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.

File this under: Jealousy inspired rage.

It’s commonly known throughout intellectual circles that Spin Magazine is a pile of slop churned onto former trees. It’s for emo kids with swoopy haircuts and thick glasses and tight pants to find the newest esoteric band to worship. Doubly ironic of course because these same bands are being churned through a corporate magazine. Anyways, that’s not what I want to talk about. Through some weird circumstances, my Dad began receiving Spin after his subscription to something ran out. And so whenever I’m trying to blast out a turd, I pick it up and flip through.

That’s when I found this retarded review of Batman: Arkham Asylum today. I must preface my forthcoming rage with this – I can’t believe this douchebag, Dan Ackerman, gets to play video games ahead of time and get paid for it. It’s a nerdy rage that stems from the fact that I’m an unemployed poor quasi-academic who would kill someone to play review copies of games for free, while this hack gets to do it.

Let’s look at Dan’s brilliant review describing why Batman video games have failed:

Most comic book tales follow the ebb and flow of traditional fiction narrative

Ah, already brilliant Spin pretension. How about you write like a human being in a pop magazine, please. This isn’t the New Yorker. (Or my Derrida Superman post, shut the fuck up.)

…with character driven story arcs that build to a climax, punctuated by superhero throwdowns.

Really? Character driven story arcs? Most slop out there is generally just operating as a means to get to that superfight. Pick up a comic book, bro. As far as “Traditional fiction narrative”, what the fuck do you mean? Do you feel like defining traditional? And what venue of fiction? Would you argue that Comic Book Fiction is a beast unto itself? Surely it has tropes and consistent constructions (oh shit I’m going all Ackerman in my prose) that deviate from the standards of the usual Grisham novel.

In contrast, video game storytelling generally serves as a mere background for setting up the basic mode of play

An obvious statement. The line Dan seems to be drawing is that Batman games have failed because they haven’t focused on character development and “Traditional fiction narrative”. What I’d like to posit is that they could have been fulfilling if they hadn’t been half-cooked pieces of shit thrown out there to agree with Bat Movie X. Most of the time.

Also, I’m not really sure if I agree with Dan. Most video game story lines serve as the basic mode of play? Really? Does Half-Life 2’s storyline determine that it’s a first person shooter? Not so much. As well, it seems to imply that video games are typically unsuited for a strong traditional narrative. Or maybe I’m reading it wrong. Is he suggesting that the medium (video games) has been misused? Or that it is simply ill-fitting?

I’m going to give Dan the benefit of the doubt, and assume he just means that they’ve been misused. Even still, Arkham Asylum isn’t groundbreaking in that regard. Maybe he means groundbreaking for a Batman game. Or maybe nothing at all, he never uses that work.

The entire review is opaque though. I know that there are word limits, and you have to squeeze as much as you can into as little as space. And perhaps that’s my problem with this article – you need to get the fuck over yourself, dude. Don’t try and argue a thesis for the differentiation between the “traditional fiction narrative” and the narratives used in video games in some shitty three-hundred word review. And then I begin to wonder how much of the game the guy has played:

After Dan discusses the aspects similar to God of War, he goes on to say:

But you’ll need ample brainpower to follow a suspect’s DNA trail or find the many hidden clues

Really? Ample brainpower? What an ugly sentence for starters. And then, how much of the game did you play, dude? There’s hyper-exposition by the character Batman in the game that constantly keeps the gamer on his path. If anything, from what I’ve played, the game seems surprisingly dumb and linear. Not to say it isn’t fun, but brainpower? I mean, surely with your phrases like “traditional fictional narrative” and “reconciles these two formats’ disparate aesthetics”, you must have excelled. Seriously. What a bunch of pretentious garbage.

I know that at Spin the writers seem to fashion themselves as cool hunters and reject anything that doesn’t sound like a shitty thesis paper for any sort of article, but it just seems absurd. A half-baked review that is more interested with textual wankage than actually serving a good review. Listen, the mouthbreathing assfucks who are reading the magazine in their Extra Small t-shirts and their black jeans that cut off circulation are two things. Fucking dumb, and hyper impressionable. Not only are they going to not understand your crap, but they’re going to start thinking this kind of awful prose is acceptable.

