Sex in videogames

From the depths of internet comes this lecture on sex in videogames, surprisingly mature and also quite funny:

The author actually makes a couple of valid points, even though last four minutes could be compressed into one. Still, he takes after Yahtzee's Zero Punctuation, how can you not like this guy?

Pointers

From one of my favourite webcomics, XKCD:

Pac-roomba

Roomba is an automated vacuum cleaner. Pac-man is a game from eighties where little yellow thing is eating dots. Combine the two together and you get... this?

I brought it to the attention of folks at Kotaku, my tip got accepted and they've put it on their webpage. It feels good to contribute something to one of my favourite gaming sites.

PS. Speaking of combining Pac-man with strange things, check this out: samurai Pac (sic!).

Unreal Tournament 300

There was once a very bad, although visually spectacular, movie called 300 with extremely cool trailer including Nine Inch Nails music. There also was a very good game called Unreal Tournament 2004 featuring memorably deep commentator's voice. Then there was Youtube, where folks with too much free time on their hands can find this kind of mash-up, combining the two:

Of course somebody anal extremely overanalysing had to point out that announcements are not in proper order, so there also exists a second version for those who care - the above one is cooler, though.

Personally, I finding it strangely fitting. They should have thought about it in the first place and added UT announcer in 300 from the start.

Team Fortress 2. With boobs.

Okay, there are days when others' creativity leaves me speechless for a moment. I have to admit I didn't see that coming. If you're a gamer, then you surely must know Team Fortress 2, right?


The artist that goes under the nickname ghostfire reimagined the female version of the game's roster. With, ahem, attributes. I mean one can clearly see that these are girls. Of course I like Team Fortress 2 and of course I like... but this?


Now let's wait for the Rule 34 to take over and... I think I need to lie down.

Return of the Spy Hunter

Accidentally, I have stumbled upon this Pontiac commercial:



For the convenience of younger viewers who might not get the reference, please find the movie below:



Yes, that was a real computer and arcade game - Spy Hunter. I am writing this for those of you who are less than thirty years old.


For me it has a special place in my heart, because it was one of my first ZX Spectrum games. I actually have totally different memory of how it looked, but it was due to ZX Spectrum version limitations - click here if you want to see the version I played as a kid. Also, if you remember Blues Brothers, there is C-64 version with some familiar music in the background.

And if you feel like trying your luck with it, you can play it here (courtesy of World of Spectrum).

The truth about Mortal Kombat

It seems like Shao Kahn wants more from the tournament than just blood of the contestants:

I couldn't help but smile at "uhh... sexuality!" and "I'm not mad" lines. This probably means I am a pervert, but oh well, I am already long past the denial phase. Enjoy!

Code quality

So very true...

Gotta catch 'em all!

Despite the title, this post won't have anything to do with Pokemons (phew!).

Just recently I have stumbled upon a really cool drawing (a little dated, but still), depicting a whole lot of classic computer games' heroes. You can find it here and I uploaded it on Blogspot for your convenience.

Be sure to click image for a full view

The question is : how many games can you distinguish in the image?

With some folks from my company and also from a computer board (Polish only, sorry) we have managed to pin down most of them, but there is still a couple missing. See here if you are not afraid of spoilers (and if you find any new ones, please let me know via comments).

I am particularly proud of my contributions, such as Bioforge, Messiah and Metal Mutant (on the other hand these ones made me feel old - how many people even remember those games?) or combination of Dune and Earthworm Jim.

These people's identity remains unknown.
If you know them, please help us identify them.

Some other puzzles put me to shame, for example the Morrowind dude - I actually got it because I realised that dots on his face are Dark Elves' tribal tattoo, but afterwards I felt like an idiot for not deciphering the meaning of "No more winds".

This has totally made me laugh.

A couple of drawings are so-so (how is one to guess that Deus Ex one without knowing Russian is beyond me), but some are brilliant - such as protagonists of Grim Fandango, Dungeon Keeper and Undying together with scythes.

Reaper Men

All in all, it was really fun and I encourage you to have a look at it as well. Perhaps you'll even be able to pinpoint something I might have missed.

Interesting comment on MacBook Air

I have been waiting impatiently for Apple to reveal the specs of that damn new gadget, hoping it would be something interesting. After Steve Jobs presented new MacBook Air Apple stocks went down - and I can see why. The best comment to the machine specifications so far is the comparison below :

'Nuff said.

Cat, princess and the airstrike!

Out of nowhere (OK, not really - check here) I was struck by this game :

...and to think people say they don't make original games anymore!


The game in question is Garden Gnome Carnage - download it here. Give it a chance and watch at least until you see the above screen. Trippy!

