Source: Super Punch / Enlarge

Inception, not to be outdone by fucking LOST, goes 8-Bit.

Oh Sweet Jesus Christ. The game by the creators of the original Bioshock has been revealed: Bioshock Infinite. Retarded title, whatever. What is it? It’s Bioshock atop a floating city, as opposed to an underwater haven. What is it? Absolutely fucking gorgeous, and epic. I don’t think any other game could have me geeking out like this, the original Bioshock being one of my favorite games of all time.

Kotaku:

Levine began explaining the game to his audience. Infinite is set in the early 1910s. Its main setting is Columbia, a city that floats on balloons and drifted across an ascendant United States, showing the accomplishments of a post-Civil War American ready to express its idea of excellence.

“Something terrible happens,” Levine said, establishing the stakes and the mystery. Columbia proves to be something worse than a beacon of prosperity. “This is not a floating world’s fair. Columbia is a Death Star.” In the lead-up to the events of Infinite, Columbia is embroiled in an international incident of unspecified horror and then disappears into the clouds. Our character, a “disgruntled former Pinkerton agent” named Booker DeWitt, is contacted by a mysterious man who knows where Columbia is. In that city, DeWitt is told, is Elizabeth, a woman who has been raised there and who the man wants rescued. DeWitt accepts the mission, which will be ours as a player: to rescue Elizabeth and, with her super-powered help, get out of the patriotic-turned-violent Columbia.

So it seems to be another deconstruction of American ideals and the forces behind them, this time in a different although seemingly thematically similar place. I cannot fucking wait. Oh jesus.

Hit the jump for the trailer.

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Collector’s Editions are at war with one another. Last year the Modern Warfare family brought everyone night vision goggles, which felled the previous Douchebag Winner, the Spartan Helmet Douchecon Edition from Halo 3. Well! Well, then. Well, well, well. Call of Duty: Black Ops is making a serious, serious push to take the Douchebag Extreme Mantle, by offering a functionable RC car with their Black Ops Collector’s Edition.

Destructoid:

With a range of up to 200 feet, the RC-XD surveillance vehicle is a fully-functioning RC car that features — wait for it — a remote camera that transmits TFT color video and audio. It’s inspired by the surveillance car that will appear in the game’s multiplayer, as seen in the recent teaser trailer.

The “Prestige Edition” will also ship with everything you’ll get in the “Hardened Edition,” including a Black Ops limited edition medal, a Black Ops Avatar outfit (for Xbox 360), and four additional cooperative maps.

If you buy this, you’re a douchebag. But let’s be clear, if it were the right franchise (Mass Effect, Fallout), I’d be a douchebag too.

Remember back in the day when limited-prints of Zelda games came with a cold cartridge? Well it seems like Activision is hearkening back to those dope old days by bundling Goldeneye 007 with a gold controller. As if getting a new Goldeneye game wasn’t enough of a trip in the way-back machine.

God damn, how many hours did I burn through with this game, getting pissed as I got owned in multiplayer with a pack of friends? I don’t intend on gettin’ the remake and by proxy the controller, but it still makes my belly mirthful with warm remembrance.

Source: Simon Chong Via Kotaku / Enlarge.

Source: Tom Preston / Enlarge.

Duke Nukem Forever is something of a white whale in the gaming community. First announced in 1997, the shit was promised, and promised, and promised, and then promised again. Finally last year, twelve years later, the game was finally axed.

But oh shit! Maybe it wasn’t. And not only is it rumored to be back, but it’s purported that dope-ass Gearbox Software (Borderlands) could be runnin’ the gig now.

Kotaku:

There may be hope yet for the ludicrously long-in-the-making Duke Nukem Forever. Sources claiming to have knowledge of the situation tell Kotaku that Duke Nukem Forever development continues at a new home, Borderlands developer Gearbox Software.

The studio responsible for Brothers In Arms, Borderlands and Aliens: Colonial Marines is said to have picked up Duke Nukem Forever development where former studio 3D Realms left off, perhaps Duke’s best bet for eventual completion.

Duke Nukem Forever, according to sources who wished to remain anonymous, is now in the hands of Gearbox and is planned to be released under the studio’s name. Gearbox was outed as the developer of the apparently scrapped Duke Nukem spin-off Duke Begins earlier this year.

It would be one thing if the game was announced as “back on” – in the sense that I wouldn’t give a fuck. But if it’s truly back, and it’s being developed by a legitimately talented studio? Holy mung. It has the recipe for awesomeness and nostalgia that was once thought incalculable.

Over at Boing Boing, they have the dopest article I’ve read in a long time. Insanely crazy/awesome dude Jake Adelstein is a Jewish-American reporter who spent twelve years as a crime beat reporter in Japan, and then parlayed that experience into what I understand is an excellent book. More recently, Adelstein got three yakuza to sit down and voice their impressions on Sega’s Yakuza 3. There’s hilarity and insight within.

Boing Boing:

Excerpt #1:

K: It’s like going back in time. Koma Theater is there, the pink salons, the Pronto Coffee shops, the Shinjuku Batting center, the love hotels.
S: You got your salaryman in there, the delinquent school girl and her sugar daddy, Chinese people, and even those Nigerian touts. What’s with all the fucking gaijin (foreigners) in the area anyway? It used to be just Japanese, Koreans and Chinese.
M: Don’t say gaijin. Say Gaikokujin. It’s more polite. Jake’s a gaijin.
S: Yeah, I forget sometimes. What’s with all the fucking gaikokujin in Kabukicho anyway?

Excerpt #2:

K: 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.

Those are two clips from the entire article, which is surreal and engaging as I hope the two excerpts were. Get over to Boing Boing and check out the full-piece. Pull together an attention span that can persist for more than ninety seconds, and you’ll be rewarded. I promise.

Motherfucking Wayne Newton is going to be in Fallout: New Vegas. It wasn’t like I needed another reason to be excited for the next Wasteland Party Romp, but with the reveal of the voice acting, god dammit I have it.

Kotaku:

Newton is in the game as the disembodied voice of a radio DJ long dead. Which is a bit of a shame. You’d think that were an atomic apocalypse to strike, the only things that would survive in Las Vegas would be cockroaches and Wayne Newton. And maybe Cher,

Other actors signed to lend their vocal talents to the game include Kris Kristofferson, Felicia Day, Ron Perlman, Michael “Worf” Dorn and…Matthew Perry.

Good god damn! Wayne Newton and every nerd’s dream girl Felicia Day in the same voice acting class?

I’ve only played the Infinity Ward Call of Duty titles. I am by no means an aficionado or expert when it comes to the series. But when I heard that Black Ops was going to take place in the Cold War, I immediately was aroused to a point of comfortable non-comfort.

And now? Today Treyarch dropped the first multiplayer footage from the game, and I am fapping and screaming. I don’t know if it has been a fixture of previous games in the series, but the video shows dudes getting mowed down with a fucking crossbow.

Good god damn, I’m sold.

Hit the jump to check out the video for yourself.

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