera is a nice touch and about the closest thing to 'Sonic' we've seen in years: hats off to them it's a bold move. If they do away with all the faux-RPG elements and god-awful American voice overs, we could be onto a winner here.

The problem is that somewhere along the evolutionary timeline, Sonic just became irrelevant. I can't take credit for this, it was actually put forward in a response to my previous entry on Destructoid, but Sonic was doomed from the start. Quite simply he was formed as the anti-Mario, the one with all the cool and all the speed. Mario grows old gracefully, starring in genre-defining titles along the way whilst Sonic, ironically, is just struggling to keep up. I don't want to get excited, as a damage limitation measure more than anything but whatever happens I'll be watching this one's career with great interest....

The Faux Bot

GOOD FRIDAY CRUCIFIXTION SPECIAL!

Is it just me, or is Sonic in every game that comes out now? In a 3-week period, he's managed to get his whorey old arse into the same amount of games: Smash Bros, Sega Superstars Tennis and Sonic Riders Zero Gravity. I think I speak for all gamers born before 1990 when I say "what the fuck?"

Is this what one of gaming's most enduring icons has now been reduced to? Nothing more than a shape and a name that can be whored out to the highest bidder. Sonic's metaphorical lady-tunnel has been used and abused, and nobody bothered to clean up their mess afterwards. He is nothing more than a disheveled wind sock, covered in the filthy paw prints and poison semen of lazy, greedy little games producers.

Sonic the Hedgehog on the 360 was insulting enough, but Sega's most recent behaviour is tant-amount to having Jesus guest star in an episode of MTV's Newlyweds; you know, the one where the two dangerous retards are allowed to get married and their helpers get them to try living together as some sort of cruel social experiment.

When you think about it, getting crucified was the best thing that could have happened to Jesus. He got to make his big comeback, which I gather would have been quite a shock, and he managed to avoid any Nick & Jessica related TV debacles. Sure, people do some terrible things in his name, but nobody ever shoehorned him into an abysmal, ill-conceived hover-board racer, did they?

I'm sure that having Sonic in Smash Bros. is great, and that Superstars Tennis is nowhere near as shameless as it seems. It does have Beat in it after all. Regardless though, I can't help wishing that they'd just leave him alone. He should take a leaf out of Jesus' book, and I don't mean the bible.

The Faux Bot

They don't make 'em like this anymore...

The Faux Bot

The REAL Umbrella Chronicles

If any of you have played Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles for the Wii, you probably feel a little cheated. There you were, expecting a game detailing one mans journey into madness and excessive gaming as a result of contracting the Umbrella Virus, and what you found was a lightgun shooter with a bit that lets you play as Albert Wesker. Disappointed, you raise the Wiimote to your mouth, hoping that it somehow works like a real gun – the kind of real gun that can end this constant tirade of failure and hurt…

STOP!
C’mon man, don’t do it! There’s so much to live for! For a start; this post, the Iron Man movie and GTA4. At least wait until after the summer! Are you settled?
Then we’ll begin.
This is the tale of how my week off work coincided with some shitty weather and my contracting of the Umbrella Virus. I was effectively housebound. Oh, and I didn't not get an R4 for my DS – that’s a big part of this too.
The best advice I was given for overcoming the Umbrella Virus was "stay in bed and drink this honey, lemon and whisky." I did that, and for a time, it was good. I grew bored quickly. Occasionally, I found the strength to sit up and play through all three parts of Half-Life 2 and beat the advanced maps of Portal, but I grew tired quickly. I needed something that would better suit my reclined state. Enter: MY TRUSTY DS ™

Despite my rabid hunger for flesh, my family was more than willing to interact with me. I warned them of the virus’ nature, but my mother continued to deliver her witchcraft concoctions and my sister braved upstairs in order to deliver to me a package which didn’t not contain an R4. From this point onwards, being bedridden would never be the same again. Here are the best games of this illness: more than mere titles, they punctuate each stage of the outbreak, from infection, to recovery.

