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!
SAN MATEO, Calif. — Investors were relieved today after Roblox confirmed their latest scandal had nothing to do with pedophilia.
“False alarm everyone,” said David Baszucki, Roblox Corporation’s CEO. “Turns out it’s just terrorism. The Internet is home to all sorts of nutjobs sending death threats. Optics-wise, it doesn’t matter nearly as much when we ignore those lunatics as it does when we ignore the rampant spread of pedophiles across our platform.”
Roblox has suffered a turbulent week, from a terrorist attempting to stir up support within its platform, to anti-ICE protests which have sprung up across the game.
“I’ll pepper spray a child,” Baszucki affirmed to a reporter. “If that’s what it takes to put these rebellious brats down, then so be it. We’re willing to throw every resource we have to break the spirits of these children. Otherwise, they might grow up to be caring and empathetic.”
Roblox’s many recent scandals have so far avoided wide-spread scrutiny, but as the brand is known in almost every household across the country, even the government is taking a closer look.
“Rest assured we remain committed to creating safe experiences for children online,” said Ravage Punch, former Guantanamo torturer and current member of the Trump administration. “The kind where they can continue to slave away and make millions for the corporate overlords running the show. ”
At press time, the Supreme Court affirmed that acts of violence against ICE roleplayers constituted a felony.
KYOTO, Japan — Diddy Kongs are not conceived through conventional intercourse, a fact announced by Nintendo while promoting their upcoming title, “Donkey Kong Bananza.”
“Diddy was not born of woman-Kong,” said Shigeru Miyamoto, renowned creator of the Donkey Kong franchise. “He is an artificial biological construct, designed and created to serve a very specific purpose. That is why he is the only Kong with a tail. The complex gene-editing computers contained in a DNA Kaudulizer Barrel—DK Barrel, for short—are able to add that appendage to the standard Kong phenotype. All the barrels need is a teaspoon or two of donor genetic material.”
Some fans were upset with how they believed this information conflicted with existing Donkey Kong lore.
“Listen, gorilla-type Kongs canonically have very short penises,” said Martin Gardner, a longtime fan of the series. “They have a baculum, or penis bone, that is only about an inch long. Even if they wanted to hump a DK Barrel, they would never make it past the rim. Ironically, Diddy is a spider monkey-type Kong, without a baculum at all. He would have no problem doinking the barrel that supposedly incubated him.”
Nintendo expert Ellen Benchley noted that this type of lore was not uncommon for the company’s properties.
“Mario, Luigi, and Peach race aside infant versions of themselves in Mario Kart,” said Benchley. “How is that possible, outside of advanced cloning techniques? How many times has Samus had her DNA altered by outside sources to justify game mechanics? Zelda and Link just keep popping up throughout the timeline, looking exactly the same, like magic? I’m just saying, every time Donkey Kong throws a barrel, an identical Diddy appears. Just because the instruction manual doesn’t mention that the Kongs are fucking the barrels doesn’t mean it’s not happening.”
At press time, Sega had declined to respond to rumors that Sonic was seen copulating with the One-Up Video Monitors in the Green Hill Zone.
BOSTON — A serious medical emergency occurred this past weekend after a Boston Dynamics robotic dog named Spot got into an unattended Ziplock baggie of flash drives, sources confirm.
“We knew something wasn’t right when he unexpectedly went into sleep mode and leaked oil all over the carpet,” said college student and new dog owner Sarah Clark. “Those thumb drives were just for some recreational activities, I had no idea Spot would be able to unzip my backpack and open the plastic bag they were in, I swear I’m a responsible pet owner.”
The 22 year old was in tears as she rushed her electronic canine into the 24 vet at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Robotic Veterinary Practice, whose veterinary doctors were able to perform a live saving debug.
“It’s not the first time we’ve had a case like this, they practically teach a whole unit about it in undergrad, that and what to do when an HDMI cord is wrapped around your dogs neck is pretty much robotic veterinary 101,” says Brionna Martin, the Chief Veterinarian at MIT’s emergency vet clinic. “99% of the time the dog’s anti-virus software catches any problems, all that’s left after that is a simple reboot and two day charge.”
Boston Dynamics, the manufacturers of Spot, released a swift response statement stressing the importance of safety and responsibility that comes with being a robotic dog owner.
“We try to urge anyone who is considering buying a dog to take the preventative measures to avoid anything like this happening,” says Boston Dynamics’ Public Relations Officer, Dylan McDonald. “Low to the ground water features, an unsecure wifi network, and even a single grape can be a death sentence to our delicate pups.”