Stars in Black Returns

It all started with this movie, known as Stars in Black (SiB) :

Then we had EduRom commercial (SiB II), April Fools joke, Imladris convention fan movie (SiB III). In the meantime, Stanisław Mąderek has struggled to make a full-length comedy movie, seemingly without results. In his desperation, he even made a pre-production teaser to convince people to invest in it. Just recently I have learnt that he has finally made it - there is still all post-production work to be done, but the first official teaser (find the high-res versions here) is already there :

Visit Staszek's webpage and find more information and movies there. Good luck, Staszek!

GTA and elections

On the occasion of parliament elections in Poland I would like to present a cool image by Śledziu that depicts Polish politicians in GTA-like fashion (you may also notice George W. Bush and Tony Blair). It actually made me chuckle when I first saw it.


"Gry polityczne" means "Political games", which sums up nicely recent standards of Polish politics, which have reached a new low. If you like the image, you can buy T-shirt with it from Mr Herring's shop, and if you are Polish, please go and vote.

Polish accent in Japanese megastore

When I was strolling through Yodobashi Camera in Akihabara in Tokyo, Japan, I accidently saw and managed to photograph this :

Now, if you're not from Poland, you probably won't get the joke, but the movie on the screen is Włatcy Móch, Polish equivalent of South Park (in my opinion nowhere near the level of its predecessor, but that's just me). However crappy that TV series might be, it is very related to Polish everyday grey reality and probably not funny to anyone not living in our Potato Country. Hence, seeing it in Japan (hey, there was even a guy watching it!) was kinda absurd.

Kotaku Party

Yesterday (and partially today, to be completely precise) I have taken part in mighty fine Kotaku shindig. What I was expecting was a gathering of socially inept nerds and geeks, and maybe an occasion to talk for a while with one of the Kotaku editors. Yes, I am usually a sceptic.

Brian Crescente, nice lady whom name I have forgotten,
me, and guy from Gamesutra

In reality though, it turned out to be a gathering, of, well, nerds and geeks, but far from socially inept. There were game journalists from 4ColorRebellion, Gamesutra, Joystiq, CheapAssGamer, and GayGamer, there were famous kotakuites (Witzbold, Bellamy), there were exchange students, English teachers, the guy behind Fraps and all sorts of other interesting creatures, including, of course, guys from Kotaku : Crescente, Bashcraft, Luke and Mike. There was drinking and socializing involved, Kotaku folks turned out to be even cooler in real life than online and all in all it was really much more entertaining than I originally thought it would be. Oh, did I mention that booze and snacks were for free?

First up front - Flynn from GayGamer

Japanese police intervened after some of us have spread into the street with our drinks (drinking alcohol in public places is forbidden in Japan), but there were no casualties. Made me recall my student times...

Witzbold and Bellamy discussing, under the wall in
the background Rod (Fraps) and Luke (Kotaku)

You can read some more about it on Kotaku : here and here. Also, see the photo gallery - if you have read the notes, then you know that some of the photos come from me. Overall, I was not the only one that liked it a lot. From behind the scenes I can tell you that the crowd seemed to enjoy it so much that there is a chance of second party coming up...

Me, Bashcraft, Jools from 4ColorRebellion
and three other kotakuites

See you soon, guys!

Mario is Evil

In the vein of recent Manhunt 2 controversy and Polish Ministry of Education wanting to punish distributing of violent computer games with prison in the frame of their "Zero tolerance to violence" programme, I have decided that I would contribute to the witch hunt and disclose a violent game that might have slipped under the radar : Mario.

The perfidy of the aforementioned game is that it disguises itself as innocent entertainment aimed at children, while in fact it poisons their delicate minds with obnoxious propaganda of all things impure. This article explains in great detail why Mario is Evil. In short, it propagates communism, racism, violence, deviation and drugs.


I would also like to take this occasion to sincerely thank Polish TVN channel for their vigilance on the subject (unfortunately, the link is in Polish only - basically, the whole TV program explained that games are for people who do not think and propagate violence).

Chobot versus Uszat

One thing that I have accidentally found on Grocal's page, was IGN's Jessica Chobot getting her cute backside kicked... err, spanked, actually. By this guy.

Uszat's English could be better, but let's face it, the video is not really so much about him... And if you are wandering why I put the PSP tag to this post, well, it's because of this famous photograph:


Yup, that's Jessica Chobot herself. So I am torn between feeling disapproval of Uszat manhandling the interviewee and slight jealousy...

EDIT : Well, apparently that guy had me fooled - in fact his English and interviewing skills are impeccable (just see this video to be convinced). I have never seen any of his interviews before before, so I assumed this is his regular way of being. As Grocal pointed out in the comments, that young man has two identities, Uszat and Carmac (think Borat and Sasha Baron Cohen). I guess the joke's on me, then.

