In case you were longing for some sort of post from me I took it upon myself to make a quick one.

Since we have so much of a huge following here (read no following and probably if I ask you all for something I will get the opposite) I figured I’d tell you all how I have already voted in my lovely swing state of Nevada.

OBAMA!!

Comments Galore!

P.S. I heard Wedge55 voted early in his opposite of a swing state California as well, and so did…your MOM!

I’ve been down on Cracked’s content in the past (notable exception: the life-changing Monkeysphere article). Despite pulling in extremely talented comedians and writers to generate their content, the site unfortunately falls back on uninspired top ten lists time and time again. But it’s hard to fault a top ten list that covers the most hotly-anticipated vaporware games, and even includes a healthy does of Hellgate: London hate. And while it’s difficult to imagine Project H.A.M.M.E.R. as a game that anyone was actually looking forward to playing, Cracked’s write-ups of StarCraft: Ghost, Shenmue 3, and Metroid Dread are right on the money.

Congratulations, Cracked. With this single article you’ve proven yourself to be a more worthwhile gaming site than GamesRadar.

10 Highly Anticipated Video Games You’ll Never Get To Play [Cracked]

Gamercenteronline, an English gaming blog written by people who don’t hold complete mastery over the language, is not only claiming that Beyond Good & Evil 2 is in development, but that Yoshitaka Amano, best known for his character designs on Final Fantasy I-VI, has joined Ubisoft to help contribute to the game. PilarVIRUS writes:

Here a very interesting rumour which circulates on the Net, Yoshitaka Amano (designer on Final Fantasy) is joining Ubisoft to work on Beyond Good & Evil 2! Obviously few additional information was giving. One can always request to see a continuation of this game, in spite of his innumerable qualities, not known discounted success.

Obviously, a Beyond Good & Evil sequel sits alongside a Final Fantasy VII remake and a return to form for the Sonic the Hedgehog series in the pantheon of impossible gamer dreams. The first game played like a cross between The Legend of Zelda, Metal Gear Solid, and Pokémon Snap. Besides being downright excellent, it also ended with a cliffhanger, leading many gamers to forever lament the lack of a sequel. Given the source here, however, it looks like we’ll have to keep on lamenting.

Rumor: Beyond Good & Evil 2 [Gamercenteronline via N4G]

Penny Arcade and Hothead Games, the developer behind the upcoming Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, have teamed up to launch Greenhouse, a digital distribution service for independent game developers eager to share their creations with Penny Arcade’s massive audience (the Penny Arcade website draws 55 million page fews a month). When it launches, Greenhouse will be the only place to get the PC, Mac, and Linux versions of Penny Arcade Adventures which, aside from an unannounced Hothead Games title, is presently the only game planned for the service.

Rather than combat other digital distribution services like Steam and GameTap head on, Greenhouse would focus solely on indie games, with Penny Arcade’s Gabe and Tycho serving as an approval board of sorts, ensuring only high quality games end up on the service. “The games have to go through us before they get to Greenhouse, or we submit them to Greenhouse ourselves,” says Jerry “Tycho” Holkins. Additionally, Greenhouse would not require an application to download and install, but would instead function more like an online store.

Holkins also promises to give indie developers a larger financial stake than other distribution services, saying, “I think that most publishing arrangements are full of shit.” (For more on Gabe and Tycho’s thoughts on the new service and to hear about their failed deal to get their upcoming game onto GameStop’s shelves, be sure to check out Wired’s exclusive interview.)

Full disclosure: The Penny Arcade Gang and The DORK Club Extended Family aren’t exactly on speaking terms after some World of Warcraft-related incidents, but even I have to admire a service that gets more independent games into more gamers’ hands.

Penny Arcade Harvests Cool Indie Games for Greenhouse [Game|Life]

Bill Fulton, who started and led the Microsoft Game Studios User-research program and served as a designer on 2007’s Shadowrun, believes that gamers’ behavior online is scaring away casual players and ultimately negatively affecting game sales.

In a Gamasutra article on this very subject, Fulton writes, “Of all the ways I spend my free time, playing games online is the only one I would describe as ‘frequently barbaric.’ Insults of all kinds, including racist and homophobic slurs, are commonplace.” As Fulton sees it, the biggest problem facing online games “isn’t connectivity issues, or even the quality of the games — it is how people are fuckwads online.” In fact, it’s this juvenile behavior that causes many players to give up on a game after only playing online a few times.

Fulton claims that “the online behavior of our customers is dramatically reducing our sales, and continues to stunt the growth of our industry. Non-gamers simply don’t love games enough to put up with the crap they get online.”

Of course, he has a few solutions to this problem, but concedes that there’s no easy (or quick) answer.

Fulton, who has four years of graduate training in Social Psychology and Research Methodology at the University of Washington, suggests that many of online gaming’s problems can be addressed through social design, pointing to the movie industry’s ability to combat cell phones ringing during movies through a “silence your cell phones” advertising campaign.

Fulton notes that filtering profanity from chat and dividing up rewards for beating opponents in team-based shooters have already been proven to reduce harassment and selfish behavior online. He goes on to give himself a congratulatory pat on the back for Shadowrun’s clever vote-kick system, which recognized when feuding players were abusing the mechanic and forced them to risk getting booted from the game if they wished to continue.

