The Top 5 Comments on Hard Drive Articles This Week

Posted on by Owen Crowlie

Allow me to officially welcome you all to 2021. How are you feeling? Are you comfortable? Is the temperature good? I personally haven’t noticed any big changes myself, but maybe they’ll be more noticeable by the end of the day. While we wait to see what new features and fixes they made to the year, let’s read some fun comments from the community!

Detective: Excuse me sir, a murder was just commited in this building. Did you see anything?

Agent 47: (Pantomimes zipping his mouth up and shrugging)

Detective: We’re not gonna get anything of this guy. Thank you for your time, sir.

The snippet of America lore that still bothers me is the story of George Washington chopping down the cherry tree. Would you ever feel safe around your son again if he took a hatchet and chopped down your property? Who gives a shit if he was lying or not? George Washington wasn’t afraid of getting caught, he was trying to send a message.

Are we really supposed to believe that this guy will make an offer that can’t be refused? Is that even possible? That’s not an offer, that’s a threat. This movie doesn’t make any sense at all. 

Ding!

We gather here today in memory of Glass Joe, a man who lost 99 fights but had one victory: a long life full of people who loved him, and supported him the 300 separate times he was hospitalized by people hitting him, intentionally or unintentionally. He is survived by his son Andre, whose conception left Joe so physically battered that he was still in the trauma ward when Andre was born. Alas, there is no glass here but our hearts, and I know they are all breaking.

Of course, as well as other new exciting features such as the  new ‘Hurricane’ weather effect, and ‘Eternal Summer Mode,’ which cannot be turned off.

Thank you so much to everybody who commented this week! If you want a chance to be featured in next week’s column, be sure to leave a comment on any of our posts across social media. Have a great week everyone!

Snickering CD Projekt Red Executive Announces Cyberpunk Switch Port

Posted on by Jeremy Kaplowitz

WARSAW — Executives at CD Projekt Red couldn’t contain their giggling while announcing an upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 port coming to the Nintendo Switch this year during a press conference Sunday morning.

“Uhhhh yeah, we’re gonna put Cyberpunk on the Switch so [suppressed giggle] make sure to charge up those joy-cons,” said director Adam Badowski, doubling over in front of a podium at a press conference, barely containing his laughter. “It’s gonna be TOTALLY optimized too. Super next-gen graphics, high definition particles… oh yeah, and ray tracing! Oh my god, it’s gonna have ray tracing! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I can’t do it! Oh my god, Cyberpunk on the Switch, holy shit dude.”

Fans of the series have taken to social media to discuss the news, causing “Cyberpunk Switch” to become the top trending topic on Twitter.

“I really trusted CD Projekt Red and I was so disappointed when I saw what the PS4 version of Cyberpunk looked like. But if they say they’re working on a Switch port and that’s going to rival the graphics of the PC version of the game, then why shouldn’t I be excited?” said a Twitter user whose avatar is Link from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. “I’m so friggin pumped to take Cyberpunk with me on the go!”

At press time, Adam Badowski released a video of himself just losing his shit while announcing a mobile port of Cyberpunk 2077 to come out at the end of the month.

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Elon Musk Unveils New Single Person Hyperloop

Posted on by David Tyler

AMIGARA — In a press conference today, Boring Company founder Elon Musk unveiled the latest redesign of his Hyperloop transportation system designed to transport a single person through a purpose-built tunnel.

“This is really the realization of a goal nearly a decade in the making,” Musk told gathered reporters. “Finally, anyone can find their hole in the rock face behind me and be taken to the other side of the Amigara Fault, just as I initially promised in 2012.”

The Boring Company, which originally pitched the Hyperloop as a high speed underground rail system and was then redesigned as a series of tunnels which fit a single Tesla, has reduced the tunnel size to the exact silhouette of individual riders, with no vehicle required. “Some unknown civilization built these holes, and luckily everyone has one that fits their exact body shape,” Musk said. “The savings are enormous. They are epic.”

