SAN DIEGO — Video game streamer Herschel Beahm IV, better known as Dr Disrespect, refuted accusations that he had sent graphic messages to an underaged Twitch user, claiming that they were actually an avatar for a magical beast from a time before human memory.
“Is it true that I engaged in a conversation with an ancient being temporarily taking on the corporeal form of an underaged schoolgirl? The answer is yes,” said Beahm in a statement released on X, formerly Twitter. “Was this conversation with an actual minor? The answer is absolutely not. It was actually a thousand-year-old dragon, so my conduct is beyond reproach. I didn’t technically do anything illegal, and if anything, the dragon tempted me into being inappropriate.”
Multiple Twitch employees took issue with Beahm’s framing of the incident.
“It’s really beside the point,” said Jeffrey Harper, who worked in Twitch’s strategic partnerships department in 2020. “Sure, it’s possible that any of our users are actually fantasy creatures who have, for strange reasons known only to themselves, decided to take the form of teenage girls. We have no way of knowing that. All we have is the information listed on their profiles, but hey, that’s also the only information that Dr Disrespect had, too. For some reason, he found that persona attractive enough to send this user graphic messages and attempt to arrange a meetup. From the content of the messages, it seems unlikely that his use of the word ‘mount’ referred to taking flight on the back of a dragon.”
Conrad St. George, an expert on mythical creatures, said that Beahm’s account does not add up.
“Dragons, famously, want to kidnap young maidens and hold them captive,” said St. George. “I don’t want to paint with a broad brush here, but it seems very unlikely to me that a dragon would take on the identity of their primary prey. I mean, it could be a ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’-type situation, but I can’t imagine that any dragon would want to attract Dr Disrespect. He seems like he’d taste weird. No, it’s much more likely that he’s just a creep.”
At press time, Beahm edited his statement to change the phrase, “thousand-year-old dragon,” to read, “individual.”
Without looking, I assume that at least half the reviews for Capes used the phrase “superhero fatigue.” That might be its biggest problem: it came out a couple of years too late, after the MCU and DCU have run the genre through a cold-press juicer.
That being said, and to its credit, Capes is more of a reconstruction than anything else. It reminds me of Mark Waid and Alex Ross’s Kingdom Come with the generations flipped, where one of its major conflicts is built around the clash between a cynical ‘90s anti-hero and his more idealistic proteges.
Capes also reminds me of playing Dungeons & Dragons with a hungover sadist as the DM. It’s a strategy game in which the odds are always against you; your action economy is sharply limited, you’re given little room for error, and the game loves to drown you in waves of enemy reinforcements. Its developers have made an effort to address its problems, but my time with Capes so far has been punctuated by frustration.
20 years ago, King City was the superhero capital of the world, but then the villains won. 20 years later, they’ve gone corporate, and the “Company” rules King City with an army of masked goons. Anyone in town who develops super-powers, which is a weirdly common occurrence, gets abducted by Company mercenaries and is never seen again.
Doctrine is one of the last surviving superheroes from the old days, who’s stayed in King City for decades trying to find ways to strike back against the Company. One night, he finds and rescues two new superhumans: Facet is a law student who can generate strange green crystals, while Rebound is a cat burglar who can teleport. With no better options on the table, they become the first two recruits for Doctrine’s new team of anti-Company guerrillas, which the citizens of the city quickly nickname the Capes.
Mechanically, I have a laundry list of complaints about Capes that all come down to the same thing: it played like it was released too early. It was stable, and I had fun with a few missions, but it was in dire need of at least one good balance pass.
The version that I’ve been playing on Xbox feels like the developers were forced to go with their first stable build. Capes has never crashed or glitched out on me, but it’s got a lot of little problems that drag down the whole.
Primarily, it’s a question of artificial difficulty. There’s a real mismatch in Capes between what you’re capable of and what the game wants you to do, especially in its optional objectives. My run through the game on Normal was punctuated by huge waves of enemy reinforcements before I had any meaningful crowd-control abilities, stealth levels where I was routinely detected from all the way across the map, and boss fights with absolutely cracked damage output, all found in a game where you don’t get a real support character until roughly two-thirds of the way through. It does get better as you get more and weirder heroes on your roster, and you can pull off some truly decadent strategies in the mid-game, but the first couple of hours in Capes are a steep climb.