At press time, Spot has made a full recovery and the whole ordeal has encouraged his owner, Sarah, to kick flash drives and get sober.
Last week’s column reminded me that I’d been meaning to play Dragon Ruins II. It’s been out for a few months now, but I liked the first one enough that I wanted to see what the developers had done with the second.
It turned out that I got exactly what I wanted. DR2 is only slightly more complex than the original game, and most of it’s in the service of adding more to do. It’s also a little more difficult, but if you’re in the market for a throwback game like this in the first place, that’s probably not an issue.
Like the first game, DR2 is a minimalist spin on early first-person dungeon crawlers. Most of the attendant stat-juggling and resource management has been automated or firmly shoved under the hood, including combat. Your job is to explore dungeons, collect gold, and gradually upgrade your team.
DR2 is set 1,000 years after the events of the original Dragon Ruins, long after all the dragons have disappeared. You play as a group of young adventurers who’re out to find the dragons’ old lairs, and their rumored stashes of untouched treasure. You’ll have to work your way up to making that dragon gold, however, so you start out with a handful of penny-ante mercenary jobs.
DR2 features the same gameplay as DR, but expands its scope. The entirety of the first game took place inside a single wireframe dungeon, while the second features a dozen 3D maps. You’ve also got a number of new ways to customize and improve your characters, such as actual equipment slots, passive abilities, and adjusting the party’s formation.
The start of the game is about as tough as DR2 ever gets. You don’t earn a lot of gold, your characters are made from paper, and everything has an exorbitant price tag. You have to stick with it until you can regularly clear dungeons in a single run, which lets you finally earn enough money to reliably upgrade and level your characters. It’s the same power curve as games like the original Wizardry, but DR2 compresses it into minutes rather than hours.
It does take longer to get rolling than it did in the original DR, primarily because DR2 gives you more to do. If the first game was a sort of idle clicker in dungeon-crawler format, DR2 is an actual dungeon crawler with streamlined mechanics.
That does lead to what might be its single real problem: you can only really shove so much of a game’s math under the hood before it starts to get unwieldy. DR2 could use some more in-game explanations of what its various stats actually do, so you have some idea of what you could or should be building towards. I get that it’s part of the overall formula, as many of the games DR2 is based on were also made as impenetrable black boxes, but it was just as obnoxious there.
Despite that, DR2 is just as absorbing as the first game was. It’s really leaned into the “cozy” aspect of DR, especially with its soundtrack, which has been stuck in my head for a few days now. Once you’ve got a decent party going, DR2 becomes an excellent pick-up-and-play game. You can put 15 or 20 minutes into it, clear a dungeon, buy some upgrades, and chill out for a while. Granted, that quick vibe check does necessarily involve wholesale demon slaughter, but self-care can take many forms.
Dragon Ruins 2 is more ambitious than its predecessor, which is both a strength and a slight drawback. It’s still fast and accessible at its core, but it’s added a couple of layers of new systems that can’t help but slow down the process. It’s still more Dragon Ruins, and I’ve had fun with it as an end-of-the-day chill-out game, but it’s lost a step or two as it’s become more complicated. – Thomas Wilde
[Dragon Ruins II, developed and published by Graverobber Foundation, is now available for PC via Steam and GOG for $9.99. This column was written using a Steam copy of the game purchased by Hard Drive.]
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Let me make something clear at the outset: I am an absolute lore junkie. I can probably tell you more about the story of the early King of Fighters or Street Fighter games than some of their developers or writers. I really enjoy engaging with the story of a game, especially when that isn’t key to enjoying the actual gameplay. I really admire The Fool’s Apprentice for what it tries to do with its lore and story, even as it fails as a video game.
The Fool’s Apprentice is the newest game in the Danse Cosmology World, a fantastical, low-tech setting built around the movements of the stars and the sigils of strange, mystical runes. I’m extrapolating that from the other two games and a novel that are advertised in one of three locations on TFA’s starting screen.
The game makes it clear: you are a presence in the world, despite the Sims-like overhead view and indirect control of your students/apprentices. The cursor is your ‘invisible hand’ that can select objects, as well as interact more directly with 5 different spells: telekinesis, mind-control, alacrity, force field, and disintegration. These are used to interact more directly with students and furniture, and right at the start: more information about them wouldn’t have gone amiss.