Testers for the new system arrived in Amigara late last week. One such tester, a college student named Owaki, said he felt compelled to join the team after seeing a news segment on the strange carvings. 

“I don’t know what it was,” he said. “But I’ve been having all these strange dreams and I knew I had to come down. I do not want to crawl into the Hyperloop, but I fear I will be unable to stop myself from doing so.”

Still, some detractors of Musk’s claim that using strange ancient rock carvings as a means of mass transit may pose safety concerns. 

“You really can’t listen to the haters,” he said. “Many people are constantly hating on me, and I like to think my actions speak louder than any retort I could give. That said, these critics are almost all pedophiles.”

Shortly before press time, the first test of the Amigara Hyperloop was finished. When reached for further comment regarding his experience with the tunnels, the tester Owaki only replied, “Drr… drr… drr…”

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We’re Trying to Beat Other Sites to the Punch So Here are Our Favorite Games of 2021

Posted on by Giovanni Colantonio

While 2020 was a huge year for gaming, we really missed out on some key site traffic by choosing to publish our Game of the Year list in late December. While we waited like utter fools for games like Super Meat Boy Forever to come out, other sites beat us to the punch by publishing their lists the moment Christmas songs started playing on the radio.

We won’t be taken for fools again this year. We’re finally going to beat all the Polygons and GameSpots of the world to the punch by dropping our year end list first, no matter what it takes. So read it and weep, suckers: here are our top five games of 2021.

#5. Horizon Forbidden West

I think it’s safe to say that Horizon Forbidden West is an incredible sequel to the PlayStation 4 classic that utilizes the power of the PlayStation 5 to create breathtaking landscapes. I mean, we haven’t played it, but it looks like the first game, so we can’t imagine it’ll be much different. We could probably churn out our review right now and just recycle a lot of the same points about how fine-tuned the robot-fighting action is and how excellent the performances are. We’re just going to give it a 9 no matter what, so this feels pretty safe.

#4. Disco Elysium: The Final Cut

We didn’t play Disco Elysium when it came out in 2019, because we were busy covering Death Stranding and this just looked like some boring indie game. Everyone’s been raving about it since it launched, though, so real egg on our face. Luckily, a complete edition is coming to Nintendo Switch this year, so we think we can get away with slotting this on our list and acting like we were “with it” all along by finally giving it the attention it deserved in the first place. Let’s say that “the Nintendo Switch really changes the original experience” or something like that to cover our tracks here.

#3. Party Pummel

Among Us was a staple of 2020 lists last year, despite the fact that it came out in 2018, and we really want to be ahead of the curve this time. We checked the “More Like This” section on the Among Us Steam page and found this one game called Party Pummel that came out in 2018. It looks like Mario Party or something. Either way, there are no reviews for it on Metacritic so it’s exactly the kind of “small game that nobody cared about until streamers cared about it” release that’s really going to bolster our SEO ranking. Just wait until we start churning out guides.

#2. Anthem

Okay, real long shot here, but we noticed that it’s kind of trendy to include an old live service game that “turned it around” somewhere on your list so we’re swinging for the fences. Anthem honestly isn’t very good right now and there’s no real sign that it’ll get better. But there’s probably some good chance that BioWare will roll out an update this year and we can write a strong think piece about how it finally fixes the game. No one’s going to go back and check, so I think people will just take us at our word here. Anthem is our #2 game of 2021.

#1. Elden Ring

We have no idea if Elden Ring is actually coming out in 2021, but we would feel pretty fucking stupid if it does and it’s not on our list. So we’re just going to play it safe and slot it in at #1 here. There’s no possible way that a game as insanely hyped up as this could drop the ball, right?

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Newly Released Lori Laughlin Immediately Begins Planning Biggest College Admission Scam Yet

Posted on by Mark Roebuck

DUBLIN, Calif. — After being released following a two month stint for illegally securing the college admission of her daughters to Southern California University, sources are concerned that Full House star Lori Laughlin has begun planning the biggest scholastic admission scam of her career. 