However, while I was writing this column, I discovered that most of my issues with Capes have been specifically addressed in a new patch that’s already out on Steam. It includes a couple of new difficulty levels, reshuffled objectives, a badly needed revamp to how stealth works, and specific tweaks to almost every mission. It’s one of the most sweeping reinventions of a released game that I’ve seen since No Man’s Sky, and I’m looking forward to seeing how Capes plays once that patch has been released for consoles.
Before I knew about the patch, I was going to say that I wanted to like Capes more than I did. It was clearly made for huge comic-book dorks by huge comic-book dorks, and as one of those dorks, it couldn’t help but hit me where I live.
There were two things that jumped out at me from the start. The first is that Capes isn’t a deliberate analogue for another universe. There are a lot of indie superhero comics that start with ersatz versions of the Justice League and/or Avengers – Invincible, The Boys, the first issue of Planetary, Gail Simone’s Leaving Megalopolis, etc – but Capes’ developers resisted that impulse. There are a few character parallels I could draw, but that has more to do with the flooded state of the genre than anything specific to Capes.
The second comes from Capes’ central conflict, which can be taken as an interesting metaphor for the evolution of the genre. Doctrine in particular is drawn to resemble an early Wildstorm character who’s gone to seed; picture John Lynch or Grifter after a decade-long whiskey bender.
From the start of the game, Doctrine wants the “Capes” to essentially be a paramilitary strike force in tights. He tries to dress it up with pragmatism, but Doctrine’s only real plan is to burn everything down and hope it leads to something better. There’s a real ‘90s sense of nihilism baked directly into the character.
Conversely, none of Doctrine’s pan-racial coalition of Capes are as ruthless or obedient as he wants them to be. Some are happy to wreck things, particularly Rebound, but most are some kind of idealist; they’ve got principles and they’re trying to figure out what might happen when and if they win. It parallels a lot of conversations I’ve seen and had about what superheroes actually stand for right now, by way of exploring a generational gap between eras of the medium.
That in turn makes Capes into a story that has some real resonance, especially on this particular week, where an old man’s inflexibility and cynicism is consistently a bigger problem than young people’s idealism and inexperience. In Capes, the kids are alright. It’s the adults who are the problem.
WHITEHALL, Ohio — Shocking news in the world of speedrunning as a local nobody sets a new world record after discovering a critical dialogue skip at the local Kroger, sources there have confirmed.
Camden Lowe, 19, set a PB earlier this week after a quick dip into the grocery store for a pack of gum. Unknowingly, Lowe re-routed the former record’s route and ended up finishing six seconds faster than the fastest recorded time.
“For years the self-checkout kiosks were too far off path to be viable for a world record attempt,” said Lowe regarding his historic performance. “But with a few frame-perfect tricks and insane RNG, I was able to get in and out of Kroger in 37.56 seconds.”
The legitimacy of Lowe’s run has been called into question by fellow speedrunners in the community. Many have been vocal that controversial tactics used in the run should disqualify the record-breaking attempt.
“Entering through the pharmacy entrance has been reserved for the Assisted Any% category given that’s the entrance with all the handicap parking spots,” said Barbra Buckley, fellow speedrunner and former world record holder. “And cheatin’ Camden illegally blocked the fire lane with his CR-Z! Completely delegitimizing the run.”
While Lowe’s record currently sits atop the Speedrun.com leaderboard, he has not been able to recreate the magic since. However, the discovery of a new time skip has speedrunners returning to the category, trying to make history themselves.
“Most casual runners utilize Lowe’s dialogue skip so there’s almost always a line. Unfortunately for speedrunners, the fastest option was always talking to the 15-year-old cashier and mashing through dialogue as fast as possible but it’s almost impossible to get past the charity check quickly,” explains returning champion, Judd Marshall. “You would have needed Dream-like RNG to even get close to the world record going Lowe’s route, I can’t even get sub one minute going that way.”
