PASADENA, Calif. — After eight long years, the wait for a second Trump Presidency is finally over. But as the Commander-in-chief eases his way into the most powerful position in American politics, eagle-eyed Trump fans have noticed the 78 year old man is still drifting forward, a defect that was expected to be fixed in this second iteration.
“Look at this tilt!” says MAGA supporter, Turk Mendelsen, holding a protractor up to a recent image of Trump meeting with California Governor Gavin Newsom. “That’s a 15 degree tilt. Now compare that to this image of Trump in 2017 giving a totally hinged press conference on the White House lawn. It’s the exact same bias! This was supposed to be a new and improved presidency, not the exact same. Who could have seen this coming?”
This noticeable drift isn’t the only abnormality Americans expected to be fixed in the four years since Trump was last in office. A major complaint regarding Trump’s first term was the amount of time he actually spent in office, an issue that seems to have had no influence on Trump’s first week of his second term.
“President Trump signed over 100 executive orders on day one,” says White House Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles. “And to him that accounts for 100 days in office, so naturally he’ll be spending the next three months on the golf course.”
Disappointed Republicans are still giving Trump the benefit of the doubt, while Democrats lament any thoughts they had that this next gen administration would be any different.
“You can’t just slap a coat of black paint on a MAGA hat and sell it to us for $500!” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told viewers during a white wine fueled rant on Instagram live. “And the magnets! Give me a break about magnets, it’s literally the least they could’ve done.”
At press time, under Joe Rogan’s advice President Trump has begun applying WD-40 to his hips and knees in an attempt to fix his drifting.
BERLIN — Emphasizing that it supports peace, love, unity, and respect, the drug ketamine has publicly distanced itself from Elon Musk, a well known user of the substance, sources confirmed.
“I do not agree with the politics of Elon or condone his recent erratic behavior. In fact, I consider him a danger to our country and its health,” said the horse tranquilizer commonly taken at raves, noting that Elon’s rhetoric and actions in the past few months were “unrelated to his use of me.”
“Some forms of myself are literally FDA approved now. Sure, I’ve made my fair share of mistakes, but that doesn’t make me inherently bad. Elon’s X, on the other hand, is completely toxic and unregulated. If you ask me, we should make that addictive scourge a Schedule III drug and bump me down a few levels.”
Fans of the drug were eager to back up ketamine’s statement.
“I’ve been with K a long time,” said Randall Landry, 36. “I can’t think of a single time I saw it with Elon. I would definitely remember something like that. It’s not something you’d easily forget, like what you had for lunch today, or the name of the person you’re dancing with, or how you got back home from the afters you were at.”
One Musk biographer disagreed with ketamine’s argument.
“We can see a distinct change in Elon’s behavior that started precisely when he began taking therapeutic doses of ketamine,” said Andrew Saxon, author of “K-Hole to Mars: South Africa’s Greatest Genius.” “He’s always been among the smartest individuals ever born, as evidenced by his brilliant idea of forcing Tesla to add his name to the list of founders despite the fact that all he did was invest some of his Paypal buyout long after the company was created.”
“Ketamine helped open his third eye, allowing him to see that he, the richest man in the history of the planet, was actually being unjustly oppressed by disenfranchised and vulnerable minorities. Without Special K, Elon may never have turned his attention away from fighting climate change and towards defeating the woke mind virus. The world should be grateful for ketamine’s contributions to the nascent Terran Empire.”
At press time, cocaine released a statement enthusiastically endorsing its “good friend” Donald Trump, Jr.
PHILADELPHIA — A new report has found that your roommate, who recently played and thoroughly enjoyed the indie puzzle game “Return of the Obra Dinn,” is also quite fond of filing his federal, state and local taxes once April rolls around.
“Solving the identities of all these various crew members and logging them down in the game’s notebook gives me the exact same kind of rush as logging onto H&R Block’s website and submitting my W-2 and 1099 forms,” your roommate, Jake Hughes, said in a statement. “Everything in order, in its right place, submitted and accounted for. Who knew gaming could be this much fun?”
Lucas Pope, creator of “Return of the Obra Dinn,” confirmed to the press that the game was made specifically for people like Jake.
“After the success of my first major game, ‘Papers, Please,’ which was considered the world’s first ‘immigration-themed’ video game, I really wanted to continue exploring the ‘writing things down and filing them’ genre, which I felt there was a lot of potential in.” said Pope. “It’s a bit like doing your taxes, another activity I get a lot of fulfillment and enjoyment out of, and know a lot of other people do too. Writing things down, organizing information into categories, identifying people – what a rush! In order to suck in other people who might be disinterested by that at first, I disguised the tax-esque gameplay with a swashbuckling story about kraken, murder and mutiny. But all of that comes second, in my mind.”