“I’ve warned of this from the start,” said Lisa Simmons, a criminology professor at the University of California, Irvine. “We send regular citizens to these prisons, everyday people like you and me, and they come out even more hardened, more ready to fight back against a society that has locked them away for nearly two full months. We’re going to reap what we sow on this one. May god help us all.”

Suspicions of the upcoming job first arose after Laughlin allegedly contacted fellow recently freed associate Felicity Huffman within hours of her parole, a minor violation of the terms of her release. 

“Oh yeah, sounds like they’re planning the big one,” said Charles Healy, Laughlin’s parole officer. “You tell them not to go out and get back into trouble, but there’s really only so much you can do. These actors, they tell you everything they think you want to hear, but they have one thing on their mind — revenge. If I had to guess, I’d say we’re looking at a flood of nefarious college applications and claims of rowing experience in the next few months. This is going to get real bad.” 

Laughlin has denied all allegations, insisting she is merely trying to return to her normal life while she awaits her husband’s completion of his five month sentence for the same charges. 

“The state of California took everything from me — my husband, my daughter’s trust, November, the irreplaceable status of having your kid attend some university that she didn’t even want to go to. Everything,” said Laughlin, calmly drinking a bourbon. “I spent every single day in that god forsaken cell dreaming of what I would do next. And now that I’m out? Well, I’m afraid you’re just going to have to wait and see like everyone else.”

As of press time, TMZ had photographed many celebrities gathering in the backyard pool area of Laughlin’s Hollywood home, including Huffman, William H. Macy, Vince Neil, Paris Hilton, Matthew Broderick, Martha Stewart, and Hulk Hogan’s kid.

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Here’s All the Bugs and Fish Leaving Animal Crossing in December Due to the Irreversible Effects of Climate Change

Posted on by Giovanni Colantonio

December is almost over and you know what that means: it’s your last chance to get certain bugs and fish in Animal Crossing: New Horizons before the cruel march of climate change wipes them out of existence. If you’re looking to complete your museum, here are the creatures you need to catch by December 31 so your island can have a historical record of the soon to be extinct creatures.

Centipede (Northern Hemisphere)

Centipedes might look scary, but they’re useful bugs that can eat unwanted house pests like cockroaches. Unfortunately, it may be too late for you to appreciate that since more than 40% of insect species are currently in decline due to climate change. Arthropods are especially in trouble, which ecologists worry could carry apocalyptic consequences. You’ll definitely want to snatch up one of these creepy crawlers before you have something very real to fear! 

Firefly (Southern Hemisphere)

Fireflies are a beautiful sight in New Horizons, majestically lighting up the warm night sky. While the bioluminescent bugs have been around since the days of dinosaurs, their numbers are in steady decline in recent years, likely due to light pollution and humans destroying their habitats. These are easy to spot twinkling in the night, so make sure to bring one to Blathers so you can hear his funny description one last time before they die off for good.

Cherry Salmon (Southern Hemisphere)

If you think catching a Cherry Salmon is hard now, just wait until next year! Salmon become more susceptible to threats like disease and predators as freshwater streams warm up, so they’ll be as rare as Coelacanths soon. You can fish all the garbage out of your island’s streams as you want, but that won’t fix wider systemic issues that lead to unpredictable weather patterns that can wash away salmon eggs and habitats. Hey Tom Nook, better reinvest some of those bells into clean energy, stat!

Mussel (Northern Hemisphere)

Who’s ready for an island cookout? In June 2019, a California heat wave literally cooked a gigantic swath of the aquatic creatures in their shells prompting the species’ biggest die-off in at least 15 years. Since random heat waves are becoming more and more frequent as humanity fails to do anything about a climate disaster of its own design, you’ll want to snag a living one before this foundational species ceases to exist altogether prompting unknowable consequences for your island’s marine ecosystem.

