Above picture taken as the storm rages on, not an hour ago. As per usual, the Milk Moms and Old Ladies are vindicated for their non-perishables hoarding and general hysteria. I’m typing this from the eye of the storm, begging Jesus Allah to let me live.

God damn, I wish I was at PAX. Duke Nukem Forever is there, as his legions of my fellow geeks. I want to be basking in your musk and manipulating precious things with you. But I cannot. So I’m riding coat tails. Stephen Totilo over at Kotaku snapped a shit load of Duke Nukem Forever screens. They’re glorious. Hit the jump to check them out.

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As you may or may not know, I’m a pretty big fan of the universe. And one of those reasons is the staggering relativity it presses upon us. Check out Hurricane Earl from space, as its enormity is captured like a sexy son of a bitch. [Then contemplate how despite how enormous this may look, neither Earl nor Earth is anything of impressive size in comparison to bullshit in our own solar system.]

A good god damn! I’m pretty fucking stoked about Duke Nukem Forever being resurrected. And as impressions are trickling in from PAX today, it’s become evident that The Duke is as absurd, ridiculous, sexist, and filthy as ever.

In other words, I’m excited. Let’s go through some of the utter absurdity found in the demo.

Kotaku:

The demo starts with a first person view of the urinal. You can make Duke urinate as much as you want. The wait is over!

Cue the Duke Nukem Forever logo and a camera pulls back to show that Duke, in first-person, was playing a video game. He’s got a gold Xbox 360 controller with the face buttons re-named as D, U, K and E. There’s a busty lady in a schoolgirl outfit near the bottom of your first-person view. And there’s a second one. One stands up and wipes her mouth.

P.S. The trailer being shown behind closed doors for the game includes strippers and a three breasted giant monster. Of the latter, Duke says, “Hell, I’d still hit it.”

Blowjobs, metatextual references to a game within a game, three-breasted monsters, and enormous guns. This game was designed by some sort of Dimension X version of me, where I can crunch math and program video games. Of this I am certain.

It was rumored, and now it’s confirmed. Duke Nukem Forever is going to hit the stands. When? I don’t know, but it’s really going to happen. The white whale of my teenage years, into my early adulthood, after being canceled, has been saved. By those talented motherfuckers at Gearbox Studios. It’s almost surreal. I’m going full-on purple priapism over this.

Kotaku:

2K Games has made it official. Duke Nukem Forever is alive and, well, in the hands of developer Gearbox Software, confirming our earlier reports that the Borderlands studio was helping to complete the game’s absurdly long development cycle.

The publisher announced this morning in advance of PAX 2010 that Gearbox Software was on the job, picking up where developer 3D Realms left off. Gearbox plans to ship the game within the next year, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal–the WSJ says both “next year” and “currently expected to ship in 2010.”

I am weeping uproariously at this prospect. It’s something out of fanboy wet dreams. Like, what are the chances that a classic 1990’s gaming franchise is pronounced dead after a god damn decade, only to be revived by one of the more prominent and popular gaming studios of the past few years?

It’s a beautiful world.

It’s that time of the week again! Slightly past noon on a Friday. Deadline staring me in the eyes. When I have to knuckle down, and vomit up, Press Start! What’s Press Start, you ask? Well, aside from an excuse to make childish references to sexual positions and attractive clusters of polygons? It’s the column that drops every Friday, detailing the five things that caught my eye in the world of gaming this week. Standard rules apply: list ain’t in any particular order of importance or relevance, and may result in a declining moral standard for my generation. As always, I encourage you to drop your gaming happenings in the comments box.

#1: My Prayers Are Answered: Wii Sex Toys Arrive
Sex toys and the Wii seem like fucking peas and carrots. The Wiimote looks like a god damn phallus that you constantly wave around. But despite my patience and prayer, I have been kept waiting. I didn’t understand. Why did the iPod get a sex toy, and not the Wii? Why couldn’t I finally put a god damn Wiimote in my pants and get down? Why did the lord hate me? Well this week, god dammit, it happened: Wii-based sex toys.

There’s a small caveat: you don’t actually need a Wii to use these sex toys. But!, they use the Wiimote, so it sort of counts.

How does it work, Ian? I’ll fucking tell you!

The device is connected to an accessory port on the Wiimote, which then connects to a Blue-tooth enables PC. And then we party “using Mojowijo’s patent pending  Motion2Vibration  technology, the device is able to transform the varying motions of the control into appropriate vibration signals and send them to another selected device.”

So in other words, I turn my Wiimote, and it reacts to the other sex toy across the room, globe, internet, cosmos. It sounds a lot like mutual masturbation in the modern world. If you’re sequestered from your loved one, or uh, booty call, this allows you to manipulate their genitals holding something that looks like a torture rack device. Nothing screams “pleasure” like “I’m turning my crab-like device, can you feel the sensory feedback in your mush parts?!”