Unfortunately, Fulton is rather short on solutions to what is obviously a pervasive and damaging problem, but still does a good job of addressing a complex issue that often goes ignored. He notes that as games like The Sims, World of Warcraft, and Rock Band continue to expand the gaming audience, developers will need to allocate more resources for social design to ensure they don’t lose valuable casual players to the loudest hardcore jerks.

Fixing Online Gaming Idiocy: A Psychological Approach [Gamasutra]

The Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) has created a handy widget that allows you to quickly find the ESRB rating for a given game. The widget is fully customizable and easily placed on your social networking site or blog of choice.

Look, here’s one right here:

While certainly a useful tool for any parent interested in doing a little a research to see if a game is right for their kid(s), ESRB ratings weren’t exactly hard to find in the first place. Any parent web savy enough to find and use this widget would have had no problem just checking the ESRB website or reading the clearly labeled rating off a game’s box.

Still, any tool that allows a parent to take a more active role in what their children play has to be a good thing, even if its use isn’t immediately obvious.

ESRB Ratings Search Widget [ESRB via Game|Life]

As you can see, my Sisters of Battle army has been busy purging the Kaurava system of heretics, with non-believers now confined to a single planet. It’s been a long, repetitive journey to get to this point, but now only the Necron and Eldar armies stand between me and a bland in-game cinematic. I plan to rip through the Necron territories as quickly as possible before savoring each and every Eldar kill. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s space elves.

In other RTS news, three new Warcraft 3 replays are now online. The extended DORK Club family and I have been working on getting our 25 win icons on these terrible, terrible accounts of ours. If we actually used viable strategies, we might even earn them before this time next year.

In order to ease this site’s transition from sporadically-updated personal site to rapidfire news blog, I’ve installed an RSS reader (specifically, RSS Reader) and subscribed to every gaming site with anything even remotely resembling an RSS feed. Every ten minutes the program chimes annoyingly and informs me of any new headlines. This allows me to spend my days watching news stories slowly crawl their way across the Internet, as every gaming news sites digests and regurgitates the same scrapes of new information. Of course, I’ve subscribed to this site as well, and I like to watch as this obscure corner of the Internet beats many of the larger sites to copy-pasting the news of the day. Take that, Kotaku.

Mostly I’ve just been posting news stories that interest me which, as I’m sure you can imagine, significantly limits the pool of potential posts. As fun as it is to watch Guitar Hero and Rock Band stories worm through my tracked RSS feeds, I’ll refrain from adding to the rhythm game noise. Unless it’s to reiterate how much I suck at them.

Also, I’m still not quite sure what to do with these nightly blog posts, as this meandering, self-indulgent mess clearly shows. Don’t be too surprised should they disappear entirely at any point in the coming weeks. For now, just be thankful I spared you the pretentious analysis of The Decalogue I got halfway through writing for tonight. Next time, you may not be so lucky.

Excuse the hyperbole, but this may just be the greatest video game mashup video of all time. It’s short, hilarious, and best of all: it’s insulting to Nicolas Cage. On second thought, forget the “may be;” this video is perfect.

MEGA WICKER MAN: NOT THE BEES! [FilmDrunk via Web 2.0]

Update: GTAForum moderators have confirmed that the whole thing is an April Fools joke. On March 24. Thanks for getting the worst holiday on the Internet started more than a week early, fellas.

EA is so certain it will soon be the proud owner of Take-Two Interactive and the Grand Theft Auto series with it, the company bought GTA community network GTANet for $3.2 million. WhatIfGaming has acquired a letter to “Tank,” GTANet’s webmaster, in which Electronic Arts expresses interest in acquiring all of GTANets’ “domain names, server contents, and a database of statistical information on all members of www.GTAForums.com.” The letter is dated March 21, and in it EA also expresses the desire to see the transaction completed before April 29, Grand Theft Auto IV’s impending release date.

GTANet includes eleven GTA fansites, including GTAForums.com, the premiere Grand Theft Auto forum on the Internet. The forums now sport a newly-redesigned logo that incorporates EA’s own logo into its design (left), further suggesting that the deal has taken place.

Assuming this isn’t all setup for an elaborate April Fools prank, the sale would give EA access to the single largest database of information on Grand Theft Auto fans in existence, an invaluable reservoir of data concerning the tastes and trends of the GTA community for whoever holds the Grand Theft Auto license. Clearly, EA believes it should be them, and soon.

Eye of EA on GTAForums [WhatIfGaming via Xbox 360 Fanboy]

Eve Avatars will transform your EVE Online character portrait into an animated GIF for 20 million isk (about $28, according to this thread on the EVE Insider Forums), EVE Online’s in-game currency. Simply provide your character name, e-mail address, and choose from twenty different expressions ranging from “depressed” and “sad” to “fierce” and “mettling.” You’ll be contacted through Evemail, and before you know it, you’ll have your very own unsettling animated head to leave twitching in forum signatures around the Internet.

This may be the closest we ever get to EVE Online Figure Prints.

EVE Avatars come alive, for a price [Massively]