SEATTLE — Amid a hail of gunfire and the unruly hiss of flames spewing from dual nozzles, a local gamer could be seen bopping her head to the incredibly good music of the game’s pivotal boss fight, blissed out and in the zone, shortly before oh shit, she died, sources report.
“These are the moments I live for,” said Gabby Vasquez, on her 9th attempt to beat Armored Core VI’s Chapter 1 boss, the imposing PCA craft Balteus. “I’m focused, in my element— I’m timing the reload window of my right-arm weapon with how much ammo is in my left, otherwise I have to deal with two cooldowns while Balteus is unloading his shit. I’ve almost broken his pulse armor and I’m boosting in for my laser blade. Then I hear those rousing synths kick in. ‘Contact With You’ by Koto Hoshino, one of the game’s composers. It’s this beautiful, propelling theme. It puts you right in Raven’s shoes at that moment: the loneliness of mercenary life, but also that spark of hope that comes from finding SHIT. THE MISSILES? AGAIN WITH THE MISSILES?”
“I thought From nerfed that baby bitch move,” continued Vasquez moments later, changing her AC’s build in the Assembly menu to have another go. “But it’s no surprise. This is my first AC, but the Souls games have always had GOT YOUR ASS! always had these stellar tracks hidden away in boss fights that make you go damn, this kinda slaps? Everyone memes on ‘plin plin plon’ from Gwyn’s fight in the first Dark Souls, but I can think of no sadder song to destroy expensive gaming hardware to. There’s nothing quite oh shit, oh shit, wait I’m about to get him— don’t you move, don’t mo— okay, yes, yes… haha oh my god, YES… NONONONONONONO—”
When questioned, Vasquez’s roommate expressed concern for their friend’s relationship with the games she theoretically plays for fun.
“She really loves these games given how much she also despises them to the core,” said Val Richards, Vasquez’s roommate for the last three months. “I’ll admit, some of the songs are straight-up bops. ‘Vanguard’ from Demon’s Souls? Bangin’. ‘Steel Haze (Rusted Pride)’? That’s on my sex playlist. Thing is, I see Gabby listen to these songs on her own, outside of the game, and it doesn’t register the same way for her. It’s like every other note triggers a memory in her brain of a time she got curb-stomped by a rocket volley or bitch-slapped by an unblockable heavy attack. Last night I caught her listening to ‘Vordt of the Boreal Valley’ at her computer, and when the choir kicked in? Holy shit, you could see a change. Her eyes went wide. She started shaking. Like she was experiencing the second phase all over again. Which is actually kind of sad, because Vordt is like, piss easy.”
Composing music for a game is no easy feat, a fact video game composers are quick to admit.
“You’ve got bullets flying, swords clanging, NPCs talking in your ear, it’s like trying to compose in a car wash,” said one AAA composer. “It can be hard to create something beautiful in all that noise, but it’s my job to try. If I do my job right, I can get a player so lost in my symphony, in the seraphic harmonies of the orchestra, that they totally whiff a boost kick on Rusty which he takes advantage of to land a bullshit laser slicer combo attack that has you eating shit in the red skies above Rubicon. You can’t deny, that’s art.”
At press time, Vasquez had been hospitalized in a “Great Grey Wolf Sif”-related incident, sources say. Doctors are reportedly prescribing “Majula Theme 9 Hours Extended” in hopes of aiding her swift recovery.
METRO DETROIT –– An overly-zealous Instagram reply guy flexed his exceptional vocabulary in the comments of a 20 year-old woman on the platform, reports show. Writing what appears to be a disjointed yet compelling proclamation of his physical attraction to the young woman, our sources reluctantly confirmed the man has the best vocabulary they’ve ever seen.
“Behold a resplendent object, d’art your luscious bosom an exquisite fusion of sinuous curves and precise angles,” wrote Instagram User JuicyDave846245, without any punctuation . “Find nirvana in the ivory hue of your eyes as I gently caress the delicate filigree that rests between the crescendo of your hips––allow me the elusive pleasure of courting you my beautiful flower.” The man proceeded to respond to his own post with three comments, all reading “Please check your profile darling.”
