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Alright, there isn’t much super-violence in this trailer, but there clearly is an insane amount of dense-muscle fiber. I enjoy how they try to make the game so thematic and emotional, when I just want to be killing dudes with my fucking chainsaw gun.

It’s going to be righteous, though. When this drops I’m going to pop a viagra, snort a pixie stick or seven, and party the fuck out!

[Variant Covers is a column every Tuesday that breaks down the various titles coming out that week in the world where Billy Shakespeare is a wizard who must fucking die!]

Kill Shakespeare #1

It’s Tuesday, which means only one thing. I’m shotgunning Diet Mountain Dews while praying to the Gods of the Weekly Releases that there’s something worth covering for the weekly comic book gig. And they have responded with charity and righteousness this week.

Kill Shakespeare. Amazing.

Why, what’s the premise behind this comic book? Uh, to fucking kill Billy Shakes! Duh! But more seriously, the premise of this comic book is that Shakespeare’s greatest heroes such as Hamlet, are pitted against the most bad-ass villains of his works, as they try to hunt down and kill reclusive wizard. Who happens to be Shakespeare himself. Is this brilliant? Is it stupid? Is it brilliantly stupid? I know that it’s totally pissed off Frank “The Goddamn” Miller’s girlfriend, who happens to be a Shakespeare scholar.

Me? I sort of fucking dig it. It’s absurd, and perhaps suffuse with metafictional awesomeness. The previews tout it as the Shakespeare equivalent of “Fables”, and that’s probably aiming a bit high. But I mean, just the ridiculousness of the comic alone makes me want to pick it up.

I can understand those who hold Shakespeare super reverentially to be crapping their pants at this heresy, but they need to chill the fuck out. I’ve always dug the acclaimed works of Billy, and this doesn’t seem particularly threatening. At the very least, it’s something of a shitty homage. At the best, it could be some sort of mind-warping exercise in mimesis. That seems worth the risk to me.

Daredevil #506

Daredevil is fucking legit. The Man Without Fear is running amok as the leader of the Hand, slapping down errant bitches with his baton-thingies. How can you not dig this guy? But seriously, I’ve been pumping Daredevil almost every month, and I’m sure you’re yawning and telling me to shut my trap. Maybe it’s just the week of Marvel releases its sent out with, but it’s constantly the most boner-inducing of the batch.

And if you’re one of those mouth-breathing completionists who has to follow every event no matter how drab or boring, you’re going to want to start checking out Daredevil. Matty Murdock is currently in Japan, trying to solidify his grasp on the five-fingers of the Hand. There’s so many vomit-inducing puns there. And all of this is tied around his desire to build a “Shadowland” underneath New York City. What the fuck is a Shadowland? I’m not really sure, but it’s going to be an Event in the Marvel Universe this year.

So yeah. If you want to understand what the fuck is going on, without having to buy Shadowland Prelude Preliminary # -1, then start reading Daredevil. It’s consistently terrific.

Elsewhere in the Marvel Universe is Lockjaw and Pet Avengers Unleashed #2. Just when you thought that Marvel had ruined the Avengers by casting everyone in their universe in some derivative of that title, they have dragged their pets into it. Oh lord. There’s also Siege spin-offs for Captain America, Loki, and Young Avengers. I’m sure they’re totally important to the fabric of the Marvel U, and its canon. Or not. I’m pretty sure you can skip this and miss nothing. Save your money and buy yourself a Double Gulp and some fucking Laffy Taffy.

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Hey! Hideo Kojima today proved he doesn’t just talk mindless bullshit in his games:

via kotaku:

Kojima says, via Twitter, that he’s daydreaming/obsessing over his future project, putting his brain in “The Next Title Mode.” That means “pondering over the next project’s voice cast” and its “title, game design, story, characters, setting, mechs, casting, direction of the graphics, sound, beginning & ending, and key story sequences.”

“It all molds together naturally in my head,” Kojima writes. That next project could very well be the already announced Metal Gear Solid: Rising, announced at E3 2009 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, or something else entirely–just don’t get your hopes up yet, considering the Kojima Productions head’s obligations to the two still unreleased Metal Gear games and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. Kojima also says his “next title” will “challenge a certain type of taboo.”

Wait, melodramatic statements? Overwrought bullshit? Why, it simply HAS to be Hideo Kojima.

Hideo Kojima spends most of his time making his video games incomprehensible piles of slop. He takes some interesting social commentary, wraps it around melodrama, sprinkles in a bit of pontificating, and all of a sudden like thirteen cool concepts come together as one retarded vomitfart of doom. In case you didn’t catch me there, I thought Metal Gear Solid 4 had like fourteen neat themes, but it culminated in a pile of shit.

Bulletstorm is a game being co-created by Epic Games and Painkiller Studios. You may recognize Epic Games as being helmed by Ciffy B, or Dude Huge, who are a bastion of insanely jacked dudes fucking firing shit.

