With my brother working in the video game industry, there’s bound to be a gaming nugget or two that interests me.
Wow.
Angry Zen Minion Kevin Bahrt sent along this first episode of There Will Be Brawl, a dark and sinister interpretation of our friends in the Mushroom Kingdom, and it’s fucking amazing. I’ve never been freaked out by Kirby before and now I’ll never be able to look at that cute little marshmallow the same ever again.
[Via There Will Be Brawl]
Angry Zen Minion Kensei sent along this link to Kung Fu Election! Choose your candidate, train your candidate, and unleash political fury in an epic battle as you fight for the Presidency! I love that Palin’s character is wearing a dead moose and wields a fairly wicked hockey stick that reminds me of Sub Zero from Running Man.
Some days, I really wish our political process was like this. Much more entertaining and about as relevant as politics are anyway.
[Via Kung Fu Election from Neoprotculture]
To advertise Warrio Land: Shake It! for the Wii, Nintendo came up with a pretty innovative web trailer. Witness Warrio absolutely destroy YouTube!
It would be both horrifying and amusing if this game did similar things to your tele.
[Via Experience Wii]
Angry Zen Minion Tyler Anderson writes in with news that should bring a smile to the hearts of gamers even in this time of financial crisis:
Oh happy day! He’s crusaded after video games since Hot Coffee and he tried getting the Penny Arcade boys arrested without ever leaving his living room. But today, the games end as Jack “Hot Coffee” Thompson, the Tipper Gore of the video game industry, has been disbarred from practicing law for life by the Supreme Court. The official report reads as follows;
“The Court approves the corrected referee’s report and John Bruce Thompson is permanently disbarred, effective thirty days from the date of this order so that respondent can close out his practice and protect the interests of existing clients. If respondent notifies the Court in writing that he is no longer practicing and does not need the thirty days to protect existing clients, this Court will enter an order making the permanent disbarment effective immediately. Respondent shall accept no new business from the date this order is filed.”
On top of all of this, Thompson has been ordered to reimburse Florida bar fees in excess of $43,000.
Gamers all over the globe rejoice.
But Battlin’ Jack Thompson ain’t going out without a fight! In fact, he’s filed an emergency motion with federal court alleging the Florida Supreme Court’s rush to disbarment is retaliation for Thompson’s activism:
The timing of this disbarment transparently reveals its motivation: This past Friday Thompson filed a federal civil rights action against The Bar, the Supreme Court, and all seven of its Justices. This rush to disbarment is in retribution for the filing of that federal suit. With enemies this foolish, Thompson needs only the loyal friends he has.
Ugh. Long ass court battle it is. The good thing, even if a federal court agrees to hear Thompson’s motion, he’s out of gamers hair for a good long while.
So here’s the question, now that Jacky boy is on the outs, who’s coming in to replace him? I fear that this is a short lived victory. In this time of rampant idiotic fear, I bet there are lawyers just chomping at the bit to take Thompson’s anti-gaming crusade to the next level.
[Via Kotaku]
Trisha Helfer voiced Black Cat for Spectacular Spider-Man (can you say “mud pie“?) so it’s only fitting for her to return to the role for the upcoming Spider-Man: Web of Shadows game. I was already sold on the insane gameplay footage for this game. Hot Cylon action is a definite bonus! One of Black Cat’s powers must be chesticals of steel because there’s no way real or silicone breasts could stay that taut in that costume while kung fu fighting. But I’m glad Trisha gets to do more than just bounce on Baltar all day. Black Cat kicks ass and if they introduce the character into the fourth movie, I would certainly love to see Trisha in the role.
[Via Kotaku]
Angry Zen Minion Kensei sent along this insane trailer for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II. Chainsaw sword FTW! I’m a sucker for robots, even if it looks like a Macross Destroid knockoff. And that freaking flying Cthulu death demon at the end is freaking amazing! Looks like I’ll have to add another RTS to my gaming rotation.
