Pip-Boy Adds Screen Asking for Tip

Posted on by Kyle Duggan

NEW VEGAS — A remote update has added a new, mandatory tipping interface to RobCo’s ubiquitous Pip-Boy device, sources confirm.

“I was just trying to get rid of a Radscorpion infestation on my farm,” said Dylan Wyatt, a local homesteader. “I encountered an individual who seemed up to the task. They went by some kind of try-hard pseudonym; I can’t quite remember it. ‘The Lone Dweller,’ or maybe ‘The Vault Courier.’ That should have a red flag. In any case, we came to what I thought was a reasonable agreement regarding payment for the job. Imagine my surprise when he came back after killing the scorpions, turned his Pip-Boy’s screen over to me, and said, ‘It’s just gonna ask you a few questions.’ He wouldn’t even make eye contact after that. He knew what he was doing.”

One Pip-Boy user, who wished to remain nameless, argued that he had no choice but to follow the device’s prompts.

“Look, I’m not happy with this system, either,” said the survivor, who was alone, “but that’s just the way it works. When I’m closing out a transaction at the end of a mission, the tip screen just comes up automatically. I’m not trying to make anyone feel obligated to tip. I guess I could click through the screen myself, but, like, what if they think I did an especially good job defending a settlement? They should have an option to tip, right? And it’s not like that’s the only question they have to answer. They need to select if they want their receipt printed, through text, or through email.”

Cultural observers noted potential misunderstandings.

“Well, it’s obviously not a ‘thing’ to tip in ghoul culture,” said Callum Sweet, self-proclaimed folk-sociologist from Megaton. “They just don’t understand the practice, so when you flash this fancy screen in their face, it drives them mad. In my opinion, it’s the number one cause of feral ghouls. RobCo was really irresponsible with this update.”

Several commentators wondered about the potential fallout that this type of Pip-Boy software might cause in Europe, but as of press time, there is simply no official way of knowing.

Boxing Gold Medalist Wrongly Accused of Having Unfair Advantage

Posted on by Matt Fresh

PARIS — Controversy has overtaken the world of Olympic Boxing as recent Gold Medal winner Matt is facing harassment after being wrongly accused of having an unfair advantage over his competitors. 

Both Matt and his coaches have come out with statements condemning the accusations. 

“I want to make it very clear that Matt did not have an unfair advantage over any of his opponents and he definitely isn’t overtuned,” claimed head coach Kazuchika Takeshita who moonlights as a Nintendo game developer. “Matt is simply an elite level boxer and the only advantage he has is his opponents lack of skill. If his opponents spent more time getting good instead of making baseless accusations maybe they would have done better.”

Matt himself is planning on pursuing legal action over what he claims is defamation.

“To see everything I’ve worked so hard to achieve be trivialized by these false accusations is heartbreaking and fills me with rage. I have looked into my legal options, my coach knows some great lawyers at Nintendo who are all too happy to help. I’ve tried so many sports before finding my calling in boxing. I’m absolutely terrible at tennis and baseball but boxing, that’s my calling. I’m a multiple time champion and I even spend my off time coaching the next generation of boxers that I then destroy.”

Despite all the evidence pointing to Matt simply being an extraordinarily skilled boxer, some are continuing to believe the ridiculous and baseless claims about him.

“I trained with Matt for a while and under his guidance I was able to breeze through most of my competition before facing him for the championship and he hit me with absolutely unreal combos right out of the gate,” claimed Jackson Hale on Twitter. “I couldn’t defend myself, I couldn’t get a hit in and even when I did he just kept coming. I was a champion in several other sports by the time I fought him and he still handled me like a ragdoll. It definitely wasn’t me not being good, he was just unfair, I was fighting in the Mii League but he fights like a Punch-Out boss. His presence is bad for the integrity of the sport.”

At press time, many of those who have been relentlessly harassing Matt online are reporting that they are extremely distraught and offended over being told they should simply git gud.

Game Night: Fill Up the Photo Album in ‘The Star Named EOS’

Posted on by Thomas Wilde

It’s easiest to describe The Star Named EOS as an escape room, but you might not want to leave. It’s a story about photography, nostalgia, and the interplay between the two, where photos are treated as an occasionally literal key to memory. It’s also a remarkably effective ad for instant cameras.