Łódź City Stories

Some time ago this was posted as news on Kotaku, but since it makes me chuckle everytime I pass nearby, I've decided to share it with you as well.


What you can see on the photo is a local pawn shop in my hometown of Łódź. It is one of many small establishments, some of which function on the very edge of law, selling, ahem, 'used' mobile phones, for example (this particular place is all right, but not all of them are). Since almost every wall in the center gets immediately some vandal graffiti, some shops ask local 'painters' to paint the shop for them, and then others leave the façade in peace, because it's considered bad manners to paint over others painting.


What gives it a funny twist is that the graffiti on wall depicts Maria (on the right, which I add just in case...), a character from Grand Theft Auto : Vice City, the game in which player plays as a mafia thug making his way to big money. And yes, pawnshops are something that is very much in scope of the game. Therefore, there's certain irony in it, albeit I doubt if it was a concious decision.

As for the mention on Kotaku, it was me who sent it (that's how I received my account there in the first place), because I didn't have my own webpage to publish it back then. The news even made it to top stories. Personally, I loved the comment "I wonder if they sell hot coffee there?"...

On World of Warcraft and dancing

I haven't played World of Warcraft even once in my life. Why?

I know how easy it is for me to get addicted of something and how many addictions I already have, therefore I try to avoid adding things to that list. For example I don't smoke and I havent ever tried cigarettes. Seeing how addicted to smoking some of my friends have become, how they have lost their sense of smell, how much they pay for their cigarettes and how twitchy they get when they can't smoke - all that made me sure I don't want to go there.

Similarly, I have seen some of my friends get addicted to World of Warcraft in really scary way : after programming for living for ten hours a day they would spend another six or eight playing WoW. Red eyes, lack of sleep, no time for their families - just playing. No wonder they call it World of Warcrack. I have decided not to give it a try in order not to get drawn into this beautiful world. I have watched movies from the game, enjoyed tales and machinimas, ambiance and whatnot, but I didn't dare to risk losing yet another chunk of my life to another computer game addiction.

Nevertheless, I have recently seen a great movie on Kotaku showing different races' dances and their original source material. The way in which the movie was composed is simply great and I can't help but to present it here too :

And seeing this video made me think about a machinima called "Not Just Another Love Story" that I have seen long ago, also revolving around the theme of dance (amongst other things, ahem, ahem). The part I have in mind starts at 5:30 and continues to the very end of the first part. It is a depiction of a disco, where all World of Warcraft races are dancing together. The whole movie is great (you can download it from here), unfortunately also a little long. Still, I recommend seeing the aforementioned dancing fragment - it is hilarious and the atmosphere of heavy party is somehow well conveyed (look at all the pretty lights;). Plus I dig both the music and of course the beautiful Elvish girls, so...

If you're very impatient, you may go straight to the second part of the video and there is a similar scene there at the very beginning (in fact it is the same scene, continued), albeit not as good as near the ending of the first part. If you don't get the final message of the video, don't worry - I didn't either. It is explained here.

Don't these movies make you want to go out and shake your hips a little?

PS. Oh, and don't even get me started on World of Whorecraft...

UBUNTU - Good versus Evil

Brothers and sisters, I have to admit that what I saw today made me lose my speech for a couple of seconds. And this doesn't happen that often.

I think that if you are visiting my blog from time to time, there is high chance that you know what Ubuntu is (if not, please read more about it here - essentially it is very user-friendly free operating system). As with many programs and systems following the Open-source and Free Software philosophy, Ubuntu comes in different flavours - because everyone is free to take it and modify it.


So, last year I became aware that there is a Christian variant of Ubuntu. I am a practising catholic, but it made me raise my brow a little ("How do you make an operating system Christian?").

Nevertheless, since it is essentially a version with added Bible study tool and content control software (not to mention nice light theme), I decided it was okay in my book. No crosses on the wallpapers, nothing that would ridicule the idea - I judged it a reasonable project.

However, there are people who didn't like the idea. Not sure why, but apparently they felt it is necessary to bring back balance to the galaxy, therefore they created... a satanic counterpart. I kid you not: Ubuntu - Satanic Edition.


Basically, it is just a collection of themes, wallpapers and screensavers (have a look at their screenshots gallery). No special program to optimise sacrificing virgins and desecrating churches whatsoever. I find it pretty amusing overall, but the idea itself surprised me at first.

As for others' reactions, Mark Shuttleworth (the main man behind Ubuntu) commented that "Ubuntu is a broad church", other nice comments involved waiting for Jehova's Witness version and my personal favourite "If you gaze long enough into the distro, eventually the distro gazes back at you".

And so the battle for our souls continues in digital plane as well.