Posts Tagged ‘video games’
Air Jordan Returns to the NBA, at Least in Virtual Form
by BRAD JACKSON / Michael Jordan / NBA / video games / Comments
NBA 2K11 is dropping October 5th, and instead of your expected cover star, like Lebron James or Kobe Bryant, gamers will be treated to the master himself, Michael Jordan.
Jason Argent, the 2K Sports VP of marketing said he wanted the best of the NBA on the cover of the best NBA video game they’ve ever produced.
We know we have the best NBA video game ever made here. So we thought to ourselves how can we embody that and there was only one person on that list who we wanted to have and that was Michael Jordan.
The last time Air Jordan appeared in a video game was NBA Street Vol. 2 in 2003. His Airness is excited to return to the court, in a sense anyway. “I have no doubt that NBA 2K11 will be a big hit with gamers and basketball fans alike,” Jordan said. “I’m looking forward to getting back out on the court, virtually.”
I’m ready for some classic Air Jordan, who’s with me?
A Video Game Where You Can Beat Up Jesus? Hilariously Blasphemous!
by NONPOPULIST / blasphemy / Chris Hardwick / I'm going to hell for this one / TV / video games / Web Soup / Comments
The video game You Testament was featured on G4 television’s program Web Soup recently, and the first impression I got when watching it was, “Huh, that looks like an old wrestling game I use to play.” Wait a minute, what do wrestling and Jesus have in common that they should both have the same video game engine? A fair question, right? The answer is nothing, really, except in the mind of Mat Dickie. He created the game of confusing religious tenets where you can beat up Jesus and do other stuff too. What else matters after being able to attack Jesus, though? The concept of the whole video game and Chris Hardwick making fun of it are funny, but what made the whole thing even funnier is a review I found of the game on a Christian video game website. Here’s a few highlights:
“I had to test attacking Jesus as part of my job as a reviewer.
I am so sorry, Jesus! Please forgive me!Early in the game I was holding a metal spike and I was going to hug Jesus but I pressed the wrong button and poked the spike in His face! His face remained scarred and His eyes were all bloody for most of the game after that. Why would it let me do this horrible thing?
“Even though I stabbed Him in the face with a spike, Jesus still forgave me!
This part of the game is a very accurate Jesus simulation.”
“There were also weird quotes on the loading screens from people like Confucius, Buddha, Mohammed, Osama Bin Ladin, Barack Obama, Bruce Lee, Kanye West, and Jay-Z. Those made no sense in a Biblical game at all. It’s like some sort of mashup of Christianity with all sorts of false religions. I think Mat Dickie, the game’s sole creator, is a very confused person. At least I hope it is confusion and not intentional deception.
I would give this game five crosses for the way it lets you live through the Bible and witness Jesus first-hand, but I must subtract crosses for being able to beat up Jesus and getting Jesus’ teachings mixed up with things like Hinduism and the Matrix.”
The review is full of unwitting gems such as that one. And yes, I realize I am going to hell for this. If you would like to do blasphemous things you can download the game for free here, but you can only play it three times apparently.
Wait, You Can Win Money Playing Video Games?
by NONPOPULIST / geekdom / lolz / video games / Comments
Sign me the freak up! *Quits job* The ingenious marketing campaign by 2k Sports to offer a prize of $1 million dollars to the first person to pitch a perfect game in their new baseball game Major League Baseball 2K10 recently backfired when they had to pay someone a $1 million dollars because he met the challenge. What did 2k Sports think would happen? Gamers would be too scared to attempt the feat? Well, sirs, you don’t know the ballsy and heroic nature of gamers. They go on quests for hours on end fueled only by energy drinks and Doritos. They scoff in the face of showers and social interaction because they believe in the cause. But seriously, a tip of the hat to Wade McGilberry of Mobile, AL, the winner of the $1 million challenge. People whose wife can no longer give them crap about playing video games, that guy.
[CNBC SportsBIZ]
Sub Zero Was Probably A Banker, Because He Cheats
by MICHAEL TUNISON / nostalgia / video games / Comments
Mortal Kombat is what the gaming guttersnipes refer to as an “old school” game in their strange street patois that frightens me. By that logic, Oregon Trail is an even older school game. So old, in fact, that kids actually played in on primitive computing devices in grade school. What merriment it was! How halcyon those days!
But then some deranged individual, likely feeling the effects of mixing Red Bull and opiates, decides to inelegantly “mash” these games together, thus producing a hybrid monster that resembles mostly the latter, older game, only with elements of terrifying violence. Kind of like the deviant did with this Contra vs. Duck Hunt mash-up. Playing Oregon Trail with Sub Zero would also be super easy, because he would freeze all the rivers, making them easy to cross. Why didn’t those Lewis & Clark losers think of that? I bet ’cause they were too busy playing lame video games.
