[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]

Nuclear threats. Satanic rituals. Daddy issues. Drug binges. Time travel. Ass-kickings.

No, I’m not calculating the formula for a Megadeth record, I’m listing some of the shenanigans that appear in Batman and Robin #16. Grant Morrison concludes his duties on the title by bringing Bruce Wayne back from the dead (or temporal instability, but same difference) and making unprecedented changes to the Bat-mythos. It’s fuggin’ wonderful.

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[Search Engine Terms come from an app in the Word Press dashboard. It tells you the terms that people are using in google to lead to your site. Most of ours are ultra depraved and horrible. And amusing to sick people like me.]

Well then, apparently I’ve learned a new (impossible) fetish.

I absolutely love the Fallout: New Vegas wiki. ‘Cause yes, despite my griping, I’m totally into the video game. I don’t contribute anything to it, but I’m ecstatic that every time I have a question about a quest or a location, I can hit up the site and it’ll do my bidding. I’ve always been amazed at how fucking dedicate the people updating it are. Now I know specifically how god damn insane these fellow wastelanders’ work ethic happens to be. In the first week of the game’s release, there were 475,000 man-hours logged on the FNV wiki.

Jesus Christ.

Destructoid:

According to the magic of traffic-measurement tools, it seems that the unofficial Fallout: New Vegas wiki logged over 475,000 man-hours work within less than a week of the game’s release. Traffic spikes hit Wikia’s servers harder than a ground zero detonation, registering some 2.5 million visitors over that period – seven times the normal amount for the network. Fans created and edited hundreds upon hundreds of pages of information full of everything from quest walkthroughs and item locations to obscure trivia and bug reports.

Kudos, you hard working dorks! Now get back to slaving away on it, I have questions. That need answers. Now!

On Halloween, Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters rolled up into Grand Central Station. What followed was some pretty fucking awesome improv. I don’t know how these troupes pull off such impressive states of acting within public places, but I’ll be goddamned if I don’t love watching it unfold.

Hit the jump for the video of Voldemort laying down some terror in New York City.

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Ah, it is finally here. The day that Microsoft launches Kinect. The device that lets you karate chop, finger-bang animals, and Minority Report your way to dumbassery. Thank goodness. I was waiting for it to come out. That way my annoyance can reach critical mass. I had to slap down my Nana today for dropping a banana peel. Her head spun around like a god damn Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robot. As she writhed on the ground, I tried to explain myself.

Sorry Nana, video games made me do it. It’s the new motion controls! They’re a bad influence! I just want to karate chop everything. I can’t tell real from fake anymore. It’s the violence! No, don’t you dare call my psychiatrist! They’ll never take me alive! Alive!

Then I dove out the window. I am typing this under shelter of fallen leaves and raindrops. Wi-Fi is a helluva thing.

But seriously Kinect can go fuck itself. I’ve never felt so little excitement over an add-on. And this is coming from the guy who bought a Sega CD and a 32X. I totally had to have them.

Dropping an honest bomb on your ass, a part of Kinect appeals to me. As a technology whore, I can be a turned on by the idea of manipulating menus with my hands. I would love to totally don my duster jacket, sweet reflective shades, and pretend I’m in Neuromancer. I can imagine the hours I’d spend manipulating the dashboard, while manipulating my dong-bot. Enhance! I’d say. Enhance! I’d command. Sure nothing would happen, but I’d be living out a Gibsonian dream that I’ve fantasized about for years.

Hand manipulation? Facial recognition? Speech commands? It’s something out of my wet dreams.

The problem is that I simply don’t give a fuck about the games. I own a Wii. It sits in the corner, gathering dust. Every once in a while I take a moment to demean it.

You underpowered piece of shit! Where’s your HD? LOL AT YOU. YOUR PENIS IS SMALL AND YOUR BREATH STINKS. STINKS.

It only murmurs, hurtfully.

