Press Start!: Eight Year-Old Gaming Ass Whupper, And An Incest RPG.

What’s up, you fraggin’ funk masters. This is Press Start!, the column where I go “Blah, blah blah, Top 5 things in gaming that caught my eye this week. Please tell me yours too.” After I say that, this is the rest of the column, “Blah, blah, blah, moderately cool thing, dick joke, blah blah, half-baked attempt at cultural criticism, blah, blah, sort of cool thing, repeat.”

Well, shall we?

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#1: Meet Noah, Street Fighter Prodigy.
One of the most difficult things for me to accept since the proliferation of the Internet and online gaming is that I am not the talented gaming wizard I once thought I was. I was the baddest motherfucker on the block. Whuppin’ friends, takin’ names. Then all of a sudden the Internet comes out, fuck you very much Al Gore, and I realize I’m mediocre. At best. On my very best days when the stars are aligned. Case in point: this eight-year old Street Fighter prodigy named Noah. Motherfucker has skills. Maybe even skillz if you will. Watch as he takes a round from Gooteck and then spits some fire in the interview. I predict big things from this kid.

I need to connect myself to him. Connect myself done well. Set myself up as his manager and slowly siphon all of his funds, after I manipulate him to push his parents away and pick up some sort of substance addiction. You and me Noah, we’re going places.

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#2: Lollipop Chainsaw: Because Grasshopper Doesn’t Give A Shit.
The amount of fucks that Grasshopper Manufacture doesn’t give is astounding. It’s commendable. Having just completed their Shadows of the Damned, I want to support these bros just for their sheer insanity. It’s like they simply don’t give a fuck about what sells, what you think, and most importantly coming off as sane individuals. Their newest game only confirms this. Meet Lollipop Chainsaw.

You’re an uncomfortably sexualized cheerleader named Juliet. Your task should you choose it, is to mow down a high school full of zombies. Hacking and slashing your way through hordes of brainless automatons whose sole task is to bring you down. This sounds a lot like high school in general. It’s pure, pure, pure madness. Which is only what I’m expect from the same studio that brought the Blue Marble the likes of Shadows of the Damned, and No More Heroes. Hell yeah.

While it wasn’t technically announced this week, the title’s Western release was confirmed within such a span. Besides, temporal linearity is for bitches. You’re not a bitch, are you?

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#3: British Girl Wins Excel World Championship.
Rebecca Rickwood will fuck you up at Microsoft Excel. Don’t believe me? The 15 year-old girl from England just won the Microsoft Excel World Championship. While this surely is yet another herald of our forthcoming cultural implosion, it’s also something I must tip my cap to. I cannot use Microsoft Excel. I try to use it as a spreadsheet to keep track of student absences and their grades, and well…it bests me. Time and time again.

Rickwood beat out 228,000 contestants in a variety of timed tests. In fact, she scored a 100/100. Well done. I don’t really know what the tests consisted of, because the reputable news sources that pronounced the winner didn’t cover that. I am assured that these tests would also fuck me up. For that effort, she took home $5,000. This is also no laughing matter, and it is almost half the money I’ve made this year as a teaching assistant. Who is laughing now? Not me. I weep, condemning myself for my inability to wield Excel.

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#4: Game of Thrones Goes Final Fantasy VI.
Alright so many the tagline “and an incest RPG was a cheap gimmick. We live in a world of cheap gimmicks and catchy headlines. At least I didn’t capitalize the entire thing. Cut me some slack. With such a flagrantly snappy headline, I’m referring to this imaginary Game of Thrones RPG. Thrones was custom-tailored to exist within the pixely confines of a Super Nintendo RPG. Well, save for the incest, swearing, beheadings and the such. I’d love to be able to play a Thrones game where “Incest” is a castable spell.

College Humor whips up this faux-RPG to pay homage to both the show and the bygone days when Squaresoft wasn’t churning out endlessly flashy and vapid RPGs that served more as a condemnation of flair and overwrought philosophy than actual games.

This video manages to milk two different G-spots of mine. The fantasy geek, and the old school gamer. Plus it’s pretty fucking humorous. It pokes fun at the show will still maintaining a healthy amount of high-five for it.

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#5: Diablo III Could Drop This Year. Yeah, Okay.
It’s been an exciting seven days or so for warriors of the point-and-click grindfest cult. Yeah, man, I’m talking about those of us who still get a little tip-dribbly when thinking about Mephisto runs for hours. Fuck Diablo II, how you snare my mind and heart. Anyways, nostalgia aside, we’ve gotten a handful of Diablo III goodies this week. First up was an allotment of videos. Yeah, yeah! More importantly is the big lie that Blizzard co-founder  Mike Morhaime is peddling. Diablo III could drop this year. Sure.

While I don’t think it’s going to drop prior to December completing its circuit, it does give me faith. That the game actually exists. That someday in the near future this white whale is going to be installing on my computer. That sooner than later I’ll be able to shirk responsibilities and ignore loved ones in lieu of hours of grinding for mythical worthless items.

To dream. To dream.

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What caught your eyes this week?