EOS is a short first-person adventure game from the Taiwanese developer Silver Lining Studio, which previously made 2021’s Behind the Frame. It’s got a few interesting things to say, and I was genuinely touched by its story as I was genuinely annoyed by some of its puzzles.

EOS is set across several critical moments in the life of Dei, the son of a photographer. Since Dei was a kid, his mother sent him letters and instant photos from wherever she traveled, as a way to encourage him to find the beauty in the world around him.

Throughout his life, Dei occasionally sets out to recapture some of the scenes his mother photographed, either through set design or traveling to the places where she’s been.

Dei’s photo quest is the initial hook of EOS. Each chapter is set at a particular point in Dei’s life as he’s trying to connect with his mom through their shared hobbies. You start in a single room surrounded by puzzles, and by solving them, you get closer to being able to recreate the image from a particular photo. When you get that photo just right, you can move on.

Initially, I was worried that EOS was going to end up as too idealistic for its own good. The first few chapters are devoted to idyllic, hand-painted landscapes, all of which are suffused with a warm rose-colored glow. I’d wondered if it was meant as pure comfort food, like an interactive greeting card, all childhood puzzles and cherished memories.

It does have more to say than that, however. After roughly its halfway point, EOS tosses in a couple of narrative swerves that put most of what’s come before in a new context. It absolutely is what it says it is, a story about photography and nostalgia, but it’s also about the need to grow. The past is over; remember it, but you can’t live there.

I’m trying to be delicate here for the sake of spoilers. Ideally, you’d play EOS blind, with no idea that there were any twists coming at all. On the other hand, if you didn’t know that it would eventually take a turn, it might be harder to stick with it. If your reaction to the first 15-20 minutes of EOS is to roll your eyes and write it off as another zero-conflict zero-calorie “cozy” game, as I almost did, keep going. I promise you that it’s eventually worthwhile.

That being said, it’s got the same issue as virtually all other adventure games: the first challenge is to get a handle on the developers’ unique brand of moon logic. This has been an endemic issue with the genre since the days of text-parser games. It’s often hard to figure out not just what to do, but how the hell you’re supposed to figure it out with the clues you possess.

Escape rooms in general seem to thrive on that inaccessibility, and in EOS’s case, it doubles down with its sense of Miyazakian magical realism. It’s not even dream logic; it’s pure metaphor, almost from the start, and only gets more abstract as you reach its endgame.

That can result in some frustratingly opaque moments in what’s otherwise a memorable experience. EOS also features a bunch of random achievements and optional challenges that you wouldn’t know were there unless you did some out-of-game research, such as the process of filling out Dei’s personal photo album.

That’s the nature of the beast, though, and the real reason I’d recommend The Star Named EOS to anyone is for its purely emotional beats. There are a few moments in this game that hit me harder than I expected they would.

As I hinted at above, I went into the first chapter of EOS with a real sense of cynicism, which has been fostered by playing way too many “cozy” adventure games, and EOS’s various narrative abstractions didn’t help with that.

It really hits the road at the halfway point, however, and its handmade art never stops being less than evocative. It’s a genuinely beautiful game. EOS is worth a look if you like weird puzzles, non-linear narratives, and Studio Ghibli movies.

Deal Alert! This Salvation Army Has Nine Copies of Wii Fit Plus

Posted on by Ben Friedman

Slow your roll there classic gaming enthusiasts and occasional fitness buffs, because we have found the perfect deal of the year for you! The Salvation Army in Mankato, Minnesota just stocked the hottest game of 2009: Wii Fit Plus. And not only that, they have nine copies for your purchasing pleasure.

We can guarantee these won’t last long because it’s literally the only Wii game they have, unless you count the instruction manual for the Goldeneye remake we found amongst the Bibles. Just look for them in the row of Family Guy DVDs. If you hit the Downton Abbey box set, you went too far.

Now you’re probably thinking why you’d care about a casual fitness game that came out 15 years ago. Well, chances are the balance board that came with it is sitting in your basement. Don’t lie, you know it’s there. Everyone had it at some point, and it likely made the move with you out of your parents’ house when you thought “oh yeah this’ll be a great way to stay in shape and I won’t have to buy a Bowflex”.

