Who would have thought that a video of a Japanese man commentating his own playthrough of Mario Land could be so funny? There’s something strangely adorable about the peculiar old fellow, and I hope you all fall in love with him as I have.
Courtesy of the fountain of awesomeness that is Shawn Eliiot’s Twitter.
Want to make somebody truly happy this Christmas? Then pay attention as Hide and Geek freelancer Tom Connick takes us through his handy shopping list…
Uncertainty is a horrible thing, and never is it more apparent when partaking in that most dreaded of seasonal activities; the Christmas shop. “Will Gran, like this vase? What can I buy for Mum on my budget of twenty quid? Does my brat of a sibling even deserve a present at all?” Stress levels are high, so high in fact, even the thought of a Christmas tree could result in some form of mental breakdown.
But never fear. Take a metaphorical chill pill, put the kettle on and sit down. Hide & Geek are here, as always, to make your life that little bit easier. And so we present to you, the HnG Christmas Shopping List!*
*No responsibility is held by HnG for any bratty siblings, any disappointed Mums or any nervous breakdowns
Of course when I say ‘kill‘ I mean ‘delete‘ and when I say ‘husband‘ I mean ‘virtual avatar‘ and when I say ‘in cold blood‘ I was just trying to sound cool and dramatic. But let’s ignore the semantics.
A 43 year old woman from Japan was so enraged by a sudden online divorce, that she hacked into her virtual husbands Maple Story account, and deleted his character. Although no form of revenge was carried out in the real world, the woman has been jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data. Although the murderous villain has yet to be sentenced, she could face up to 5 years in jail, and a $5000 fine.
This is the latest of many ‘virtual crimes’ and although seemingly funny, does raise some interesting ethical questions. Should players who steal from other players in World of Warcraft face sentences in real life? Or is a banning from the game more in order. This issue is obviously mostly concerning MMOs, ‘normal’ games subject players to their own rules, and breaking these rules is either imossible, or dealt with within the game itself. With these new fangled MMO types however, there are options to break rules outside the gameplay itself, resulting in many cases such as the one above.
Should a crime in a virtual environment really be punishable outside of that environment? The case above is a bad example as it is more concerned with hacking and information abuse, but it still illustrates a point. It could be argued that law breakers should suffer punishments within the virtual environment that they offended. But would such a punishment be adequate enough to deter criminals or make victims feel that justice has been served.
Anyway, I’m starting to ramble, but it’s certainly an interesting thought.
/Jamin thinks he might pop the question to virtual girlfriend.
Right, this is some crazy stuff right here. Instead of doing the unthinkable and playing with other players on World of Warcraft, “Bradster” has decided to take matters into his own hands. Using a total of 11 computers, the crazy WoW player has created no less than 36 accounts, which he runs simultaenously. With subscription fees of $5,711 - “Bradster” has managed to create his own one man raiding party. In adittion to this, he plans on spending a further $1,500 on 36 copies of Wrath of the Lich King, in order to begin his assault on the cities of Stormwind and Ironforge on day one.
Words really do fail me.
….also, apologies for lack of updates - the first week back at University has been incredibly hectic. Expect regular updates to continue shortly.
Jamin out
Right. In an actual fight, who would win. Sonic or Mario? This would have been a common argument in the playgrounds back in the early 90’s, but if you remove all the console loyalty and childish fanboyism, who would actually win? In a bare knuckled fight to the death - who would hold his head high as victor. It’s a question that needs answering. A question that needs some degree of analysis before proper judgment can be made. And I’m the (informed, knowledgeable and incredibly bored) man for the job.
This was too funny to let slip…
Tiger Woods 2008, a game for sports fans and followers of golf. However there’s a certain glitch that golf fanatics would be slightly bewildered by. The glitch allows Tiger to walk on water in order to take his ‘Jesus’ shot. Levinator25 picked up on this, showing it on YouTube. EA found the video and made their own response. Classic stuff below…
“It’s not a glitch. He’s just that good!”
Source: Joystiq
The video below is a commercial for the new Metal Gear Ac!d Mobile title. Created entirely from thumbs, the commercial will certainly give MGS4 fans something to chuckle about. It gets a big thumbs up from us…
There’s some incredible stuff on the Internet, there really is.
Woffls
Japanese researchers have discovered a new protein which they’ve named ‘Pikachurin’, after everybodys favourite Pokemon. According to the researchers, the protein “plays a role in the efficient transmission of kinetic vision information from the eyes to the brain“. Rather appropriately, the protein is related to the transmission of visual information to your brain, which has obvious connections to gaming. So if you wan’t to improve at gaming, make sure you’re getting enough Pikachurin!
