Game Curmudgeons

In world world is this acceptable? We’re trying to make some god damn progress here, and GameStop is trying to reinforce “Whatever you sad nerd, girls don’t like video games, they like flowers and kittens and if they DID play games it’d be Barbie Horse Adventures I bet.”

Women do play games, the men who play games want more women to play games, and maybe GameStop should stop pandering to the crowd that makes women mute their microphones when they get on Xbox Live.

I think this is actually my final “You know what? Fuck GameStop” catalyst. Turns out shitty customer support and being a glorified pawn shop didn’t quite do what misogyny does.

Click for full image.

A lot of steam users seem to be getting phished lately. http://storesteampoowered_viewprofile48759231215797.9hz.com/ is FAKE. It sure looks like a Steam page at first glance, the URL format really manages to hide the 9hz domain, and the page is a spectacular copy.

But I assure you, this is a phishing page. Please watch out, folks.

Look what you’ve all done to Steam. Look at it!

This is what happens when the hottest titles on Steam go on sale for ridiculous prices. Hell, even the ones you’ve never heard of. “What is this “The Pipe?” Adventure game…looks European. A little odd. How much is it? $1.24? Shit, sold!”

It’s a Steam sale again, and just like the January sale this one is utter madness. One day sales, deep discounts, and all the best games for bottom barrel prices. Telltale Complete packs for $50, THQ complete packs for the same, 33% off anything Ubisoft.

Say goodbye to your money.

Microsoft seems to be dropping the ball on this one. The most recent Xbox update provided the ability for players to save their gamertags to a USB drive, a great idea for those who play on the go since tag recovery can take an hour easily. Unfortunately within a few days, people figured out how to hack the files to change their displayed names (often to something spectacularly racist), or even unlocking additional prestige levels in Call of Duty. Live had been reasonably free of hacking thanks to the closed nature of the system, but a good idea has gone horribly wrong quick.

Unlike hardware hacks, this isn’t such an easy detection, and I’ve seen no official comment on the problem. Here’s hoping Ryan Treit, aka Treit and True, addresses the problem or Mircrosoft expands the mod teams to deal with this. Most of the gamertag hackers, afterall, just can’t seem to resist flaunting it via colorful display names or ones using system symbols.

Coming up later today, a review of Major League Baseball: The Show 2010, a PS3 exclusive. Hint-It’s got problems.

Right now, Portal is free! If you’re not familiar, 70 game of the year awards, 3 hours or so, rioutously funny. And it’s free, so what’s your excuse? Get it here.

Mount and Blade: Warband has a spectacular addition to the combat of the first.

Kicking.

This doesn’t seem like a huge deal at first, but when you’re locked blade to blade in close combat, it can give you the space you need to swing a bigger weapon, or get a good thrust.

Or you could be like me and accidentally drop your two handed sword in the last round of a tournament facing an opponent on horseback with a lance. Which sounds like a recipe for disaster, of course. But it wasn’t.

I got off my horse, let him run into a corner, and buddy, I kicked that horse hard. I kicked and kicked until it buckled as my foe launched thrust after thrust, unable to hit me. He hit the ground and started dodging, using his superior speed as best he could, but I wouldn’t give him a target. He’d wind up, and I’d step to the inside, around the lance, and I’d fucking KICK.

I kicked him into a corner of the arena, mercilessly delivering boot after boot to the nethers.

It was a drawn out battle, and he landed a few true strikes between the weak blunt taps at face to face range, but was almost completely unable to use his weapon.

If Mount and Blade: Warband had a crowd, it would have been cheering. Women would have been throwing handkerchiefs and, dare I say it, entire corsets at me.

Wercheg would have erected a bronze statue in my honor. It would show me in mid-kick, steel booted foot in the air. My opponent’s face was hidden by his helmet, but his eyes would show terror and pain, a confusion as to how he started in this noblest of tournaments and ended up in a world without dignity. His spear would be thrust outward, under my arm, effectively harmless. His shield facing down, but unable to lower enough to protect him.

It would be inscribed as such.

“HERE STANDS MONUMENT TO THE GREAT ACHIEVEMENTS OF SLASH OF CALADRIA, WHO FELL KING RAGNAR IN THE FINAL ROUND OF THE GRAND TOURNAMENT OF WERCHEG WITH NAUGHT BUT THE SOLES OF HIS FEET AND THE ENDLESS DETERMINATION OF THE HEROES OF LORE. FROM NOW UNTIL THE END OF TIME SHALL HIS EXPLOITS BE KNOWN, UNTIL THE LORD GOD DOES END THE WORLD SHALL CODPIECES WITHER AND FOLD MERELY BY HIS PRESENCE.”

Say what you want about the sex included in Heavy Rain and Fahrenheit, at least it wasn’t this bad.

God of War III‘s obligatory sex minigame is a 45 second affair that feels like an hour. While just as before the camera pans away from the action but the sound continues, this time, it gets worse.

This time there are two lovely undressed ladies in the wings, watching and commenting on how great it is.

“By the gods, is he going to?” “If it’s so great watching, imagine how it must feel!” “Oh my, such power!”

And as the scene progresses, they start groping each other more and more, until the end where one pushes the other down and they themselves go at it. It’s as close as it can be to porn without actually being porn, and yet it’s somehow MORE embarrassing to have it seen/heard by other people. At least then there’s an excuse of it being passive. In this, you have to get INVOLVED for those precious experience points. And it’s a known, gamers will do anything for precious experience points, no matter how degrading.

But let’s just try to keep this one from happening again, okay guys?

After tons of conjecture created by Valve’s newest patch additions to Portal, today, Portal 2 has been announced officially. Considering Portal was god damn perfect, this is a big deal. Does it also herald Half-Life 2:Episode 3? A new Orange Box? Only time and press releases will tell.

VALVE ANNOUNCES PORTAL 2

Sequel to 2007′s Game of the Year Coming This Holiday

March 5, 2010 – Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Left 4 Dead, Counter-Strike, and Half-Life) and leading technologies (such as Steam, Source), today announced Portal 2 for shipment this coming holiday season.

Portal was originally released in 2007 and earned over 70 industry achievement awards.