INFECTION:
Animal Crossing: Wild World

"Wait! What!? You never said it would cost that much! C’mon man, I paid 10,000 bells for a whole new storey to be added to my house and now you’re charging me 700,000 for a new room on the side! You’re a Crook, Tom Nook!"
Day after day, I spent time in the virtual town of Krondor, ceaselessly gathering various fruits in a desperate attempt to pay off the racoon shylock: Tom Nook. 7,500 bells for 10 minutes work. I couldn’t handle it anymore. Some of my best friends left town because I was too busy working. "I’m sorry guys, things are just really tough at the moment! I’ve got so much debt." They didn’t care. Boone was the first to go. Waiting in my DS memory, ready to populate the next town I visit. Elmer is still around, but all he does is look at me with contempt. No-one writes me letters anymore and Tommy & Tommy could care less about ordering me my exotic dresser – "Yeah mate, it’s coming" they say, week in, week out.
This sorry state of virtual affairs was not helping my condition. I needed to get out of Krondor for a while, visit a new time and place – one that didn’t remind me that I was a fruit –selling zombie.

Hotel Dusk: Room 215

This is by far one of the most intriguing titles available on the DS. For a while, I’ve longed to play it, attracted by it’s noir-ish tone and sketchy art style. It delivers on both levels, although your character is a little less hard-boiled than I would have liked. You play as Kyle ?????? an ex-detective who’s now a travelling salesman. Your looking for your long lost friend whilst carrying out your work. When you end up at Hotel Dusk, things start to unravel. Room 215 (your room) apparently grants wishes. The old woman with an eye patch reluctantly accepts another room. Tough luck Grandma, should have got here faster. I’m not that deep into it, but so far I’ve met a mentally unstable child with a secret puzzle of a duck, that pirate grandma and generic young male type 02, who wishes there were a real gumshoe in the hotel. That’ll be me, then. No murders to solve yet, but it’s only a matter of time. The pace is slow, but comfortable considering my health. The game also asks you to hold the DS on its side (like Brain Training) so that you look like you’re reading some sort of sophisticated futuristic interactive book. It fills me with smug.
The game distracts me to a degree, but I can’t help wondering if maybe my own flesh will serve as a substitute for a full meal of human.

STABILISATION:
Point Blank DS

I’ve shot hundreds of clay pigeons, thousands of cut-out crooks and ninjas and approximately 43 stuffed elephants. Usually, this would be a pleasurable experience. But knowing that I’m not the one on the receiving end of gunshots, like so many of my Zombie brethren, enhances it greatly.

Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan

Zany, madcap, mental, off the meat rack. Pick your own adjective, because either way you put it, this game is fucking brilliant. If you haven’t heard of it, you may know its English –language spin-off: Elite Beat Agents.
Why would I go to the trouble of getting the Japanese version? Many reasons, but the most important being that it doesn’t contain an absolutely fuck-awful cover version of Avril Levigne’s already fuck-awful ‘Sk8er Boi’. That isn’t to say though that the Japanese version is just more bearable. In fact, it has a far better soundtrack all round, and everything is twice as entertaining when its being screamed at you in Japanese. So far I’ve given inspiration to a depressed potter, stopped a cat pissing in a noodle bar and helped a PE teacher gain the respect of his hottie female students. All this was achieved through the power of dance! Oh, I forgot to mention that it’s a rhythm-action game. Sorry.

RECOVERY:
Contact

This professor keeps talking to me. It looks nice and he has a spaceship. I think I can beat up creatures, but I’m not sure whether it’s a good idea or not. I’m confused enough as it is what with the hunger for flesh subsiding and the fact that I’m off my tits on sugar and whisky by this point. I’ll put this one on the shelf for now.