And oh yeah, you have that job and I don’t.

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!

Bayonetta, the action game coming from the man behind Viewtiful Joe, Okami, Resident Evil and Devil May Cry promises to be many things. A showcase of a hot chick in leather and glasses. More action insanity from the master. And apparently, a venue for pussy handholding.

From Destructoid:

Bayonetta‘s “Very Easy Automatic” mode is designed for noobs, but should also be perfectly suited to the chronic wanker. Able to be played with one hand, socially maladjusted gamers like myself will be able to pull their plonkers, issue a fine stringy jet of minging muck-magma, and clean up the pubic marshland without ever having to stop the game. Genius.

The bitchification of gamers continues. What a bunch of casual douchebags the gaming community is coming. I honestly don’t understand how it is gratifying to hit one button and mop the floor with shit. Half of my enjoyment from playing games like Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry 3 is the thrill of execution. It’s about learning the strategies and finally being able to fell some bad ass boss.

Listen, I know they’re going to include a real mode for real gamers, so this is just auxiliary as a way to lure more fans in. But it just seems confounding to me that people would enjoy it, and as a shithead-hard-ass-gaming-dbag, I resent giving shitty gamers the ability to wank out without skill. I know I’m being pretentious. Fuck you.

It’s a common source of confusion for Final Fantasy VII fanboys like my friends and myself why Squaresoft (they’ll always be fucking Squaresoft to me, okay?) hasn’t made a Final Fantasy VII remake. Market whores, Square has spun the game off into a thousand derivatives. Movies, cell phone games, toilet paper, subvertly sponsored Cloud/Sephiroth yaoi.

At the same time, they’ve remade like, you know, all the other Final Fantasy games for the DS, Gameboy, Virtual Boy, and Neogeo. So where the fuck is our Final Fantasy VII remake? The game was the jumping-on point for many Squaresoft fanatics like myself. It still remains insanely popular in the community, and the game would make more money than fucking God. So where the fuck is it at?

The VG247 blog managed to get this out of the motherfuckers responsible for FFVII:

There’s no official project that’s up and running for a remake of Final Fantasy VII at this point. Both Toriyama-san and Kitase-san were involved in the development of the game, however, and it holds a special place in their hearts. They do talk about it on a personal level, like, ‘If we did it it would be like this or like that.’

So, they do talk about it, but there’s no official project yet. But there’s that PSN release that just came out, so if you could play that for the time being, it should be fun.

In other words. We’re busy taking fourteen god damn years for Final Fantasy XIII because we’ve become incompetent, sludgy fucks. But buy the original on the PSN, because we contradict ourselves and really do love money, while not working on the project that would make us so much money we could fashion a real-life Godzilla.

I was kickin’ around in the 360’s Marketplace today as I downloaded the newest Mass Effect DLC, “Pinnacle Station“. My friend, The Dude had mentioned to me that you could buy Mass Effect junk for your avatar. I ultimately settled on the N7 shirt. As retarded as it sounds, I decided that while the spacesuits were super-ballin’, my digital representation wouldn’t wear that. I’m in civilian clothes. We commented that it was hilarious that we’d be gouged for that gear. But we also both bought some swag.

Then I stumbled across this: a motherfucking lightsaber. I checked it out on my avatar. Okay, maybe I wouldn’t wear a spacesuit, but I would definitely wield a lightsaber. I know it doesn’t make sense. Then I went to buy it. It cost 400 Microsoft points.

Let’s be clear. “Pinnacle Station”, the DLC costs 400 MS points. So does the lightsaber. Since Microsoft uses the esoteric, bizarre pricing points in an effort to confuse us, that translates to around $5.

$5 for three hours of gaming. Okay, makes sense. $5 for a lightsaber? Holy shit.

Like Blizzard, who can rape nerds into paying $40 for a live stream of their Blizzcon news, Microsoft and/or Lucas (I don’t know who gets the money, I’m lazy) knows they can rape us nerds by increasing the price of the lightsaber to ridiculous proportions. I paid 80 points for my t-shirt, but it’s 400 for a saber? 5 times the amount? That’s absurd.

