Welcome to the latest installment of Finishing the Week. It’s time for the DNF crew — along with a few random special guests — to get together and toss back a few brewskis while cracking wise at the latest and greatest news the video game industry has to offer. Click the links, enjoy the banter, and feel free to talk back in the comments section below.
M. Rambler: I can’t believe it, another week has passed and what a bittersweet time it was. Not only did I finish the week; I finished the Skyrim! Guess what? My Thu’um is best, that’s what. A bunch of dragons told me, so it must be true. Aside from that, Donald’s been raving all week about something special he has lined up. I tried using Ka Alm Down on him — a new Shout I crafted — but no dice. Donald said he was so excited about the event that he was going to not wear his favorite pair of pants today. So what is it, Donald, what’s the big surprise?
D.Conrad: HOLY CRAP! Ladies and Gentlemen, in the studio we have a celebrity in the gaming site world. Brad, of Brad Hates Games! The site that I try as hard as possible to plagiarize verbatim from. Seriously, Brad, it’s really awesome to have you here to bring some gravitas to this slow motion weekly capsizing. In other news, I am willing to have Xenoblade Chronicle’s babies. It’s that sexy of a game. I have to scratch my head and wonder; if the Wii can produce this, why has it been floundering this entire generation? It’s truly confusing. Also, go play Quiet, Please… it’s going to review well.
M. Rambler: I’m not confused at all about the Wii’s flounderation. And since when did you forget about Jerry Rice and his doggy-dog Nitus? Anyway, HOLY CRAP is right! I wish you would have told me Brad was going to be joining us earlier. I would have restocked the DNF mini-fridge with something other than Busch Light. I am so embarrassed right now. Brad, what have you been up to lately?
Brad: My brother just moved into town this week, which is great, except that back in December I was so hopelessly addicted to Skyrim that I let him borrow my copy just to stop myself from playing it. Now that we’re living in the same city, and my copy of the game is close again, I can feel it calling out to me, waiting for me to take it back again. It’s like I’m Gollum in Lord of Rings – I desperately want my precious back, so that I can crawl into a dark hole somewhere and spend all my time obsessing over it again.
Gollum: Gollum!
M. Rambler: Gollum?
Gollum: Gollum!
D.Conrad: If you are the Jackson Gollum GET OUT!
Gollum: Gollum? Gollum!
M. Rambler: Well, with that dispute settled, Bitterly, you look simply giddy. Anything in particular floating your boat right now?
B. Indifferent: If you’re as excited as I am for all the hoopla surrounding the anniversary of the Titanic’s launch and subsequent sinking, then you struggled to suppress a yawn and ended up falling asleep on the couch. Other than that, I beat Munchables this week, so I can finally cross a game off my did not finish list.
Titanic: My heart will go on in 3D. Just sayin’.
M. Rambler: You’ll sink soon enough, Titanic. Enjoy your time at the bottom of the ocean until James Cameron invents 4D and re-releases you again.
GlowPuff: Brad, I’m surprised you heard that “calling out”. It was really just me on a megaphone 10 states away!
Gollum: Tricksy GlowPuffsies.
GlowPuff: This week was magnificently glorious! Well, not really. But I did pre-order Diablo 3. I’m sitting here, trying to think of what else I did. Let’s face it; this past week was exceedingly dull. It’s almost like that one week we lost and don’t talk about, because I can’t think of one thing worth mentioning.
M. Rambler: Well, in that case, lets get on with the news then.
If a Qore falls in a Playstation Network and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
D.Conrad: When I found out Qore is pronounced Core I became blind with rage against it’s existence. I admit, I hate the English language as much as the next guy, but that is just pushing it.
M. Rambler: Donald, don’t you mean pooshing it?
B. Indifferent: On that topic, I just realized there are about half a dozen Second Life newspapers I should probably have unsubscribed to by now. Hopefully most of them have folded, saving me the trouble.
GlowPuff: “A reason for the show’s cancellation was not provided at this time.“ Well I know exactly why it was canceled. The same reason any other thing in the world is canceled – lack of interest! You think they’ll man up and say that, though? Nope!!
Brad: Well, that’s not always true. There’s a lack of interest in the NHL season every year, but they usually only cancel it if the players go on strike.
GlowPuff: True, that. There is also a deafening lack of interest in Sumo wrestling, but that hasn’t been canceled, either.
Brad: I’m not sure anyone could cancel Sumo wrestling if they wanted to. How do you stop two 600 pound guys from shoving each other if that’s what they decide they’re going to do?
GlowPuff: Set down a plate of rice at opposite ends of the arena.
M. Rambler: Fus Ro Dah!
D.Conrad: You could also make them witness Ramblers “Sexy Pants Day.”