[Best Week Ever]
More Powerful Than a Warmed-Over Idea, It’s Indie Man!
by MICHAEL TUNISON / comedy / video games / Comments
Wonder why big gaming studios put out retread after retread, all of them including a dizzying array of ill-conceived features and concepts? Look no further than Indie Man, who is furthering the interests of the independent gaming scene by implanting boneheaded ideas into the minds of big-time game studios. No doubt he has a trusted ward that deals in the world of movies, music, publishing, politics and advertising. No one man can do it all by himself.
An Adult’s Retreat Into Grand Theft Auto
by MICHAEL TUNISON / Grand Theft Auto / video games / Comments
There was a somewhat scattered, but very interesting and worthwhile read from over the weekend in The Observer from a writer who during a five-year period in the early part of last decade produced several books and more than 50 pieces of magazine journalism and criticism. But only a short time later, he found himself addicted to cocaine and video games, specifically the Grand Theft Auto series. In the piece, he explains what unique elements of video games drew him in, and how he came to view game playing as inextricable from taking drugs.
Soon I was sleeping in my clothes. Soon my hair was stiff and fragrantly unclean. Soon I was doing lines before my Estonian class, staying up for days, curating prodigious nose bleeds and spontaneously vomiting from exhaustion. Soon my pillowcases bore rusty coins of nasal drippage. Soon the only thing I could smell was something like the inside of an empty bottle of prescription medicine. Soon my biweekly phone call to my cocaine dealer was a weekly phone call. Soon I was walking into the night, handing hundreds of dollars in cash to a Russian man whose name I did not even know, waiting in alleys for him to come back – which he always did, though I never fully expected him to – and retreating home, to my Xbox, to GTA IV, to the electrifying solitude of my mind at play in an anarchic digital world. Soon I began to wonder why the only thing I seemed to like to do while on cocaine was play video games. And soon I realised what video games have in common with cocaine: video games, you see, have no edge. You have to appreciate them. They do not come to you.
There are times when I think GTA IV is the most colossal creative achievement of the last 25 years, times when I think of it as an unsurpassable example of what games can do, and times when I think of it as misguided and a failure. No matter what I think about GTA IV, or however I am currently regarding it, my throat gets a little drier, my head a little heavier, and I know I am also thinking about cocaine.
Killjoy Study: Video Game Ownership Affects Grades In Young Boys
by MICHAEL TUNISON / it's science / video games / Comments
A study that I’m glad wasn’t published when I was a kid suggests that the mere presence of a video game system in the home negatively affects early academic achievement in boys. Two psychological scientists from Denton University surveyed families with boys ages 6 and 9 who were considering buying systems for their sons. Half of the studied families received systems, and that’s when the underachievement started.
The study showed that videogames became an immediate distraction, with the gamers spending less time studying and more time playing games. The gamer kids scored significantly lower on reading and writing tests after only four months.
Not sure why the scientists limited the study to boys only. Oh, right: Girls never play video games. The God of War 3 commercial told me so. Anyway, while there’s no doubt games offer a tempting and easy distraction to the youngins, the onus is obviously on the parents to make sure it doesn’t become overwhelming and detrimental. Perhaps by using game time as an incentive to improve grades. Oh, who am I kidding? Let’s just destroy all the systems and allow a new age of enlightenment to dawn.
Playstation Move: A Primer
by MICHAEL TUNISON / Playstation / video games / Comments
Sony unveiled its foray into motion sensing gaming yesterday with the Playstation Move controller. Only a matter of time until snippy game developers downgrade the system to toy status. But here’s a quick guide on everything you need to know on the new peripheral. Hey, I’m waving my arm at the link. Why isn’t it moving?
— January 20‚ 2009 —
Concerned With Facebook Privacy?
There are tools to help if you are concerned with Facebook privacy. And if you were unsure you should be concerned with your privacy on Facebook. The CNN SciTechBlog highlights four of them. Why can’t Google and Facebook chill out a little and not be so concerned with knowing every detail about us in order to monetize every penny they can. Clam down, guys, we just want to use the damn internet. If we want to buy something we’ll let you know.
THREADZombie Awareness Month?
So we can just make up awareness months now? The Zombie Research Society has dubbed May ‘Zombie Awareness Month,’ and it doesn’t appear to be a joke, maybe. You are encouraged to wear a gray ribbon to signify your awareness of zombies for the month of May. This can not be real. On their website they offer a lifetime membership in the society for $25. This is ingeniously crazy. I totally just liked the ZRS on FB.
THREADThe NFL Throwing TV Elbows
Is the NFL a television juggernaut or what? NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said ratings are up 30% from last year’s draft. Thursday night was the first ever NFL draft in prime time, and the major networks will have to take notice when the official ratings come out. Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com reports the league is declaring last night’s first round a success and speculates the draft in prime time will most likely become a yearly tradition. Next year I am predicting there will be a lot of reruns aired against the draft if the networks are smart… which they aren’t.
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