Square is “considering” DLC for Final Fantasy XIII. This company continually fucking confuses me. No, like seriously. The company is comfortable spinning their franchises off into cell phone games, toilet paper, action figures, thirteen Final Fantasy VII off-shoot games. They come off like straight-up shameless money whores. It seems so obvious. But then they do things like continue to not remake Final Fantasy VII, and now this. Dudes say they’re like, you know, mulling over the decision:

Via Destructoid:

“We are exploring the option of downloadable content, perhaps adding new areas, items or enemies, but these would not be expansions to the story, only the gameplay,” he explains. “The entire story of FFXIII will be on the disc.”

Guys. Fucking come on. Do you have any idea HOW MUCH MONEY you could make off of DLC? You know that people like me follow your releases with raging boners. You know you’ve sold me fifteen Cloud action figures. How many fucking Final Fantasy VII/VIII/X wallscrolls have I bought? We’ll buy any expansions you release. I’ll pay $5 for a fucking lightsaber for my 360 avatar. Do you have any idea how much I’d pay for a fucking Buster Sword?!?!

It’s amazing how fucking out of touch Square has become. Every company around shills DLC. It’s easy money. It’s been common hat for years now. And of course, here’s Square. Lagging behind. Contemplating shit that should be obvious and without statement at this point.

I can’t even tell you how hard I’d lose my mind for a $5 FFXIII DLC that would unlock a bunch of new side-quests and some new omega weapons. And I know people who hold my same beliefs are legion. Keep mulling it around guys, it’s only the most obvious fucking decision ever.

DC, not comfortable with being utterly forgotten today, has released some new pictures of their MMO, DC Universe. I feel bad for DC. I don’t begrudge them from trying, but I have seen the future of this release. And it staunch mediocrity at best. Maybe it’ll cut out enough of a chunk to exist for a while. Maybe it’ll even be fun. But there’s no way that they’re going to be able to conquer the market. Blizzard continuously pumps out new WoW content to keep us junkies playing. Sure, maybe we’ll dabble in DC Universe. But like any man who leaves his girlfriend for a while for that cute girl who works at Newbury Comics and listens to the Pixies, we’re going to realize the truth: There’s a reason we spent four years with our beautiful WoW. Shit can’t compete.

Oh, and if shit could compete? It’s going to be Star Wars: The Old Republic. The loudest of MMO detractors are salivating over this release. My friend, The Dude, never misses a chance to take a swing at WoW and the stupidity of MMOs. And you know what? He’s pledged that he will be picking up the Old Republic. There’s only so many hours in the day, and when push comes to shove, it’s going to be a Star Wars/WoW world. That shit is just the truth.

[ check the pictures @ kotaku ]

I think I’m starting to develop some problems. First, I can’t get god damn Jihl Nabaat from Final Fantasy XIII out of my head. And now here rolls up Poison Ivy from Arkham Asylum. When I went nuts fawning over her a couple of days ago, I had no idea she was going to be involved in some odd alien tentacle fetish shit. Prior to the point where you fight Ivy – which just so happens to be the only boss battle that doesn’t suck in Arkham – tentacles all slither and shit up her glistening body. The tentacles, giant slithering green dicks, then feed her into the ultimate yonic symbol – a rose. Seriously, Freud? Lacan? Anyone? Help?

Now, I know I’m perverted. And I probably take things to be erotic that probably aren’t. As an example, I’m always strangely turned on by the mother oinking like a pig in A Christmas Story. I don’t know, it’s just hot. But I can’t be wrong about this one. There’s no way a hot, buxom woman in a low-cut red shirt and green underwear isn’t intended to titillate nerd balls. And there’s definitely no way that big slithering phalluses coiling their way around her ample busom and buttocks isn’t supposed to get my adult glands working. Or yours for that matter.

I knew that Arkham was supposed to appeal to a lot of gamers, but I didn’t think they were aiming to corner the Tentacle Rape genre. You think you’re getting Batman and all of a sudden you’re getting La Gotham Girl and shit. Weird.

Final Fantasy XIII. I’ve been sweating this shit forever. Let’s put it this way. I had a Final Fantasy XIII desktop back when I was taking Shakespeare II at college. In that class was my future girlfriend. I didn’t begin dating her until a year later. AND we’ve been dating for eighteen months. Do the math. With all the info coming out about FFXIII lately, I’m beginning to worry it may exist. Which in turn gets my hopes up. Fuck. Please, Square. Please!

This video is utterly fucking gorgeous, and FFXIII director Motomu Toriyama breaks down the combat system for all of us fanboys. Caution to those who watch, it may induce a hysterical sense of urgency regarding this game coming out.

Square demonstrates in a bunch of new Final Fantasy XIII pictures that they know their fanbase very well. How so? They’ve given us something out of our dirty little dreams. It’s a commonly known fact that nerds go absolutely fucking bananas for chicks with glasses. I think it’s a psychological phenomenon. We also like women who demonstrate power, since you know, we’re typically weak, fat, and eating spaghettios in our underwear. So what does Square do? They give us Jihl Nabaat. She’s a hot babe with glasses who apparently is a hard ass and wears latex. A DOMINATRIX IN LEATHER WITH GLASSES?

Holy shit. Well done, Square. Now let’s turn this game into something other than vaporware and give us the ability to take our own screenshots. I have plans. Filthy plans.

