Normally this is the space where I get to say whatever random verbal ordure pops into my head to either giggles or confused shuffling, but today I want to highlight a recent news article that is easily more entertaining than anything I could fabricate. Here's a quote from Boing Boing:
The Daily Telegraph reports on a bizarre case in which a man staying at a hostel was surprised by workers with a master key, having sex with a bicycle. He has been placed on the sex offenders register, despite apparently indulging in his practices in private with an inanimate object.
Yup. He was banging a bicycle (or bicicleta for our shockingly large Spanish audience). Some of you automatically recoiled in disgust at the idea of anything not specifically human-wang-on-human-cooter, but I'm a bit more open minded than that. I've been exposed to some very interesting women in my time, and as a result I've come to expect deviance from people -- that people can and will sexualize anything, given enough time and the proper resources. Googling "sex with bicycle" gives you 1.35 million results, so obviously it isn't as bizarre as all of you out there in Internet land are imagining.
The only real question is, what part of the bike do you f*^&? Those spokes can't be too friendly, and despite the oil, that chain probably pinches horrifically.
This is much less interesting than that bike thing up there, but games were also played this week:
Chad Concelmo:
Great week is great! Actraiser, Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords, Ninja Gaiden, Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure, Phantasmagoria, and Beautiful Katamari. Phew!
Hamza "CTZ" Aziz:
I played TimeShift on the PS3, Unreal Tournament 3 on the PS3 and I just got Dementium: The Ward this afternoon that I can't wait to waste my entire Saturday on.
Dyson:
Hooray me!! I finally finished BioShock, and I'm damn glad I did. I kinda pussed out and saved all the Little Sisters, but I've alway been a sucker for small girls that leech Adam from their eye sockets. Also, I spent many a night playing BUY THIS GAME. Or, as the rest of the world that isn't Reverend Anthony calls it, Zack & Wiki.
Seriously, folks, heed the warning and get this game as soon as you can. No joke.
Gameboi:
I've been playing Burnout: Revenge and reminding myself just how great the Burnout games are. As far as I'm concerned, they set the standard for fun. Gran Turismo? Forza? You'll have to settle for second and third place.
Tristero:
I finished both BioShock and Portal this week. The cake might be a lie ... but all the hype these games have been getting is well deserved. I usually don't do the whole FPS thing, but both these games really opened my eyes to the beautiful creative possibilities of the genre. Sort of like when I first heard Patsy Cline and realized that not all country music sucks.
Magician Lord for NeoGeo was a perfect Halloween download for the VC and I've also moved onto Zack & Wiki, which is so much more fun to play with a best friend helping you along. What a great year for games! Is everyone else as happy as me?
Jim Sterling:
Having never been a real big PC gamer, I confessed on the last Podtoid that I'd never fully played Half-Life before. This week was spent rectifying that situation. My advice though, is to never play critically acclaimed FPS games from 1998, because you will have a horrible, horrible time ... and then there was so much God damned platforming.
Still, I couldn't resist finally ordering The Orange Box now that I have the requisite background knowledge (although, considering my HL copy had a game breaking glitch near the very end, I should have just went to Youtube first and saved myself the grief). Expect to see me rocking some Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2 and of course, Portal, in the near future.
Orcist:
Don't worry Jim -- my PC is actually an abacus, and I've never played Half-Life either. What I am playing, however, is Sam and Max Season 2, Episode 1, mercifully shortened to Sam and Max 201. Aside from that, I'm still getting my daily Puzzle Quest fix, a little Phantom Hourglass, and Killer 7.
Nick Chester:
Pretty busy week, leading up to some pretty busy months. I've been spending a lot of time with the slim PSP, and I'm digging it -- Castlevania X and Lumines (one and two!) made my recent flight out to San Francisco manageable. Why was I in San Francisco? To see Husky, Hamza, and .tiff! Oh, and the Unreal Tournament 3 launch party, of course! I spent the evening playing a "near final" (it was done) build of Unreal Tournament 3 for the PS3, and the next morning, I spent enough time with the PC version's single-player campaign to get motion sickness.
I've also been playing Flatout (Xbox 360), which is surprisingly good; Guitar Hero III (360); and as soon as I buy a new power adapter for my Nintendo DS, I'm going to crack open this copy of Dementium: The Ward I just got.
Busy holidays are busy.
Colette Bennett:
Wow, here comes my list: Beautiful Katamari, Folklore, Dementium: The Ward, Megaman Advent, Puzzle Quest, Zack & Wiki, Phoenix Wright. Whew!
Nex:
Being an international celebrity, champion-level luchador and strikingly talented geneticist doesn't pay nearly as well as you'd think, which is why I've been so damn poor recently. As a result, I spent my time this last week locked inside my apartment playing Guitar Hero Eye-Eye-Eye, and Virtua Fighter 5 Online.
Guitar Hero III is easily the best rhythm game in existence currently, and though I have no doubt Rock Band will be stunning, it has a lot to live up to just based on the thing's soundtrack. If MTV's contribution means we get original recordings on 90% of those tracks, I might have to start watching The Hills, and figure out who the fuck Chris Brown is.
And of course, I took a few hours out of my busy schedule to let Dexter345 and Astro Bear (recently promoted to Astro Bastard) kick me repeatedly in the junk via Bomberman Live.
Leigh Alexander:
I've got quite a queue going, too. This week, it was Zack & Wiki, Portal of Ruin, and Phantom Hourglass, and I'm about to crack open Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles, too. I'd say something clever about it, but I'm approaching death from exhaustion at the moment and would rather use my last words to pen my secret alchemical recipe for the Philosopher's Stone, which I finally invented.
