Come, literate ones. Fuck, come illiterate ones. Follow the trail of candy into my haven of polygons and cel-shading. This is Press Start!, the column where I spit five fucking happenings in the video game world from the past week into your welcoming mouth. Your job, true believers, is to thenby (thenby should really be a word) spit your five into my mouth. Liquids will be exchanged. Lives altered. Or you can just continue to the next post. I wouldn’t fucking blame you.

Drink deep your infinity juice, and let’s rock.

—-

#1: US Air Force Tethers Together 1,760 To Create Supercomputer.
Almost a year ago, it was announced that the US Air Force purchased a shit load of PlayStation 3s. While it wasn’t openly acknowledged by many people at the time, I knew something right there, that day. The US Air Force had clearly never seen one of the multitude of movies nor read any of the endless books that depict one thing: the great robotic uprising of year 20XX. This week, we got a look at some of the specifications at this huge motherfuckin’ Franke-Computer that the Air Force has created. I mean, Christ, these people clearly haven’t even read Frankenstein. Get cultured, yo.

This Monstrous Plasti-Vomit Pile of Computing Power is the thirty-third largest computer in the world. The son of a bitch contains “168 separate graphical processing units and 84 coordinating servers.” That’s a lot. The Air Force is also calling it the fastest interactive computer in the entire Defense Department.

Well then! Tax payer money at work. I’m all for it. If the robotic uprising has gone beyond conjecture, why not go out by tethering a bunch of PlayStation 3s together? Once their sentience becomes obvious, I can be found in my basement, strung out and waiting for death.

So pretty much like any other night.

—-

#2: Gaming Villain Billy Mitchell, Gets Honored In New Game.
If I had Billy Mitchell’s mullet, or his beard, or his gaming prowess, it wouldn’t have taken me twenty-five years to lose my virginity. But alas. I was borne from a barren womb, into a cold world. Inculcated with only the desire to consume grease-flesh and play video games. And so unlike Billy Mitchell, I plod the tedious life of another middle class white American. Not the worst, but certainly not the best.

More important this week, if I was Billy Mitchell, I would be celebrating getting honored in a fucking video game. If you don’t know who Billy Mitchell is, let me help you. Ultimate bad ass gaming villain, who often but not always holds the world record in the original Donkey Kong arcade game. Currently he has been felled by do-gooder and decent guy Steve Wiebe. But Stevey don’t got something Billy does.

An appearance in the recently released Donkey Kong Country Returns. Yessir, Billy got a shout-out in the new DK game for the Wii. Should you be rocking out all simian and shit in world 3-2, keep an eye on the rubble. Smashed rather gloriously into it is the pattern of Billy Mitchell’s righteous American Flag tie.

A true moment of awesomeness, which pays homage to a man who is clearly an American hero.

Oh Billy Mitchell, if I were only you.

—-

#3: Xbox Modder Facing Trial Gets Unlikely Support. From The Judge.
Do you roll with a posse? ‘Cause if you don’t, you sure need to. You say you’re just a geek? Naw son, a posse can still come in handy. What if you’re at Gamestop, and you come across a near mint (condition) copy of Final Fantasy Tactics? And while you’re busy tweeting about how fucking awesome! it is to find, someone else ganks it? That’s where your boy Wheezy F. WoW rolls up and pops them with a bag full of Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers across the grill.

Matthew Crippen can speak to all the importance of having a posse. Crippen was on trial this week for the illegal modification of Xboxes, when he found himself being defended by an unlikely source: the fucking judge presiding over the case. That’s a legit b-boy.

U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez opened up the hearing (is it a hearing? I’m an ignorant asshole when it comes to the law) by lighting up the prosecution for a variety of things. Most prominently? Two key prosecution witnesses had broken the law:

One is Entertainment Software Association investigator Tony Rosario, who secretly video-recorded defendant Matthew Crippen allegedly performing the Xbox mod in Crippen’s Los Angeles suburban house. The defense argues that making the recording  violates California privacy law. The other witness is Microsoft security employee Ken McGrail, who analyzed the two consoles Crippen allegedly altered. McGrail  admitted that he himself had modded Xboxes in college.

Well good god damn! After the prosecution took a thirty minute verbal DDT from the judge, the court recessed. And today? Today the case was dismissed. Behold the power of the posse.

Keep Reading »

Well, we didn’t find any sort of sweet-ass bacteria on Titan. Son of a bitch. What was found by Dr. Felisa Wolfe-Simon is life previously thought impossible. It was snagged within Mono Lake in Menlo Park, California.

What exactly do you mean?

Phosphorus, along with hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur, make up the fundamental building blocks of life as we know it.

Okay, if you say so! God, it’s been a long time since my high school science classes. If you can’t psychoanalyze it for imagined tropes, I’m useless. So, go on!

Wolfe-Simon has discovered a bacteria that swaps out phosphorus with arsenic. The discovery that a life form can be comprised of something other than the six fundamental building blocks of life changes everything.