The speedrun itself has a limited number of runners given that it is pay-to-win, which has turned many potential speedrunners away due to the financial implications.
At press time, a new ‘shadow’ category of the speedrun has emerged that bypasses checkout completely but has been classified by the State of Ohio as theft.
MEGA CITY — Mad scientist Dr. Wily announced he would be scaling back his plans for a new fortress after exhausting his search on Zillow for “castles with big ass skulls in the middle of them’, his robot henchmen have confirmed.
Wily placed the blame for the market’s lack of castles with big ass skulls squarely on his nemesis.
“If I’m going to dedicate my life to building master robots to terrorize the planet, I need to be on brand with a labyrinthian stronghold with a giant ass skull sitting front and center. And thanks to that blue asshole destroying the last eleven that I’ve had, the market for them has completely dried up. I’ve been scouring Zillow for three weeks and I’ve found nothing,” said Wily. “Sure, there are a few massive castles here within my price range with disappearing blocks, but they don’t have the same intimidation factor that comes with a 50-foot-tall skull for a front door.”
Zillow’s customer service staff were doing their best to accommodate Wily’s demands.
“What can we say other than it’s a tight market for evil-looking, booby-trapped lairs. We’ve done our best to accommodate him in spite of his barrage of complaints, but many of the designs Dr. Wily wants aren’t zoned for commercial use, let alone for world domination,” said rep Jim McCaffrey. “There are dozens of properties in Silicon Valley which can house his master robots and their copies, but he just wants that skull so badly. Like we get it man, you’re evil but beggars can’t be choosers.”
A coalition of former neighbors of Wily were adamant about keeping him out of their towns.
“We have always been a tight-knit community of mad scientists with terrifying skull-faced laboratories, but Albert Wily has brought nothing but headaches. How he keeps qualifying for mortgages to buy castles is beyond us, and we’ll never forgive him for strong-arming Dr. Cossack into squatting in his Kremlin,” said Igor Smithy. “If he wants another castle so badly, he can build one himself in a more remote area. Every time Mega Man comes to town he starts eyeballing our homes and I’d rather not be on the receiving end of a mega buster.”
At press time, Zillow reps were able to find an affordable 60,000 square-foot skull embossed fortress, but Dr. Wily passed on it after learning it was located in Cleveland.
Enschede, Netherlands — DGT, the manufacturer of chess sets used in the ‘Tata Steel Chess Tournament’ is being accused online of changing the Queen piece to have a “man jaw”.
DGT recently revealed their newest set and a contingent of players in the Chess community are furious over what they are calling a “man jaw”
“This is an atrocious tragedy and a blatant attack on our game,” posted Twitter user WhitePiecePower. “I always figured our game was safe from DEI and ESG garbage but I guess I was wrong. They took our beautiful, sexy, and feminine Queen and gave her a blocky and defined man jaw. This is a pathetic move to appease the woke overlords and we must fight back.”
“Why would they do this,” posted KingMe69. “The Queen in the old set was an iconic sex symbol. She had poise and grace, a nice soft face. Now she’s much more striking with a defined square jawline like a man. Are they trying to make us gay?”
DGT has defended the new Queen piece and claims there is no woke conspiracy nor do they think the piece has a “man jaw”.
“To be honest we have no idea what these complaints are,” said Dirk Jansen, a piece designer at DGT. “When we first heard them we thought it was a prank but apparently these people are serious. We wanted to update our pieces and we thought this new Queen design was more striking but equally sexy. There are tons of real-life women we based this design on. Nobody made us change the Queen piece and we’ve never heard of this Sweet Baby Inc. we keep getting threatening messages about.”
Online personality Pawwnz, who is leading the charge against the new Queen piece believes that DGT isn’t telling the entire truth.
