A cozy, welcoming apartment in the thriving city of Ashfield. Recently cleaned, enjoy an open-plan kitchen, south-facing windows, and in-unit laundry. A state of the art bathroom features plumbing capable of accommodating the widest of asses. Friendly to rabbits!
Sleep peacefully, knowing you’re kept safe by a state of the art security system. An intricate series of locks, chains, and hallucinogens ensure that no one’s getting out into the real world. Or in. But don’t worry about missing out on the outside world. A high-definition peephole allows you to stay up to date on the horrors afflicting your neighbors.
Member of an artistic profession? Then this place is for you! Find inspiration in gorgeous rust-colored paints and visions of horrors that will eat away at your very soul. Spelunkers, don’t feel like you’re missing out! Enjoy venturing into strange tunnels, with no guarantee which world you’ll end up in!
Steeped in history, Room 302 has seen the birth of famous figures. Enjoy sharing a building with the guy who’s son has some seriously repressed urges. Take comfort in the fact that the recent increase in homicides are merely an outlier.
Only steps away from the subway and hospital, and merely a smooth half-day’s drive from Silent Hill. Don’t miss out on the apartment of a lifetime.
Please include a copy of your ID, proof of employment, blood sample, and six months rent.
SUBCON — Super Mario Bros. 2 boss Birdo experienced a startling revelation regarding her anatomy when she decided to visit a doctor for the first time in decades, sources report.
“Yeah, apparently my eggs should not be coming out of my mouth,” Birdo mentioned. “According to the doctor, that’s what my cloaca is for. I’d always casually wondered if something was wrong with me, especially with how horrified and disgusted Mario and his crew always looked when I would vomit eggs at them in a gravity-defying straight line. I was just always too busy acting as a scourge to the land of Subcon and serving my master Wart to go to the doctor, but I guess I should’ve done this years ago.”
Birdo’s physician Anita Mueller was taken aback by what she saw.
“There is something desperately wrong with that poor dinosaur,” Mueller noted. “I have absolutely no idea how she’s managed to survive for the past 37 years, but I’ve already referred her to Subcon’s leading surgeon for some major reconstructive work. How she wasn’t able to grasp at some primal level that her body was not functioning as it should be is absolutely bewildering. It should have gone against all of her instincts to not only expel her eggs out of the wrong orifice, but to use them as weapons against her enemies.”
Video game biologist Davon Moore weighed in on the situation.
“It’s not uncommon for the genetic malformations of video game characters to go unnoticed,” Moore provided. “Do you think it’s normal for Dixie Kong to have long blond hair, let alone the ability to float by spinning it around so quickly? Or for Geoff Rowley to be able to get back up without injury and continue skating after being run over by a Minneapolis cab driver? I actually commend Birdo for getting herself looked at, even if it did take her so long to get around to it. I’ve always worried about her.”
At press time, Mueller was seen telling Luigi that his legs definitely should not be spasming like that when he jumps in the air.
ITASCA, Ill. — In a stunning one-two punch to nostalgia, Microsoft announced late Wednesday that its long-suffering reboot of the critically acclaimed N64 game Perfect Dark is officially dead, a decision that, in a tragic ripple effect, has forced local eighth-grader Mike Hansen to call off his sleepover scheduled for Friday night.
“I know fans have waited years, but shifting market priorities require us to cancel the Perfect Dark reboot and shut down developer The Initiative as well,” said Craig Duncan, head of Xbox Game Studios from an undisclosed location due to threats to his life. “Accordingly, all scheduled nostalgic basement gatherings attempting to relive the magic of split-screen counter-operative first-person shooter games are likewise deemed out of scope. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause but we will not be offering a refund on any pizza preorders.”
Hansen was, noticeably and understandably, inconsolable.
“It was going to be a vintage game blow out! I got my dad’s N64 out of storage, bought the Perfect Dark expansion pak off eBay, dragged two La-Z-Boys down from the living room, and pre-loaded a Cool Ranch Doritos family bag into a bowl without a lid,” Hansen said, sniffling, after throwing a tantrum and smashing his brand new Switch 2. “Joey was going to bring his dad’s N64 so we could have Perfect Dark on one TV and Goldeneye on the other. I better text Dave and tell him he doesn’t have to lie to his mom and say that he is going to a church lock-in.”
Industry analyst, and longtime LAN-party survivor, Kayla Fremont explained the impact of the cancellation.