In speaking with a representative from the IRS, he offered his appreciation of the game and its fans, like your roommate.
“Oh, Jake? Yeah, I love that guy. I think he beat ‘Return of the Obra Dinn’ like three separate times.” IRS agent Dave Binder told reporters. “We find that the further people get through ‘Return of the Obra Dinn’, the better they are at filing their taxes correctly. Those who get the true ending, revealing the fates of the final crew members, are always timely with their submissions, too, while those who gave up 75% of the way through typically go to jail.”
At press time, your roommate was observed scribbling down notes in his little notepad on the couch as he crossed off possible identities of crew members in-game, getting visibly excited as he turned a new page.
With executive orders dropping faster than a SpaceX vehicle after “rapid unscheduled disassembly”, it isn’t long before we’ll begin to see games being banned. Already, some measures taken by President Trump could be interpreted as laying the groundwork to ban a few notable games. In other cases, doom is all but assured based on comments made by either Trump himself, or those in his cabinet. You may want to play some of these before they’re gone.
20. Plague Inc: Evolved
With federal health agencies putting a pause on all communication, the Trump Administration may be signaling further steps toward eliminating vaccines. Secretary of Health and Human Services and roadkill enthusiast Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long been a vaccine skeptic, so a game about epidemiology and vaccines might not sit well with him. We tried to reach Kennedy for comment, but when the reporter we sent returned, she wouldn’t show us her phone.
19. Alan Wake
While the game finally got a sequel after thirteen years, the Alan Wake franchise may be an early casualty in the President’s War On Woke. If Wake is woke then he might as well stay in the lake. Maybe in another thirteen years, Alan.
18. The Insomniac Spider-Man games
The game series that has featured Pride flags, the historic Stonewall Inn, and queer relationships might seem like it’s on the danger list for those things alone, but sources tell us it’s actually because neither game featured Trump Tower. The second largest building in downtown Manhattan [citation needed].
17. Hitman
Agent 47 should find an exit soon, because his assassination days may be coming to an end. It’s not the violence, suggestive themes, or drug use in the game that will be its undoing, rather President Trump has pardoned all of Agent 47’s targets.
16. Fortnite and Epic Games
Unfortunately for Fortnite players, 35% of Epic Games is owned by Chinese company Tencent, and as we learned from the TikTok fiasco, Chinese companies having access to the data of children is a big no-no. Additionally, Tencent was recently added to a watchlist of companies allegedly working with China’s military. It’s only a matter of time before they and Epic Games are forced to stop operations in the United States.
Update: We’ve been told Tencent having access to user metrics and credit card data is perfectly acceptable. When asked what the difference is between them and TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, the source declined to comment.
15. Bad Dudes
Bad news, bad dudes, bad dudettes, and non-dudenary badasses, President Trump doesn’t like the insinuation that he could easily be kidnapped by ninjas. It’s a shame to see all of those jobs lost in the Bad Dudes sector, but if the President thinks he’s got it covered, he must have it covered.
14. Cities: Skylines
We aren’t sure what’s so objectionable about these games, we just know President Trump went on a lengthy tirade when he saw the above screenshot.
13. Elden Ring
A White House memo only read, “Who has a terrible build now, fucking nerds? DOGE 4 LYFE!”
12. Who’s Your Daddy?
A game promoting stay at home dads, non-traditional gender roles, and alternative parenting is sure to be the target of an overreaching executive order. You can’t just have a game about a dad leaving an unattended baby on the stovetop or force-feeding them fruit when they’ve gotten into the cleaning supplies – that’s women’s work.
11. Luigi’s Mansion series
In the interest of protecting the nation’s CEOs, Trump will probably sign an executive order stripping Luigi of all of his assets. Such a pity – many people were hoping 2025 would be the Year of Luigi.
10. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
This one is a little confusing, but the White House seems to be looking to have Phoenix Wright and Apollo Justice disbarred and prosecuted for their part in “sham trials”. Maybe President Trump believes Wright and Justice were part of President Biden’s DOJ or defended Hunter Biden? The executive order also refers to Athena Cykes as a “nasty woman”.
9. Bloodborne
Again, not much objection to the actual content of the game or any alleged “wokeness”. White House aides only said Trump was looking to “eliminate bloodbornes (sic) with an injection of ultraviolet light and bleach”.
8. The Legend of Zelda series
Likely to be banned once Trump learns about Wallmasters and assumes the games are poking fun at him. He’ll then sign the executive order with his tiny, tiny hands.