Reading runes to access power is an interesting take on where magickal energy comes from in this world, and a lot of thought has been put into the setting and the various mechanics of how and why things are the way they are. However, the part where it needs to be a video game rather than a novel is also the part where it utterly falls to pieces.
Bluntly: there’s no manual save and barely any auto-save feature. In a sim/building game. There are three main resources to be gathered: Arcanum, the main source of exchange for goods and services; Influence, the perception of the surrounding city toward your establishment; and finally Research, the hardest to acquire by far, obtained from exceptional students and goings-on within the walls of the Conservatory. It’s also the only progress that triggers a save. Every other scrap of progress resets between sessions.
To try and read some semblance of sense into this decision, it feels like the developer wanted the game to have a roguelike element where every “run” was distinct and unique, but even the most brutal roguelikes, except ones that are intentionally channelling the spirit of the original Rogue, will allow some kind of suspended save. This has no such option; every run is only as long as your session, giving the game the sense of a Zen garden’s impermanence. But it’s a plate-spinning magic school sim.
There’s a cleverness to the moment-to-moment writing that feels like it wants to mine humor from the mundanity of the horror of existing in a world where disintegration spells and thieving goblins are the norm. Without a core conceit or anyone to root for, however, the wry irony just comes off as limp, edgy social commentary.
There are the pieces of an interesting game here, and the structure of an interesting world. It may be that if you’ve played the previous two games and read the accompanying novel, this all makes more sense, but this is a crowded field. Other games like The Witcher effectively refer back to external source material without requiring that you engage with them. The story in The Fool’s Apprentice feels like a pamphlet for a larger world rather than anything that could stand alone.
There’s some really good ideas here, but the game needed to be run past testers and casual players. It has the hallmarks of being created in an insular way, similar to how Shenmue developer Yu Suzuki proudly talks about never playing any video games to avoid being influenced by trends. This can lead to obvious pitfalls being overlooked from a lack of experience or knowledge, and that very much feels like what happened here.
I admire the moxie of someone creating a wholecloth fantasy world and developing multimedia inroads around it; it’s something I think a lot of writers have dreamed of doing. Good ideas, though, often come with severe downsides as they require more support to flourish. The approach here is scattershot: it has plenty of ideas, but none of them are directed. It winds up feeling like an inside joke in a language I don’t speak. – Corey Arder
[The Fool’s Apprentice, developed and published by The Planar Danse, is now available for PC via Steam for $16.99. This column was written using a Steam code sent to Hard Drive by a PR representative for The Planar Danse.]
LOS ANGELES — When he isn’t out in the field harassing and forcefully escorting Hispanic people into an unmarked van, ICE Officer Jackson Kent spends his free time playing Final Fantasy XIV where he harrasses players who have traveled to his Data Center, sources in his Free Company have confirmed.
“He never does any content with us. He just runs around the hub cities looking for people with the Voyager title and just harasses them non-stop,” claimed Kent’s FC leader George Starr. “He’s even done it with some of our own Free Company members when we’re playing with our friends from other Data Centers. He’ll just follow us, hop around in front of the Voyager, send threatening tells, stuff like that. We tell him to stop and just play the game but then he starts harassing us too.”
When asked about his in game behavior, Kent maintains that he’s doing it for the good of his Data Center.
“These people come into our Data Center, they don’t contribute anything good. They’re not bringing their best. They cause overpopulation, they steal spots in raids from the hard working players of this Data Center. So I dedicate myself and sacrifice my game time to get them out of here. I don’t raid, I don’t do dungeons, I don’t go to the Gold Saucer, I don’t even engage in the true endgame of fashion, well besides this sweet face covering I gave my character. I don’t do any of it because I’m the only one heroic and brave enough to get these DC travelers to go back where they came from. Only once they’re all gone will I start to actually play the content.
Players from Kent’s Data Center have rallied against him and around the Voyagers whom he harrasses.
“The Voyagers are an essential part of a healthy Data Center. Without them we’d have longer queue times for content and the hub cities would feel more barren. They help to make this place what it is. Natural born Data Center characters playing together with Travelers who come to help us get through Savage Raids even at off hours. This guy has no place in our community, he doesn’t even play any of the content, he contributes nothing useful. We’ve reported him to Square Enix multiple times but all they’ve done is tell us they’re on our side without actually doing anything to help.”
At press time, Square Enix leadership has stated they sent Kent a strongly worded letter encouraging him to change his behavior.