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Kratos Joins Fortnite in Attempt to Connect With Son

Posted on by Brandon Puff

ASGARD — Grumpy father and former Greek god Kratos has joined Fortnite so that he can better connect with his son Atreus, who finds the whole situation very embarrassing, sources confirm.

“At first it was cool seeing my dad in Fortnite. I got to tell all my friends about it and he was spending more time with me. He started to take things too far, though, and now anytime I see him he tries to impress me by flossing,” said Atreus, building a wall to hide. “He also plays with me online, which is fine when we win, but when we lose he destroys the computer with his ax and swears vengeance against the players that beat us. It’s a lot.”

Atreus went on to explain how his father being in Fortnite was not only impacting their relationship with each other, but also his relationships with friends.

“He keeps trying to hang out with me and my friends outside the game. He thinks all we talk about is Fortnite, but we don’t even like it that much. When he drops us off at the movies he tells us to thank the bus driver, and if we don’t he gets all stern and brooding. Just last week he asked us all what we would think if he were to dye his beard blue like Ninja. I just wish he would stop. I much preferred him when he was angry and abrasive towards me.”

Kratos spoke in regards to his own experiences after joining Fortnite.

“Sony approached me with a very lucrative contract, and at first I declined. I thought it would be a terrible idea that only a huge sellout would do, to cash in on that easy Fortnite money. Then I heard that the boy played Fortnite and I knew I had to join. The boy and I have never been closer, and I can tell he finally respects me. All this time I thought killing Gods would bring us closer together but it turns out all I needed was some epic parenting.”

Kratos was told by Epic Games that he would only be a temporary character, but that decision was quickly changed after Kratos tore through the corporate offices with his blades of chaos.

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Brian David Gilbert Begins Comprehensive Deep Dive Into How to Get Health Insurance Now

Posted on by Andy Holt

NEW YORK — After leaving Polygon to work on his own projects, video producer Brian David Gilbert began one of his heavily researched deep dives, this time into where the heck he’s going to get his health insurance now.

“Health insurance plans. What are they? What benefits do they offer? How much do they cost? Can I keep the same doctor, or do I have to find a different one?” said Gilbert, speaking directly to camera while citing countless YouTube comments from unemployed viewers who had repeatedly asked him the same questions. “Let’s get started, shall we?”

After having two assistants roll out a chalkboard, Gilbert wrote “Health” along the top and underlined it.

“Before we can talk about the various plans subsidized under federal and state laws, we need to define the word ‘health.’ In games like Final Fantasy, health is represented as a number. However, in the real world, health is defined as ‘Soundness of body; that condition in which its functions are duly and efficiently discharged.’ The word first appears in this context roughly 1,000 years ago. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself. Let’s really dig into that.”

Following countless hours of research and documentation of his search for health insurance, sources say Gilbert had become visibly frenzied with a manic look in his eyes far more intense than in any of his previous “Unraveled” videos.

“Okay, on the wall behind me I’ve put up all of the different clauses and conditions for health insurance coverage depending on where you live, what your employment status is, what income bracket you’re in,” Gilbert began, periodically pausing to collect himself as he continued the physically and mentally exhausting process of understanding the healthcare industry. “At this point, I’m starting to think that I would like to go back to classifying Nintendo villains by their religious affiliation or whatever it was I used to do before this. I can’t even remember anymore. If someone could please hire me to start doing that again, I think it would actually make the enrollment process a lot easier. It’ll take me weeks to figure out at this rate.”

Gilbert concluded with a teaser for his next project, which involves detailed research into filing taxes as a freelancer, independent contractor, or entrepreneur.

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New IGN Guide Sends Freelancer to Your House to Play Game for You

Posted on by Giovanni Colantonio

SAN FRANCISCO — Video game website IGN unveiled a new feature for its guide section, which sends a freelance writer to readers’ houses to just play the game they’re stuck in for them.

“IGN has long had one of the most robust and respected guides sections in all of gaming media,” reads a new post on IGN. “Today, we’re making our guides even more thorough by giving readers the option to just have someone come to their house and play whatever game they need a guide for themselves. This will ensure that our readers will never get stuck or need to actually play a game again.”