7. Social Justice Warriors
The reason for this game being banned may seem obvious at first, but it’s actually because it contains an outdated reference to Twitter’s original 140 character limit. If that’s patched to 240 characters, it might get a pass. Though, the only people playing it will be bots.
6. Subnautica
With so many billionaires in charge of the country now, they probably don’t want to be reminded of submarines or being underwater.
5. Transformers series
There has been a long debate over whether robots in the Transformers franchise even have a concept of gender. While the recent executive order on government-recognized genders could settle that debate, it’s likely any games in this franchise would be banned simply for having the word “trans” in the title.
Well, they would if Transformers: Reactivate hadn’t been canceled and nearly every other game in the history of the brand had been delisted because of licensing rights.
4. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
Republicans probably don’t want us looking too closely at what Ronald Reagan got up to during his presidency. Then again, we’re well past the point where anyone in America has even the slightest amount of shame. Just look at number 2 on this list.
Hehe, “number 2.”
3. Super Lesbian Animal RPG
From transgender characters to lesbians to furries to women having any sort of agency or worth, this cute RPG is destined for a badly scribbled executive order. Heck, the ones already signed pretty much eliminate it.
2. Any game with couch co-op
According to the White House press release, Vice President J.D. Vance is a man of traditional values and would never engage in or promote a threesome.
Okay, I fully admit I’m in the wrong here, but there’s just been a lot going on lately and I needed a way to release tension. You can understand that, right? I’m not a bad person, and I’m willing to face the consequences of my actions. It’s just that, if I’m being completely honest, it’s kind of ridiculous that the Raccoon City Police would even bother to cite me for public masturbation.
You get where I’m coming from?
Look, I’m not making excuses. Ultimately, this is nobody’s fault but mine. It was a stupid mistake, and absolutely not something I would have done had I known there were sentient beings outside the Carnegie Love Delicatessen where I ultimately got caught. I mean, I’m not a pervert. Go ahead and check my record. I’ve never so much as received a parking ticket before, and I volunteer at the Raccoon City Public Library on Sundays.
Er, at least, I used to volunteer at the library.
How was I supposed to know there would be a huge, fiery accident involving an eighteen-wheeler and a cop car right where I happened to be masturbating? It’s a wonder I wasn’t hurt, and frankly, the officer who cited me should have checked me for injuries (or at least offered me a green herb) before issuing the ticket for indecent exposure and public lewdness. He may have been “doing me a favor” by not locking me up for the night (his words, not mine), but I truly think he just had his hands full with all these zombies stumbling around.
Also, $620?! That’s insane. And where am I even supposed to surrender myself with payment? I can’t imagine anyone is still working at the precinct, and anyway, that place is an incomprehensible nightmare labyrinth. I’ll be lucky if I make it to the front desk, let alone find the appropriate department. This is a disaster. If I wasn’t such an upstanding citizen (which we’ve established is the case 99.9% of the time), I’d just skip town and let the matter settle itself.
I’m not going to do that, though. Looks like I’ll just take it on the chin and accept my punishment. I still maintain that the city authorities have bigger fish to fry than an anxious man masturbating in public, and this Officer Kennedy (if the name adorning the top of my citation is to be believed) should get his priorities in order if he’s looking to restore law and order to this city. I certainly hope he gets his act together once this T-virus thing blows over.
Also, and this is clearly the last thing I should be focusing on right now, but I didn’t get to finish. I know, I know, but you have no idea how close I was right before I was nearly decapitated by that crash. I’m going to sneak into the Kendo Gun shop nearby to take care of business. Hopefully there’s nobody in there.
WASHINGTON — The Senate’s Health Secretary confirmation hearing for RFK Jr. hit a snag after it was revealed that he willingly allowed himself to be infected with the Las Plagas parasite while in Eastern Europe, congressional sources have confirmed.
“So there I was in rural Spain about to chow down on this dead wolf I found in a bear trap when suddenly I was carried off by these guys from a local men’s group called Los Illuminados. It was quite frightening until they told me I was going to be infected with a mind controlling parasite under the watchful eye of this fellow Saddler. Having hosted a parasite or two in my time, it actually sounded like a sweet deal,” said Kennedy. “I mean look at these guys! They’re super jacked, eat a healthy raw meat diet, and are staunchly anti-vax. Plus the promise of ascending to a new level of human evolution unlike the world has seen wasn’t too shabby either. Aside from my veins turning black, I feel pretty good.”
Senators on the confirmation panel were hesitant about Kennedy’s willingness to incubate a deadly parasite.
