Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet

I have a renewed faith in the creativity of the video gaming medium.

And now I gotta go change my draws.

Monado: Beginning of the World

Plenty of positive vibes emanating from this year’s E3, but I’m holding off from posting anything pertinent until this Sunday, when everything ought just about wrapped up. However, I did want to leave you good folk with the following morsel of digitaliciousness with preamble: The fact that most gaming news portals have gone through most of today without so much as a fuckin’ sneeze about this trailer is not only astounding, but also pretty fucking revealing about the hype-driven gaming press as a whole. Bereft of any appearance of a company mascot or monochromatic high-res graphics, why would any of them deem this worthy of wasting a glance on (or for passing along to its readers, for that matter)?

If you’re a video RPGer of any type of stock (be it traditional, strategy-based or hack ‘n’ slashy) you ought to know the name Yasumi Matsuno. If you don’t, click and learn and pay specific attention to his resume. The trailer you just watched is the result of a joint development venture between him and Nintendo.

And you thought that The Last Guardian was the headline-winner of the day? You might as well be getting your news from a fucking Gamefaqs forum.

Who’s George Will, Exactly?

Just some guy that’s about to be the unsuspecting recipient of a hearty “Fuck You”:

Maybe you should’ve gone with jams instead? Hammer pants? I mean, if I was a disenfranchised old fart, I’d probably go with either of those as the chosen metaphor for your blinkered social critique.

And On Days That I Visit Reggie…

Chances are that you found this journal entry via stumbling haphazardly across a well-meaning tag. By extension, chances are good that you also know who Shigesato Itoi is. If you don’t, back your cursor up a few letters and mind the link.

This post, however, deals with one of Itoi’s forays into prosaic writing. This slickly irreverent excerpt is from a collection of WarioWare-portioned short stories that he had penned with famed Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami. Yeah, I don’t kow who that is, really.

Jinx
Having a black cat cross your path is nothing at all. After all, I own a black cat of my own.

But bad things do happen on days I don’t win the Nobel Prize. For instance, when I inserted a 10-yen coin to make a phone call, I didn’t get my coin back even though the line was busy.

Days in which I lose a leg in a car accident are often quite unlucky, too. One time a hot dog fell right out of a bun I was holding.

Rainy days aren’t much better, either. One time an umbrella I had just bought got completely wet.

Unlucky things often happen when I’m mugged at night, too. Why, just the other day, I forgot to throw out the trash.

Bad things happen when I go into a classroom and see beautiful girls all sitting at their desks. In some cases, I’ve been so elated that I wet my pants.

Even so, the very worst is when you lose your life. The day it happened to me was the same day they announced the winning lottery numbers.

“37 Down – He Punched Out All my ______.”

Spotted on the intanits:

So grab yo’sef a pencil and a Sandvich when lunch break comes around. But leave the balaclava at home.

Old Jews Telling Jokes

It’s both a subject line and a URL. Pretty convenient.

Sorry this doesn’t have anything to do with geeking out, unless you consider yourself a joke geek – which is a value that everyone would embrace, if I had my way.

The Poetry of the Internet

Mild revelations rise to the surface of the WWW when a Digger finds it even remotely acceptable to accuse other people of being socially unfit.

Isn’t this how the Divine Comedy starts? No?

Dicks on DS

It looks like the noir tradition isn’t ending with the adventures of Kyle Hyde for the DS (and Jake Hunter certainly does not count), but the further expansion of the sleuthing adventure game catalogue for the brainiac’s handheld is bringing back a classic character for a new generation to get cozy with.

Raymond Chandler did for pulp fiction what John Wayne Gayce did for clowns, and his far-reaching influence can be felt every time a joe in a fedora gets the squeeze put on by some two-bit heavy in a cheap suit. Adventure games owe a lot to classic pulp fiction, so it seems only fitting that this medium revisits a form of storytelling that still stands firm as such a vital foundation of genre narrative and American whimsy.

A Singular Query

Bear with me now – this could get complicated.

How possible would it be for someone to possess a homebrew kit for a console that wouldn’t ostensibly be released to the public for another two years?

The Enthusiast Gaming Press: “pwned” by viral marketing. Again. Like Wile E. Motherfucking Coyote.

Atlus Then Steals My Heart, Having Nothing Better to Do

So what took them so long, exactly? Atlus has finally decided to localize and publish Steal Princess, one game that I have been personally following since late 2007… for reasons that may escape many, many people.

If there are any others out there who have also been keeping a steady eye on this, they did so doubtlessly because they were intrigued by the unusual amalgam of 3-D platforming action and spatial puzzle-solving, the massive breadth of content (over 150 levels), the ability to share and customize your own level designs and lastly, eye-patches. Though, even these intrepid few would probably find themselves loathe to be making this purchase in public as this shit be moe as fuck.