From the golden archives

[Updated with the 2005 and 2010 version! Remember Nex? This odd illustration still ranks amongst the most popular in the Destructoid Golden Archive; stories which I'm slowly restoring from our old publishing system. Join us as we celebrate 7 years of Destructoid on March 16, 2013! -Niero]

The?? above picture is a tiny cropped segment of the masterpiece that you can find attached to the bottom of this post. It's so monumentally huge (and stuffed full of so many clever details), that I couldn't?? bring myself to tarnish it with the usual cropping/captioning hackery that I'm known for.

Unfortunately, since the whole thing is in Russian, and all of my Cold War-era bids to defect to the Red side of the curtain were met with denial, denial and mysterious radiation poisoning, respectively, I have a?lmost no idea what the purpose of this picture is. Is it an ad? Is it one fan's unrequited love letter to ??a cold, unfeeling industry? Or is it something far more sinister?

Much like ho??w many licks it ta??kes to get to the center of Lenin's tomb, the world may never know.

_{[Photo credit: this]}

The post From Russia with pixels; the coolest picture you’ll see today appeared first on Destructoid.

All good things must come to an end and apparently that also a?pplies to whatever it is that I do he??re.

As you may have gleaned from the headline, this is my last post here at Destructoid. I've been offered a job with Wired, and aside from collecting their large checks, I'll be writing on a daily basis for their Game|Life blog. It took a lot of soul-searching and counting zeros to come to this decision, but since my goals in life all revolve around swimming in Scroo?ge-McDuckian vaults of gold coins, you can see how? this route was almost predetermined?.

Since my eyes are quickly welling up with tears and my dog needs to go outside to pee, I'll keep this short: I love you all and if it wasn't for my shallow preoccu?pation with things lik??e not starving and being able to buy speedboats, I'd never leave you.

That said, if you need me I'll be over here in my speedboat with these two gorgeous twins and this dinosaur who I had cloned from a chunk of amber. Like Scooby Doo before me, we plan on solving crimes in our free time, so if any of you had plans to dress up as crocodiles and scare people away from your uncle's remote resort, THINK AGAIN!

*Nex hangs his hat on the door, turns out the lights and walks out into the world* 

The post Nex is leaving Destructoid: This is the end beaut??iful frien?d appeared first on Destructoid.

La??dies? and gentlemen, I would advise you to all to duck as there will almost certainly be a large amount of splatter coming from every fan near you as a result of the news I have to share.

Primotech has a story up claiming insider information regarding the firing of Gamespot reviewer Jeff Gerstmann. Mr. Gerstmann recently awarded Eidos' Kane & Lynch: Dead Men a 6.0 score while Eidos was pumping a large amount of advertising cash into Gamespot, and shockingly this pissed off some of the higher-ups. In a much less sarcastic instance of the word "shocking" instead of merely admonishing him -- which would have been unethical in its own right -- the powers that be fired?? Mr. Gerstmann (and may have slapped his wife). Here's a quote from Primotech:

According to a fellow Gamespot contributor and?? close friend of Gerstmann who wished to remain anonymous, the editor was fired Wednesday morning because of his negative review of the game, which he awarded a 6.0.

While there is no official confirmation on this issue, it's u?nlikely that Gamespot is going to publicly admit they canned a reviewer for honesty based on advertiser pressure. Though, if they do I'd be willing to bet that they themselves would be sacked moments later. That move, of course, will go without any public comment for fear of further commentary causing even more sacking, and the en??dless cycle of Pythonian sacking jokes that would inevitably ensue.

(Side Note: This upcoming Penny Arcade comic is either strikingly prescient or strikingly something else smart-sounding that mean?s whatever I'm trying to say. -- Nex)&nb?sp;

[UPDATE: Don't trust me or Primotech? How about Penny Arcade's Gabriel Whateverhislastnameis? Comment #18, if you're inclined. Props to power-glove for pointing this thread out. -- Neximo]

[UPDATE DEUX: Thanks to tehuberone, here's a link to the Youtube of the now-removed video review Mr. Gerstmann created for Kane & Lynch. -- Tyrannosaurus Nex] 

[UPDATE TROIS: Thanks to topgeargorilla and Vegas, there's also word that ??Gamespot editor Tim Tracy is leaving the site as well. Is it related? Will Greg Oden help the Blazer's playoff hopes? Who shot J.R.? Mo??re news as it becomes available. -- Oedipus Nex] 

Now please start a fires?torm of public outcry in the comments or Niero might fire me to appease whoever the hell it is th??at funds this place. 

[Publisher's Note: Nex, you're promoted!  I hereby crown you as our new senior editor of news about Gamespot, but only on the condition that you say nice things.  On a serious note, Jeff was at GS for ten years and has the reviewer's portfolio equivalent of War and Peace -- this is a pretty big deal. I cannot wait to see the tapdance their PR people are brewing up tonight.  In the meantime, check out Destructoid's Kane and Lynch review -- proudly unfiltered.