“While we appreciated Mr. Kennedy’s candor, that he would accept an otherwise unknown ancient insect to his body without thinking of any adverse effects is troubling considering he is being considered to oversee the nation’s public health. Plus the hearing is dragging out longer than it needs due to him constantly interrupting our questions by screaming random Spanish phrases,” said Senator Mike Crapo. “On the other hand, this ‘Lord Saddler’ who apparently controls the parasite, sounds like a strong leader with an aggressively loyal following, which is exactly what we need here in Washington. It’s unconventional, but he could be an agent of change.”
Los Illuminados leader Osmund Saddler was still surprised by how easy his plan to take over the world was unfolding.
“I knew humans were feeble, but this feels almost too good to be true. But he didn’t look all that right in the head anyway, and was far more receptive of our gift than that other Kennedy. And to think we built a whole fortress and amassed an army in case there’d be retaliation! Looks like I won’t have to recruit Pete Hegseth after all,” said Saddler. “At least Los Plagas took to him nicely. Our attempts to infect President Trump’s sons ended with the parasites dying within minutes.”
As of press time, Kennedy was confirmed in a 51-49 vote, despite a blade whipping parasite exploding out of his head during the confirmation hearing.
PITTSBURGH — End of year assessments at local engineering firm Riverhead Technologies have spilled into the new year, with ample ammo and health power-ups still available in the small antechamber outside of the big boss’s office, sources confirm.
“It’s not a boss fight, it’s a boss discussion,” said Alexis Hamilton, head of the company’s human resources department. “The big boss is expected to meet with every employee individually to assess their strengths and contributions to the company. Hoping to foster a fair and balanced environment, he has stocked his waiting room with different ammo types, as well as health and mana potions.”
Riverhead’s personnel have prepared for this encounter by running through rounds of pseudo-meetings against phantom versions of the big boss.
“I’ve been grinding experience for the past two months,” said Colin Herby from accounting. “I’ve seen good friends and colleagues lose this final boss fight, getting laid off as a result, so I’m bringing my A-game and packing my inventory full of regeneration potions and attack modifiers. I can kind of hear the battle theme from my desk, and it’s got me pumped.”
Longer-tenured employees revealed that the assessment consisted of multiple rounds, each of which has a faster, more intense musical score.
“I got to phase two last year but failed to predict the big boss’s new, advanced moveset,” said Kelly Montigue, a senior marketing manager. “Luckily I cashed in my corporate coins—which they gave us in lieu of a raise—on an extra life. By that point, I had memorized his attack pattern: compliment sandwich, invoice audits, then a ranged aerial attack. I finally cleared it and walked away with a gift basket full of pens, reusable water bottles, and a prestige token.”
At press time, the big boss’s assistant urges anyone waiting for their review to save their progress before entering the arena.
I didn’t intend for this to happen, but the first game I played from 2025 was about rich folks getting a lot of working-class people killed. It feels right.
As I’ve talked about before, indie revivals of “classic” survival horror are a dime a dozen, particularly on Steam. The worst of them play like their creators have never experienced any form of media besides old survival horror games, while the best – Signalis,Crow Country – manage to feel new despite their obvious inspirations.
Dead of Darkness, by solo German developer Markus Neuert, is somewhere closer to the top end of the scale. It initially comes off as a fan-made pixel “demake” of the original Resident Evil games, especially since you spend the first hour hunting for themed keys in a suspiciously familiar country mansion. I almost wrote it off as a simple imitation.
Once I escaped from the first area, DoD got more interesting. The map opens up, you start fighting some uniquely disturbing monsters, and the plot deepens, switching from a standard zombie thriller to a Lovecraftian family drama. (The basic premise, once you know more about it, would make for a hell of a Delta Green campaign.) At the same time, DoD never loses sight of its survival horror roots, which works both for and against it.
In 1985 England, private investigator Miles Windham receives a strange message from a doctor named Charles Graham. If Miles comes to Charles’ family home, Charles can provide Miles with new information about the suspicious accident that killed Miles’ daughter several years ago.
The Grahams’ estate is on the isolated Velvet Island in the Celtic Sea, where the family operates a private clinic. Miles arrives the next day, alongside a newly hired nurse named Olivia Greene, to discover that Charles is missing. Before Miles can investigate further, the estate is attacked by a horde of ghouls. Miles and Olivia are forced to fight for their lives, save who they can, and along the way, discover the secrets of Velvet Island.
If you’ve ever played an old-school survival horror game, you’ll be on comfortable ground with DoD from the start. It’s a top-down 2D shooter with sharply limited resources, so you have to pick your battles carefully. Even your knife eventually gets dull and has to be resharpened.