Advance Wars: Dual Strike

This really is the peak of my gaming road to recovery. This game, in it’s own little way is up there with Half-Life 2 as one of the most perfectly crafted and refined gaming experiences I’ve ever had. It plays out like most turn-based strategy games, only it has fantastic artwork, characters and music, oh the music! The music gets even better whenever you unleash your commanding officer’s special power. My favourite so far is ‘The Power of Money’, whereby the young boy c.o. (Colin, I think) can enhance the power of all his troops by multiples of your cash stockpile. Awesome.

I badly wanted to repress my childish enthusiasm for this game, but it got the better of me. Also, it should be noted though, that this is the kind of game that makes said boyish enthusiasm well up inside me and spill out like an orgasmic fountain of pleasure…hold on, I just have to ring my therapist again…
Anyway, I’ve overlooked this game for long enough, and it hurts even more to know what I had been missing out on all this time. This game is adorable, yet refined and dare I say it, mature, all at the same time. This game exudes confidence in its own design and presentation. If you value either of those qualities, do not hesitate, buy it now.

It’s been a long road to recovery, but at least I can now safely say that I am no longer a zombie. The umbrella virus has completely left my system and I now feel like a powerful wolf drinking the blood of a sheep. I howl at the moon, and go on my way.
I applaud your reading through this. You brave person, you.
The Faux Bot

LESSON NUMBER 1: Why I hate Rubber band AI

Unfortunately for those amongst you who need their hand held and blanky nearby, this may be the best feature in videogames history. For those idiots, just remember that same bastard executive who has a glass swimming pool the size of your school and tiling made out of the ground bones of children invented rubber band AI to apparently "help you". Now remember he is a bastard, so this may not be a good thing.
Let me explain using an overwrought analogy. Imagine a child jumping to eat a toffee on a string. The string is lowered so that Cletidus Jones* can chomp to his hearts content. Now the string is quickly lowered, and Cletidus’s eyes are all wide and excited, and he starts to chew away like a pensioner breaking in the Polygrip, when all of a sudden the string is being pulled away from him as hard as he can. And Cletidus is trying to hang on with all his might, but bless him, his teeth are soft and his grip is shabby. So the toffee pops out (possibly dripping slobber). This pattern continues until Cletidus has put in enough hours to buy pogo boots. Then he devours the toffee, the string, and the arm of the cruel person who was taunting him with it. THAT is what rubber band AI is. It turns every game that claims to have skill into a grind, where you put in the hours to get a vehicle/board/thing so good all challenge evaporates, like George Clooney in the rain**. And every game you love does it to some extent. Why do they commit such a heinous crime? Simply so you don’t feel that ‘all is lost’ at any point in a game. To protect you from the harsh realities of a world gone mad. To convince you, just for a second, that a crack dealer wouldn’t kill you and your parents so he could sell all your teeth and toenails on Ebay. 37-0 down? Have some free goals! Crashed your car so hard the steering wheel and driver have now merged on a molecular level?*** Just hit select and respawn! So many shots behind on Tiger Woods that Tiger has actually installed a webcam to mock you and your parentage live from his ranch? Birdie time!
It’s insulting, because the whole point of a game is to win with skill. You know, that thing whereby you are simply better than the computer – that sexy, dashing opponent that by besting automatically makes you attractive to women (snigger). Most insulting of all, the skilled players will in contrast be continually prison humped by the computer for having the cheek to be good! I’m going to control my rage, and simply list some of my favourite offenders.Gran Turismo: Before you start calling this the "Real Driving Simulator", I want you to do something for me. Park up on the line, and give your opponents a 30-second head start. Now finish in second. This exercise will break your heart and spirit in a five-minute session because of how hard it is to do anything but finish in second. Finding out Gran was a crock of shit time trial disguised as a game was on a par with Aeris dying, the black guy from Green Mile dying and James Blunt living all rolled into one.