BlindsideDork:
I have been sinking my stylus into Dementium: The Ward little by little and I am in love! Team Fortress 2 is pissing me off with its constant lag AFTER this update that supposedly "fixed" the problem.
Dick McVengeance:
Blasted through Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles, as you all know, and now I'm putting my nose to the grindstone with Disgaea for PSP. I really want to give my PS3 some more love, but as soon as I turn it on, I'm going to have to play Dynasty Warriors Gundam. So, you can understand my hesitation. Does someone want to give me a fun game, perhaps?
Ron Workman:
Turtle Head for the PSP, Kids Gyno visit for the Wii, Amateur Boy Tourture for the BS3, and Kat Fancy for the 360. Dyson punched my mom in the stomach for 5 bucks one time. And I have also been everything for the 360. Katamari, Ace Combat 6, tons of XBLA as usual and 99 nights like there was no tomorrow. I just can't get away from it.
David Houghton:
It's still all about Valve for me at the moment. Having got myself joyfully fully up to date with the latest of Half-Life 2 over the last couple of weeks and completed Portal (best end theme ever, and best game script in bloody ages) I'm preparing to take the plunge with Team Fortress 2. I'm also playing a hell of a lot of Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, nearly daily in fact. Steam account name is Davestructoid if you want to give me an add.
Faith:
This week I played Front Mission, Brain Age and The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for the DS. I also played My Sims for the Wii. I love this game. It's so cute.
Topher Cantler:
I started poking at Dementium: The Ward and Flash Focus for DS when I wasn't playing Super Puzzle Fighter, Mutant Storm Empire, or The Darkness. No, I hadn't played The Darkness yet. I don't know why! Stop yelling at me!
Grim:
Guitar Hero III, Halo 3, and Mutant Storm Empire on XBLA. I also picked up Wartech: Senko no Ronde and instantly fell in love with it. I can't help but wish that more shmup/fighter hybrid games were, you know, actually created.
Dale North:
Like Dyson and Tristero, I recently finished BioShock and was quite pleased. Finishing any FPS is no small feat for one who normally gravitates towards RPGs. Speaking of RPGs, I'm still knee-deep in Persona 3 . It's like I'm in a trance -- I'm loving it, savoring it, and I don't want it to end.
What did you guys play this week? Other than "let's see how utterly retarded we can make the cblogs look?" Yes, we're all very impressed at how many Internet memes you know and how tightly you cling to the idea that your thoughts and ideas are somehow more important than those of the next anonymous face on the 'net. It's quaint, in a "1994" sort of way, and almost as impressive as all those virtual pissing contests Darwin would have attributed to some kind of mating display a hundred years ago, save for the dearth of actual women on the Internet. As such, he'd be forced to sadly scratch his beard, wistfully wonder how the mating display became so perverted as to have become a ritual solely reserved for teenage boys to show off to one another, and ponder how long it will be before you kids start showing off your red, engorged asses to each other in the hopes of winning a prized mate.
Contest:
2:37 PM on 11.04.2007
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Beat Mega Man ZX Advent a couple of times in order to unlock 8-Bit Mega Man. Still have to beat it on expert to unlock the final part of the 8-Bit stage.
Beat Castlevania: Rondo of Blood on the PSP a few times to unlock the SotN, the original Rondo, and Rondo Pekke, plus Maria and all that other stuff.
Been playing Zack and Wiki or Mecury Meltdown Revolution whenever my significant other isn't watching TV. Up to the third level in Z&W. It's pretty awesome, but if you need action in your games, stay clear from this one.
Also played through the first two cases of the new Phoenix Wright. Funniest writing in the series so far. The first case alone is worth the price of the game. But like Z&W, if you need action in your gaming, do not buy.
Yes i know, I'm a GH junkie =/.
Original War. That's basically it, that game is so goddamn addictive. I have been playing PC demos as well, the Unreal 3 demo.
Also...
"Yes, we're all very impressed at how many Internet memes you know and how tightly you cling to the idea that your thoughts and ideas are somehow more important than those of the next anonymous face on the 'net."
Well put.
oh and my daily 2 hour play of Jump! Ultimate Stars
Apart from that, I've been trying to unlock more stuff in Lego Star Wars II, since I stopped playing it at 59% a while ago. It's still an awesome game.
Oraaaaange Box!
Finally finishing up Phantom Hourglass and trying to get motivated enough to finish Bioshock finally (especially with more and more fellow procrastinators seeing the end), and I also restarted HL2 so I can play the episodes and not be in a complete haze as far as the plot is concerned.
This is the 4th time I've started the game - all other attempts were marred my hardware upgrades or system crashes. Hooraay!
next up: the shadowed-by-Persona 3 Wild Arms 5 and overlooked bargain bin Wartech! also birthday alcoholism.
Lots and lots and lots of Zack and Wiki. I was so lucky to accidentally solve one of the puzzles, i was really stumped.+
And you lots have motivated me to finally finish Bioshock. I had almost finished it when my flatmate deleted my savegame by accident.
Oh and Puzzle Quest ... i NEED more mana, it's like a drug.
my LoWL moment of this post..
I'm currently waiting for the blue dragon demo to redownload cause i decided i wanted to give it another chance.. otherwise i am joyfully rolling shit up via that gorgeous katamari.. mmm well worth the wait in my opinion..
As for me, I’m stuck on Tenacious D’s “The Metal” in Guitar Hero III...I love The D and I love the song, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t a bitch and a half to play (stupid same tough riff over and over and over again — my quickly-cramping fingers couldn’t move that fast!). I really have no hope of actually beating the game on Expert, anyway...I took one look at “Raining Blood” on a friend’s game and said, “Yeah...that’s not happening.” Perhaps I should just give up and go back to R&C ...