M. Rambler: No, what happens on Sexy Pants Day, stays in Sexy Pants Day.
Say it ain’t so… Fus Ro Dah getting Tra D’mar Ked
M. Rambler: Oh crap, once this trademark goes through, I guess ZeniMax will be the only entity that can save the world from total sumo domination.
B. Indifferent: Great, now what am I supposed to do with the two dozen crates of Fus Ro Dah toilet seat covers I’ve got in my garage? I was going to make a fortune selling them on Etsy?
GlowPuff: Don’t feel bad. Do you recall what happened to my $300+ promotional PS3 toilet seat I had on eBay? Lost its value overnight all because of that one article. Up to that point, I had tried so hard to keep it unused for whoever bought it. Do you know how hard it was to use the toilet and NOT use the seat??
D.Conrad: Bitterly, if you need to cast Unrelenting Force while sitting on the can… You might be doing it wrong.
Brad: I find it interesting that they filed a separate trademark for use of “Fus Ro Dah” in game instruction manuals. I’d have loved to have seen what kind of weird circumstances would cause some other game to include that phrase in their instruction manual without it being in the game, and now I’m kind of sad that we’ll never know.
GlowPuff: I’m up for testing the boundaries of the legal system. I’m going to somehow put Fus Ro Dah into my next Windows Phone game.
M. Rambler: Okay, I think it’s finally time to come clean… I’m sorry GlowPuff, but I actually trademarked your name hours after your first appearance in FTW. The paperwork has finally gone through. You can either pay me a dollar every time you use your name, or open all your FTW statements with “Midnite Rambler presents GlowPuff”. I prefer the $1 per namedrop option. I’m out of beer money after stocking the mini-fridge with 25 cases of Busch Light… I know, most of that is sitting outside the fridge, but Busch Light tastes like skunk regardless of temperature.
D.Conrad: Hold up, do I have to pay them in order to keep my “Fus Ro Dah” tramp stamp?
M. Rambler: As DNF’s resident Thu’um Master, I’m going to create a mind wipe Shout so we all don’t have to know you just said that.
New Nielsen ratings tell us what we are going to be buying this fall
B. Indifferent: These lists always remind me why I’m in no hurry to buy a next-gen console, let alone a current-gen one.
D.Conrad: Well thanks for your input, Nielsen. I had no clue that Assassin’s Creed 3 had a good chance selling a few copies. I bet you had the living crap beat out of you in High School. Not just because your name is Nielsen, but because you had a dumb face. Spoiler alert, Nielsen’s next report finally reveals that “Water is wet.”
M. Rambler: Wait, I thought water was sentient?
Water: Nope, just wet.
Midnite Rambler presents GlowPuff: Ridiculous. I wonder how much money they threw at this report and its high-end analytics to come up with those results. The same results I could have told you just off the top of my head!!
M. Rambler: Dang, I really wanted some dollar bills out of this whole trademark deal. I was gonna make it rain and everything!
GlowPuff: Well, if that’s the case, then here’s a dollar.
Brad: *Sigh* That’s the problem with the gaming industry these days – consumers only want the familiar, so we just end up getting a bunch of rehashes and sequels every year. Where’s the originality? This sequel-mania is enough to make me give up on playing new games and just stick with the classics – you know, Megaman 2, Grand Theft Auto 3, Super Metroid, Zelda: A Link to the Past, NHL ’94, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night…
D.Conrad: Brad, that list reminds me of the days before Call of Duty came out every other week. That list also made me sad that Other M was made.
Brad: And by the way, I really don’t need Nielsen to tell me that Madden 2013 is going to be a big seller when it comes out this August. I kind of got that impression once GameStop employees began pressuring me to pre-order a copy back in November.
GlowPuff: I was once pressured into pre-ordering Madden 2011 back in 2005!!
Dear Sony, so how’s that PS4 coming along?
B. Indifferent: Their CFO says they’ll take “resolute measures to transform our business without protecting any sacred cows”? That’s about as serious a response as you can get short of somebody committing ritual suicide.
GlowPuff: Sacred cows? I guffawed when I read that. Aren’t cows sacred in India? What are India’s cows doing in Japan? Please advise.
K. Hirai: Funny story… you’d be surprised to learn how expensive it is to ship 5,000 head of prime sacred cattle from India to Japan. And don’t get me started on the cleanup expenses. There is absolutely nothing sacred about an office building filled with methane and cow pies.
D.Conrad: While you are here, Mr. Hirai, can I ask you a question?
K. Hirai: No..
D.Conrad: Super! How well are those 3D TV’s selling? That was a GREAT idea! Did you know if you watch Avatar without 3D you realize that the entire plot is about watching Avatar in 3D? I bet you wouldn’t have to post such losses if you had taken the time to invent something that people wanted. Maybe next time new technology rolls around you can do a Kickstarter. That way people who really want it can buy it months in advance.