One of DoD’s big additions to the overall formula, since Miles is a detective, is an enhanced vision mode that highlights every interactive object around him. That lets you efficiently sweep an area for resources, files, and flavor text, including those that you might not otherwise think to check.
Miles also keeps track of specific information like keycodes in a Clues tab in your inventory screen, which you can combine with key items or use on objects in your environment. It’s not used as often as I’d like over the course of the game, but it adds some clever detail to what would otherwise be simple tab-A-into-slot-B puzzle mechanics.
The combat and inventory management aren’t as refined, as they’ve been ported straight across from the old ‘90s survival horror formula. You can’t shoot or reload while moving, so Miles is basically a mobile turret emplacement. Most of DoD’s combat is a matter of managing space, so you’ve got room to kill enemies before they can reach you.
You only have 8 inventory slots throughout the game, half of which you’ll usually have to devote to your weapons and ammunition. On your first run through DoD, you’ll end up doing a lot of relay races between your current objective and the closest item box.
In addition, many enemies and traps can inflict a variety of temporary status effects like poison, bleeding, or shock, each of which requires a separate, specific item to cure. In practice, it’s easier to just reload a save or wait out a status effect than actually bother to carry the right medical supplies. It’s the same kind of inventory micromanagement that was obnoxious in Signalis, let alone the first couple of Resident Evil games, and it hasn’t gotten any better since then.
You run into this sort of problem with many faux-retro survival horror games. They’ve deliberately carried forward some of the jank that characterized the genre in the ‘90s, despite 30 years of quality-of-life improvements, and you have to be comfortable with that in order to enjoy the experience.
DoD’s overall presentation is a harder pill to swallow, though. It’s got a lot going for it as a horror game, like some impressive monster design, a couple of good scares, a talented cast of voice actors, and a knack for environmental storytelling.
The problem is the graphics. DoD is good at communicating useful information at a glance, which is an underrated skill in game design, but the simplicity of its character design often works against the mood it’s trying to build. Every human character looks like a recycled sprite from Super Dodge Ball, which can’t help but remind me of 2000s-era webcomics. Some scenes are just as disturbing as they’re meant to be, particularly the special animations that play whenever Miles dies, but I still found myself laughing at the wrong times.
I’ve got my issues with Dead of Darkness, but there’s just as much good as bad here. It’s challenging, ambitious, and well-written. The game ends on a blatant sequel hook, and there’s enough potential in both the design and setting that I’d be genuinely interested in seeing what Neuert could do with a follow-up. If he and his team get the chance to refine their approach, especially with more elaborate sprites, this could be the start of a solid horror franchise.
[Dead of Darkness, published and developed by Retrofiction Games, is now available for PlayStation 4&5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Steam for $15.99. This column was written using a Steam code sent to Hard Drive by Retrofiction Games.]
PACIFIC OCEAN— Video game protagonist Ecco the Dolphin had his adventure cut short when he found himself snagged in a tuna net, sources report.
“I had just sent Ecco off to the sunken ruins of Atlantis to retrieve the orbs I need to aid him on his quest, and he just disappeared above the water’s surface,” said the Asterite, an ancient marine life form. “Apparently a boat full of humans accidentally caught him in one of their tuna nets, which really sucks because we need Ecco if we’re going to defeat the Vortex and prevent them from depleting our oceans of their resources. I haven’t even given him the ability to regenerate lost health yet. This is an absolute disaster.”
Fisherman Zeke Barton reacted to the accidental catch.
“While we’re clearly out here to catch tuna, accidents can happen,” Barton admitted. “We sometimes bring up dolphins in our nets by mistake, but this one in particular looks pretty special. Before we brought him to the surface, we could see him swimming with these short bursts of speed and ramming into these gnarly-looking jellyfish. It seemed like he was up to something important. Maybe it has to do with that giant waterspout that occurred earlier. Come to think of it, we haven’t seen any tuna around since that happened. I’d better free him so he can get back in the water and save the ocean.”
Zoologist Kira Corcoran weighed in on the situation.
“Humans are often interfering with the adventures of animal video game characters,” Corcoran mentioned. “I’m always encountering tragic stories in my case studies, such as the time Funky Kong was shot by poachers who had snuck into Donkey Kong Country, as well as when Sonic the Hedgehog was struck by some maniac who had driven his Subaru onto Green Hill Zone. Video games are pretty similar to the world we inhabit, in that everything would be much better if humans weren’t there to tamper with nature.”
At press time, Ecco had been freed from the tuna net, only to be sickened by an oil spill from a nearby tanker.