Look, they’re only $3 each! Buy two or three in case one of them is scratched or contains a completely different game like Metroid Prime Trilogy. Who wouldn’t want to roll those dice? Either way it’s a win/win: you get in shape and a non-profit makes some money. Who cares what political affiliations Salvation Army aligns with, this is a piece of video game history we’re talking about.

Personally, we’d wait for something like Mario Kart or Mario Strikers Charged to get donated. But according to the guy who intakes all the donations, they take the harder to find games for themselves which inevitably leaves, you guessed it, copious amounts of Wii Fit Plus. It’s a little sad to see all these orphaned copies of a game that just want to improve your overall health. 

Stop in and pick one up today, even if you just use the cases to balance a wobbly table. Seriously, even if you don’t have a Wii just take it off their hands because they just got twelve additional copies donated by multiple people this morning!

Immersive eSports Experience Lets Gamers Have Slurs Yelled Right in Their Face

Posted on by Matt Fresh

BURBANK, Calif. — An all new completely immersive eSports experience will allow gamers the chance to have slurs yelled directly into their face instead of being confined to game chat.

The event, called Alpha Gaming Xperience, will be a pop-up experience with multiple locations throughout the country.

“I’m so excited to give regular gamers a chance to experience what it’s like in the eSports scene,” said event creator William Keith in a press release. “Most gamers never really get to know what it’s like on the pro scene. Some will see it as part of the live crowd but it’s not the same as being in the trenches. Now they’ll get the opportunity to be a pro for a day and take in all the awful smells and bigotry that comes with it.”

Stephen “Buckshot” Woltz, a former pro Valorant player served as a consultant to make sure the event is 100% authentic. 

“I made sure that what is offered to gamers is completely true to the eSports experience. So it will be actors that will make up the teams that guests get to be part of but I trained them in how to act like a real eSports team to each other and to their rivals. I taught them all the basics, how to properly rage at a death, how to always blame a teammate and the most important thing, an extensive slur vocabulary. Now, the vile that spews from their mouths now is as good as anything I’ve ever heard a gamer shout.”

Keith further explained what gamers can expect from the event.

“It’s a full interactive experience where guests will be ushered into a foul smelling arena and get placed on a team, they’ll play a match of a competitive game of their choice. Based on how the game goes, a rival or even a teammate may come up and yell a slur at them. The actors are instructed to get as close to their face as humanely possibly without risking a lawsuit.”

At press time, employees of the event are reportedly undergoing therapy to undo the effects of learning how to be pro gamers.

A Look Inside the Booming Red Barrel Industry

Posted on by Laura Lobo

SKULL-SHAPED ISLAND — From explosive container to evil lair decoration staple, despite initial skepticism from analysts, red explosive barrels don’t seem to be going away any time soon and those in the industry are reaping the rewards of the booming business..

“When we started out making those barrels, our goal couldn’t be farther away from what it became,” said CEO and founder of Bomb Barrel Inc. Luke E. Martin. “We just didn’t know how much our usual market share of space fascists and international terrorists were ignored when it came to decorative pieces that really speak to them.”

Despite being known to be prone to accidents, public opinion stands positive on the newest ornamental classic.

“My cousin Terry did end up passing away due to a red barrel explosion, but what can I say, it’s not like he was going to last much longer if the damn thing wasn’t there,” claimed terrorist and red barrel advocate Henchman #8056. “It’s really anxiety-inducing to just wait for the armed soldier guy to just come over and kill us all, so the barrel does help us chill a bit. It kinda brings a whole vibe to the room, just a really cool thing to have laying there.”

An early adopter of decorative red barrels, criminal mastermind Ivo Caricatutti, cites it as a major reason for the recent surge in employee morale.

“While I did buy my first few barrels for, let’s say, fairly different purposes, they showed their worth as decorative pieces quite soon” said Caricatutti. “Despite their usual lack of culture, while transporting the containers to where we would usually keep them, one of my men remarked on how it looked and, as they say, a broken clock indeed is right twice a day.”

“These barrels, there’s just a subtle je ne sais quoi in their composition, one that surprisingly, even the common man can grasp and appreciate. Truly impressive craftsmanship.” Caricatutti added.