[Via Dawn of War II]
Resident AZM Uwe Boll watcher Tyler Anderson writes in with news that Uwe Boll is no longer satisfied with just spewing shit upon the silver screen. Oh no. This time, Uwe Boll takes on gaming! From Tyler:
As if making movies which borderline on travesty isn’t enough, now Uwe Boll is turning his sights to my personal favorite hobby; video games. 1968 Tunnel Rats is the newest offering from Uwe Bolls seemingly endless supply of terrible concepts. The trailer is just…pricelessly terrible, with issues that run the gamut from jittery framerate, terriblly rendered textures and messages like “If you were a soldier in 1968…They would’ve prepared you to fight in tunnels.”
The best part? RollyBolly is apparently completely pleased with this product…like everything else he’s ever done ever. But hey, I guess you really should love your work…even if everyone else hates it and thinks it’s a terrible idea. And that’s what he must do; just shove his fingers in his ears and scream “la la la la la la la!” until everyone looks at him sadly and walks away. Kotaku writer Mike Fahey make a pretty good suggestion though; “I am just hoping the whole thing is a big joke, culminating in Boll doing a movie adaptation of the game based on his movie which turns out completely different than the original film.”
What amazes me the most is how a man who is so reviled in the gaming community for churning out shitty movie adaptations of their favorite games manged to convince a game studio to produce this crap on purpose. I mean, they actually spent time and money to develop this nasty thing. Even a shitty game costs money. It baffles the mind.
[Via Kotaku]
Jenny McCarthy’s warrior wants to come out and play! She’s playing Allied commando badass Tanya in the upcoming Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3, a role previously played by fan favorite Kari Wuhrer. It’s good to see that Jenny has a bit more range than I was previously aware of. Certainly her commando “uniform” emphasizes sex appeal rather than practicality (although not as low-cut as the communication’s officer!), but it’s nice to see her in a role that doesn’t require her to twirl her hair and chew gum at the same time. Also, she’s fucking ripped! Check out them guns!
Haven’t played Command and Conquer since the first one, but I might be convinced to grab a demo or something just to see Jenny open cans of whup ass upon roody poos. I would be quite awesome to see if this translates into action movie roles for her.
My brother was interviewed on Bungie’s Podcast! He’s a tools programmer over there and has worked on every Halo game that has shipped. Since Halo 2, he’s also been involved in some of the audio programming. He sits down with the Bungie Podcast crew to talk about programming for a system that may or may not include a hard drive, some of his early influences, and how he became a programmer at Bungie. Here’s a direct link to the show. The part with Mat starts about a third of the way in.
So proud of my little brother! By the time he got to high school, he knew he wanted to program games. While most of the people we knew were content to just play them, Mat was much more interested in how they were created. He spent a few summers programming his own physics engine and using a few crude models I pumped out made a sort of Marble Madness demo with real-time physics. He got a job as a programmer at Microsoft after only three years of college (he condensed his last two years of coursework into one) and from there made a jump to tools programming for Bungie. He’s a fucking genius and big part of why Halo kicks so much ass.
Congrats on the interview, Mat! Can’t wait to see what you guys have cooked up next!
[Via Bungie]
AZM Ally Keith Hayward of Henshin Justice sent along this video (clearly inspired by Zero Punctuation) warning us all of the evils of GameStop. In fact, YouTube user Whistler Blower Zero, a purported former GameStop employee, has compiled a whole series of these exposé videos outlining the many underhanded practices employed by GameStop to get more of your money.
Wow. That’s some pure fucking evil right there. I hope this spreads around because evil like this must be stopped. Of course, evil doesn’t stop us from buying gas at the pump on purpose even when we know just how honest the oil companies are. So it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if this little series doesn’t impact GameStop all that much. Then again, gamers don’t like getting screwed. If someone is running a cheat code on them, they tend to get a bit pissy. They might actually take their business elsewhere.
UPDATE: Apparently, the YouTube has taken down the video. So Game Trailers hooked it up. Thanks to Cowhatninja for the update.
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