Madden NFL 0whatever: Every game ends close if you are a half decent player, and don’t use guaranteed plays that exploit poor AI. In fact, all of the AI in Madden stinks, because it is pre-emptive. Again, next time you play (all 8 of you Brits), run a passing play and throw a risky interception. Watch what happens in slow motion on the replay. Notice how the players move BEFORE the ball is thrown? It’s like playing a screenplay. It’s like playing The Waterboy. And any game that makes you feel like Adam Sandler should have been culled at birth.Project for you all – find your own examples of rubber banding. Scream. Snap the disc in two. Plunge the now jagged shards into your eye sockets. Cry tears of pain and eyeball fluid. Then get a copy of this charming blog in braille to continue the path to enlightenment.
*And yes, I do like to name and give backstories to my literary devices. He likes playing the Baseball, wants to be Barry Bonds from the Baseball, and once shattered a boy’s pelvis with an aluminum bat because he didn’t like the Baseball. Look, I didn’t say my literary devices had to be nice people.
** Scientifically proven. Do not doubt my research methods.
*** I’m loving the footnotes today! His new name is "SteeringDave WheelSmith". He collects old wooden ships in bottles, and is a total badass. He once wrestled a boar using only his feetpedals. He occasionally beats his wife, but only because he loves her. Anger issues are common for a man/steering wheel.

Paperboy

School is in session

Ah, you young pups never had it so good. Neophytes, the lot of you. You really don't appreciate this golden age of gaming. Why, when I started playing games you were just a twinkle in the milkman's eye. While I cut my teeth on Treasure Island on the C64, you were being squeezed out on the back of a Ford Orion because Dad got excited a little too early by the possibility that maybe in the next three hours he might glimpse the faintest suggestion of a solitary nipple.

Don't panic, young grasshoppers. I am not here to chide you for your lack of knowledge. Just imagine me as a kindly uncle, one who would let you stay up an hour later when your parents were having a night out. Picture your hair being ruffled while you got to watch the second episode of Corrie, safe in the knowledge you were being treated. Hell, you can even take a sip of my can. Don't tell your parents, though, because we are still on rough ground after the incident with the bowling ball and the box of hamsters.

So, you may be asking yourself as you sit there at your computer screen with more bread crumbs adorning your pre-pubescent chin than hairs, tousling your hair with your eyes closed and humming, why the hell have we gone down this horrible, NSPCC-inspired segue? Because I am here to educate you. You are young, you have not yet learnt what to hate and love. You blindly buy things because they are shiny and pretty, only then to discover they are shit. So you put them away, and somehow feel that you exerted some sort of critical control. But you still bought the bloody thing. Some executive somewhere is using your money, your specific spondoolics, your wonderous wonga, to caress a Persian beauty's loins while he eats battery hens he breeds himself and kicks a hispanic gay puppy with three legs. Picture his jowly face and red braces, and big fat cigar that proves he is better endowed than you (and his man boobs cover all the gender-related endowment angles). Hear his laughter as he openly mocks your diseased, pathetic kind and soft unthinking mind sponge. And then watch, horrified, as he sticks kittens in shredders and drinks non fair-trade coffee. Yes, you have not funded terrorism or pornography, but instead you have fuelled the behaviour of a bastard. Shame on you.

Don't get me wrong, I am not here to tell you a game is rubbish. That is your opinion and your opinion alone, even if that means you put Fifa Street 3 at the top of the charts and not buy Ratchet and Clank. (Stifles sobs, goes into therapy, comes out poorer but spiritually realigned). I am here to educate you on the things in games that should make you pick up the pitchfork, light the torches and hound the executives Franken-style to a windmill, where you will char their corpulent bodies for ever offending your sensory prodders.

What you have to ask yourself before we start on this journey: who would you rather trust. Kitten shredder or hair tousler? Racist puppy kicker or the person who let you watch Have I Got News for You before bedtime? Be prepared to have your mind sponge turn into a rock hard lump of thought iron.

Oh, and Take Two are whores. Just putting it out there.

Paperboy

The year's most intriguing game so far?

Aye, go on then.

The Faux Bot

coming soon: words