“Microsoft underestimates the delicate social ecosystem that ties AAA reboots to suburban semi-finished basements. A Perfect Dark cancellation isn’t just lost revenue,” Fremont explained, after letting her high-school friends know that her own N64 themed party was also called off. “It is the dissolution of the social fabric of in-person gaming culture. Kid’s rarely hang out face-to-face anymore unless it is a special occasion and now they are losing that opportunity.”
At press time, Hansen was reportedly circulating an emergency Plan B group chat for a sleepover focused entirely on a WWF No Mercy in honor of the upcoming SummerSlam. Only Joey has responded with, “I’ll check with my mom.”
Sometimes the games I pick for this column end up having more thematic resonance than I anticipated. This was the perfect week to play something in which I drop a nuclear bomb on multiple unspeakable evils. It was relaxing. Hopeful, in its way.
Starless Abyss is the kind of indie game that, when described, sounds like I made it up as a joke. It’s a pixel-art, cosmic horror, space opera, time-traveling roguelike turn-based strategy deckbuilder with Citizen Sleeper-style dice hoarding. If it had romance options and a dodge roll, Starless Abyss would be the official king of the Steam algorithm.
That paragraph makes it sound like Starless Abyss is a pile of mismatched genre tags posing as a game, but its mechanics eventually click together. The first few minutes did make me feel like I was going crazy, though, which I choose to believe was deliberate.
In the far future, humanity’s attempts to expand into space have drawn the attention of the hostile Outer Gods. Now under attack, mankind has abandoned its few offworld colonies and retreated to Earth. This has only delayed the inevitable. Humanity is doomed. It’s just a question of when the hammer will fall.
The last hope for humanity is a group that has mixed occult research with high technology and terrible personal branding. As a dubiously willing operative of “Counter Horror,” you’ve been given an experimental starship and a mission: to destroy the Outer Gods before they reach Earth.
If you’ve been playing any of the indie deckbuilders that have cropped up in the last few years, owing largely to the success of Slay the Spire, some of those skills will transfer to Starless Abyss.
At the start of a new run, you’re given a captain with some unique passive skills, at least one ship, and a small deck of basic attack and defense cards. Your goal is to make it through 3 Acts, fighting a different Outer God at the end of each one, without getting ground to mucilage by a gauntlet of space demons.
Each individual victory rewards you with extra resources, at least one new card, and a number of other potential bonuses, including a collection of dice that you can spend to positively influence certain random encounters. However, your ability to repair your ships mid-Act is deliberately limited, so a narrow victory is almost as bad as an outright defeat.
On top of that, Starless Abyss also requires you to juggle your starships’ individual overheating, which builds with every offensive card you play; keep track of movement, positioning, and lines of sight on a small hex-based grid; and track down powerful Ritual cards that only work once, but provide a game-changing benefit in exchange for a horrible penalty. If other indie deckbuilders are all simple-to-learn, hard-to-master collectible card games, Starless Abyss is one of those enormous board games with cards, dice, and a tiled map where a “simple rules explanation” takes an hour.
In practice, my most successful runs through Starless Abyss have been more about space control than anything else. Minefields and defensive turrets are worth their weight in gold, especially as you reach Act 3 and direct damage rapidly goes out of style. It’s tempting to try to build towards a burst deck where you turn anything that looks at you funny into a cloud of radioactive snot, but my first victory ended up revolving around passive damage and teleportation strategies.
Your mileage may vary, of course. The problem with evaluating games like Starless Abyss is that it takes about 40 hours of play before I can tell whether a problem I’m having is due to my inexperience or is a genuine mechanical flaw.
As an entry-level player, I do feel confident in saying that Starless Abyss is sadistic even by the standards of the genre. It gives you a two- or three-level grace period, but then it starts to hit you with attacks that teleport your ships away from one another or bypass your shields, waves of infinite reinforcements, or bosses that force you to spend your full turn to interrupt their next action. I did manage to secure a win early on, which surprised me, but it turns out your starting captain also has the easiest victory conditions. Every other character is playing a different, much harder game.
Starless Abyss isn’t going to appeal to everyone. It’s a deckbuilder aimed at people who’ve gotten tired of playing other deckbuilders on their hardest difficulty setting. If that doesn’t scare you off, or if you like the idea of a game where the goal is to find Cthulhu and shove a missile through his eye socket, Abyss has enough tactical depth and flexibility to keep you occupied for a few dozen hours. Just go into it expecting some pain.