“There’s something they aren’t telling us, most likely because they can’t. There’s simply no way they willingly made this change without being strong-armed by some DEI ESG overseer demanding them to make the Queen masculine and ugly. I will get to the bottom of this and we will get the Queen changed back to the sexy woman she should be and the best way for you to support this cause is to become a paid subscriber to my account.”
At press time, Pawwnz and the other players have moved on from the Queen piece and have begun complaining about the use of the black pieces in the marketing of the new set
LOS ANGELES – Streaming service Dropout found itself in hot water after an animal expert pointed out that the little guys appearing in interstitials for Make Some Noise only behave that way under extreme stress, sources report.
“I’ve worked with these creatures before, and this is not how they should be acting,” said Jackson Alberta, who initially posted his observations on social media before they were picked up by Dropout fans just one week into the Great Game Changer to Make Some Noise Migration. “As humans, we like to anthropomorphize certain animal behaviors as ‘cute’, when the reality is far more complicated. What looks ‘heckin’ good’ to a human can be akin to torture for an animal. A dog with a contorted face? That’s a form of paralysis. A cat jumping away from a cucumber? Fear response. The bleating of the pink thing’s trumpet-mouth in time with the opening theme of Make Some Noise? Textbook distress.
“In the wild, these creatures rarely use vocalizations—only really with their young—and even then, it’s a soft, gentle trill. It wasn’t letting viewers know it’s happy or even calling for attention: it was suffering under the weight of massive psychological stress, comparable to PTSD in a human or Sam getting asked where he’s from. You wouldn’t wish that on a person. So why would you wish it on a species of two-dimensional expression-forms inhabiting geometric shapes like cancer inhabits a body?”
“Look, I get it, I’m a Dropout fan too,” continued Alberta. “I love Game Changer, and not like a poser who skips the Covid season. I watched that Hallmark movie with Vic Michaelis. I have detailed maps explaining the geological possibility of Mountport. I’ve seen Ally Beardsley through every conceivable haircut and I know Grant’s sex life better than my own. But I simply cannot tolerate mistreatment of such intelligent, aesthetically-pleasing creatures, especially when I see them transforming into a three-part balance board where the blue one acts as the board, the yellow as the fulcrum, and the pink one rolls perversely on top. That’s a clear dominance display. If you see that in the wild, making some noise will be the last thing you do.”
While many assume ignorance on the part of the show’s cast and crew, others are more skeptical, pointing to Dropout’s history of playing exotic animals for sight gags.
“It’s not talked about openly, but everyone remembers The Mouth,” said cast member Lily Du, referring to an episode in season one of Game Changer that most mistook for a fever dream. “I remember showing up on set that day and hearing Ash say something about a ‘surprise’ backstage, so obviously I’m getting excited thinking maybe it’s Finnegan or a weekend stay in Big Sur, California. Imagine my shock when they wheel out this creature that can’t even stand on its own without Ash supporting it. The whole time we’re feeding it, I’m looking at Tao like, ‘Are we really doing this?’ Sure, sometimes The Mouth would make yum yum sounds when we fed it the right objects, but more often it was gagging in disgust.”
“After the show, I read about how foods like gingerbread, oil, and a brick of cocaine offer almost no nutritional value and just fill up a Mouth’s stomach so it can’t eat as much,” continued Du, having slid almost halfway out of her chair. “I felt so awful.”
In the wake of controversy surrounding the treatment of the interstitial mascots, Dropout host and CEO Sam Reich came forward to dispute the allegations.
“If you can’t run a company ethically, you shouldn’t run it at all,” said Reich, whose progressive views on business and inflicting psychological torment on Brennan Lee Mulligan are widely known. “I’m grateful for a community that supports us while also holding us accountable when we fail to live up to our own standards. Does the question of ‘involuntary performers’ apply to animals? Yes. Is it possible to misinterpret certain behaviors? Of course. Was it a mistake to have the three geometric guys in Make Some Noise twist and morph into each other in rapid succession, the flickering torch of consciousness being passed between them so violently that the lines between the mind-self and the meat-self blur into nonbeing? Hell no. Most viewers don’t know this, but those guys are freaks. They like it. Who am I to deny what makes them happy?”