[ check the new screens @ destructoid ]

So I’m playing Arkham Asylum, and the craziest shit starts happening. At one point Joker lets all of the fucking inmates out of their cage. Which is cool, and whatever. However, these inmates aren’t regular Joker thugs. They’re just guys who happen to be fucking raving insane. The whole mechanic seems like a way for Eidos to have Batman fight zombies. You see, they murmur and drool like zombies. They sound exactly like the bad guys from Left 4 Dead. But I’ll continue.

So anyways, these people are not villains. They just happen to be suffering from psychological problems and are upset by the madness around them.

What does Batman do?

He beats the living shit out of them. Seriously. Poor confused inmates who have been brought into a riot. They can’t defend themselves, and they’re just looking for a way out.

They run at Batman in confusion, and what’s he do? He throws them over his head and punches them in the fucking mouth. I sat there watching my Batman throw these retards around without a care in the world. I realize they’re running at him, but can’t the guy have some fucking empathy? They don’t even fight back!

I mean, what are the moral implications of this? Sure, Batman doesn’t kill! But you know what he WILL do? He’ll kick the living shit out of defenseless schizophrenics! They don’t get up! They just lay there with the shit kicked out of them. There’s got to be some ethical code that prohibits the ass-whuppings of crazy people, isn’t there?

Listen, don’t get all sensitive on me. I’ve been locked up for three days at a crazy ward. In the clink, as they say. And what happened if the Joker showed up there and let us out? What if I was just walking across the lawn, taking a stroll without my annoying fifteen minute check-ins? I mean, half the retards I’ve kicked the shit out of with Batman are people who aren’t suspecting me! I sneak up and clobber the crap out of them! What if it was me, strolling McLean’s, and then Batman snuck up on my ass and whupped me?

The dude is deranged, and I can’t believe that some group like PEOPLE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT OF BIPOLAR MADMEN (me) haven’t been like

WAI CAN BATMEN WHUP THE SHIT OUT OF INVALIDS?!

I’m just waiting for the uproar to start. I can hear it now.

But to answer the question, why can he?

He’s Batman, bitches.

Wait, you mean shit leaks from video game conventions? Publishers have to know the best way to do free ‘viral’ press is to just show something at a convention. Only an asshole would think that they’re going to air it without it getting caught up on some one’s Cell Phone / Clatter / Super Spybot. Just check out the video. Some live footage of Modern Warfare 2, which is promising to sell four-zillion copies this winter. Frat boys, legit gamers, and pre-pubescent kids with bad parents will all be waiting in line together for this shit.

[ youtube via kotaku ]

I have found myself continuously confused while playing Batman: Arkham Asylum. It had to do with that annoying twat Harley Quinn. I know that there’s a lot of dudegeeks out there who absolutely fawn over Joker’s spermbank. But I don’t get it. Won’t get it. Refuse to try. Normally Quinn is   just an annoying rascally bitch. But in Arkham Asylum, she enters a whole new world of suck.You see, in Arkham she’s an annoying bitch who looks like she’s going to an Insane Clown Posse concert. No, seriously:

Quinn’s new outfit for Arkham must have been redesigned by a fucking Juggalo. Holy shit. I just know dorks are beating off at her “totally hawt” cleavage “and super sploogey” nurse outfit.

Thankfully, the lords at Eidos gave us something unexpected. They made Poison Ivy gorgeous. Somehow, they did it. Even while she’s all like, chlorophyll infested and green and shit. It’s been a good year for green-skinned babes. First there was that weird green chick that Captain Kirk was boning in Star Trek, and now Poison Ivy. Behold! Viva la Green Babes.

The Guild is an online sitcom featuring esoteric jokes that only homos like me will get. This music video used to hype up Season 3 debuted like two weeks ago, which makes it five thousand years old in Internet time. Somehow I missed it.

However, watching it, I was pretty torn. First off, it features Felicia Day. However, it features Felicia Day trying to act, at least ironically sexy. Now, for nerds like me, Felicia Day is a dream. She’s a smart chick, with pale skin, who does stuff like star in Dr. Horrible, and cut episodes of Dollhouse. In short, she’s sexy because she’s not super seductive. I know it’s all tongue-in-cheek in this video, but I’m all, “Felicia Day is hot when she’s not trying to act conventionally hot.” I know I’m in the minority, and that many a nerds have laden their fingers with their spilled seed to this video.

As for the song, “(Do You Wanna Date My) Avatar”, it’s pretty cool. For the six people who get the references, and the loved ones they’ve subjected to their MMO playing. Like, for instance, I will get it, and all my friends will, but random people who stumble across it will be like “Jesus Christ look at these RPG fags.” Then they’ll go back to playing Madden 10 and trying shitty cheap beer in their frat houses.

Ha!

I’m playing through Arkham Asylum like any diehard Batman fanboy should be right now. It’s a pretty tight, but I’ll save my impressions for the review I’m working on over for Mishka Bloglin. What I wanted to comment on though, is how fucking jacked Commissioner Gordon looks in the game. No, seriously. The dude looks like a sixty year-old pile of muscles. Just stare at the dude. There isn’t a doorway on Earth that the guy could fit through. He looks like he’s training with Brock Lesnar and eating whole cows for dinner.

What the fuck is going on here?

It’s not confusing for any egghead who knows the engine the game is running on. Eidos is using the Unreal Engine 3. You may recognize it as the engine that brought the world the anatomical impossibility that is Marcus Fenix and the rest of the Gears of Wars cast. The engine is renown for building the enormous, Vin Diesel, HGH-popping body type; and then using it as the default shape of any male in the game.

I just didn’t think it would be used to craft Jim Gordon into the dude who not only runs the police force for Gotham, but probably also can fuck your mother while carrying her up a flight of stairs.

Bravo, Unreal Engine 3!