I played some more Scribblenauts today, and I’m continually impressed with this little game. It’s gone from something I hadn’t heard of, to something I bought my girlfriend because she likes puzzles, to something I can’t get out of my head. Scribblenauts is one of the more recent games where I actually found that failing is awesome.

Consider today. I’m trying to pick up some goddamn flowers for a chick. Whatever, okay, cool. It quickly becomes clear to me that one bouquet is underneath, straight chilling with a piranha.

It seems like it has a pretty simple solution to a meat head like me. I’ll conjure up a fucking bazooka, and teach that piranha about the dangers of explosive devices. Never mind the fact that I’m wondering why this chick wants these flowers that are absolutely soaked, and ruined by a flesh-devouring monster left over from the prehistoric days.

So I’m all, you know, get ready to feast on death, Mr. Piranha. I aim, I fire…I explode. I blow up a nearby tree, I blow up myself, and the piranha telepathically conveys me the finger.

Awesome.

Solving puzzles is awesome, and half the fun of Scribblenauts has been wondering what exactly will solve the problem. I’m sitting there, having to give a fireman (or is it firefighter or fireperson?) something he’d like to hold. I’m like, here dude, hold this oxygen mask.

He ain’t feeling it.

Really bro? You’re going to run into some flaming cauldron of asbestos and you want to suck wind? Curious. But I wasn’t pissed. I equipped the chap with an axe and apparently he was ready to play the hero. I found myself talking shit to him, even as I trashed object after object, but somehow it was fun. Thinking? Fun? Well played 5th Cell.

Fallout 3 is one of my favorite goddamn games of this generation. And unlike some people’s DLC (looking at you, Bioware), their episodic releases have been jack-worthy. If I was a Fallout 3 zealot and I only owned a PS3 I would have been pulling my hair out. Them DLCs have been 360 exclusive for a while now. But rejoice, PS3 Wastelanders:

Via Kotaku:

The first DLC to hit the PS3 version of Fallout 3 will be Broken Steel, available Sept. 24. That will be followed by Operation: Anchorage and The Pitt on Oct. 1, and Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta on Oct. 8.

Good lord they’re coming at you quickly. Prepare to take one off the tits. But seriously, with this release, the whole “360 has teh uber exclusives” argument continues to erode. Oh snap! It looks like PS3 just slapped the 360’s sandwich out of its hand.

Yes, Uncharted 2 features Twitter integration. Wowzers. What exactly can you tweet?

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ZOMG, controversy surrounding Scribblenauts? I lamented the lack of dildos in the game earlier in the day, but apparently there’s buzz about the word “sambo”:

Via Kotaku:

What happens when you write “sambo”? You get a watermelon.

I’m a naive sheltered white kid who was luckily raised by two very open-minded parents. And as such, I had never heard the term before.

According to Kotaku:

The word “sambo” has been used to demean and degrade Africans and African-Americans alike. “Sambo” was a common slave name in the U.S., and the late 19th century children’s book The Story of Little Black Sambo is cited as furthering the word as a slur. While the book was set in southern Indian, it did play on the blackface iconography and African-American intellectuals have been critical of the pickaninny motifs

and:

There was even a New Jersey brand of watermelon called “Sambo brand”

Weird. The Scribblenauts’ creative director Jeremiah Slaczka retorted:

Via Kotaku:

Slaczka said that the word was included in Scribblenauts because it is an ingredient of the Ecuadorian dish Fancesca, which is listed, on Wikipedia, as including a “figleaf gourd,” or “sambo.” A Google image search of the term “figleaf gourd” produces an image that looks like a watermelon. Slaczka said that it is common to use the same image for multiple words in Scribblenauts and that that is the reason a word meant to depict a figleaf gourd appears to be a watermelon.

Oh boy. I have a feeling we’re going to be hearing about this one for a few days. I don’t really understand how this could have gotten past the Scribblenauts team. Knowing people given the function of this game, the first thing a bunch of intrepid nerds were going to do was…try every single imaginable slur, curse word, and questionable noun. While I had no idea what sambo meant or the negative connotations it carried, it is hard to fathom there wasn’t a group of people or person in charge of preventing something like this from happening.

Someone’s Christmas bonus is going to get significantly lighter!

Oh man! On the same day that the Halo 3: ODST 250gb bundle was announced, Engadget reports that there’s a Uncharted 2 250gb bundle coming to the PS3. I love the fact that both Sony and Microsoft are taking uppercuts at one another. It’s fun to watch, and it’s creating all sorts of ridiculous bundles and deals. Sure, I bought the 360 and PS3 at launch. So really I don’t have any direct benefit from it. But it’s great to see the two giants fighting over our dollars.

Right now? How can you pass up a PS3 Slim with 250gb of space and Uncharted 2 for the ODST bundle? You’re getting a superior game and a Blu-Ray player. Hot.

The dudes behind Ninja Gaiden 2 Sigma have been promoting one thing: The fact that you can shake female characters’ boobs with your Sixaxis controller. In addition to being horribly objectifying and focused on the lowest common denominator (all of us), Tecmo has now gone and cut a TV commercial that features only one thing: boobs jiggling. Young and old and fat and skinny men shaking their controller to get some boobs hopping. It’s eerie. It’s brilliant? Check out the video after the jump.

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I love Halo. Even though I don’t think it’s blown me away since the first game. And yet, I can only feel general sympathy for people who love it so much they go out and buy this bundle. Only confirmed for a PAL release at the moment, frat boys across the world are hoping North America gets a release as well. I think they’ll be hooked up.

Ah, True Blood. Your second season just wasted a chunk of my Sunday evenings for an entire summer. Now you have a video came coming:

Via Kotaku:

HBO’s filed a trademark registration for its show “True Blood,” in relation to video games.

What Kotaku failed to report was the entire trademark that was filed. The game is going to be titled True Blood: Boring Pontificating In-between Emo Declarations…Rise of Alan’s Balls. I’d like to strike every person who buys this game in the crotch with enough force to render them in half.

No seriously, I love you Square Enix. Just when I think nothing can beat Ninja Gaiden 2’s feature that allows players to shake a character’s breasts with the controller, we have a game featuring a hermaphroditic demon:

Via Destructoid:

Nier…features a character known as Kaine, a hermaphrodite with identity issues and a demon that has taken over half his/her body.

I don’t think we should be looking for any sort of developed, nuanced character here. The pictures that have been provided show what can be easily categorized as a “female” – with what, a penis thrown in for effect? Oh well, I shouldn’t let my intellectual, culturally sensitive side kick in. I should just be stoked about the uber hotness that Nier Replicant apparently contains. There is absolutely no subset of horny gamer that Square does not want to cater to. They will cover it all eventually.

I never played Star Wars Galaxies. Somehow despite being a complete Star Wars and video game fanatic, it slipped through my grasp. And then the few friends who did play it told me in no uncertain terms that it was horrible, a psychologically scarring experience, and induced late-term miscarriages in certain women and men.

So with that said, how the hell is this game still around? Sony announced today that they were closing some servers:

Via Kotaku:

Due to the overwhelming success of the recent Free Character Transfer Service, we want to inform you that on October 15, 2009, at 5:00 PM PT, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) will close the following 12 Star Wars Galaxies servers:

o Corbantis
o Europe-Infinity
o Intrepid
o Kauri
o Kettemoor
o Lowca
o Naritus
o Scylla
o Tarquinas
o Tempest
o Valcyn
o Wanderhome

And all I could think was wait, this game still exists? What the fuck. Who are you sickos still playing this game? Do you really need to role play in a cantina band that badly? I feel frightened by you, and sympathy for you.