Ethan Krause, Author at Hard Drive

EA Announces New Game Where You’re the Mayor and Don’t Do Anything Called ‘Sim Tent City’

Posted on September 12, 2021 by Walker MacDonald

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — Electronic Arts announced a new addition to the SimCity franchise today which puts players in the shoes of a metropolitan mayor — who under absolutely no circumstances can acknowledge or let anything happen — called Sim Tent City.

“We want people to really feel like they’re an elected official in charge of urban development,” said developer Justin Torres briefly after the title’s announcement. “And a crucial element of that experience is turning a total blind Sim eye to an affordable Sim housing crisis. Which can not be found anywhere in the game, by the way.”

The game is set to include dozens of features that will provide players endless new ways to actively ignore “irrelevant Sim issues pushed by the vocal Sim minority.”

“Alongside the mechanics SimCity fans have come to expect, we’ve also added a new expansion to the beach areas where players can gather large groups of Sim government delegates and collectively bury their Sim heads in the sand,” explained EA junior designer Shane Ferrell. “We’re also trying to hammer out the AI for citizens so they’ll call the Sim police whenever they notice Sim tents in places they shouldn’t be. Not that they should be there in the first place, mind you. It’s kind of like it’s fixing its own glitches.”

“It’s essentially the first ever SimCity idle game,” Ferrell added.

Despite steady insistence from EA that tents and large congregations of them can’t be found in the game except at family orientated campgrounds, video game journalists playing through review copies have had a much different experience.

“They’re literally everywhere,” said Digital Blend’s Gianmarco Colapietro. “You can’t scrub to anywhere without coming across them. Under overpasses, in public parks, on boardwalks, you name it. I keep trying to drag and drop the tents into Sim apartment complexes and neighborhoods, but then I get these notifications from ‘The Sim Landlord’s Association’ about a rent increase and they end up right back where they were. I should really be able to stop this. Aren’t I supposed to be in control?”

“The game kept telling me I could solve the problem once I reached a certain level,” Colapietro continued. “But when I got there, it only unlocked ‘Close Your Eyes’ mode, which just makes the screen completely black so you can’t see anything.”

At press time, EA said they are a new disaster event in the vein of previous outlandish happenings like UFO attacks and zombie outbreaks called “Economic Collapse.”

Guy Performing Oil Change on Transformer Worried It’s Some Kind of Sex Thing

Posted on September 11, 2021 by Mark Roebuck

DETROIT — An employee at a local Muffler Man performing what he initially assumed was routine maintenance on a Transformer is now worried the automaton derived sexual pleasure out of the procedure.

“At first I didn’t think nothing of it,” said Alan Clemons, who performed the full oil change on the shape-shifting robot. “I don’t mind their kind coming in here like some of my coworkers do. But the way he moaned when I put the dipstick back in, I don’t know. I think this thing was getting off. He said that was windshield fluid that came out at the end there, but now I’m not so sure. Gross, dude.”

Several Autobots came forward and denounced the potential kinkshaming that happened at the service center yesterday afternoon.

“For the last time, getting our oil changed is absolutely not a sex thing,” said Optimus Prime, the iconic leader of the heroic faction of Transformers. “Sure, it feels a little good, but it’s like sneezing or taking a dump or something. Not sexual. However, if there are a handful of us that do derive some sort of sensual pleasure out of the act, should we be meant to feel ashamed of that? I say no. We come off the line same as everyone else, nobody’s better than anybody out here. Judgmental bastards.”

Executives from Muffler Man defended the employee’s skittishness following the potentially erotic encounter.

“We understand that different customers present unique situations,” said Nicholas Calderon, a public relations spokesperson at Muffler Man. “And we also understand that no one wants to help someone else get their rocks off at the car shop, no matter how dedicated to their job they are. These blasted Transformers need to tell us once and for all what an oil change is like for them!”

As of press time, the Transformer in question had embroiled itself into further controversy by filling itself up with gas at a nearby Shell station before turning into human form and running away.

Kaiju Folds New Yorker In Half Before Eating Him

Posted on September 11, 2021 by Jake Menez

NEW YORK — A ginormous amphibious creature known as Crathrax is currently terrorizing New York City and reportedly eating residents only after folding them in half, according to those familiar with the situation.

“We do not know the origin of the monster currently terrorizing our homes, but we feel confident that the creature originally is from New York City, just based on the way he’s folding everyone he eats like a slice of New York pizza,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio at a press conference. “We have scientists working around the clock to find a way to stop this thing, and so far they have determined that if the kaiju was a transplant from Minnesota or something, we would be able to tell because it would have much more trouble moving along the subway lines and it would be bragging more about visiting the bar it trampled in Williamsburg.”