I don’t need to spend a $150 for something whose only marketing value to me is a sweet-ass way to get through a dashboard. I don’t need to pet animals, or do dance moves, or play tennis. I can do all that shit in real life. And if you know anything about me, it’s that I pet animals daily. That’s not to mention the fact that my dance moves are fucking elite. Seriously, I cut a rug like a son of a bitch. White guy funk drizzled in insanity, motherfuckers.

It’s a sweet ass piece of technology that beckons to me, like a Siren’s Call. But underneath that is the fact that it’s a gimmicky utensil of bullshit. If I’m being completely honest, they’ve almost won me over. Not for $150, but the allure of gadget-stroking. Perhaps my vitriol is so manifest because I can see myself staring down the chasm of douchery. It calls to me, yet I know how much I detest a good portion of what it stands for.

Stay strong, fight the fight. Say no to gimmicky motion controls, even if they harbor the allure of living within science fiction orgasm. You don’t need to play hopscotch with your grandma and grandpa. I promise.

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[Robert Leduc-Reasoner via Gamefreaks]

Alright, so I’ve sinned. I began coming across a lot of the inter-chatter on Twitter and comic book websites regarding a megaton bomb that drops today in B&R #16. So, despite having not read it – Pepsibones is snagging the OL log today – I cheated and looked it up. My impressions? Eh! Not really blown away, but that doesn’t mean I object. Hit the jump for the spoiler!, and my take.

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Gawd dang! This shit is the hotness. Behold the resplendent glory that is Star Wars: Falcon Gunner by Vertigore Games. The game uses augmented reality gorgeousness to allow you to blast Tie Fighters in your cityscape. Or I assume backyard(scape) or ice hockey rink(scape). Hit the jump to check this out in motion.

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Despite all my lamenting about Fallout: New Vegas, last night had me running around out of my god damn mind. Giggling, like a motherfucking mad man. I have this issue where when I make someone explode with a violent weapon, it induces all sorts of insane glee in the bowels of my soul. Nothing makes me happier than launching a concussive blast sent to dismember and liquefy someone dumb enough to cross my path.

I noticed this dementia when playing through Fallout 3. I was playing the game while Mrs. Caffeine Powered looked on, and eventually I began to notice she looked worried. Shrug. I continued playing. But the fretting continued! What the fuck was this shit. She looked uncomfortable. At some point I noticed that every time I shot someone with my gauss rifle, the poor son of a bitch would be sorted into a bunch of bloodied and mushy parts. Smashed, vaporized, and sent flying through the air.

However, the next connection was even more important. Every single time that I ripped some errant douchebag apart with my rifle, I laughed. Out loud. To myself. Every single time. I don’t know why I was laughing out loud. You see, when I play by myself, usually these exploding bodies just make me smile. Broadly, and with empty, insane eyes.

Perhaps I was trying to convey my enthusiasm to my girlfriend. “You see honey! Do you see how they explode into bits! I did that! For you! Isn’t it fantastic? SAY YES OR I’LL HIDE YOUR BODY SO WELL.”

This sort of head-exploding nightmare dance party hadn’t really gotten underway in my playthrough of New Vegas. Until last night. Yes, last night I was finally reunited with my favorite wasteland friends: power armor, and a gauss rifle. It was a reunion drenched in blood and hugs. I suited up, loaded up, and shimmied my way through my pirouetting dance of death. Finally, New Vegas had begun to make sense to me.

Fire! Slow-motion explode. Body parts everywhere. Smile. Fire! Concussive blast liquiefying a body. Smile. Fire! My smile broadened and broadened. Life was good. I let it be known to frequent commenter The Dude exactly how I was feeling about my current situation in the Wasteland.

12:02:26 AM Ian: I’m clad in power armor, wielding a gauss rifle. I can hear the voice of god screaming murder.

Exceptional! There’s something about an exploding body that just speaks to me. It’s probably speaking to all the broken synapses held down and pinned into something resembling functioning by anti-psychotics, but who is keeping track? Those synapses need attention too.