Chloe Thompson, the subject of the man’s attempts at seduction, expressed discomfort about his relentless advances.
“I mean, it’s like there’s two elements at play. First of all, he’s like 70 years old. He literally has “father, grandfather” or some shit in his bio, like, front and center. Also, all of his media is ferociously horny? Like, how many times can you post the same gif of Leonardo DiCaprio biting his knuckles?”
Thomspon, however, couldn’t help but acknowledge his spectacular vocabulary.
“That said, he’s actually a really good writer. Genuinely, it’s super impressive. I mean, the dude is obviously a disgusting perv, but it’s like, almost kind of sad? If he put this kind of effort into poetry or something, maybe he’d be something one day.”
Despite her admiration for the man’s verbal prowess, Thompson reported the user for his persistent comments. Dylan Weller, a content supervisor for Instagram, admitted the man’s boundless vocabulary left him speechless.
“Typically, we’re handling your average social media garbage. But, reply guys, they’re different. I’ve long held the belief these guys are the last bastion of modern linguistics, yet, there’s still cases that blow you away,” Weller explained. “The man is a walking thesaurus. It’s kind of a monkey’s paw, you know? You carry the poetic gift of Shakesphere, yet all you can do is write about how bad you want to jerk off. Tragic, really…”
When asked to comment, JuicyDave846245 sent us sonnet telling us he had no comment, then asked if we had a sister.
WASHINGTON — The United States Treasury has gone on record to say the country’s $33.7 trillion debt is owed entirely to Nook Inc, according to a statement.
Most people think of Tom Nook as a greedy individual, but many members of the government say this isn’t the case.
“He’s actually a very generous man. We still owe him for rebuilding the White House after the War of 1812, but he hasn’t bothered us once,” said Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen. “Hell, he even lets us pay our congressmen’s salaries with his money!”
Other members of the government took the opportunity to explain where all this money is being spent.
“A lot of people have asked why the national debt is so high. The truth is we keep buying Godzilla statues to scare Biden,” said Vice President Kamala Harris. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin added on by claiming that every weapon in the United State’s arsenal is on loan from Nook’s Cranny.
The government says they’ve tried paying Mr. Nook back, but have been increasingly unsuccessful.
“The 2008 housing market crash happened because we were trying to sell as many of Nook’s homes as possible,” said an anonymous CIA member. “We killed Kennedy just so we could pay him for the memorial library.”
“I’m pretty sure we’re just keeping track of the number for fun at this point,” Harris told us.
When asked about where Americans’ tax dollars have been going this whole time, Yellen simply stated “star fragment furniture.” Tom Nook refused to comment.
What is life? It’s a question that humans have been asking themselves since at least George Harrison made that song. Well, in the year of our lord 2023, we finally have an answer: It’s endless suffering.
Between the climate crisis, the financial crisis, the housing crisis, and Elon Musk continually attempting humor it’s clear that humans are made to suffer. You’re born, you work and then you die. Maybe if you’re lucky you get to have one really good brunch before you croak. But all in all, real life is a hellscape that we push through for the fleeting moments of dopamine we get when we see a video of a panda falling down.
I can’t promise you it will get better (because that would make me a liar) but I can give you a way to escape that doesn’t involve the bottle. I can give you farming games. Just a list of them, rather. If you really want them you gotta buy them yourself.
Farming games are cute and joyful and they present worlds where the only problem anyone has is deciding what to do while you wait for your crops to grow. It’s magical. So here are the 10 best farming games to help you forget about the endless suffering that is your real life.
Stardew Valley
Let’s get this out of the way first. This isn’t just a farming game, it’s THE farming game. It presents you with the perfect escape from your hellscape. You inherit a farm that has no property taxes or bills that you have to pay. Just a nice idyllic life where you can farm, and build a nice quaint life for yourself. The residents of Pelican Town can be befriended and you can cultivate relationships with them. You can even get married and have a kid, so it really is the ultimate fantasy for gamers. This won’t just be a way to escape your life, this will become your new life. When you shuffle off this mortal coil they’ll find you slumped in your chair with Stardew Valley the only thing bringing light into the dark room.
Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life
An updated remake of Harvest Moon: A Wonderlife, this will give you all the same cozy farming life-sim vibes as Stardew Valley but with some twists. For one, it’s not pixel art so you can play it even if you don’t like indie games. The other way it differs is by having the town and characters develop and grow as the in-game years roll on. So now you can not only live in a fantasy world where you get married and have a child, but you can watch them grow up without the threat of them rebelling against you as you slowly drift into alcoholism from your inability to pay inflated grocery prices.
Disney Dreamlight Valley
Do you know what’s better than struggling with the hardships of life? Taking virtual selfies with Ariel. Disney Dreamlight Valley lets you do just that. It’s essentially Animal Crossing with Disney characters except it’s better because there are actual things to do, the developers actually add content to it regularly and Scrooge McDuck is a much better exploitative capitalist overlord than Tom Nook. There’s no better way to turn a blind eye to life’s problems than by cultivating the perfect little Disney village. You get to interact and befriend characters from various Disney/Pixar franchises, there’s quests to complete, different storylines, and a pretty big focus on farming. Tending to crops that you can then use to cook various meals to eat for stamina or to help Remy’s restaurant will make you forget you even have a real soul-sucking job. Whether you’re a Disney adult or just someone who yearns for the innocence of the Disney Corporation, this is the game for you.
Pokémon
You might be thinking to yourself that Pokemon isn’t a farming game but I’m here to tell you it is. While the majority of your time is spent battling Pokemon, the series at its heart is all about farming. You tame wild creatures, you breed and nurture them until they grow strong much like what happens on a farm. The series, especially the Switch entries are filled with large barren fields not unlike what you would see on a real farm. You can harvest various fruits and berries, and you travel from town to town buying and selling wares to assist you in caring for your creatures. The life of a Pokemon trainer is extraordinarily like that of a farmer, you even profit from how well you take care of your livestock. Albeit from winning battles instead of slaughtering them for meat. And to top it off, your Pokemon all end up at a farm upstate when you inevitably lose to Cynthia.
Farm Together
Farm Together gives you everything you want in a farming game but it also lets you bring people along with you. Deluding yourself into thinking life is okay is much better with others and Farm Together allows you to farm with friends or strangers. You can make tending to crops, caring for animals, customizing your farm, and pretending everything is fine into a group activity. The in-game time even advances when you’re not in the game so when life rips you away from the one bright spot in your life so it can shovel cow manure into every one of your orifices, you’ll always have something to do when you come back to the game. Turn self-delusion into group-delusion when you Farm Together.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
Farming kills is still farming and with Modern Warfare 3’s awful spawning, you can camp and farm kills for hours. Life’s problems don’t exist when you’re wrecking noobs.
Final Fantasy XIV
Forget real life and play the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV which has an expanded free trial that you can play through the entirety of A Realm Reborn and the award-winning HEAVENSWARD and STORMBLOOD expansions up to level 70 for free with no restrictions on playtime! Soon to also be available on Xbox Series X & S!
Patch 6.2 introduced the Island Sanctuary which is a solo instanced area that’s basically a farming game. Honestly, even without farming, FFXIV is the best game to make you forget real life is endless suffering but this is a farming game list so I have to specifically mention farming otherwise they won’t release my family.
The Last of Us
There’s no better game to farm engagement than The Last of Us. Either one of them works. Last of Us fans are the most unhinged people on the internet. Last of Us haters are the most insane people on the internet. No matter what you say, both groups will come at you with the most brain-cell-murdering comments you’ll ever hear. I can’t wait for the quote tweets of this entry with death threats and insults to my mother. Come on Last of Us fans/haters, come at me, get our social media numbers up while you make a fool of yourself in the name of your favorite/least favorite video game psychopath.
Fallout 4
The constant omnipresent threat of nuclear annihilation is tiresome so take a break from it by setting up a farm settlement in a post-nuclear apocalyptic wasteland. Sure you may be on a supposedly urgent quest to find your son in Fallout 4 but he can wait a few more years while you farm. With Fallout 4, you can imagine a simpler, better life than your real one, where the capitalist hellhole was replaced by a capitalist hellhole with cheery 50s tunes and giant mole rats to shoot. As a bonus, unlike your real life where it seems if you don’t send the first text your friends would never contact you, your best friend Preston Garvey will call you every 30 seconds to show he cares.