The worst part is I keep thinking about it. I wants it. I needs it. MY PRECIOUS. It’s idiots like me (I’ll ultimately cave) that enable people like Microsoft and Blizzard to rape us silly. $5 for a little lightsaber. It’s ridiculous. Exorbitant. I’m going to cave. Fuck me.

File this under: What the fuck?

So, apparently new Mass Effect DLC came out today. It’s called Pinnacle Station. Did you know? Yeah, me either. The new Mass Effect DLC was released with little to no fanfare. This is coming off the heels of the details of said DLC being leaked by the Swiss XBOX Live site. It seems to me like there was some sort of “Fucked, the god damn Swiss leaked it? Better shovel that shit out there!”

Want some details about the DLC? Since, like me, you had no idea this shit existed until either yesterday or today? Sure, here you go:

Test the limits of your combat prowess aboard a remote, top-secret Alliance space station. Do you have what it takes to hold the top spot amongst the best of the best? This module includes a new land-able space station, 13 exciting combat scenarios, and approximately 2-3 hours of game play

There you go. Sounds pretty lame, doesn’t it? Also, it sounds pretty much like a cheap rip-off of Fallout 3‘s Operation: Anchorage DLC. Wait, you go into a simulation, tear shit up for a bit, and then get some new gear? Yeah, Bethesda did that back in February.

It seems pretty fitting that this new, uncared about DLC would mimic Fallout 3’s. Why, you ask? Well, since Fallout 3 has been released, it’s done DLC like a pimp master. While Bioware has dropped the ball continuously. Since November of 2008, Bethesda has churned out five excellent DLCs. With over a year’s extra time in the market place, Mass Effect has been capable of churning out two bullshit, bootleg abortions. Pretty depressing.

I am a huge Mass Effect fan. It’s a binky of mine, and despite all my bitching, I’ve already downloaded this piece of crap. It’s depressing to see Bioware drop the ball of the DLC, especially since we were promised rich worlds and shit to explore after the release, and all we’ve gotten is a couple of thrown together pieces of mush. Hopefully this is just a sign that Bioware has turned its attention fully to Mass Effect 2, which, when I think about it, arouses a semi-erection in my pants.

Until, have some slop, and imagine a world where Bioware learns some lessons from Bethesda when it comes to DLC.

One of the cooler things about WoW: Cataclysm aside from the new content promising to ensnare my mind for another couple of years are the reworked original continents. Anyone who has played WoW will tell you that levels 1-70 are a pointless grind at this point, punctuated by bitching and moaning. We can’t fly in Azeroth, QQ. We’ve seen the Bad Lands a thousand times, QQ. And I’m just as whiny. But let’s face it, the fucking map has been static for almost five years. It’s about god damn time something actually HAPPENED in the world.

It was cute how for about two days prior to WotLK Blizzard actually tried to give the semblance of a breathing universe. But with Cataclysm, Blizzard’s giving all of us greybeards a chance to explore areas we had forsaken since around 2006.

Changing around continents gives us a reason to explore older areas on our capped characters, and it also may mitigate the misery that is grinding from level one on your fifteenth alt. For the first six months or so.

Oh Blizzcon, you continue to amaze me. Not only have you given me news on the next World of Warcraft expansion, and videos of Diablo 3, but now you’ve simply topped yourself. Apparently Tricia Helfer, known to nerds around the world as Six, is going to voice some bad-ass queen-lady named Kerrigan in Starcraft 2. I’ve never played Starcraft, nor read the thousands of novels and works of brilliant fanfiction, so when I read she was going to voice someone, I was like, oh, cool…Now what the fuck is a Queen of Blade? But then I consulted my friend Wikipedia, and dude hooked it up as usual:

Sarah Louise Kerrigan, the self-styled Queen of Blades, is a major character and the predominant antagonist in Blizzard Entertainment’s StarCraft series of video games and novels.

Well then! Yeah, I’m still lost. Let’s be honest though, who fucking cares? I was teetering on buying Starcraft 2 anyways, because of my crackhead addiction to everything Blizzard. But those bastards are good, and now they’ve really snared me. The mellifluous tones of Ms. Helfer cackling as some hot evil alien? Again? How the fuck can I say no to that?