The top-secret reveal of the week came on Monday.

There's going to be a Bayonetta 2.

Fans rejoiced!

Except... it's going to be exclusively on the Nintendo Wii U.

That... doesn't go over so well.

In fact - the creators themselves have to issue an explanation. Yowza.

Kotaku collects their favorite rage!Tweets here, plus more comments but my personal favorite is a blog here created specifically to tell everyone how to STICK IT TO THE MAN by buying the system and game used.

But my favorite comment so far comes from this tumblr and is essentially:

Gamers: We want mature exclusives on the Wii U!
Nintendo: Here's Bayonetta 2 exclusive for the Wii U!
Gamers: FUCK YOU FOR STEALING THAT GAME!

Scott Jones of the AV Club gave a mixed review of Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, a hotly anticipated game for PlayStation 3. Jones praised the storyline and dialogue but criticized the gameplay mechanics:

[T]he story still zips and characters are still conflicted, but targeting is as twitchy as ever, bad guys still require three or four shotgun blasts to the head before they’re deterred, and the game’s star, Nathan Drake, still has no clue whatsoever about how to crouch. Two years after Thieves, Uncharted’s gameplay mechanics and conventions are no longer dated; they’re borderline archaic.

His final grade for the game was a C.

( It's like having nuclear launch codes for internet fanboys )

These are the writings of isntitironic of fandom_wank, which she posts, in the hope of thereby preserving from deletion the rememberance of what players have said, and preventing the wanky and ridiculous actions of both sides from losing their due meed of mockery; and withal to put on record what were the grounds of the wank.

Right. If you're on YouTube much, you've seen ads for Grepolis, which is actually not a bad little game in which you build ancient Greek cities and can have battles with other players. For mutual protection, players organize themselves into Alliances. Within an Alliance there are positions like leader, diplomat, etc. You can read more about it on the Wiki if you're curious. The world the game occurs in is divided into areas called oceans, and within the alliance each one has an ocean leader (OL), who coordinates whatever wars are going on in that ocean.

I belong to an alliance called the Phalanx, led by Ms. Sapphire Sorrows, and today I logged in to find this in my inbox:

( I am going to bed soon and i want to be sure that EVERYONE knows exactly what is happening. )

ETA: Filip quits. He's so sad to go:

( Everything I have done was for the alliance improvement. )

This week, Valve has been releasing the Über Update for Team Fortress 2. This culminated in the long-anticipated Meet the Medic video. It's awesome, go watch it.

And that wasn't all. It has been announced that Team Fortress 2 will now be free to play. Not just for a weekend. Forever.

Awesome, right?

nope.avi

Main thread on the Steam forums regarding the F2P situation
anyone else less than pleased that TF2 is now free?
ANTI "THANK YOU VALVE" THREAD (the top post of which features Valve's lovely obscenity-blocking ♥♥♥♥)

I could go on for days linking all the angry threads on Valve's forums, so here are a couple other places people are mad:

Forum thread entitled "Poll: The TF2 Insult" on The Escapist
Comments on the official announcement on YouTube.

There's already a plug-in to block free-to-play users from joining your server.

You got hats in my quirky puzzle game!

I've gone through about eight or nine pages, and not found anything specifically unfunny, and in fact, the censorship on the Valve forums is amusing, because it replaces swear words with little hearts, and there are a couple of custom replacements (piss into jarate).

Look for posts by Elementalos (starting on page 5) for defense of the cash for vanity items system, and there's a lot of general complaining.

And remember: Android Hell is a REAL place.

(Also, some bonus side wanking about WoW)

Ah, Silent Hill wank.


Fungo is a somewhat controversial personality in the Silent Hill fandom. You see, at first he was praised because he provided a service, which was sharing most of the in-game videos, OSTs, Documentaries and other lovely things at his site Silent Hill Media.

Then Silent Hill 0rigins came out and he hated it. He hated it and everyone who liked it.

Then Silent Hill Homecoming came out and he hate it too. The people who liked it were idiots who didn't get Silent Hill like he did.

So, this month Fungo and his pals released his long awaited Silent Hill documentary called The Real Silent Hill Experience.

It clocks in at 3 and a half hours long, and what a treat it is!

At first it tries to pass itself off as an analysis but it comes across as a plot synopsis. Interesting footage choices are utilized such as the case when footage of getting one's foot stuck in a bear trap in Resident Evil is used to prove that Silent Hill's controls are superior.

But let's go deeper into the ...interesting...narrative choices, such as:

-Devolving into flailing their limbs to get the point across.

-Talking down to fans.