Bulletstorm seems more of the same. Same awesomeness.

You are apparently a drunk fucking space pirate who wants to fucking fuck shit the fuck up with fucking guns. It sounds ridiculous and amazing:

via kotaku

Bulletstorm tells the story of a futuristic confederation protected by an elite band of mercenaries: Dead Echo. When Dead Echo members Grayson Hunt and Ishi Sato learn they’ve been working for the wrong side, they’re betrayed by their commander and exiled to the far reaches of the galaxy. In Bulletstorm, Grayson and Ishi find themselves surrounded by hordes of mutants and flesh eating gangs in an abandoned paradise. They have two objectives: get off the planet alive, and exact revenge on the man who sent them there.

And you get fucking perks for the crazier fucking way you fucking kill shit:

via kotaku

The skillshot system rewards players for inciting mayhem in the most creative way possible. The more insane the skillshot, the more points players collect to upgrade their character and unlock weapons, which then allows them to execute even more creative moves and exaggerated skillshots.

This shit sounds like a haven for fucking testosterone and juvenile masturbatory fucking ridiculous absurdity kapow sweetness. It sounds like a fucking boner ejaculating missile rocket extravagance. Fuck yeah.

Shit fucking pops off tonight when Dude fucking Huge fucking debuts it. I’ll be in line fingering myself at the release of Splinter Cell: Conviction or else I’d be fucking watching it.

[In this post I’ve tried to set my record for words to swears ratio.]

EddieKim made great use of the lyrics this week. Be on the lookout for

DJ, you build me up
You break me down.

Anyone who knows anything about metal knows that that means.

Ke$ha’s Tik Tok, performed in the style of Dr. Doom having a heart attack.

Oh, you know I’m totally up against it here. I have like eight minutes to tell you what I’m up to, before I have to head into school before class to work on a paper. Let me show you what my life currently looks like:

Awake, read, read, write, eat, spend time with friends/lady, sleep, awake, read, read, write, awake, read, read, write, spend time with friends/lady, awake, read, read, write, eat, sleep.

I haven’t been doing much of anything, aside from sweating final papers and wading through scholarly articles. It isn’t that such an existence makes me miserable. Instead, it just leaves very little time for leisurely reading, video game playing, or watching dope ass shit. My DVR barks hate at me, my gaming backlog continues to increase, and will multiply tomorrow. And music is relegated to background noise.

Anyways.

Today you get my interests in pictures. Which seems like a novel way to save time, but will probably end up taking me more time.

Monday Morning Commute. Every Monday I’m going to detail the various things I’m either currently or will be watching, reading, playing, and listening to in the next seven days. It’s Monday. You’ve got a long week of school, work, or compulsive masturbation to get through. Tell me the arts that you’re indulging in, to stave off suicide.

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There is nothing in this world quite like good music. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of all media, but good music inspires me in a way that television, comic books, and even movies just don’t. I haven’t studied sociology or anthropology or any such shit, but I’m thoroughly convinced that music taps into some sort of primordial, tribal pleasure center of human beings. As though, in a sense, it might be one of the few comment elements that every member of Team Human can enjoy.

Whoa. Looks like I’ve tossed aside the cynic cap and fastened on my hippie helmet.

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EddieKim strikes again! For the third week in a row, this headbanger has taken a hit from the Billboard charts and mutated it into a brutal metal anthem. I really think each has been better than the last.

This week, EddieKim tackles Lady Gaga’s Telephone.

I’m sick. For the last few days, I’ve woken up to find my entire body screaming in agony. Sure, I’m no stranger to the run-of-the-mill aches and pains that come with daily living, but I’ve been sore beyond belief. Even putting on a t-shirt has been a chore. Additionally, I’ve got a swollen lymph node a fever you can’t sweat out. It’s mad bobo.

So tonight, I’m taking it easy with the Brew Review. Sure, I’m sipping on a little beer. But honestly, I think that if I drink a full beer I might spontaneously combust. So I begin this edition of the regular Friday post by acknowledging that I haven’t actually consumed a full beer. Instead, I’ve swigged it and spit most of it out. Hey, it seemed like a good idea in that made-for-TV movie Sideways. You know, the one from Japan.

The beverage I’m (not) drinking tonight is Ryde beer from the folks at the Wachusett Brewery. I grabbed a six-pack simply because I had never seen the product before and there was no real description was to be found on the package or the bottles’ labels. Maybe it’s a stupid reason to buy something, but I was motivated purely by curiosity. “What the fuck is a Ryde beer?”

As per usual, I made a pit stop at product’s website. And this was the moment in which I first said Oh no. A slideshow cycled through pictures of snowmobiles, dirt bikes, motorcycles, bicycles, surfboards, and other various means of transportation. Or, I suppose, RIDES — now I get it! It’s a fucking pun!

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