[Starless Abyss, developed by Konafa Games and published by No More Robots, is now available for PC via Steam for $19.99. This column was written using a code for the game purchased by Hard Drive.]
Happy July 4th! It’s time to celebrate America’s birthday for seemingly the final time. There are a lot of ways one can celebrate America. Fireworks, hot dog eating contests, diabetes and kindergarteners gunned down in finger painting class. While those are all fantastic ways to honor the American way of life, there’s no better way to celebrate everything America is than by committing some war crimes. In video games of course. After all, engaging in very illegal and abhorrent atrocities with absolutely no consequences whatsoever and bragging about how cool it was has been the American way since 1776. So to get into the July 4th spirit, here are the best war crimes you can do in video games.
White Phosphorus – Spec Ops: The Line
Spec Ops: The Line may just be the most accurate military shooter ever made. Not because the gameplay is based on any sort of realism, but because it’s the only one that unequivocally paints your character as the bad guy and tells you to your face that you shouldn’t enjoy playing war crime simulators for fun. Of course on the flip side, playing war crime simulators is the greatest way to show your love for America. So on this July 4th, play Spec Ops: The Line and shoot white phosphorus at the civilians you’re supposedly there to liberate.
Genocide – Uncharted
Is there anything more American than going to a foreign nation and committing mass murder in order to steal their valuables? That tradition is the only thing America kept from the British. It’s not only part of the American way but it also keeps them grounded in their roots. In that regard Nathan Drake really is the All-American Hero of gaming. He’s a charming everyman but he’s also single handedly killed more people both World Wars combined and he does it to inflate his ego and line his pockets. Put him on Mount Rushmore.
Playing – Mario Party
Completely destroying any positive relationship you had with your allies in order to selfishly line your own pockets to the detriment of those around you. Handing out participation awards. Stealing from others with no remorse. Mario Party is the game of American Values.
Unauthorized Nuke – Fallout 3
Nuking a city filled with innocent civilians just as a means to an end. It’s a tough choice that Fallout 3 presents the player with but it stops being tough once you remember that your character is American. Nuking settlements filled with non-combatants in order to further your interests is exactly the kind of principles that modern America was founded on. So on this July 4th, you go ahead and nuke Megaton anddon;t even feel bad about it. Feeling bad about it is un-American.
Blue Shell – Mario Kart Series
It’s like using a nuke but worse.
Various – Call of Duty Series
Here it is. The be-all end-all of war crime simulations. The Call of Duty series. Truthfully I could have made this entire list with just Call of Duty games. From nukes to white phosphorus, there are a dozen war crimes you can do as multiplayer kill streaks alone. That’s before you even get into the campaigns that let you do things like partake in things like illegal torture all the way to the massacre of an entire airport of civilians. Call of Duty is so American that in the Modern Warfare reboot there’s a level that references an actual war crime that the real American Military committed but blames the Russians for it and has you be the hero. You can’t get more American than that. Happy July 4th!
REDMOND, Wash. — Fearsome trash-talker and Halo matchmakingenthusiast Timmy Dobbins has lost a valuable online trump card this week as his father has reportedly lost his job at Microsoft, Dobbins confirmed.
“Okay so I guess Microsoft fired a bunch of people this week, and it looks like my dad might’ve been one of them,” said 12-year-old Timmy. “Which is total bullshit cause, like, my dad worked really hard for them and he was really good at banning all the people who were mean to me in Halo. But also, I’m not even really that worried because my dad still has some really powerful friends at Microsoft who can definitely still ban all these fucking griefers.”
Timmy’s father, Randall Dobbins, expanded upon his responsibilities with the company as well as his feelings on the company’s recent staffing changes.
“Yeah so my main role at Microsoft was to carefully and strategically ban certain accounts that may have been standing in the way of my son reaching Onyx in Halo: Infinite,” said Randall, 43. “The layoff wasn’t really a huge surprise though, they’ve really been cleaning house over there. In our division, we had a saying: ‘Don’t like your job? Just wait a month.’ Come December, Microsoft Gaming will mostly consist of Phil Spencer and whatever poor schmuck is caught neck deep playing Destiny with him. It’s not all bad, though. I was able to secure a severance package of 3 months’ Game Pass Ultimate and a few thousand Spartan Points.”
Fellow Halo lover Michael Diaz was quick to weigh in on how Timmy’s Dad’s employment status could affect his gameplay moving forward.