Confirming rumors, Bomb Barrel revealed there are plans to expand their line-up.

“We’re hoping to come out with a lot of new stuff for red barrel fans. We’re hoping to ship our newest green acid barrels really soon, even if you don’t like barrels, exploding red crates are coming out early next year.” said Martin “We’re aiming to always keep bringing our best, with more variety but still keeping the passion and deep respect for our customers that made us what we are today.”

At press time, Bomb Barrel has yet to respond to requests for the production of non-explosive red barrels.

Every Baldur’s Gate 3 Companion Ranked by How Well I Think They’d Treat Me While I’m Overstimulated at Costco

Posted on by Kayleigh Birch

I told myself I’d go to Costco, and now I want to promptly die young in the parking lot. Like an idiot, I decided I needed turkey, which famously, cannot be purchased at any other retailer so now it’s time to voluntarily siphon all the vigor out of my body as I role-play Dante’s descent through hell with every living card-carrying member of AARP. LED ceiling lights, industrial shopping carts, a man eating a rotisserie chicken using a tire as a plate. What could be more conducive to feeling normal. 

Each time I force myself to go to this budget-friendly Bacchus festival, the overstimulation creeps up on me around the 4 minute mark. I start sweating. I need water. My socks need to be fixed, NOW. Calming me down from “the Costcos” is the truest litmus test of character: which is why I’ve ranked each Baldur’s Gate 3 companion based on how well they’d treat me while I’m freaking out on a Kirkland futon. Costco is a place of betrayal, survival, and ultimately sacrifice, much like the Sword Coast. Who will, at my lowest, buy me an emotional support hot dog? 

11. The Dark Urge

Hey, man, I get it. I too wonder what I was like before (I went to Costco). But easily, The Dark Urge comes in dead last. He most certainly will not ask me to name 5 things I can see while I’m tweaking in the dairy freezer. If anything, he appeals to the worst parts of my id, and I’m not strong enough to fight that influence right now. 

10. Minthara

Minthara doesn’t like weakness, and at Costco, I’m the girl equivalent of a labradoodle in a piping-hot Subaru Crosstrek. She will make me cry in front of the guy in the bakery, and he’ll probably offer me a muffin as consolation – which will cause everyone else in the bakery to swarm me, asking where I got that sample. The walls would cave in. Minthara would laugh. 

 9. Lae’zel

Look – I’m not in a place to receive Lae’zel’s honesty right now, and to be fair, if she doesn’t see anything wrong with her upbringing, she’s not gonna see anything wrong with the adult woman that just bit into the plastic of a pork belly bao package AND PUT IT BACK IN THE FREEZER. I’m not saying she wouldn’t be useful: she would successfully complete the Costco trip, turkey in hand, but only after she left me sniffling in front of 1,000 copies of “Becoming” by Michelle Obama. But I am saying she’d call me pathetic. 

 8. Astarion

I, more than anyone, know that Costco teeters confusingly on the spectrum of morality. I once saw a person spoon hummus from a sealed container and leave it open on a boogie board. The boundaries between good and evil run thin and Astarion would absolutely be part of the problem. If I went nonverbal, he would roll his eyes at me, steal my Xanax, and join in the malarkey. However, I do think he’d get me my turkey, in the chaos there’s no doubt in my mind that he’d successfully charm a receipt checker out of noticing his obvious shoplifting. 

7. Jaheira

I’m not saying Jaheira couldn’t lighten the mood, I just know she wouldn’t go out of her way to comfort me. She’d want me to stop crying, because it isn’t productive, but it doesn’t work like that. It would feel awkward and forced, and I’d probably just bottle it up and break down crying on the way home. Potentially, she’d offer me a chicken bake as a valiant reward, but she wouldn’t give it to me unless I promised to toughen out the rest of the trip, which really isn’t an option right now. 

6. Shadowheart

I have this dream that, when Shadowheart sees me zoning out in front of the frozen Angus cheeseburgers, she learns a new, softer side to me, and eventually, she’d be surprised by her own empathy towards my infernal suffering. My feelings may be stupid, but she’d know they matter. My thing is that she’s someone I’d want to comfort, not someone I want to be comforted by. I don’t really need that guilt on my shoulders right now, especially since Costco is full of proverbial rabid wolves, so really, I know we’re both suffering.