While IGN guides are known for their detail, the new service is aimed at players who still find themselves unable to progress even with painstaking, written help. Writers can help players do everything from beating hard fights to completing annoying platforming sections that they just don’t feel like doing.

“I couldn’t beat the Chapter 12 boss in Yakuza: Like a Dragon despite IGN’s extremely detailed help,” said player Grover McNeil. “Luckily, a freelancer came to my house to grind my severely under-leveled characters for seven hours while I slept. It’s like having an older brother at my beck and call!”

The Persona 5 Royal guide has been especially popular since the service was announced. Players around the world have called on IGN writers to sit behind them and coach them through every decision in the game to make sure the player is properly optimizing their playthrough.

“We’d hate for our readers to have to make their own choices and experience all the fun story beats on their own,” said visibly exhausted freelancer Martha Sakar 36 hours into a session. “We wouldn’t want them missing out on another platinum trophy that they don’t remember getting in two months, right?”

IGN says that 90% of its dispatched freelancers have been sent out to play through the entirety of Demon’s Souls, start to finish, for frustrated readers.

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The Top Games of 2020 Ranked by How Good They’ll Hopefully Be in 2023

Posted on by Giovanni Colantonio

It’s no stretch to say that 2020 was a landmark year for video games. With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing us all into lockdown, games were there for us when we needed them the most. While this year included tons of high-profile hits like Animal Crossing: New Horizons and The Last of Us Part 2, it also gave us a bounty of okay games that will probably be good eventually. To celebrate such an important year for the gaming industry, here are our favorite games of 2020 that aren’t great right now, but like, will probably be in pretty good shape by 2023. Right?

5 — Spellbreak

As far as battle royale games go, Spellbreak is definitely one of them. The magic-themed elimination game that turns Fortnite into Avatar: The Last Airbender seems to be filled with potential thanks to its intriguing spell system. We’re not really sure, because all of our screens turned white and we had to hard-shut-down our consoles to restart the game, but there’s probably something there. With that groundwork in place, we’re really banking on this game having some left field resurgence in 2023 so we can put it on our year-end list and hope nobody remembers that it came out this year.

4 —Madden NFL 21

When it comes to football games, you just can’t beat Madden. Mostly because EA has exclusive access to the NFL license, which allows them to release annual games in whatever state it feels like without any competition to challenge it to innovate the genre. Madden NFL 21 has already come a long way since #NFLDropEA trended on twitter following the game’s buggy launch, so we’re convinced that this game will be in tip-top shape next year just in time for EA to rush out 2022’s edition.

3 — Watch Dogs Legion

Watch Dogs Legion’s creative “play as anyone” mechanic is so cool that it almost makes you forget that this game is still barely playable on certain platforms. Considering that Ubisoft recently delayed the game’s online mode to 2021 so it could make the game stable enough to play, we see big things in this game’s future. Hopefully it’ll shape up just in time for us to revisit it when we’re fed up with whatever gigantic 2023 open world game keeps crashing on us.

2 — Marvel’s Avengers

Marvel’s Avengers is one of the best live service games out today with excellent customization, mission variety and superheroes to try. Developer Crystal Dynamics has come a long way since the game’s vanilla launch, really rewarding patient players with a robust experience. It’s never been a better time to jump back in.

This is actually our blurb about Destiny that we reuse for every live service game three years after its launch, so we just figure we’d paste it here now and save some time.

1 — Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 is an absolutely staggering game that features the most impressive open world we’ve seen yet. CD Projekt Red have delivered a truly spectacular experience complete with excellent storytelling, fully realized characters, and intriguing mysteries to discover. We’re really excited to see how it all comes together in the final version once the game officially exits early access in the next few years.

Honorable Mention — Half-Life Alyx

I’m sure this game is really good as is, but hopefully I have a way to play it by 2023.

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