“The one thing that has confused me so far, however,” de Blasio added, “is that the kaiju has not yet destroyed my house or office.”

According to sources on the ground in Manhattan, New Yorkers are conflicted about how to handle the kaiju, knowing that it’s a native of the city.

“If you mess with one of us, you mess with all of us. But the monster… is one of us. So we’re us… and we’re messing with also us? Oh god, I’m so freakin’ confused!” said lifelong Queens resident Olli O’Reilly. “A goddamn kaiju attacking the city… only in New York!”

“We need to take action now! I’ve started a petition to demand that the mayor contain the kaiju in lower Manhattan so we don’t have to see it here in the Upper West Side,” said rent-controlled Manhattan resident Gloria Braun. “First the homeless, now a monster. This city is going to hell!”

At press time, New York City residents began fleeing lower income neighborhoods as Crathrax began gentrifying them with its booming stomps.

‘Avatar’ Creators Not Sure How Many More Critically-Acclaimed Series It Will Take for Americans to Realize They’re the Fire Nation

Posted on September 11, 2021 by Thaddeus Cramer

LOS ANGELES — Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, creators of the hit Nickelodeon franchise Avatar: The Last Airbender, will reportedly keep making more and more installations of the series until Americans finally come to terms with the fact that they are the Fire Nation.

“I’m not really sure how we can make it more clear, but we simply have to keep going. We actually only planned a single season for the original series, because we were pretty sure that was all it would take. But here we are, two decades later, starting up yet another attempt to get our point across,” explained Konietzko. “Honestly, we thought we were being too on the nose at first. The show started up in the wake of 9/11 and the beginning of the Iraq War, and we even did that whole episode about the Fire Nation school system… but people just kept connecting to Aang and his buddies! Oh well, at least it made us a ton of money.”

According to DiMartino and Konietzko, the new live action series will be even more on the nose to sell their point about the Fire Nation and the United States.

“The new live action show is definitely going to follow a similar plot to the original animated series, but there’s definitely some changes that needed to be made this time around,” DiMartino said. “We’re really excited about one of the main villains that we added to the show, Lord Joraj Boosh and his band of imperialist warriors, known as the See Eyaye. We really don’t want to have to make another one of these things, so we’re pulling out all the stops.”

At press time, Netflix began promoting the new live action show with the tagline You Are Literally Aang.

Nancy Pelosi Deliberately Steers Into Banana Peel After Accidentally Taking Lead in Mario Kart

Posted on September 10, 2021 by Andy Holt

WASHINGTON — Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives, hit a banana peel on purpose this morning at Mario Circuit, after inadvertently reaching first place.

“Ugh, shit. God damn it. What the fuck am I supposed to do now?” the congresswoman mumbled, after the race leader got hit with a blue shell, leaving her up front. “Sorry, what I mean is, um, it’s good that this is happening! I love winning. It’s a new day for all of us, here on the Mario Circuit, now that I’m in first place. I would sure hate to end up in second again.”

Pelosi spent nearly an entire lap in first place, desperately searching for a believable obstacle to ram into, before finally locating a banana peel along the edge of the track.

“I am shocked by this totally unexpected defeat, which I did not want to happen at all,” said Pelosi, the exact moment she veered dramatically off course into the peel. “I will fight tooth and nail to get back up front, despite all the heinous attempts by opponents to keep me back. That’s why I will need to hold onto the controller for another race or two.”

Speaker Pelosi’s office later released an official statement condemning banana peels as an “egregious violation” of the spirit of Mario Kart.

“It’s long past time we removed the banana peel as an item, and if I had the power to do so, I absolutely would, no question. But I don’t. My hands are tied,” read the statement, released immediately after the race. “I want to be very clear about that: There is absolutely nothing I could have done to prevent this, and there is nothing I will ever be able to do. Shucks.”

The eventual race winner remains under investigation for allegedly spilling beer all over his opponents during the race, then trying to unplug their controllers when they weren’t looking

Why Didn’t the Eagles Do Anything to Stop 9/11 From Happening?

Posted on September 10, 2021 by Eli Johnson

Anyone who knows me understands what a huge Lord of the Rings nerd I am, however, my fandom does not come without criticism. Like many who came of age in the early 2000s, I was enthralled by J.R.R. Tolkien’s tale of Frodo and Sam’s odyssey across hundreds of miles of Middle Earth to deliver the One Ring to Mordor to be destroyed. Yet one plot hole has nagged at me these many years. With the Great Eagles willing to rescue Gandalf from captivity by Saruman and to fight alongside Aragorn at the Battle of the Black Gate, why didn’t they do anything to stop 9/11?