-Using really, really shoddy arguments to back their points.

-Being dull. They never leave the couch. And while people like Linkara almost never leave the couch, they can actually write jokes.

-Playing the dog song over the scenes with Sean Bean's character while analyzing the movie, which Phelous did a year ago.

-Calling the female cop character Cybil a "butch dyke" when "analyzing" the movie adaptation, then berating the sexism in the movie.

-Reading the quotes by composer and producer Akira Yamaoka in bad Engrish in an insulting attempt at humor.

Fans are not happy.


On the LJ side of the fandom, they start to feel bored and talked down to, two horrible combinations!

But it really gets good on the Silent Hill forums. It starts on
page 2 of the SH forums, where people start to have ...concerns.


But but by page 3 it devolves into "what is humour?"

Also, apparently Fungo's crew is deleting comments by mean people who disagree with their documentary but so far I think that's just hearsay.

The producer of SH:Shattered Memories comments! So does some other important guy!

Over on Silent Hill Community we learn that there have been edits made to the documentary regarding the strategy guide.

As of this writing there are 7 pages on SHF and 17 on SHC.

(Spoilers abound for all of Silent Hill, of course)

Sorority life is a popular dress-up/strategy facebook game, with its own little official forum, where people get together to rant, interact with each other, squee, and, of course, wank.

Apparently, some people made links to get unreleased 'glam' (dresses, purses, etc, that you can put on your avatar) before anyone else. People get upset and say this is very, very wrong. Cue for esettle0 to come in, on page nine, and tell the players to stop being so uptight and have a life. Wank ensues for 48 pages, which includes gems like sort of comparing stealing pixels to rape, it's just a beta and Don't rain on my parade because you're a good girl. I'm not.

...it's more likely than you think.

Thanks to the anons at wank_report for the writeup.

The backstory: the latest title in the Halo series, Halo: Reach came out recently, spurring millions of fanboys to new heights of level grinding in an effort to reach the top rank and increase the size of their e-cocks.

The set-up: A few people found out that you could exploit the credit-earning/ranking system using a network manipulation trick. Thousands try it and are delighted to find their credits skyrocketing, unlocking new ranks, armour effects and other cool goodies. Much rejoicing ensues.

The twist: Bungie (the guys behind Reach) reveal that network manipulation = cheating, and bring out the banhammer.

The wank: Here on the forums is where most of it is going down, but if you check, there's plenty more going on outside the official bitching thread. Responses range from "but I didn't do anything wroooooooooooooong!" to "FUCK YOU, BUNGIE, I'M NEVER PLAYING YOUR GAME AGAIN p.s. when do we get our credits and armour back?"

One enterprising poster comes up with the best solution for the forlorn.

For bonus points, look out for the places where Bungie officials have outed people claiming they didn't cheat by revealing just exactly how many times said users had used the exploit per day. Official ownage is always the best kind. :D

From wank_report:

Nurseniknak: Guess what, guys? They're filming Silent Hill 2!
Fans:
Fans: NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

( Read more... )

In the Zelda lovers community on Lj Starrose17 posts a slash fanfic, between Link and Link

RPgod2 is offended and proceeds to give us his thoughts on yaoi

RPgod2 is declared new to the internet, because he did not expect slash in a video game fan community

Rpgod2 clarifies that it was not this *particular* work that offended him, just the idea of it.

Plus sundry other thoughts on yaoi.

ETA: There are also a few choice comments on the dA page of the art that inspired the fic.

There was a time when all the first-person shooter fanboys were hot for Modern Warfare 2. That was before it was announced that the PC version wouldn't support dedicated servers, and players would instead be stuck having to use a matchmaking system. According to the Joystiq piece: Even without a doctorate in PC gaming affairs, it's easy to see how this fact would upset someone (or some community) who drops a wad of cash every month on renting a private server. Also preturbed by this news are fans of modded game modes and custom maps -- both of which would be unlikely under the IWNet framework.

( PC gamers are not amused. )

Just a light wanky snack.

Facts:
(1) Hideo Kojima is the creator of the Metal Gear Solid series.
(2) He is a fan of Twilight.
(3) He will be in ur Pixiv, judging ur Twilight fanart. Also, winner gets an autographed copy of MGS4: Guns of the Patriots.

( Metal Gear fans: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO )

ETA: ONTD post. Thanks to: vitalitat.

This story brought to you by a lot of Farkers.