Rune Factory
Set in a wholesome JRPG universe that makes up for its lack of waifus with its abundance of experience points. Farming is nice and all but sometimes when you come home from work you want to slay monsters while imagining them as annoying Andy from HR. Rune Factory lets you do it all, farm crops, and XP in equal measure. Everything you want from a cute farming game is here, relationships, crops, livestock, land with no taxes, etc. but it also lets you go dungeon-crawling, take on quests, and level up. Everything you do in Rune Factory nets you experience points which is a nice way to escape from the real-life system of every action taking bits of your HP bar away. In true JRPG fashion, Rune Factory has so much for you to do that once you get hooked, your friends and family won’t see you for weeks and you can immerse yourself in a nice cozy fantasy world where Andy from HR doesn’t exist.
DAVENPORT – Fortnite’s recent decision to include age ratings has upset many of its most loyal fans, but a young fan may just be the most disappointed of them all, according to reports.
“That new update is so gay bro,” said Braxtyn James, an eighth-grader at Bill Fitch Middle School. “Me and my boys have been playing Fortnite for four years now, and they’re just going to tell us that it’s for kids? After all the V-Bucks we got our parents to buy us, we can’t even use our matching Venom skins? Nobody plays that stupid game anymore because of it,” James wailed. “If you play Fortnite, you seriously have no rizz. From now on, we’re only playing games that take us seriously, like Minecraft.”
While James says his anger lies in Epic’s age gates, someone close to the situation has another take.
“I think he’s just so upset because his little brother Kassady started playing that game a couple of days ago. He really looks up to him and thought playing Fortnite would make him cool,” said Eloise Jones, his mother. “I think it was less any change in the game that made it ‘cringe’’ to his friends and more when Kass joined their squad in the middle of a game and everyone overheard me telling him to take out the garbage. The same thing happened with Among Us a few years back,” she continued. “I’m not going to force him to play the game – Maybe it’ll finally make him go outside and play for once.”
As of press time, we were able to catch a glimpse of James’ current acts of protest against Epic Games, including a nostalgia-fueled TikTok video set to MGMT’s ‘Little Dark Age’.
PHILADELPHIA — A Yu-Gi-Oh player arrived at his local tournament earlier today with a deck box and dreams of qualifying for nationals, only to stop in his tracks when it became clear no one else had brought a smutty, borderline pornographic playmat, sources report.
“I spent the days before the tournament netdecking, re-sleeving my old Ashes and Called Bys, heck, I blew over $50 on Triple Tactics and Mirrorjade alone,” said Ralph Ferro, a 21 year-old Yu-Gi-Oh veteran. “I’m feeling good, like this is my year. I’m finally gonna top locals in the world’s third most popular children’s card game. I sit down and start shuffling my deck, pull out my calculator, waiting for my opponent, you know, when I start to get these… looks.”
“At first I think crap, maybe I showed up the wrong day. Or maybe I misread the website, everyone has sleeves on their cards, maybe they’re here to play Flesh and Blood. But I look around, and I start to notice something: of all the players in the shop, no one else is using a disgusting, X-rated playmat in full view of children. That is, no one but me.”
“It’s silly, people are so sensitive these days,” continued Ferro. “Everyone’s a special snowflake. No one wants to see things that might shock them or make them think. No one wants to be ‘triggered’. No one wants to see Dark Magician Girl doing ahegao face while she’s spanked on her bare ass by a trio of Harpie Ladies in slutty maid outfits. I swear, you can’t show anything nowadays.”
Other players expressed discomfort when asked about Ferro’s choice of playmat, which typically depict iconic monsters such as Yugi’s Dark Magician or Seto Kaiba’s Blue-Eyes White Dragon in cool, dynamic poses with lots of clothing.