The eagles had a moral obligation to prevent the deadliest act of terrorism in American history. Are Isengard and Barad-dûr the only two towers of consequence? It’s hard to understate just how colossal of an intelligence failure it was that allowed these attacks to transpire, and it’s not like they didn’t have any warning. The CIA wasn’t talking to the NSA, the NSA wasn’t talking to the FBI, and the FBI wasn’t talking to the eagles. We know from the 9/11 Commission Report that the eagles were surveilling several of the hijackers before they entered the United States on visas. Why didn’t they act, before nearly 3,000 Americans paid the price?

And let’s talk about the day of the attack. Cheney didn’t issue the shoot-down order until 10:20 a.m., more than an hour after American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower at 8:46 a.m. Some of the F-15s they scrambled even took off without ammunition. Thorondor could have had his aerie mobilized within minutes. The same eagles that took down Sauron’s fearsome Nazgûl like paper cranes surely could have intercepted a few errant 767s.

You know, the more I think about it, the more questions I have about the eagles’ whereabouts on that fateful day. Some have noted that in order for the American Airlines Flight 77 to strike the Pentagon at such a low altitude, flying nearly parallel with the ground, the pilot would have had to execute a flawless descending corkscrew maneuver over several thousand feet. The supposed pilot, Hani Hanjour, had never flown a commercial airliner before and was such a poor student in flight school that his instructors reported him to the FAA. Some have suggested that it wasn’t really a plane that struck the Pentagon. Could it have been a missile, carried in the talons of a large raptor? Unfortunately, we may never know for sure, as the only security camera footage of the impact has crucial frames missing, likely thrown into the fires of Mordor.

Perhaps something far more nefarious than negligence was afoot 20 years ago. Even the Dark Tower didn’t collapse at freefall speed, as Building 7 did, which is typical during a controlled demolition. Perhaps the truth has been staring us in the face all along. You know if you fold a $1 bill just right, it kind of looks like the eagle is crashing into the pyramid.

And atop that pyramid? Another all-seeing eye.

Unskippable Dialogue Makes Speedrunner Late for Work

Posted on September 10, 2021 by Joe Tilleli

HENDERSON, Nev. — Local video game speedrunner Charli Hopper was reportedly held up in a Get To Work Any% run today after being pulled over by a police officer, destroying her attempt at WR, according to those familiar with the situation.

“There’s nothing more frustrating than a random encounter with unskippable dialogue in the middle of a speedrun,” Hopper complained to officers at a county jail, where she was held up after trying to “mash through” a police officer’s conversation. “And that’s the important thing to note here — I wasn’t late for work, I was simply going world record pace at a Get To Work Any%, implementing a trick called Highway Exit Skip that allows you to traverse across multiple lanes of traffic at once. If it’s illegal to be a gamer, then go ahead and lock me up.”

The police officer who pulled her over was reportedly confused about how the incident went down.

“I asked her if she knew why she was pulled over and she just said ‘yes yes yes yes yes yes’ over and over again. I didn’t know what to do so I just panicked and started the conversation over again, which made her groan and roll her eyes,” said officer Harlan McDonnell. “That’s when she went for my gun. She said something like… it’s easier to just kill NPCs? But I stayed calm, and for the first time in my life, used de-escalation tactics to restrain her. Felt weird!”

According to close sources, Hopper’s manager at Fletcher Accounting, Petra Davidson, was disappointed to hear that Hopper was held up.

“Yeah, I uh… I just want her to show up sort of on time for work,” Davidson explained. “She’s always complaining to me about gamers being oppressed and I’m certainly not trying to criticize her lifestyle or anything, but I guess I just doubt that ‘speedrunning to work’ is a real thing. Actually I am kind of criticizing her lifestyle. She should stop being late for work and blaming it on some weird video game thing. Because the only technique she’s performing right now is paycheck skip! Haha… yeah I probably shouldn’t joke about that.”

At press time, police officers were confused when Hopper kept requesting access to a shield.

Travis Barker Releases Video of Himself Absolutely Shredding DK Drums

Posted on September 10, 2021 by Mark Roebuck

LOS ANGELES — Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker has lit the video game world on fire by posting a video of him just absolutely fucking shit up on the drums originally packaged with the GameCube game Donkey Konga.

“Holy shit, that guy can do anything,” said Tobias Villa, a longtime Barker fan who watched the video. “I’ve seen him shred on small kits before, but this was a whole other level. Two little drums, no cymbals, no frills, just pure drumming excellence. At one point he threw his sticks away and was just playing with his hands. Dude’s a fucking animal!”

Barker said that at first he didn’t even realize what he was playing on a peripheral originally intended solely for use in a Nintendo game from 2004.

“Oh fuck, I just saw a couple of drums and did my thing — beat the shit out of them for an hour,” said Barker when told of the nature of the drumset. “I thought it was weird that they were bongos with such terrible acoustics. Oh, that explains the Gamecube cord hanging off of them, too. And the ‘DK’ sticker. Honestly, I thought that was a Dead Kennedys thing. They sounded great though!”