Hey, F_W, remember Jack Thompson? He's a longtime activist and former attorney, who has in the past expressed his disapproval of such injustices as rap music, radio shows, the HOMOSEXUALS! gays, the Pixelantes (?), moms, Dennis McCauley, "culture war Pearl Harbor pigeons" Japan, the wimmenz, video games, flowers, the Florida Bar Association, small letter "M"s, people who are not Real Men, and, of course, the Satan.

The Wank:
His latest icecapades involve Facebook. Specifically, one group on Facebook called "I Hate Jack Thompson", in which someone apparently posted, "Jack Thompson should be smacked across the face with an Atari 2600".* Thompson responded by personally faxing Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to have the postings removed. And comparing himself to Barack Obama.

( But wait, there's more! )

We ask, and wank_report provides.

Team Fortress 2 is an online FPS game in which two teams made up of nine different classes attempt to blast each other into comical bloody oblivion. TV Tropes says it best:

"Two corporations erect fortresses 10 yards from each other and then send waves of men to kill each other to steal a briefcase out of the opposing fort's basement."

Now add hats, equipable items that were introduced earlier in the year that change the appearance of a character and serve no other purpose whatsoever. But they're rare drops, man -- you could be on for hours and not see hide nor hair of a precious, precious hat.

( Do you smell what The Rock is cooking? )
In conclusion: hats!

So IGN posted an article titled, "Is Final Fantasy VII Overrated?", part of a new series in their retro section that takes a look at the sacred cows of gaming and determines if they're, well, overrated. Naturally, this article attracted literally hundreds of comments. They started out civil enough, with some early posters readying their popcorn buckets. They would not be disappointed.

( estuans interius ira vehementi SEPHIROTH!!! )

Meanwhile, staffers at PSX Extreme and Kezins pick up on the story, the latter including a similarly-themed video from G4 and this bit of insight:

"No one is saying Final Fantasy VII was the greatest RPG ever made, but we are saying it was one of the best. In the end, I do think people have the right to believe the game was over-hyped or overrated, but as I said before they have the right to be WRONG."

Also, the first game covered in IGN's series? The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Quite a bit of fanboy froth in the comments for that article, too.

At the end of yesterday's Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee attached a trailer for a new project he's working on, a television pilot called Game Damage. It's a live-action game review show starring Yahtzee! YAHTZEE YAHTZEE YAHTZEE! It'll be like a half hour of Zero Punctuation! Woohoo! Yahtzee! Live! In the flesh! YAHTZEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Wait a sec. Who are these other two guys? They're Matt and Yug. They run Australian Gamer.

Cue an explosion of fanboy hatred directed at these two. It's all over the YouTube comments, the Game Damage forums, The Escapist forums, Kotaku, etc. (Yug's put together a nice list of places commenting on it here.)

In addition to some constructive criticism, we've gotten such classy, highbrow comments as:

"Matt kind of looks like he has early onset of Parkinson's."
"If Yahtzee wasn't in this it would be called Brain Damaged."
"C'mon don't be so hard on Richard Simmons Jr. and Harrypotterfan3445.Kekeke."
"This is like Top Gear, except Hammond was given AIDS, James as a FTM butch and Jeremy made a god. A gay god that straight men with magic rainbow kisses."
"Replace the non-yahtzee people with a hot girl who know's nothing about games and maybe add someone who knows something about games but isn't a someone i'd beat up on the playground."

In this week's Australian Gamer podcast, the trio discuss the legitimate criticism they've received as well as the whining from entitled fanboys. It starts around minute 26, if you're keen on listening.

Girl Gamers: Keeping up the sparkling record of many members being offended by anything remotely sexist and nothing else that could be offensive to anyone whatsoever.

evildevil posts a macro using a fanart image.

Pic: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3093/2837923602_4aa5d9886d_o.jpg
1000 words: "Startling moments in gaming: 1) Realizing Samus is a girl. 2) Realizing Bridget isn't."

Sone people giggle. Then xtalcy comes in with: "Am I the only one who thinks transphobic humor is not so funny?" Several others agree that maybe this isn't all lulz and fun. Others do not, notably gonsai, who starts with "Except neither character is transgendered in any sense." Cue bickering, including defenses of "I'm dating one", "You're oversensitive," and "I am one."

