As a seller, I don’t want to sell items that require you to go through a third party service exclusive to one company which monitors your computer. If they want to sell that on Steam and slow down your computer, fine. If they want me to sell you something that forces you to use their service, fuck them. They’ve been openly hostile to retailers and I won’t list any games that require the user to use Steam, and now Square is helping them? Supreme Commander 2 is just a watered down version of the first game, anyway.

Except…

Well, cracks and workarounds. I’ll relist individual games as I find or get sent files that I can post to the game entries. If you have one, e-mail it to me and I’ll inspect the code. As long as it’s clean, I’ll relist the game.

That’s right, let’s combat piracy by punishing people who pay for their games… fucking hell.

Due to some kind of clerical error, we’ve been lumped in with PBS in the government’s twenty-seven million compound eyes. We’re getting the twelve dollars usually alloted to an episode of MisteRogers Neighborhood, but we can’t post most of the pictures on our hard drive and Mike isn’t allowed to call anybody a cunt anymore, which conflicts with the new mandate that we have to include educational content.

Frankly, before the FCC shuts us down and penalizes Jakers! by association, you are cunts. You’re a userbase that made the 360 a success… not wholly undeserved, but there should have been rioting in Washington at the failure rate. You made the first Assassin’s Creed a hit, and you read 1up.com on a regular basis. That we are in an industry with fewer publishers than the norm is no excuse to drink fructose over real fucking sugar. Grow some standards. GROW SOME STANDARDS BEFORE I STRAP SOME TO A RAKE HANDLE AND INSERT THEM INTO YOUR BODY THE HARD WAY.

Here’s how bent the press is right now; I know that Halo ODST is a fantastic game. I know this because it’s said often enough, even though it’s not true. Halo ODST is a terrible game that is exactly like Halo fucking number one, and the industry has produced a lot of shooters that have raised the bar since the year of our lord, 2001, that make Halo an obsolete game. But here’s Bungie, so afraid to alienate a single moronic fan that they won’t even loosen the sluggish turn speed. But hey, they needed a way to keep charging full price for the same fucking game and you cock gobblers were only too happy to oblige.

I know that Halo ODST is a fantastic fucking game, but I didn’t once hear of a wonderful little ad campaign for a so-so GTA-type that starred the man who nearly killed me back in 2000, Gary Busey. If you haven’t seen these, prepare to feel complete:

I think most of us can identify the term “free-roamer” by now, stupid.

Wait… wait! I feel an impression coming on. Here’s me doing an impression of Kotaku!

I was excited when I got my shipment of Gran Turismo for the PSP, one week late. I had been reviewing the somewhat stinky Kingdom Hearts for the DS, and tossed the system with such force that it legally destroyed my dog. This was no fey Totilo toss; that DS cannot be repaired.

I was amazed, Sony. I don’t know how you did it, but this game looks great and plays just like a console version. PS3 physics and damn near PS2 graphics.  Just like GT5, I can just about feel the individual wheels dip. I bought my first car, a Mitsubishi 3000GT, and tore into the “challenges”.

They say that if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. If you’re one of the 80-year-old church ladies who likes to say stupid shit like that, stop reading right now.

Who the FUCK told you to ship this game as a barebones engine with no career mode, Sony? Find the idiot who let this out the gate without that and hit him in the face until he complains that the teeth are chafing his anus, because this is absolutely unfor-fucking-giveable. Maybe if this had been titled Gran Turismo Ad Hoc, I’d be okay with it because I’d have known it held no interest for me whatsoever, but you didn’t and I played it and I’m left with the realization that the skinned “Prologue” model is probably the rule from now on and I can forget about the series.

You know how fucked up that is? I hate racing games, and yet I’ve loved GT from the start. The car selection, the attention to detail. The sense of progression, which is now GONE… I should start over.

Okay, the “challenges”. Basically renamed license tests, except that A) they’re not necessary and B) they give you so much money you’d never need a career mode anyway. I finished six challenges, Sony, SIX CHALLENGES, and I had twice as much money as I started the game with. That’s BEFORE I bought the first car. And it’s cumulative! If I get the gold medal, you automatically give me the prize money for all three medals at once.