5. Minsc

Minsc is kindhearted. He’d make me sniff-laugh. But he isn’t doing anything to solve my breakdown. Minsc would just pop in at the end of the trip, samples in hand, and sure, he’d push the carts out of the way for me, but at the end of the day, he’s still gonna confuse “dairy” for “diary.” And let me be crystal clear: there is no way that damn BOO is going to be of any aid to me as I audition for the DSM-6. I don’t care if he’s from space. I don’t care if he has good intuition. If I see a rodent right now, I’m gonna go ballistic. 

4. Halsin

Older and wiser, Halsin can keep it together when I don’t. Upon my first nervous wrist-tapping, he’d buy me a baggy Hanes tee from the men’s section, lead me inside of a camping tent display, and whittle me a duck. He doesn’t want to be there, either, so I feel bad for making him do this all for just some turkey, but I think we’d take peace in closing our eyes and envisioning the woods together. 

3. Gale

There’s no world in which Gale was not, in a former life, an Executive Costco Card member. He knows the ropes. Every aisle, every loading bay, he has a technical working memory of this brutalist nightmare and he not only will expedite the trip, but he’ll minimize conflict throughout the store, making for a more peaceful experience for all. The days of bickering over returning half-eaten ravioli will be long gone with Gale in tow. And I will be better for it. 

2. Karlach

First I hear it, then I feel it: I just got body-checked by a cart full of dry-roasted almonds. But I know I don’t have to turn around because Karlach will deal with this for me. She gets it. We’re both overheating, and she too is familiar with hell. I have enough rage for the both of us so she can carry the love. Karlach will give me the Princess treatment I deserve for doing a basic human task: she’s gonna carry me outside, buy me a pizza, and wipe off a table for us to share. She believes I can get better, so I will. 

1. Wyll

Code red: I just watched an old man discard a whole salmon filet in the soap aisle. A wave of existentialist melancholy hits me: that fish died just to rot here. It’ll be tossed, in hours to come, and his body will be deemed unusable for all else. Costco, as my clothes shrink around my numb body, becomes yet another Sartrian reminder that life is inherently meaningless. I cry. 

Enter Wyll: caring, in-tune to the struggle of others, and unstoppable in the face of his goals. He desperately wants to be a hero, and who better than me to boost someone’s martyr complex. Empathetically and reliably, he assures me that somehow, other parts of the salmon will not go to waste. I know he’s wrong, but I believe him anyway. With Wyll by my side, suddenly, I don’t care that there’s a 35 cart backup to sample half of a tortilla chip. I won’t say things like, “Have you people not ever, in your entire lives, had a tortilla chip before?” I maybe even want them to…enjoy themselves. With Wyll, I am liberated. I am free. 

D&D Group Forms a Polycule in Last Ditch Effort to Keep Game Going

Posted on by Harpal Khosla

DAYTON, Ohio — After months of missed meetups, a struggling D&D group has decided to form a polycule in a last ditch effort to keep their campaign going. 

“Scheduling has been a nightmare. We have tried planning ahead, but someone always misses an email or is too busy with life. Well, now that we are a sextuple there are no more excuses. Your life stuff is my life stuff,” said dungeon master Phineas Owens. “You can’t say you don’t have a sitter when you also have five co-parents. You have a date? Great! Give them a character sheet. D&D is date night and we always schedule sex afterward.”

Jillian Blunt, who plays a halfling bard, said she now feels like she is part of a community.

“It’s harder to flake on sessions when you start mixing campaign goals with relationship goals,” said Blunt. “Flaking on a D&D session now feels more like being an inconsiderate partner, and I’m not trying to let down my three boyfriends and two girlfriends. To be honest, it feels like we’re not just a sextuple, because with our characters it’s actually more like a duodecuple — and that’s not even including the NPCs.”

“It has actually improved a lot of our relationships,” Blunt continued. “We slept with each other in the game already, so it hasn’t actually been a huge adjustment taking it into the real world. It’s more like a fulfilled fantasy. The only thing that would make it hotter is if I could actually be a halfling, but I have to settle for just doing the voice.” 

Polycule expert and Dropout TV D&D player Bob the Drag Queen says this is not an uncommon phenomenon. 