At press time, a joint statement released by cast members Erika Ishii and Becca Scott announced the pair’s intentions to adopt “the blue one”, which will make its final appearance during this season’s Make Some Noise finale, or whenever they manage to catch it.
NEW YORK — In a landmark move, after much deliberation the UN has officially declared that fandom of any kind is a cult.
UN Ambassador Frederic Bringewatt announced the decision in a press conference held just outside UN Headquarters.
“It is our duty to work together on bringing peace and prosperity to the world at large and part of that duty is determining threats to that peace. Originally this was going to be solely for the Star Wars fandom but upon closer examination, it’s practically every fandom. The way that the members behave, the way they attack those that don’t hold the same beliefs as them, the radicalized devotion they have to the material, our only options were to classify them as religion or cult. We felt cult was more appropriate for their vibe.”
Members of fandoms were not too pleased with the new classification.
“This is just another instance of us being persecuted. We are not a cult, we’re just super passionate about our favorite series and will do anything to defend it and keep it pure,” said Alan Burns, head of the Boise chapter of the Star Wars fandom. “Sure sometimes we harass people who aren’t into Star Wars and maybe we attack members who don’t adhere to the series the way we demand they do but that doesn’t make us a cult. This is our series and we must protect it from heretical nonsense like The Acolyte. We just have absolute one hundred percent devotion to the warped ideals of Star Wars that we’ve cultivated.”
“Oh so just because I just like to praise the sun and attack people who dare to mildly criticize the thing that I’ve tied my entire identity to I’m in a cult? Give me a break,” claimed Chris Topher, a devoted member of the Souls fandom.
Bringewatt stated that there are some exceptions to the new classification.
“While we’ve determined most fandoms are cults, there are some exceptions both good and bad. The Kirby fandom we found to just be totally normal and chill, same for the James Cameron’s Avatar fandom. These are examples of fandoms that do not meet the criteria of cult. On the other hand there are fandoms such as Swifites that we’ve found go beyond a mere cult and so we’ve classified them as radicalized militia instead.”
At press time, Swifties have doxxed Bringewatt and declared the UN to be enemy number one and begun mobilizing to attack.
Editor’s Note: The following article is from my little brother, as my mom said I’ve been on Hard Drive for long enough and that it was time to let him have a turn or else. I am not allowed to edit or adjust it in any way. Please bear with me.
Hi! Mom sed itz my turn on Hard Driv so bruther had 2 let me yooz the compewter haha. I dunno wat 2 rite abowt tho. Bruther sez I gotta tel jokez abowt videeyo gamez. I liek videeyo gamez. My favrit game iz Mine Craf but I maek bruther put it on peesful cuz 1 time a creepeer sneeked up on me and bloo up and I screemd so lowd it woke every 1 up cuz it was reely layt and I got in truble cuz I was supozed to be asleep cuz I had skool in the morneeng. I can tel a joke abowt Mine Craf ummmmm y didnt Mine Craf Steev buy a howse? Cuz he can just bild wun DUH! I liek uther gamez too. I play a lot of Pokeymon and Lego Star Worz and also sumtiems I play Fort Niet. I dont hav any jokez for thoze gamez tho. Fort Niet iz hard. Wen I die in Fort Niet I want 2 say bad wurdz but Mom wont let me so I say them in my hed so she cant heer them. Mom told me no 1 can heer wat u say in yor hed cuz yor skul iz 2 thik 4 the wurdz yor brayn sez 2 get thru so they just bownce riet bak 2 yor brayn and thats why only u heer them. In yor hed u can say as many bad wurdz as u want! Bruther sez them out lowd tho sumtiems wen he playz Ellen Ring. Bruther told me in Ellen Ring you fite monzters cuz u want 2 mary this 1 laydee. I thank its calld Ellen Ring cuz her naym is Ellen and u want to giv her a weding ring and kiss and say I luv u and stuf. Yuk! I dont hav any jokez abowt Ellen Ring neether. Ellen Ring is 2 boring and scaree and u cant bild anything. They shud hav the boogie bom from Fort Niet in Ellen Ring so u can throw it and maek the monzters danse haha. Oh wayt I hav a Ellen Ring joke now. Why did Ellen not want to mary bruther? Cuz he farted untill he died! Dont tel bruther I told u that tho. Enyway I dont wunt to rite anymor. The end. Bye!