Here’s my prediction; Everybody is already playing 4-player ad hoc with the bestest car available.

Sony, I need to know. At what point do you decide that it’s okay to charge full price for an engine that forces the player to create the gaming experience? From THREE options. Sure, you crammed every possible track (30, not counting reverse runs), car (over 800), and bit of physics processing the PSP could handle, but I’m no longer proving anything to the game except that I can grind like a natural-born Korean, dying of exposure in service of Starcraft. I’m just inviting three imaginary playmates into three eternally-looping variants.

For fuck’s sake, Sony, I was very accepting of the term “Prologue”, but now you’re just fucking with me. I hate this game so fucking much. I could conceivably hate a Sony product more, but it would have to be called Home.

Yours in Jesus,

Probably Jeff Gerstmann, giantbomb.com

His latest attempt to curry corporate favor is, if nothing else, surprising, as Sony rarely fills any role at Kotaku beyond the raw asshole, paraded out and abused in their fair weather farm show.

But self-aggrandizing, David and Goliath shenanigans notwithstanding, the tenor of the article was shockingly sycophantic given the site’s history with the company.  And while I hate to say I told you so (He really doesn’t -Ed), it would lend credence to my theory of some weeks ago: that Kotaku now has more to gain as an equal opportunity brown-nosed bottom-feeder than by maintaing a facade of respectability through conveniently edgy, in-your-face editorializing (read: pandering to the Xbox crowd, a demographic which has grown almost day and date with the site itself).

But hats off to Stephen Totilo all the same.  He’s clearly paid enough attention to this industry to understand that game journalists are little more than unwitting copywriters.  And that sort of epiphany is the first step towards a fast car and a crazy stripper wife courtesy of Microsoft, Activision, Sony, Rockstar…not Nintendo though.  They don’t even need our business…even when they do.

In his biggest attacks on common sense yet, his glib blob of a paragraph on Arkham Asylum contains three things that raise the hair on the back of my neck; the fact that it’ll change the way I think about comic book-based games, that it contains what’s called “free flow combat”, and the magically gay phrase “Could this be the first-ever Batman game that doesn’t suck? Forgive the harsh sentiment, but it’s true. And that’s part of the reason why I’m so excited about this…”

Okay, back up. One, don’t you fucking presume to know what millions of people think about comic book games. Two, “free flow combat” is mentioned in such a way that the awesome being made of pure light rendered in dim colors so as all you lesser beings can comprehend it on your own terms, Geoff “Stupid” Keighley, can’t quite seem to understand what it means or thinks that a company’s buzzphrase is that awesome. It’s not. Arkham Asylum’s combat system seems pretty fucking cool, but it’s the next gen touch on brawlers that Call of Duty 4 was for shooters. It’s an enhancement, and it looks like it’ll rock. Calling it Web 2.0 just makes you look like Chunk claiming Michael Jackson once used his bathroom, though.

Third, fuck you. Keighley’s awesome historical prowess seems to have missed two excellent Batman games; The NES outing, a balls-hard platformer based on the Keaton/Nicholson movie, and the SNES’s sublime game based on the Animated Series. Instead, Keighley plunges straight into hyperbole about why you should be faggily glad that WB is blessing you with a golden shower of the first definitively awesome Batman game… EVER!

I’m not sure how this other Batman game is, but the sounds of the chubby little Dark Detective pattering around the perfectly isometric batcave is pretty soothing in the background while I go do other things:

This is the kind of jackhole who tailors his reviews to be quotable on game boxes, and this is the secret to his success; mutual ass-kissing. The makers of Burnout Paradise knew this, and puckered right up for him in hopes of an award IN MY FUCKING LOADING SCREEN KILL ME YOU FUCKS

Okay, fine. We’re tired of scratching by on five cents a day from our ad server. You know what? We can attach ourselves to some developer’s pale, flabby, expansive underside in search of recognition. It’s gotta be somebody with clout, but kind of on the down and out…. Hey Sega! Resonance of Fate; Looking SEXY, babe!