Barker’s bandmates confirmed that this isn’t the first time Barker has confused video game drums for actual drums.

“I remember coming into the studio one day,” said Matt Skiba, guitar player for Blink 182. “And there’s Travis going to town on a set of Rock Band drums. I thought he had hooked the game up and I was so excited! When I asked what system he was playing on he just looked at me, and that’s when I knew: he was actually tracking drums for our Neighborhoods album. Fucking insane, dude. Also, probably should’ve used real drums. Oh well.”

As of press time, Parappa the Rapper had released a remix of his breakout hit ‘Chop Chop Master Onion’s Rap’ featuring Barker on the Donkey Kong drums.

Red Dead Online Update Lets You Eat All the Horse Medicine You Want

Posted on September 10, 2021 by Mark Roebuck

NEW YORK — A new update to Red Dead Online will reportedly let users ingest any food or medicinal items originally intended to be used on their horses, appeasing many outspoken gamers.

“It’s about time we broke the walls down between humans and horses,” said Emilio Guy, one of thousands of players that demanded the modification be made. “I paid money for this game and I should be free to take whatever I want, labels and intentions be damned! Next I’m hoping they’ll add this option to the campaign, so that I may give Arthur some Potent Horse Medicine when he comes down with that case of Tuberculosis halfway through.”

Executives at Rockstar Games expressed doubts that the treatments would work as hypothesized.

“Look, you can do a lot of things,” said Evie Turner, a lead designer at Rockstar Games. “I don’t know that it’s necessarily going to work, or if it’s necessarily safe, but if you’ve made up your mind about using horse products, I can’t change your mind. So please, just be careful with it. And please be patient with these new features as well. Adding this wasn’t in our initial roadmap, but the people have spoken. They want to eat horse medicine.”

Many fans of the franchise felt Rockstar may be heading down a slippery slope with its concessions to angry demands.

“Should we really be caving in to the horse medicine people?” asked Billie Franklin, a Red Dead Online player that was concerned with the precedent this could set. “If you treat their request seriously, they’re just gonna come back with something wilder next time. What if they request fully automatic assault rifles be in the game next time, are we gonna do that, too? I’m not sure I care for political reasons, but that’s gonna mess up the balance of the game real bad. I’m afraid they’ve opened a can of worms with this, and not the kind you find inside a horse either.”

As of press time, Rockstar Games announced several more brand new potential side features, including headache, dizziness, muscle pain, nausea, and diarrhea.

There It Is: Steve From Blue’s Clues Releases Second Video Asking for Just a Few Thousand Dollars to Get His New Business Off the Ground

Posted on September 10, 2021 by Jeremy Kaplowitz

NEW YORK — After warming the hearts of America, former Blue’s Clues host Steve Burns released a second video asking for those who knew him back in the day if they could each chip in just a few thousand dollars so he could get back on his feet.

“I know it’s been a long time — a really long time — since I last saw you, but I always remembered you and I always loved you. You look great, by the way. But I’m wondering, actually, if maybe you could give me just a few thousand dollars to start up this really cool idea I have and get back on my feet,” Burns said in the video, wearing his iconic green and white striped polo shirt. “I know you don’t owe me anything, but I did kind of raise you in a way, and you seem to be doing really well now. And like I said, I never forgot about you. I was thinking about you the whole time I was gone.”

The video continues with Burns outlining his business plan and how he will spend the money that he needs.

“OK so you know how everybody complains about being on the internet all the time, but that’s where all the information is? I want to start a company that hires people to run around in the street and just tell people what the newest drama is on any given social media site,” Burns explained. “I ran the numbers — I’m like an entrepreneur guy now, by the way, I’ve got a ton of business ideas — and this could potentially be a billion dollar idea. I just need some capital to get off the ground floor and I can give you my word you can triple, maybe quadruple, your investment in the next month, easy. Have I mentioned that you look great, by the way? I’m so proud of you.”

Blue’s Clues fans, however, largely found the video off-putting.

“I found the first video really emotional; I literally cried watching it. It really has been so long since we were children, huh? But I have a dad who’s an alcoholic, so I couldn’t help but know in my gut that there was gonna be a twist,” said Blue’s Clues fan Irene Hudson. “This is how these kinds of people operate. They show up back in your life out of nowhere and they act super nice and complimentary… and then they ask for a lot of money. I don’t know his email, but I’m working on sending him a follow up video where I offer to get him into therapy instead.”

At press time, Burns produced a third video, this time featuring a clearly drugged-out Blue, saying that the three clues he needed help with were “Credit Card Number,” “CVV,” and “Expiration Date.”

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