Ron also informed me that he's supposed to represent them at the Spike TV awards... so next week should be interesting. Nex, Destructoid is funded on my hopes, dreams, and tall deck of credit cards so nobody is going to get fired here for speaking their mind?. Linde does reserve the ri??ght to stab you, though. -Niero]

[FURTHER UPDATERY: It seems like more info comes to light by the minute and according to a piece by Wired's Susan "Voice of Reason" Arendt things may not be as the Internet a?ssumes. Here's a quote from a Gamespot insider:

The ads went up and the Eidos brouhaha was settled over two weeks ago. Jeff got fired yesterday. Fu??rthermore, I'd heard a few people tell that he'd already been skating on thin ice for "unprofession?al reviews and review practices." I don't know much about that, though, so I can't say one way or the other. My gut tells me that he got canned for larger reasons.

I suppose we won't really know what happened until Mr. Gerstmann himself settles the rumors, but at this point the cat is out of t??he bag, running arou?nd the living room and clawing the hell out of Eidos' leg, regardless of whether the cat is an invention of conspiracy theorists or not. -- Reality Nex]

(Photo courtesy of The Lonestranger Network) 

The post Rumor: Gamespot fires ??editor to appease Eidos: W.R. Hearst rolls in g??rave appeared first on Destructoid.

Normally I'd be the first to point out the flaws in any scientific study purporting a real link between violent media and real-world violence, but this report on Yahoo News -- assuming it's accurate -- doesn't seem to have any flaws. According to the article a study was recently conducted by L. Rowell Huesmann and Dr. Brad Bushman of the ??University of Michigan that found violence in films and games was more detrimental to society than every factor with the exception of smoking.

To quote the experts:

"Exposure to violent electronic media has a larger effect than all but one other well known threat to public health. The only effect slightly larger than the effect o??f media violence on aggression is that of cigarette smoking on lung cancer ..."

Huesmann said children spend an average of three hours ??watching television each day and more than 60 percent of TV programs contain some violence, including 40 percent showing extreme violence.

"Children are also spending an increasingly la?rge amount of time playing video games, most of which contain violence. Video game ?units are now present in 83 percent of homes with children," he added.

Their findings have been reported in the Journal of Adolescent Medicine.

After reading the piece at Yahoo I did some digging into the backgrounds of the two gentleman in question and I have to say the two of them seem as unbiased as anyone in the field. They're both well resp?ected, both hold positions of great merit at a reputable institute of learning and neither have any public evidence of prior inclination toward coaxing data to suit their needs.

As much as we all argue the violence-in-gaming point when presented by pundits and detractors of the industry, there just isn'??t anything to argue against here, unless they managed to completely disregard classic scientific method. I applaud Mr. Huesmann and Dr. Bushman for their work here, and humbly bow to their detailed findings.

[UPDATE: Jim makes a good, if uninformed, point. For those who would like to see the bits where it draws correlation, you'll have to sort through the entire study as I did before writing this. For those without the attention span or access, here's the abstract so?? you can at least get a feel for the concepts behind the study. Doubt me if you'd?? like, but at least do the research yourself before you claim foul play. -- Nex] 

The post Impressive study claims violent media worse than everything but s??moking appeared first on Destructoid.

Sleater-Kinney is sort of an institution in my part of the world. See, they began in this tiny Northwest microculture and since then have gone on to the sort of bizarre limbo of indie groups where they're simultaneously unknown and widely beloved. Like The Decemberists, The Exploding Hearts or everything Courtney Taylor-Taylor has ever done, this region exists perennially on the sharp bit of the cutting edge by knowing the hip unknown first and best and fighting fiercely to keep things permanently that way. That's why when I see something like Sleater-Kinney bassist down-tuned guitarist Carrie Brownstein reviewing Rock Band for Slate, I'm?? immediately giddy (and vaguely wary that she's encroaching on my damn territory).

Putting aside the e-mail I have to write in a few moments threatening her pets and family if she continues writing about video games, her review is phenomenal. Sure, Nick's cool and all but what was he up to when I was 15? I can almost guarantee he wasn't melting faces in one of the pre-eminent female rock groups of the least quarter-century. In fact -- and I may be wrong here -- I don't think Nick has ever been a woman, let alone a successful female musician whose name you could drop to impress cute indie girls with thick glasses in the all?ey outside of the now-defunct Satyricon.

In short, go read that review. Also, while you're there, try not to sound as idiotic as the people in the comments in case you decide to open ??your virtual gob. We'll take your damn sc?arf back if you do.

[Sending a box of scarves to Analog Pidgin for the tip] 

The post All Hands On Rock Band: Carrie Brownstein’s Slate review appeared first on Destructoid.

There's nothing I li?ke more than kinky sex? in dangeous situations, like fellatio in a lion's cage or bondage play with jars of scorpions and firecrackers.

Since that has nothing to do with this story though, let's assume I said "there's nothing I like more than two websites bitching at each other over trivial matters," which is exactly what's going on between cash-laden corporate games site IGN and publicly beloved web comic Penny Arcade.

This story gets a bit long and stupid, so please hit the jump unless you have something?? better to do like masturbating or breat??hing in.