Special thanks to Zara for calling my attention to the MSX Batman game.

This just days after attempted-comedian Jimmy Fallon devoted NBC airtime to shilling for Microsoft’s Project Natal and Xbox 360.  Kotaku was sure to cover that too…four times, in fact.

A slow week perhaps?  I mean, it’s not like E3 just wrapped up or something…

I only bring this up because I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen Kotaku praised as a paragon of journalistic integrity…despite of the fact that these guys have even less to gain from maintaining these (fictitious) standards than your average GameSpot writer.

But I’m the douchebag for pointing it out, right?

“This is the inevitable port of Metal Gear Solid 4 for the 360.”

“The green color and the (universal) power symbol clearly indicate a 360 title.”

And this:

But no, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Konami has announced Metal Gear Solid Touch for the iPhone.  In light of this big reveal, let me be the first to say: “Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!”

Furthermore, the Microsoft faithful can feel proud they’ve joined the ranks of visionaries and clairvoyants like these folks.  For your next trick, maybe you can tell us where Dragon Quest XI is “absolutely, totally heading.”

Vance here. While I’m firmly against interfering in Mike’s posts and thus won’t interfere with his stridently antagonistic remarks regarding 360 fans, I thought I’d take a moment to address those of you who might be taking offense at his words. To differentiate my text from his, I licensed this soothing green text color from Microsoft and I’d like to list some of the more reasonable net chatter about this event, as well as Mike’s social security number.

227-98-6329

Anyway, here it is:

“I want to cry. Honestly thought the rumour was a fake and that we would finally see the legendary 360 MGS4…”

More like mythical, at this point.

“No. No no no no no no. NO. Dissapointment crushing down on me At least make it for a portable that’s worth it! I wanted MGS4 for the 360.. but ANYTHING but a damned iPhone game ”

Part of the recurring stand-up comedy routines that Kojima calls press conferences involve him fielding the MGS4 on 360 question about three times each minute. You can chart the progress of him saying “No” in a friendly manner to him saying “No” in a rather distant fashion to him saying “No” while slightly biting his lower lip and trying not to let the inner Hulk that lurks within each and every miniature Japanese male out.

“DOA>tekken”

Okay, that’s not related, but it was in a Gamespot thread on the subject and I thought it proved that middle schools don’t need internet access.

“Bioshock being released to PS3 did not offer much variance or improvement compared to the other two. (Especially against PC version where many mods and updates can be relased officially and unofficially) While MGS4 being released to 360 has already two perks. 1) 360 stole exclsuive factor. 2) XBox Live. 3) Bigger Community.”

Okay, I’m going to comment. But if you need to read this to understand why the above is fucking hilarious, we don’t want you reading our site.

First off, it strings together non-cogent points to make a statement that means absolutely nothing. It implies that a half-assed port to the PS3 is indicative of the quality of the system as opposed to a quick cash grab. It argues that the PC has special features that the PS3 doesn’t… except the PS3 does, actually. It downloads patches and updates automagically. And it promises two perks and proceeds to list off three, the first of which makes zero grammatical sense and the second of which is just a proper noun.

Anyway, I hope this patched things up between us, frat boys.

As a bonus gift, here’s something that either this poster or Peter Molyneux saw in a dream:

“the dev team at Lionhead said that the compression techniques they use can compress a game to 1% of its original size – so Fable 2 (or any other well compressed game) to would be approx 700GB when uncompressed!”

But god knows, those retards aren’t doing anything about the massive amount of idiots talking down to people who are obviously smarter than themselves. It seems to be the official sport of the Playstation boards, and bonus points if you take any semblence of grammer, push it face-first against the wall, and rape it at knifepoint.