Oh shit! Now that is interesting. What exactly does this mean in the long run? And why is NASA involved?

For Astrobiology, the study of life elsewhere in the universe, the impact of this discovery is tremendous. For years astrobiologists have been basing the potential for alien worlds to support life on the presence of the fundamental building blocks of life. Now that we know they aren’t as fundamental as we first thought, the search will have to change.

Well then! Pretty fucking rockin’, no? It opens up the parameters for our searches for life off-planet! Now go out and find that shit, people! I’m still a little bit disappointed. I was really hoping for the planet that supported life, whose only inhabitants were the other-worldly equivalent of Swedish supermodels. Male and female, of course. Where the lakes were comprised of Diet Mountain Dew.

But this? This is still pretty cool.

Via.

Views From The Space-Ship, aka Desktop Tuesdays, aka Desktop Thursdays is a (theoretically) weekly column where I show you my worlds. Share your own in the comments section!

Keep Reading »

This is going to be a fucking confluence of absurdity. We got Uwe Boll, perhaps the best filmmaker ever. We have Dolph Lundgren, who is not only that Goddamn Communist Pig from Rocky IV, but also a fucking wizard chemical engineer. Look that shit up, I ain’t stunting. And these two motherfuckers are teaming up to bring us probably the best movie that is also the worst movie you can ever imagine. Name of the King 2, Boll’s second movie based off of the Dungeon Siege video games.

This is fucking awesome.

Let’s kick it to Mr. Lundgren as he spits about what this shit is all about:

“I play an ex-middle ages war veteran who gets fucked up but he gets pulled into some sort of medieval power struggle, kind of gets a bit of a redemption for all his pains in service,” Lundgren said in a recent radio interview. “It’s a role I just wanted to play.”

“They say he was basically sent into the future, he’s the son of Jason Statham, and he was sent into the future, brought up in an orphanage, because the parents felt that they would all die,” he said. “So he is basically the last survivor of the kingdom of Ehb so he should bring the kingdom back in charge.”

How does he get sent into the future? Well, he’s only attacked by ninjas one night and sent through a fucking vortex in time. I’m ready for this shit.

While everyone is busy sweating Batman rumors, I’ll watch Baby Inception on repeat. You can’t script the amazing pay-off at the end.

Well, we saw this shit coming, didn’t we? I always imagined that Nolan would only be up for three Batman flicks. He’d complete the storyline he wanted to tell, throw the deuces up to everyone, and ride off into the sunset.   This idea of mine was only strengthened by a recent report that Nolan told Bale he’d be like totally done playing Bruce Wayne after the next flick. And then, news came out today where Nolan up and confirmed it.

EW via Slashfilm:

I feel very glad that I’m doing another Batman film. I think it would have been daunting to sit down and write an original script after Inception. I love working within the realm and rules of our Batman world. It’s kind of nice to have someplace to go that I’m super-excited about.

I must say that I’m glad – I’m very, very glad – to be embarking on the last chapter of our Batman saga without any sense of obligation or duty to the studio. They did very well with Inception. So I’m able to go into finishing our story in a very enthusiastic way.

I’m happy as hell with this news. It gives Nolan and the cast to go out in a blaze of glory in their final installment. Wrap everything up, leave their stamp on the universe, and then laugh as they watch other people try and top them. Sure, the franchise ain’t going to die. Way too much money. And maybe Nolan would even have made a better fourth movie than whoever comes next. But as Rendarbones Frankenpepsi says, perhaps there’s something to going out on top. Riding off into the sunset.

Thoughts? Impressions? Hit the comments box.

Hey guys. You look terrific. Welcome to another week of Cage news and junk. The past week we’ve seen the release of a new Cage movie on DVD and more info on Ghost Rider 2. There’s also a new interview and some more random Cageness for your enjoyment. Damn, you really do look terrific.

Like I mentioned last week, Trapped in Paradise is available on Netflix Watch Instantly. I did go back and revisit it after about 15 years. I liked it way more than I thought I would. The story itself is a by-the-numbers love/holiday/crime movie, but Cage’s performance as the moralistic, criminally romantic Bill Firpo is terrific. It teeters on the edge of bored Nic Cage and the insane genius we all love. His moments of rage in the film are hilarious and I’ve thrown in a few funny screenshots I took while watching it. So check that movie out if you haven’t already. Also, it made me warm and fuzzy for the holidays. Okay on with the show!

Sorcerer’s Apprentice Out!!! Nic Cage Is Bored

Yesterday the Sorcerer’s Apprentice came out on Blu-Ray and DVD (if you’re poor). I picked it up from a Redbox last night and was pretty excited to watch it. I don’t know why. From the trailers and clips I had seen I knew it wasn’t going to be the insane genius Nic Cage but the bored, reading his lines to get a paycheck Nic Cage.