“I’ve lived in constant fear of Timmy for years,” said Diaz, 26. “If I saw him queue into my lobby, I’d just log out. I was terrified of making even one mistake and getting a perma-ban from Timmy’s dad. Now, I finally feel free. I’m excited to finally rack up kills in Fiesta Slayer in a world free from Timmy’s tyranny, and I know a lot of people feel the same.
At press time, Timmy is getting really into Counter-Strike following his dad’s promising interview at Valve.
GARDEN CITY — The abrupt closure of the Carrington Institute has forced leading agent Joanna “Perfect” Dark to accept a role with the global task force Overwatch.
“I’m not sure what happened,” Dark tells Hard Drive. “It seemed like my next operation was proceeding as normal, but then I was informed by mission control that I wasn’t making ‘lines go up’ quickly enough. Now I’ve got to go do whatever the hell it is Overwatch does. I mean, they’ve got a mission, I know that much, but it seems like all they do over there is shoot at each other by day and star in boutique pornography by night. That can’t be all it is, can it?”
The Carrington Institute, founded by noted lunatic Daniel Carrington, was a private military corporation devoted to undercover operations and hanging out with aliens. Dark, a former bail bondswoman, was its lead agent, specializing in undercover operations.
Despite Carrington’s extensive catalog of espionage technology and its role in the successful resolution of an interstellar war, the company had been in a self-described “lull” for over two decades. Plans to get back on the world stage with the Garden City operation were scuttled by a sudden shareholder revolt on Wednesday that ended with the Institute’s closure.
“We simply expect a greater return on our investment than what we were likely to get out of Carrington,” the board of directors said in a press release. “We expect constant meteoric growth in all avenues forever, and in this bizarre magical bullshit machine we call an economy, it was more profitable to kill the Carrington Institute than let it continue to exist. This is a very cool and normal system.”
This leaves many of the Institute’s researchers and operatives looking for work, which has proven challenging in the current environment.
“My problem is that once you’ve got a Grey alien as a sidekick, you’re too silly for a lot of places,” Dark says. “The ICA turned me down, which stung, but what truly rankled me was when I washed out at the BSAA. I’m sorry that I don’t take steroids or get my teammates killed. I didn’t think I needed those qualifications in order to shoot zombies.”
At press time, the first person to announce a port of Joanna Dark’s character model to Source Filmmaker had been found dead under mysterious yet explicable circumstances.
I am looking for a new home for my 2001 MJOLNIR Mark V Assault Armor (or as you normies call it, Spartan Armor). This set of armor has been good to me, but I do not use it as much as I used to. And if I am being honest, things have gotten tough over at my multi-trillion-dollar company. Every million helps at this point, so that is why I am parting ways with this great armor.
A little more about the armor:
I am not the original owner. I would borrow this set from a guy I knew in the early 2000s. I do not know where he is now, but I have heard he went crazy, stole some art, and is not doing much better than me. I thankfully bought this while he was still of sound mind.
I have done everything in the armor. I fought the Covenant, fought the flood, fought the forerunners, fought the Covenant again, fought the Didact, fought the Covenant again, fought other Spartans, and fought the Covenant again. I say all that to say, there is some light wear and tear that is just bound to happen when you are prone to “finish the fight.”
The last few years, I have lent the armor out to this weird gentleman. He very much loves and takes safe care of it when he has it, but he would request to do the strangest things in the armor. Things that I could not allow him to do in my armor. He thankfully listens to my directions, except for this one time when he added grapple hooks to the suit without telling me. Even weirder, he recently changed his name, to sound like more of an expert with MY ARMOR. Needless to say, I have parted ways with this gentleman and the suit has been thoroughly cleaned.
Times are tough here. I cannot say what company I work for, but I promise you, you have yelled at one of our products for not working properly. This set of armor has been good to me, but it reminds me of better days. Days when I would wear the armor and explore new capital ventures. I look around this room now and I see all these things I have acquired over the years, just sitting here. None of it makes me happy. But what makes me unhappier is seeing this set of armor empty. It needs a loving home.
VIRIDIAN CITY — New Leader of the Viridian City Gym Barry is looking to put the rumors to rest. Ever since he reopened the gym with his new lineup of only Lickitung, some questions have been raised among the locals. Is it a kink thing?