K. Hirai: I can’t speak to any of that right now. However, we do have a number of perfectly good, used sacred cattle posted on Ebay right now. Selling these cattle is the first step of my business turnaround plan.
GlowPuff: Japanese cows, Indian cows…. beef is beef, and I’ll eat it regardless of its nationality. (*D.Conrad: I would like to point out that Midnite Rambler presents GlowPuff is making a joke. We at Did Not Finish respect the sanctity of Indian cows.*)
Brad: I have a background in accounting, so sometimes I like to try to convince myself that I know a little something about business and finance. Then I read an article like this and learn that because of Sony’s massive losses, their stock will only be slightly more valuable than it was at the beginning of the year. That’s when I realize that I will never, ever understand how the stock market works.
D.Conrad: Okay, this is the last time I explain the stock market. You throw a bunch of money into it and watch it vanish overnight. Then you try to go blind by chugging Maker’s Mark in attempts to hide your depression.
GlowPuff: Alright, I had to stop reading about halfway through. I went in thinking it was a nice, short, and to-the-point article on the topic. Nope. It was like eating a burger with too much corn meal filler in it. Other than that, I don’t like interacting with people, anywhere. I prefer my social interactions to be conducted through MMO games, online chat systems, and email. That way, when I’m done socializing and ready to be alone again, I just turn it off.
B. Indifferent: Huh, retailers are making “billions of dollars profits” from selling used games? Someone should let GameStop know, since their profits declined over the last three quarters — for each of the last two years they made less than $240 million-with-an-M in profits, so they might want to know more about this highly-lucrative-but-possibly-imaginary used game market the article talks about.
Brad: I just found it a little concerning how much of the advice in the article about meeting people to swap games overlaps with the advice generally given to women in rape prevention classes. Take a friend with you, go to a safe places you already know, etc. Are the majority of gamers also sexual predators and I just hadn’t realized it? Because suddenly a lot of the costume designs in Soul Calibur 5 are starting to make sense.
M. Rambler: Actually, judging by the screen cap I just took from Soul Calibur 5, a majority of game characters are sexual predators.
Voldo: That, sir, is slander. I can’t speak for that Dampierre weirdo, but I dress the way I do because I’m blind.
GlowPuff: I was going to make a joke about using this Waygoz service as a dating service, but didn’t think it was appropriate, so I’ll mention it anyways.
D.Conrad: How does this company end? Let me tell you. Person A brings 15 games to trade with Person B for a different 15 games. Person B shoots Person A in the face with a gun. Person A dies. Person B eats donuts and gets to play Bioshock: Infinite. The media will end up blaming Bioshock:Infinite and not this stupid idea. For the love of…Voldo put some pants on! GlowPuff, you may not want to use that mic…he just violated it.
GlowPuff: Not before I violated it first. Bow-chica-wow-wow.
More proof that Japan hates us!
GlowPuff: It could actually be worse than that. It could be that the game is not going in the right direction, and they’re doing a bit of a “do-over” on it. Just look at Diablo 3. According to the developer diary videos, the game was in “final polishing” in February of LAST YEAR. One year later, it’s just now getting ready for release in a month. Reason? They realized the game wasn’t going in the right direction.
Brad: What’s this? Battle screens? Picking “fight” off of a menu? A main character who appears to be a ten year old boy? If this game has been delayed, it’s only so that the developer might get a chance to build a time machine and release it back in 1999 where it belongs.
D.Conrad: I’m going to get all JRPG defensive here. People pile on because you just select attack from a menu, and that is repetitive. You know what? God of War has you mashing that attack button over and over. But that is not repetitive? Why? Because you keep doing it fast and are not required to think a strategy that will get you through a fight? The reason people hate JRPGS is because you have to read. Reading R iz hard.
GlowPuff: Guffaw!
B. Indifferent: I really love a lot of Level-5’s past games, so it makes me sad to see them bogged down in a fiasco like this. You know those situations where a close friend of yours needs someone to tell them that they’ve got their fly open, or toilet paper stuck to their shoe?
And then everyone decides not to because it’s too hilarious?
What I’m trying to say is that Midnite Rambler has been walking around the office with a chicken bone stuck in his beard for the past week.
M. Rambler: Yeah, about that chicken bone… last month some stupid rat took up residence in my beard while I was sleeping one night. The chicken bone is apparently his. Well, okay, it was mine and it’s probably what lured him there in the first place, but I tried taking it away, which only resulted in me naming the rat Bitey.
D.Conrad: Could you please explain to me why Bitey submitted an expense report? Why does he think I am going to pay for his tube socks and adult DVDs?