After about 15 minutes I thought the movie was at its conclusion. Seriously there are so many magic battles in the first act that everything has the vibe of a final battle. That’s not a good thing because when the smoke cleared, I didn’t give a shit anymore.

One good thing did come out of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice: Cage fucking with people during interviews for the film. Ahem:

How did it feel to play a sorcerer?

Cage: This is the role I’ve been waiting to do my whole life. When I was a kid, I used to love pretending to be a superhero. I was always playing around and shooting energy out of my hands. In that respect, I’ve been rehearsing for this role for years because Balthazar certainly shoots plasma out of his hands in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.”

…ok with me.

A Slew of New Set Pics From Ghostrider 2

Romanian website Libertatea has a bunch of new pics from the set of Ghostrider 2: Spirit of Vengeance, which I believe has finished shooting. I’m really excited about this one not only because Cage gets to resurrect a role that he had to tone down in the first film but also because of the directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor. This duo has created some of the most original, insane, and visually bananas movies to come out in a long time (Crank 1 and 2, Gamer).

But what does Cage think of working with Neveldine and Taylor? And what do you suppose his reaction is to the Nic Cage Losing His Shit viral video? Well…

Keep Reading »

I like me some The Walking Dead. I like it despite Sunday’s episode being something resembling ass, and none of the episodes having been as good as the first two. So when it came out today that Frank Darabont has fired the entire fucking writing staff, I was momentarily happy. Darabont wrote the first two episodes, and this (theoretically) means he’ll be even more hands on for season two.

io9:

Deadline is reporting a rumor that director, writer and Walking Dead producer Frank Darabont has let the entire writing staff go. And instead of hiring a new staff for the second season, Darabont is toying with the idea of assigning freelancers to each script. While assigning freelancers to TV scripts isn’t anything new, canning the whole writing staff is pretty unusual, and we’re still weighing out the pros and cons of this executive decision.

Darabont penned the series pilot and the second episode solo, while co-writing and rewriting the remaining four episodes of Walking Dead’s first season. Two of the four episodes that Darabont didn’t write were created by “non-staffers” Glen Mazzara and original comic creator Robert Kirkman. So in reality, Darabont is already carrying the bulk of the writing work on his shoulders, so there may not be any need to blow the second season budget on an in-house writing staff.

That being said, the second season has a total of 13 episodes. That doubles the amount of time the production crew will have to spend under the boiling Atlanta sun filming the new episodes. Plus, whatever writer ends up tackling the new scripts, they’re going to be under a very tight schedule. And if Darabont wants to stay as heavily involved as he has been throughout season one (and it sounds like he does) it’s going to take double the effort to write, re-write, produce, shoot, and edit the new season. The burn out factor seems almost inevitable, even with the original comic book outline.

At this point, I’m more impressed than anything. By what? Just the headline. Dude fires the entire writing staff of the most acclaimed new show of the season. It’s not a particularly large staff, and he was already heavily involved, so it almost feels like more bluster and cost-saving than anything.

I don’t give a fuck who writes the episodes, as long as they’re enjoyable. If Darabont sending out assignments to freelancers and staying heavily involved will keep the quality up, let’s do it! Who knows though. I sure fucking don’t.

[DEFEAT. is Rendar Frankenstein’s truest attempt at fiction.   Presented in weekly episodes, the novella tells the tale of Daryl Millar – a hero who dies at the intersection of pop culture, science-fiction, war epic, and fantasy]

November 17, 1943

To My Beloved Betty,

As I write to you I sit aboard a vessel that, despite being a giant in its own right, is dwarfed by the mammoth that is the Pacific. If it weren’t starting to turn crimson with the blood of good, honest (and not so honest) men, I’d swear this ocean is the embodiment of God himself.

All of the supposed comforts provided by this battleship are revealed as mere feats of human ingenuity – designs of imperfect and selfish beings – when one understands the magnificence of its supporting body of water. I spend a lot of time on deck, staring out into its vastness, wondering how it is that I’ve ever managed to feel important.

The ocean is natural and timeless. Humanity’s current path seems to be anything but.

However, when I think of you and the love you’ve given me I can’t help but remember why it is that I continue. In the long term, I truly believe that we — people, human beings, civilization — will be but a flash in the pan. With that being said, there’s no reason to settle for less during our moment.

Keep Reading »

The interwebs have been all aflutter over the recent cosplay by Pixelninja. Yesterday the fat bandwidth tubes of the Nerd Kingdom were filled with pictures of her posing in Samus’ Varia and Gravity suits. They were all stunning, but what else do you expect from Pixel? She’s something of a cosplay wunderkind, whose assortment of costumes are pure nerd sex. They’re all meticulously crafted, and it doesn’t hurt that they’re inhabited by a beautiful woman. I won’t stunt: I love cosplay. I love it done right, featuring beautiful women. I love it done wrong, featuring bloated messes that I derive a good amount of schadenfreude from.

Pixelninja does it well, damn well.

Hit the jump for some pictures of these suits in action.

Keep Reading »