“We’re not judging, it’d just be nice to know. I mean every so often kids will go in there to battle. If it’s a kink thing I think we should put up some signs or something, just so everyone knows” Said concerned Mother Grace. “Again he can do whatever he wants in the privacy of his own gym, we just don’t want anyone to wander in there unprepared”
Gym Leader Barry insists there is nothing nefarious going on within his gym.
“Do you think I set off to do this? After I got my third Lickitung I knew people were going to start making assumptions. But they’re genuinely amazing creatures and our record speaks for itself. Since we’ve moved in, not a single trainer has moved on. The local economy is booming. It’s my belief that anyone who thinks I am doing anything inappropriate with my team, only thinks so because they themselves have some sick desires they desperately need to address.”
Other members of the community are less willing to hear Barry’s side of things.
“More than anything it’s the smell. Lickitung saliva has an incredibly strong odor and since he’s moved in the whole block has slowly been consumed by it,” said Tim, owner of the Cafe. “The smell coming off of him is by far the strongest though. He used to come in every morning for a pastry, but people couldn’t eat with him in the place so I had to tell him to take his pungent sticky business elsewhere. If you ask me I think he should take all that nonsense to Cerulean City where it belongs!”
When presented with photo and video evidence collected by the townspeople implicating him in some questionable situations with his Pokémon, Gym Leader Barry had this to say.
“Yeah they lick, big surprise. Are we surprised when someone’s Mr. Mime does some object work from them? Of course my three Lickitungs are working me over tip to tail day and night, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a sex thing. I think people are just on edge after what happened with the last Gym Leader Giovanni and his Dugtrio. But I can promise everyone this is nothing like that.”
At press time, Barry and his six Lickitungs were last seen checking into a private cabin in the Viridian Forest.
Famed 2010 platformer Super Meat Boy has been revered by critics and gamers alike for its design, controls, and tough but fair level of difficulty. However, its presentation is likely to turn off some consumers, with the player controlling a sentient cube of red meat that leaves blood streaks on every surface he touches. How are the poor plant-based game enthusiasts supposed to enjoy it? If you happen to fall under this category, today is your lucky day, as these five vegan alternatives will ensure you’re not missing out on any of the stellar side-scrolling action.
1. Celeste (2018)
This cruelty-free exemplar of the genre has the player controlling the character Madeline as she attempts to climb Celeste Mountain despite the efforts of a recurring enemy acting as the personification of her mental illness, with universally-lauded level design and an absolutely brilliant soundtrack that thoughtfully acts as a perfect complement to the plot. Such a poignant work of art can be appreciated by those of any dietary background, so pick it up if you want to experience the challenge of Super Meat Boy without the remorse!
2. The End Is Nigh (2017)
In this game, you control Ash, a small blob who we’re going to assume is not made of meat for the sake of this article. While not quite the spellbinding masterpiece of the aforementioned Celeste, The End Is Nigh provides very fun and challenging action without the crippling guilt that comes with repeatedly slapping a cube of meat against a wall. Bonus points for the bleak graphics and cool retro soundtrack. Fix yourself a portobello steak and enjoy!
3. N++ (2015)
This is the third installment of the N franchise wherein you control an anonymous stick figure who, to our knowledge, was not raised in a suffocating and torturous factory farm, in a basic but addictively fun romp through myriad levels of increasing difficulty. It’s nothing new, but who cares? We guarantee you’ll be able to sink countless hours into this effort without even the slightest concern about the ethics of your purchase.
4. TowerFall (2013)
The second product on this list from acclaimed developer Maddy Thorson, TowerFall’s archery focus makes it a bit of a derivation from the other games we’ve mentioned, but you know what? We‘re absolutely fine with that. It’s fun as hell, and you get to hit human beings, who are the sole species responsible for the subjugation and murder of animals for food, with arrows. That’s good enough in our opinion, and we hope you feel the same way.
5. Dustforce (2012)
Hell yeah! Dustforce has you controlling a janitor who’s trying to clean all the dust from the world with nothing but a broom and a whole arsenal of classic platform moves, including the always useful double-jump. We’re pretty sure those brooms are made of polypropylene, so don’t worry about any potential horses that lost their hair to make them. What are you waiting for? Get to sweeping!
There you have it! Hopefully one of these certified meat-free romps was able to sate that familiar platforming itch we all get from time to time. Make sure you bring them up in conversation the next time one of your carnivore gaming buddies mentions how much they love Super Meat Boy, and let’s make the run ‘n jump community plant-friendly one gamer at a time!