Editor’s Note Cont’d: I sincerely apologize for what you just read. I promise future articles will be the high caliber satirical gaming news you are used to. Until my brother gets another turn that is.
ATLANTA — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent candidate in the 2024 presidential election, was reportedly still hammering buttons on an unplugged controller that he was handed shortly before last Thursday’s debate, sources confirm.
“He just kept whining that he wanted to play ‘debate,’” said Jake Tapper, CNN anchor and one of the debate’s moderators. “We needed to shut him up somehow, so we sent a PA to find an old MadCatz PS2 controller. They gave it to Kennedy and told him it was what the pros used when they debated. He totally bought it. I even saw him turn on turbo mode. I guess it worked too well, since now he won’t leave. We really need to strike this set.”
Kennedy briefly responded to questions before shooing reporters away, claiming that he was nearing a high score and they were distracting him.
“The obsequious fawning that the media performs toward figures such as Anthony Fauci cannot be ignored,” said Kennedy in a distant voice, a hollow echo that had somehow slithered into our world from some unwholesome dimension. “Just like you cannot ignore this sick combo that I’m pulling off. I might be the best to ever do it. This game must have been vaccinated, because I’m about to hit a kill screen, for sure.”
Political historian Lindsey Devine noted that, while the event itself may be unprecedented, it did not surprise her.
“The two major parties have been looking for a solution to this dilemma for years,” said Devine. “They let Perot play in the nineties, and that wasn’t fun for anyone. I heard that they were going to try this trick with Nader, but Mr. Consumer Reports demanded a first-party controller, and no one was going to spring for that. Of course, all of the Libertarian Party candidates refuse to play multiplayer games, and the Greens only play ‘Escape from Tarkov’ for some reason. This was really their first chance to try this strategy, and you couldn’t ask for a more gullible target.”
At press time, Kennedy was overheard saying that he still had a few rounds in him, bragging that he clearly had more stamina than the other candidates.
WASHINGTON — In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court of the United States announced it was enabling God Mode for the Presidency.
“If the President can be held accountable for his actions this presupposes any other government official, elected or otherwise, can also be held accountable for their own actions, and I simply can’t have that,” wrote Justice Clarence Thomas, back from an all-expenses-paid vacation to Tahiti funded by friend of the Court and Nazi memorabilia enthusiast, Harlan Crow. “I mean, I’m an adult. My schedule doesn’t allow me to devote hours a day to getting good at this. I just want to experience the story of the fall of our republic while still spending most of my time taking lavish trips to the Maldives on someone else’s dime, and there shouldn’t be any penalty for that.”
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi decried the decision, and called on voters to give the Democrats money.
“This ruling is just another example of what is at stake, and why the American people must vote Joe Biden back in office come November,” Speaker Pelosi said as an offering plate was passed around among the press who had gathered at the Capitol. When it was pointed out that this ruling also presumably enabled God Mode for President Biden the Speaker rebuked the journalist, saying, “How dare you suggest that the Democrats use any power they are given when it’s available to them? In fact, we’re going to make up more rules that only we have to follow. We’re currently doing a Nuzlocke run on the presidency. Do you really think we’re interested in anything that would make this even a little bit easier?”
President Biden spoke briefly on the matter to press at the White House.
“The Supreme Court’s ruling today shows they have all the ethics of a corrupt chimney sweep, and the moral standing of a drunken lamplighter,” President Biden said. “There’s only one God, Jack, and his name is—I forget. The point is—I forget that, too. Something about achievements being turned off. Vote Biden if you want to get the true ending. I can’t promise it’s the good ending, though.”
At press time, the Supreme Court was hearing a case challenging laws against infinite ammo cheats.