Modern love, yo. It’s glorious.

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#2: Be A Dickbag And Buy A $435 Mario Sweater
Oh to be rich! I would buy dope ass clothing like this all the time. You know, $435 for a sweater? Pshaw, ain’t no problem! I spent that shit on Microsoft Points last week just to cheese up my GamerScore with popcorn games! God damn I wish I was cool and rich and not covered in saltine crumbs and tears. To sleep, perchance to dream!

These sweaters are from the online store of Shigesato Itoi. You may know Itoi, the dude was the creator of Earthbound. The game being a seminal piece of Dork Masturbation for gamers of my age. You know, a quirky RPG with a sequel that never came out over here and shit. It’s like, a recipie for geek lore.

Well now the dude takes his game up a notch by offering these sweaters. Knowing myself, even if I got one of these, I’d do it a simple injustice. I can’t eat popcorn without wearing it, and if I’m eating some sort of sauce, it’s down my shirt. I ain’t a slob, I’m just clumsy. That’s what I tell myself. I’m a refined gentleman in the body of an oaf. God dammit!

If you’re rich, and you can pull off looking dope, I suggest you buy one of these. Take a picture, and send it to me. I’m going to use it as my Facebook profile pic.

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#3: Microsoft Executes Fanboy Rape, Raising Live Cost By $10
I was pretty stoked last week when Microsoft announced that they were going to improve the voice chat quality on Xbox Live. I mean, nothing says “Gaming Fun” like having a twelve year-old calling me a “Dick sucking idiot” while he schools my fat old ass in Modern Warfare 2. It does a ton for my various psychological problems. And with that in mind, what could be more fun, other than having it comes through in a much higher quality chat?

Nothing!

What I didn’t realize is that the rise in voice chat quality was going to be followed the next week by a fucking ten-dollar increase in Xbox Live. Now, listen. I know it’s a raise to the premium Gold service. And that you can get Silver for free. But let’s be honest about nothings. You need Gold to play online with people, and therein lies the rub. Ain’t no one going to downgrade to Silver over the price increase if they’re serious online gamers on the Xbox. Even my pathetic, talentless ass is addicted to multiplayer.

I’m feigning the obvious connection between voice chat quality and the price increase. What the obvious connection is, is that Microsoft knows it can ass-charge a lot of gamers, and god, making $10 off all of us is a ridiculous amount of cheddar. I lament, yet I acquiesce. I am a part of the problem, as usual. Some shit never changes.

I really love on Live!, so I’m wont to continue using it. I love the integration of it into the system’s UI, in stark contrast to that of the PSN. When I log onto PS3, I feel like I’m floating in an ethereal cloud of quasi-sleekness. Xbox Live? I feel like I’m warmly ensconced in a community of fellow unwashed perma-juveniles! They welcome me! So warmly!

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Source: 5Rob / Gamefreaks

Oh, outer space. Your enormity is staggering. Today’s latest example is god damn impressive. As is much of what is out there in the cosmos. Today we’re looking at a six-trillion mile wide circle of gas, encircling a supernova.

via io9:

A 6-trillion-mile-wide ring of gas encircles a supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud, Supernova 1987A, and the explosions from the supernova are lighting it up like a candle, creating what will become a glowing ring.

According to the Hubble Space Telescope’s news site:

An international team of astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope reports a significant brightening of the emissions from Supernova 1987A. The results, which appear in this week’s Science magazine, are consistent with theoretical predictions about how supernovae interact with their immediate galactic environment.

God damn. Even fiery apocalypse burn death time is gorgeous in this galaxy. That shit is so beautiful. Why is it when I finally shed this mortal coil, I’m just going to be a bag of varicose veins and crappy diaper? I call shenanigans, universe. Ain’t fair.

[images & words is the comic book pick-of-the-week at OL. equal parts review and diatribe, the post highlights the most memorable/infuriating/entertaining book released that wednesday]

I’ve spent the last ten minutes gazing into this goddamn word processor. It’s white and bright and winning this staring contest with ease. Fugger! It’s not fair — he’s got pixels and electricity and all I’ve got is the soft gelatin of these dull cow eyes. My retinas will burn out before I think of a clever way to convey my message, so I might as well just lay it out there.

Paul Pope is a master comics creator. And he’s grossly underappreciated.

Those curious about Pope should refer to THB: Comics from Mars #2.

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[Views From The Space-Ship, aka Desktop Tuesdays, aka Desktop Thursdays  is a (theoretically) weekly column where show you my worlds. Both real and virtual. Then, I invite you to share your own worlds in the comments!]

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