Press Start!: Duke Nukem Forever Ain’t Got Time To Die!
Yo! Welcome to Press Start! The column where I choose five things from the gaming world in the past week that have tickled my pink parts! I smash those sons a bitches into a list and present their mushed parts to you. As always, the list isn’t representitive of the top five biggest or most important stories, but rather an eclectic reflection of my demented brain stem. I encourage you to drop your delicious gaming morsels of the week in my gaping comments box.
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#1: Duke Nukem Rises From The Ashes of My Puberty?
The most ridiculous thing I came across this week is the rumor that Duke Nukem Forever may rise from the ashes like some sort of Phoenix. A phoenix featuring ridiculously-sized guns and chicks with impressive racks. After twelve years of development and one official cancellation last year, I was ready to give up on the Duke.
But then Gearbox Software stepped in. Maybe.
Earlier this week there was a raging rumor rampaging the webs stating that Gearbox Software had quietly stepped in and taken over the thought-dead title. The fact that the studio didn’t vociferously deny this shit lent credence to the rumor, and I got stoked. Super-stoked. Bonerized, even. Why? Gearbox ain’t no band of scrubs, yo! They’re the studio behind Borderlands. So fuck, if any studio can capture the ridiculousness of Duke and his Band of Bullets and Babes, it’s Gearbox.
Double-points to Jesus Christ Allah Lord Deity Person for apparating this news the same week as Sly Stallone’s Expendables dropping in the theaters. If there’s a movie that may capture the absurdity of the Duke, it may be this flick.
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#2: Billy Mitchell Fucks Your Mom and Sister, Refuses To Call Them.
Billy Mitchell is an epic douchebag. But that’s okay. And I mean that. It’s okay because he is the perfect heel in a gaming community. Let’s see – he’s gorgeous with that fucking mullet, he’s brash, and god dammit when it comes to Donkey Kong, he’s god damn great at it.
Ever since I saw The King of Kong I’ve been convinced that Mitchell is a supreme douche, but essential. If you missed it, it was a documentary about Mitchell and dorky underdog Steve Wiebe as they competed for the Donkey Kong record. Through the power of editing, narrative, and mostly Mitchell being an arrogant dickbag, the greatest villain in the gaming community was created.
This week, Mitchell struck again.
The day that he was being inducted into the International Video Game Hall of Fame – ridiculous, right? – he set about and broke the Donkey Kong record. Yanking that shit away from Hank Chen. After that? After that for shits and giggles, Dude Evil decided he needed to slay the Donkey Kong Jr. record, too. His quote explains it at a level of Awesomeness & Douchery that paraphrasing never could:
I remember a lot of celebration; hugs, kisses and a lot of hooting and hollering. Once that died down, stood there looking at Donkey Kong Jr. and thought ‘there’s one more thing I have to take care of’.
Billy Mitchell is awesome.
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#3: Bioshock Infinite Trailer Drops; Geeks Like Me Drop Trou
Bioshock is one of my fuggin’ favorite games ever. Aesthetically, it’s gorgeous as fuck. On a narrative level, it provides a deconstruction of capitalism that would make Communist Russia weep in joy. For a moderate like me, it was just interesting, and engaging.
A sequel dropped this year, but it was received with a “Cool” by some, and a “Meh” by most people I talked to. Why the lukewarm bullshit? Well, for starters, did the original really need a sequel? Naw dog, money grab! But furthermore, the mastermind behind the original, Ken Levine, wasn’t helming the project. Heretical bullshit!, giving the franchise up to a foster family.
But now we’re getting Levine’s next game, Bioshock Infinite, and good god damn, I’m behind myself in erotic steampunk delight.
Eschewing the confined quarters of the submerged dystopia of Rapture, Infinite takes the gamers into the floating city of Colombia. And while this shit is called Bioshock Infinite, the duders at Irrational Games have stripped the franchise down to its core themes and decided to investigate them in a different setting. Similiar, but different. Or on a less refined level, “THEY FUCKING TOOK BIOSHOCK AND TURNED IT INTO STEAMPUNK AND JESUS CHRIST I NEED THIS.”
I’m a bit excited.
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#4: Actual Real Life Yakuza Play Yakuza 3; Sort of Dig It.
It’s the sort of thing you often wonder while playing a video game if you’re a dork like me. You say “Man, I wonder how much of this is based off of real shit?” Or if you’re one of those querulous fucking nerds, you sit there going “Oh there’s simply no way this could be accurate! An actual yakuza could never take three bullets to the chest and continue kicking ass!” while I sit there thinking “No fucking shit dickbarf, it’s a video game.”
Well, thankfully for us, the debate can be settled. This week over at Boing Boing, Jake Adelstein posted the most righteous of articles. After Adelstein spent twelve years as a crime beat reporter in Japan, he decided to put his connections to use. And while there’s so many things you can do with said connections, he decided to have actual yakuza play through Sega’s Yakuza 3. The article is both insightful and hilarious. The yakuza note in several places where Sega gets things right, and of course, where they get it wrong:
Kiryu is fighting all the time. He’s gotta be a fucking idiot. No yakuza is going to run around getting into fistfights like that. Especially not an executive type. He’ll wind up in jail or in the hospital or dead, maybe even whacked by his own people for being a troublemaker. These days, he’d probably get kicked out before even going to jail. Guys like that start gang wars and nobody wants that now. When a yakuza gets into a fight, it’s serious business.
Perhaps as expected, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Because oh yeah, it’s a fucking video game. Read the article here, its worth five minutes of your time.
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#5: Sega Community Manager Goes On Vacation, His Desk Becomes A Sonic Level
Green Hill Zone is the first level of the first Sonic the Hedgehog ever. As such, it’s as iconic as map 1-1 of Super Mario Brothers. If you’re a gamer, you’ll recognize it, from the music down to the rings placement. Shit has become geek canon. If you don’t know it, get educated, son.
Aaron Webber works at Sega. More specifically, he’s their community manager. I don’t know what that means, but it sounds impressive. Also, apparently, it means he gets three weeks of vacation. Fucking righteous. I want to be Sega’s community manager. Anyways. While Webber was gone, his co-workers turned his desk into fucking Green Hill Zone. Now, they call it a prank, it it seems like a solid done of unimaginable scale. If this was done to me, I would forever sit on the floor, staring in awe and warm nostalgia.
Check out the video to see it in its glory. It’s gorgeous.
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And that about wraps it up for my five. I didn’t mention Black Ops’ Douchebag Award for their Prestige edition, or Fallout: New Vegas’ amazing voice acting, and a few other things. What’d you guys dig on? What’s got the softer body parts of yours flushed? Hit me.