“It was really awkward,” reported one player who faced off against Ferro in her first round. “I mean, this is Yu-Gi-Oh. I expect a lot of men at locals to give unwanted advice or ask if I’m single. I expect exaggerated female characters on playmats and sleeves, especially with the popularity of Dragonmaids and Sky Strikers. What I’m less used to is seeing Dark Magician Girl’s breasts spill fully out of her lace bra while the Tour Guide from the Underworld worships her bare feet in the banish zone. When Ralph finally started filling up monster zones, I was relieved. I could’ve popped his field spell from turn two, but that would’ve meant looking at a Scapegoat with full T&A. No thank you.”
The owner of the store, Paul DeSilva, a casual player who has never understood Pendulum Zones and is too afraid to ask, was reported telling Ferro to put the mat away.
“It’s not like you need a mat to play Yu-Gi-Oh,” said DeSilva. “The only reason they exist is for new players to get their bearings and for veteran players to show off cool artwork for a hobby they love. Now, in my time owning this store, I’ve seen a lot of Dark Magician Girl smut. Dark Magician Girl doing things I know for a fact she wouldn’t do if she was real and not an awful, borderline unplayable card. It takes a lot to push my buttons. Ralph’s playmat managed to do that, so it had to go. You ever seen smut so audacious and unconcerned with anatomy that it skips right past being sexy and goes straight to scaring you? It was like that.”
“This is a kid’s card game, people. Don’t get me wrong, I love it, we love it too, but if you’re playing in public, there’s no need to expose children and tweens to these concepts. That’s what OCG Burstinatrix art is for.”
At press time, Ferro had reportedly agreed to use the other side of his playmat, which alongside labeling important information such as Pendulum and Extra Monster Zones, features unaltered artwork of the Melffy monsters gathered in the woods to enjoy a delicious picnic of assorted fruits.
DENVER ー Gamers and critics alike bemoaned the lack of innovation in the faithful remake of a game they previously referred to as both “perfect” and “an all-time classic,” sources confirmed.
IGN Games Reviewer Hayleigh Ashok noted that while the game’s remake “provides a 1:1 recreation of everything we love about the original title” it also “fails to expand on that perfection by adding new components that simultaneously capture the old game’s spirit while rebuilding it brick-by-brick from the ground up.”
Younger gamers who missed out on the original title were equally up-in-arms about the remake’s lack of modernization.
“I get that this game is amazing and super fun,” said Syracuse freshman and Metacritic user Pssfacebeast, “but sometimes it just feels like I’m playing some old 16 bit-game with updated graphics. That thought makes me sick to my stomach.”
Cathodic Creations, the parent company of the remake’s dev team, responded to such criticisms swiftly and decisively by laying off 98% of its Montreal employees, denying all severance, and pulling the plug on several employee family members on life support. The CC executive board subsequently announced it would be rewarding itself with a sizable bonus for its efficacy and expediency in decision-making, in addition to celebrating the remake’s sales passing 3.8 million.
Cathodic Creations PR Spokesperson Wendell Perrin released a public statement to avow the company’s commitment to innovation:
“When building this remake, we worried that we might needlessly reinvent the wheel by changing too much. We feared we’d waste your precious time with meandering sidequests that serve no purpose beyond bloating an already overlong adventure to the point where we could justify splitting one story into three, Hobbit-style. But now we realize gamers have no precious time and that having hastily assembled scrap soldered onto the corpse of something you once loved provides you with something you enjoy more than any game: complaining online. We can only remain humble and grateful that regardless of any remake’s quality, your lack of self-control and obsessive desire to hoard plastic cases mean that you’ll buy it no matter what.”
LOS ANGELES – The principal photography of the long-awaited film adaptation of The Legend of Zelda was brought to an abrupt halt just days after its announcement, inside sources confirmed. This follows allegations of mistreatment & abuse of animals on set, resulting in several chickens and dozens of cast in critical condition.
“Listen, I really thought I knew what I was getting into here, okay?” said director Wes Ball, winded, covered in scratch marks & loose feathers. “I swear to god, we were just trying to do that thing from the games where you can fly for a little if you hold one. The double yanked on the leg a little too hard on the second take, and for real like 1000 chickens descended on us like hellfire. This is not normal. I knew I should’ve smelled something was up when Nintendo demanded their own in-house animal wranglers. Grew these things in a lab probably.”