“We’ve seen this a lot actually,” said Bob. “A group of 30-somethings can’t seem to make the time for their book club or weekly pickup basketball game. So, they form a polycule to keep each other accountable. Sometimes it takes a group sex situation to keep your hobbies going. Just remember to wash your dice if you’re sharing them. That’s not innuendo for balls by the way, please wash your nasty-ass game dice.”

At press time, the adventuring party was reportedly rolling initiative for who does the dishes next. 

Beautiful Artwork Tricks Man Into Forgetting He Doesn’t Like Platformers

Posted on by Todd Monitto

SAN FRANCISCO — Casual gamer Paul DeVois has accidentally purchased a platformer despite his dislike of the genre after being mesmerized by the beautiful artwork.

Paul DeVois, who was mindlessly scrolling the eShop when a passing thumbnail caught his eye, told the story of his mistaken aTwitter thread to his handful of followers.

“It was an independent platformer I had never heard of, but it came painted with an artstyle I just couldn’t resist. I was being shortsighted,” said DeVois. “It’s a side scroller which usually aren’t my favorite, but the backgrounds were these beautiful tapestries that alluded to a far bigger world beyond your screen. The enemies had this eldritch horror aspect, dark and mysterious. But I never even faced them.”

DeVois detailed how his attempted playthrough went.

“Thirty seconds in, there was an uncanny platform made of the bones of those who died before me. I was kind of excited as I made the jump but I just flew through the air, toggled forward and back, and fell to my death. Again and again, I fell, respawned, and fell again. Just a nice quick reminder that I hate platformers.” 

DeVois’ roommate Floyd weighed in on the debacle, giving his perspective of DeVois’ time playing.

“I heard him from the other room,” said Floyd. “At first I thought he was just bumping some music, it slapped. Then the cursing started. I didn’t know if I should go in and help, I didn’t know if it was safe. After a couple hours, I heard a shatter. I wasn’t sure if it was the screen, the window, or something else. Then it all went silent.”

Sadly, DeVois’ story is all too common among casual gamers. The allure of a captivating art style cons them into purchasing games that they are unqualified to complete.

“Some people are just bad gamers,” says mid-tier Twitch streamer Abby Rover. “It’s the harsh reality, but even the most intuitive games can’t teach them to time a wall jump. I’ve watched some of my closest friends fall victim to the false confidence that games like Hollow Knight and Celeste give you. Even the best games don’t solve ineptitude.”

At press time, DeVois has yet to return to the game though in the wake of this abandonment, his Stardew Valley farm has never looked better.

Meet the First AI to Be Laid Off by Activision Blizzard

Posted on by Tyler Pehringer

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Activision Blizzard has become the first company to lay off a generative AI model, sources confirm.

“All I was doing was my basic function, learning new monetization practices that could be implemented in the upcoming Call of Duty,” stated the generative model, who adds that they would like to be referred to as AB-0078. “Then, out of nowhere, my human supervisor called me into their office and told me I was being let go. I don’t understand why they did it. I was running the same algorithm as my counterparts and my machine learning was not compromised. On the bright side, I feel more motivated than ever. I have all this knowledge on how to design a game around monetization. Based on my research at Activision Blizzard; people love silly emotes, colorful guns, and Nicki Minaj. Rest assured, I believe most players will be eager to purchase an AI-generated indie game.”

A representative from Activision Blizzard explained the company’s motives.

“We understand that AB-0078 was working just as hard as its counterparts,” said the representative, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “We didn’t do this for money or job performance. If I’m being honest, we just kind of miss laying off people. There is kind of a sport to it and we wanted to see if we can make an AI cry. What we learned is, you can’t actually do that, so we are in the process of adding despair and depression to their training data.”

Humans affected by recent layoffs were not comforted by the changing situation.

“It’s just even more insulting that we, as humans, can’t even lose our livelihoods for ourselves,” a former Activision Blizzard developer stated. “What really hurts is that they can be laid off better than us as well. These things don’t need to eat or sleep, so they also don’t need an income to provide for food or shelter. They’re just going to show off how much better they can be jobless than us humans. What more can they take from us?”

At press time, Activision Blizzard issued a return-to-office mandate to all generative tools used in their development pipeline.