What follows is an excerpt of the aforementioned mental Special Olympics and some feedback from one of the smartest irc channels in the known multiverse:

The crime against intelligence: “i said they for obvious reasons…to not get this thread locked…dont try to be a smart guy, it doesnt work for u…ur not even a smart-ass…its not funny…settle down…grow up…and sit on the sideline..dismissed.”

And the feedback:

“I hate those. You can’t help but treat them like they’re thirteen. Even if they’re being reasonable, they come across as absolute shitfuckers.”

“I’ve developed some sort of ability that lets me ignore posts like that without even reading them.”

“What kind of fucking toolbox ends their sentence with ‘dismissed’?”

“I don’t know, but they’re a toolbox.  Dismissed.”

“It’s the ‘DON’T SASS ME BOY I FOUGHT IN THE WAR’ kind of toolbox.  Or at least someone with a deep bone-on for people who’re like that. The kind of person who only watches the first half of Full Metal Jacket.”

“No, it’s an internet tough guy.”

“That’s the best kind of tough guy.”

“Have you guys seen those guys that take pictures of themselves on their shitty bed in their underwear and they like, spread out all the guns and swords and knives and weapons they own on the bed with them and a bunch of cash too maybe. Like it’s some kind of Woman Bait. HERE IS FAIR BARTER, LADIES. And it’s always the shittiest, saddest bed and room possible.”

It’s me again. Let’s have a little postscript for PSN user “J_Hunng” (go ahead and let him know he’s an exploding, syphilitic canker. The dumb need not protection) following up any notice of the fact that the English language did not give you permission to put your cock there with “newsflash…its the internet…not english 101…again…grow up…sit down…nothing to see here.” isn’t an argument so much as it’s a reversal of five thousand years of written progress.

I mean, congratulations on being a quick study and figuring out how to use ellipses and all, but keeping in practice is pretty goddamn useful for those times when you have to come into my store looking like shit, asking for a job, and then misspelling your name in three different ways on the napkin with your personal info that you drop on the counter. It just doesn’t work.

And Sony; These people, these idiot moderators and the idiot posters, they’re pretty much your public face on the web. That’s BAD. A Scorched Earth policy and urine testing on an executive level might be called for.

First, you’re charging in all the wrong places. I fully intend to pay you for Jumping Flash (six dollars, hell yeah!) as soon as you recognize the validity of my bank card, and I have my eyes on Q*Bert in HD as well. But you’re charging thirty dollars for Warhawk. Think, Sony. Joe the Plumber can -between bouts of acting like a dipshit on television and torturing Jews in his basement- pay you thirty bucks directly for a digital copy that lasts as long as his hard drive and your willingness to offer the game for download… always a gamble, that last part. Or he can drive to my store, kill maybe two people by plowing through them in a haze of gasoline and a cheap mixture of vodka and absinthe, and pay me the same amount of money for a physical copy with all the fixings that he can TRADE IN at the same establishment when he realizes the game is NOT QUITE AS GOOD AS CANCER.

You know, that last part was unfair. I haven’t played Warhawk. Mainly because it’s online only, and having to play with strangers eliminates the reasons why I play games.

Anyway, Mike has some highly valid opinions about another facet of your online service, but I’ll let him get into that when he updates, which is currently scheduled for the next leap year or the Rapture, whichever comes last.

Next up is what you’re giving us for that dollar. A monthly mag? Online? You’re using the medium hand-tailored for timely content updates, squandering that, and expecting me to pay three bucks a month to burn my retinas by staring at my monitor even more than I do now when a paper and ink rag would be more appropriate. Hell, I’d venture to say I’d subscribe if you made one. But you’re not, so I won’t. And I won’t be strong-armed by your Live Gold-esqe handling of exclusive demos for games that I’m not even interested in. You had a much better way of marketing those in a form I gladly paid for. Know what it was? Sure you do, Qore is your way of watering it down:

I know you look back on the glory days of the Jampack and you feel slighted, but just get over it. Fix that other half, the one that smells of cow fields and Bernie Stolar and looks like the lake of fire from Dante’s Inferno.