Executive producer Shigeru Miyamoto seemed befuddled about the crew & press reaction when reached for comment.
“I am not sure I see what the fuss is about, the Westerners seem to have brought this upon themselves.” Miyamoto-san said. “Perhaps this is a bit of culture shock, but in Japan, the chicken is among the most respected and violent creatures. Did they think the Cuccos were not grounded in reality? Is this the perception in America? I would have thought after having seen the film Napoleon Dynamite that those in the United States would understand the incorrigible solidarity and avian wrath held among chickens. A shame.”
At press time, it was heard that the cease had coincided with a planned pause, so as to allow the film’s teenage lead to age into his adult years before production resumes again in 2033. “It’s the details like this that matter, we can’t just recast,” said Ball. “You ever see Boyhood? We’re gonna do Boyhood numbers.”
WITCHITA, Kan. — Local anime enthusiast Aaron Ruiz has decided that he’s ready to take the next big step with his current girlfriend, sources report.
“I really wanted to take things slow in the beginning,” said Ruiz. “We started off with Cowboy Bebop, and she seemed to enjoy it. Then after a few years together we moved on to Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. It’s now been four years and things have still been going really well: we traveled for a bit, signed a new lease together, and we’re a great team. I’ve asked her dad’s permission, so during this upcoming holiday season I’m planning to pop the question: I’m going to ask her to start One Piece with me.”
Ruiz’s girlfriend Tara Huffman mentioned that Ruiz brought up taking this step together when they previously discussed their future goals.
“Yeah, I wasn’t really into anime before Aaron and I got together. But we’ve watched a few, and I can see why they have such massive followings. When he first brought up One Piece, I had to really think about it. Over a thousand episodes? That’s a big commitment,” said Huffman. “But I’ve heard that it’s a fun pirate adventure about the importance of found family. There’s also a clown pirate, and a bunch of weird, cursed fruit. That sounds fun to me. I don’t know what a Tony Tony Chopper is, but I guess I’m looking forward to finding out.”
Marriage and family therapist Dr. Abigail Dodson weighed in on the cultural significance of the couple’s milestone.
“First off, congratulations to the happy couple. This type of commitment is much more common than one might think,” stated Dodson. “In recent years, more partnerships have been choosing to forgo traditional relationship milestones like marriage and having kids. Instead, we’re starting to see more non-traditional vows and celebrations of commitment, like binging an excessively long anime series together. It makes sense financially: the average cost of a wedding in 2023 is roughly $30,000. Why would you go through the hardship of paying that when Crunchyroll is free with ads?”
At press time, Ruiz and Huffman have created a registry of snacks and pirate regalia for friends and family who are interested in buying them a gift to celebrate this exciting milestone.
According to sources, a wave of unease fell over the crowd at Humboldt Park this afternoon when the hired entertainment at a child’s birthday party, a costumed Spider-Man performer, told everyone in attendance to “make some room.”
Local Spider-Man impersonator Jack Simpson boasted, “watch this, it’s really gonna make the kids go crazy,” before clearing a wide circle of 9-year olds to attempt with blind confidence some acrobatic feat it took the real Peter Parker months to learn.
“We were just hoping he’d show up, say a few catchphrases, and take pictures with the kids where you couldn’t see he was wearing running shoes,” said a solemn Ben McDaniels, who hired the entertainer. “But I’ve seen enough hastily shot cell phone footage of oddly proportioned men mashed into ill-fitting spandex to know where it was going once he told everyone to step back.”
But not every party guest lacked belief. Birthday boy Davey McDaniels had not been exposed to hours long compilations of men with Spidey suits and no regard for safety giving themselves permanent back issues by trying flips, wall climbs, and web swings.
“Spider-Man said he needed our help with the Green Goblin and then did a flip but he hit his head and he didn’t get back up and then my dad said we had to go to a different part of the park until the other Avengers could come help him.”
At press time, Simpson was rushed to an area hospital where he was treated for his third concussion this month.