*headdesk*

The latest episode of Cheap Ass Gamer's CAGcast podcast featured a segment where host Cheapy D railed about all the rumors originating on video game forums that make their way to gaming blogs as legitimate news (this starts around the 50:48 mark if you want to listen for yourself - thanks to cloudandtidus on LJ for the info). He complains that since online game journalists are paid by the post and typically have a quota, they have an incentive to post rumors, no matter how dubious the source. Then co-host Wombat makes the following proposal (transcribed as best I could):

Wombat: This is what I think, I think our listeners need to do. I think they need to post things in our forums (...) that, that are complete bullshit, and see if it gets picked up by the blogs (...) And if someone gets picked up, I think you should send them a free game.
(some chuckling)
Wombat: A free game of their choice.
Cheapy: Yeah, I will do that. Well, okay (...) I'm not gonna encourage that, but Wombat will.
Wombat: (...) That's fine, I'll arrange the contest, you'll pay for the prize. So what you need to do is you need to go into the game forums on Cheap Ass Gamer, and post something that is completely made up. Now if one of the three major blogs - we'll say Joystiq, Kotaku, and Destructoid - if they post it as legitimate news, then - Cheapy (...) if you make two, we wanna say two of the three?
Cheapy: Any.
Wombat: Any one of the three, you will get a free game of your choosing from Cheapy D, of a $60 value or lower.
Cheapy: Or if you get it to hit on Digg. Actually, no, I'm against this contest, so you have to say that, Wombat.
Wombat: Or get it to hit a lot on Digg.

So, with the contest in place, CAGcast's listeners start posting all manner of fake rumors. One such rumor is desz's "XBOX's New Name?". It's notable that even the earliest few comments on the post strongly hint at its fakeness, but, as if proving Wombat's point, several well-known gaming/tech blogs do pick it up. Among them are Xbox 360 Fanboy (correction since appended) and Gizmodo (correction since appended), but some of the biggest butthurt came from Kotaku.

( CAG has lost all credibility as a reliable news source! )

ETA: Cheapy D speaks about the whole kerfluffle.

So after, what, two years of waiting, Spore is finally out. A trillian billion copies shipped to a trillion billion eagerly waiting fans.

And then the complaints started.

First they discover that Spore can only be activated three times before it stops re-activating Plus it uses SecureROM

Then they discover that you can only tie one user account to each activation code (Personal opinion: this is likely to completely kill any potential resale market).

Amazon goes nuts with a campaign of one star reviews which then disappear only to reappear claiming technical hitch.

That's the news. Where is the wank? Well, it's most easily found in the EA forums.

( Getting long so I'll cut! )

Angry words are being exchanged, credit card charge backs and class-action suits are threatened, and people are confirming that the "misprint" also exists in foreign-language manuals. I suspect this has a long way to go before it burns out.

Here we have yet another tale of video game fanboy entitlement, but one that doesn't involve the ongoing Console Wars for a change. In fact, the game involved is a PC/Mac title: Blizzard's highly-anticipated Diablo III.

It all started with an online petition calling for "Renewed artistic direction for Diablo 3". According to the petitioners, the Diablo universe calls for gothic, dark realism, but the new game's art direction is "cartoon'ish" and reminiscent of the Warcraft titles, with color and variety and *gasp* RAINBOWS! What they want is:

( Teh Gothicness, basically )

Rounding out the petition are several links to images depicting what Diablo III should look like. In short, everything should look a lot more grey and brown.

MTV Multiplayer later posts an interview with Diablo III's lead designer in which these fan mockups are discussed and criticized at length. For example, here's what the designer had to say about this one, depicting what the petitioners want in terms of lighting:

The key thing to remember here is that this has been Photoshopped. This isn’t created by the engine. Though it looks really cool, it’s almost impossible to do in a 3D engine because you can’t have lighting that smart and run on systems that are reasonable. If we could do that, we probably would in a few of the dungeons.

Now in terms of the actual texturing, this texturing, where they grayed out everything and it’s very flat and the monsters are all kind of a similar tone — that does not play well. It’s very boring to run through more than a couple of times, and it’s very difficult to tell creatures apart and pop them out of the environment. So those things don’t really work for us. A lot of the lighting stuff I think is very cool, but it’s also not very doable for us.

The rainbow (or lack thereof, rather) in one of the altered screenshots is also discussed:

More rain? It’s funny because if watch later on in the [debut gameplay] video, we have more rain. It is much stronger than that. I’m sure they got rid of the rainbow. Yeah, rainbow — gone. I think our artist just put [the rainbow] in there because they knew that’d be controversial. And I’m sure they were like, “Well we’ll see how far we can push it.”

There is anger and annoyance in the comments, representing both sides of the argument:

( COLOR IS BAD! COLOR IS NOT BAD! )

And of course, there's the obligatory Penny Arcade comic.

ETA: So it seems Blizzard is now looking for a new art director for Diablo III after their previous one quit. Fanboys, now's your chance!