M. Rambler: Because I… umm… err… he is addicted to porn. It’s a disease, man. Try being sensitive for once in your life.
It CAN get worse than Star Wars Kinect…
Intern Mac: Joe, dude. How’d you break your leg man?
Intern Joe: Playing Dragonball Z Kinect while performing the legendary Kamehameha move.
Intern Mac: …
Intern Joe: Well, you should see the other guy. The other guy is my TV. I broke his face and shattered a few vertebrae.
Brad: Yes it can get worse than Star Wars Kinect, and in fact, it has. But at least the people in that video are playing a decent game. Keep in mind the Sega Activator was released around the same time as Shaq-Fu and you have the recipe for one of the worst Christmases ever. This is something I can attest to firsthand.
D.Conrad: That made my inner-child cry louder than normal. Since Rambler is the only one that has a Kinect I can’t wait to force him to play this game. My only hope is there is a mode where you stand perfectly still and just grunt while having an inner monologue about your opponent’s power level. On a side note, we will all be watching Dragonball: Evolution together. By together I mean you guys are watching it without me.
M. Rambler: Well, I won’t do it… unless you sign off on Bitey’s expense report.
D.Conrad: Nope.
Capcom doesn’t care, Lost Planet 3 inbound.
GlowPuff: So, the hero of this game is some family man named Jim. Geebus. Why can’t I play as some overpowered, over-muscled, action hero? Much more fun. I don’t want some backstory about how this guy lost his family, yadda yadda. Get rid of the family backstory, add some muscles and some bigger guns, then I’ll show some interest.
D.Conrad: Hey! Rambler did they copy your face for this game? Because, that is your face! Everyone is focusing on the fact that it’s about a dad going to war. No one is focusing on the fact that no one asked for this game.
M. Rambler: Don’t forget the fact that no one asked to see my face.
Brad: I kind of like this trend of turning our action heroes into relatable family men. Hopefully, as you charge into a firefight, your character will spout off some Dad-tastic battle cries such as “Eat it or wear it!” or my all time favorite, “Stop crying before I give you something to cry about”.
B. Indifferent: Why wait for your character to do it? I like to yell “If you don’t knock it off, I swear to god I will turn this car around right now” when I’m not even driving.
D.Conrad: Last time I heard “Stop crying before I give you something to cry about” I was given a Sega Master System. Yes, I had something to cry about.
M. Rambler: Yeah, sorry about that gift. It was all part of this grand scheme I’ve got to crap on people who’ve crapped on me. I call it “pay it crapward”… so, about that expense report?
D.Conrad: Okay, you win. Hey Bitterly, I’ve got a present for you.
M. Rambler: Well, that about does it, this week is about to be finished.
GlowPuff: Wait, you all thought I’d let a week go by without mentioning my helicopters in some capacity? Wrong! I have some 2mm solid carbon fiber rod on order so I can fabricate my own custom tail boom for one of my birds. The stock one is hollow, and very susceptible to fracturing because of the set screw digging into it. Solid rod will alleviate that weakness. Oh, I guess I should do my taxes soon, eh?
B. Indifferent: I’ve largely insulated myself from drooling over the release of Xenoblade Chronicles by opening up a copy of Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. It was only released in 2009, so it’s the newest game I’m playing at the moment, but it’s also the best. I’m having a lot of fun with it.
Brad: I just realized I went through this entire piece while only linking to my own fabulous website, Brad Hates Games, once. Anyway, we recently had an interview with one of the co-founders of Naughty Dog, and spent an entire week obsessing over and obscure Genesis game that, believe it or not, we actually liked. I plan to put a link up to this article on there, too, hopefully trapping all our readers into some kind of circular loop of links.
D.Conrad: Did I mention how sexy Xenoblade Chronicles is? I would be having more fun, but Bitterly keeps watching over my shoulder while drooling on me. It is a sexy game. When I review it I will make comments that shock people. I nearly rendered GlowPuff speechless from some of the things I said about it. So I am going to keep playing that this week. Go visit Brad Hates Games! Super big thanks for bringing your A game Brad. Thanks for making us all look really bad!
M. Rambler: Yes indeed. Thanks, Brad, you keep on hating games, and we’ll be sure to keep on reading about it! Before you go, feel free to take a few cases of warm Busch Light as a parting gift. Oh wait, that kind of makes it seem like I’m trying to pay it crapward. Just take all these dollar bills I earned from GlowPuff and go buy yourself something nice. If Bitterly tries to give you a Sega Master System as you walk out the door, just pay no mind and keep walking.
Well, I’ve got some new DVD’s to… umm… watch, so consider this week finished. Thanks for reading and tune in next week for more Xenoblade Chronicles sexy talk. Give us a shout in the comments, I think Bitterly has a Sega Master System he’s looking to auction off.
Tweet