The story so far:

Do you remember Assassin's Creed? It was a game that came out a few weeks back (approximately four years ago Internet Standard Time) that was met with a firestorm of conflicting reviews. Some people loved it, some people hated it, most of you focused unnecessarily on its producer's breasts, and the only thing people could eventually agree on is that it did, in fact, exist. Penny Arcade, a site known for applying metric ass loads of verbalization to the virtual page, went on at great length about how it was an amazing experience, how it folded their laundry and how they even got to second base with the game after a night drinking Coronas and watch Breakfast at Tiffany's.

In a then-unrelated move, IGN reviewed the title and gave it a stunningly low "7.7" -- the mainstream-site equivalent of some kind of fictional negative number that's been divided by zero merely to show how much disdain the reviewer had for the title. By comparison our own Rev Anthony gave the game a "5.5" -- the Destr?uctoid equivalent of a flashing neon "12" covered in porno and? glitter.

Since Rev escaped the view of PA's Gabe by virtue of his ability to blend into his surroundings like some kind of frightened lizard, Gabe instead bitched about mainstream sites like IGN by twice slinging ve??rbal hot-fire that could very easily be construed as meaning that IGN takes bribes and/or eats children. Here at Destructoid we take our jobs as? purveyors of truth very seriously so while we cannot claim IGN has ever taken a bribe, I've personally seen certain IGN staffers kick the homeless and menstruate on crucifixes.

Here's where things get interesting: in IGN's recent podcast one of IGN's resident residents waxes bitchcakes about Gabe's words on Assassin's Creed. Gabe, in turn, responds the only way he knows how: huge blocks of text. Have a look:

I guess some guy at IGN is mad at me and he lays into me on their podcast. You can follow the link and listen for yourself but I don't recommend it, they don't really deserve the traffic spike. Basically some IGN guy is super pissed because I said I didn't agree with the bad reviews of Assassins Creed. I'm actually of the opinion that if we're pissing off IGN we must be doing something right. 

Honestly my main concern was to make sure people didn't avoid the game based on some of the poor reviews. I got something like four hundred mails after that post and 90% of them looked like this:

"Thank you for sharing your thoughts on Assassin's Creed.  I was going to skip it based on the reviews.  After reading your write up I rented it though.  I've played about 10 hours and love it!"

So there you go, that's all I wanted.

The IGN thing is just sort of silly. He says I should leave reviewers alone because I "just do things and write things as a freaking comic artist." I'm not sure how to respond to that. I think he's trying to insult me but everything he said there is true. 

The sad thing is I wasn't even talking about their review. I was talking about the 7.0 from 1Up. No one actually pays any attention to IGN or their 7-10 review scale. To tell you the truth I still don't even know what IGN's review of AC was. Was it bad? It's really kind of cute that he thinks I was talking about him. After hearing how worked up he got on the podcast I actually feel kind of bad ruining it. It must have been a real thrill for him to believe he was relevant.

 

The post Penny Arcade, IGN enter verbal kumite, provide idiotic filler for Ol’ Nexy appeared first on Destructoid.

Those of you not living in the tremendous shadow of Harry Knowles may not be aware of this, but the Writers Guild of America -- the union containing almost every film and television writer in Hollywood -- is on strike. Since it appears the studio execs are comfortable running reality TV and living off of their wealth during the strike, and the public outcry has been basically non-existent, the writers have been looking for new ways to supplement their now missing income, and gaming is apparently being seen as a viable alternative. GI.biz has a quote:

According to a report in Variety, wor?k in videogames is something that the WGA is keen to emb?race at some point, but as it hasn't yet its members are free to work on them during the strike.

Their piece goes on to say that a move to game writing would be a mo?netary hit for most WGA ??members, but when the decision eventually becomes one of "monetary hit vs eating your children for sustenance," we assume we'll be seeing more Hollywood-types being hired on at EA and Activision.

Then again, if you've seen a movie, television show or the city of Los Angeles any time recently you'll be as terrified of this prospect as I am. Gaming has made incredible strides recently with titles like Portal, and giving the reins of a virtual world to the guy who wrote that episode of Heroes where Hiro travelled back in time to fight a body inhabited b??y Dr. Sam Beckett in front of the 1919 Chicago Black Sox would be almost as stupid as his "creative output."

The post WGA mem?bers eye game writing a??s possible new gig, sadly appeared first on Destructoid.

In a completely unshocking turn of events, a game billed as the "Grand Theft Auto for girls" has pissed off people who we're all beginning to assu??me earn a living being outraged and screaming "Won't someone pleas??e think of the children?"

From the official website for cell phone game Coolest Girl in School: 

Coolest Girl in School lets play?ers live out their high school fantasies. Experiment with fashion! Experiment with drugs! Experiment with your sexuality! Cut class! Spread rumors! But try to avoid dying of embarrassment - literally!

In Coolest Girl in School fashion and communication reign supreme. Working out what the hell to wear and answering ??hilarious quizzes makes or breaks? you. Students are labeled according to the sub-culture they subscribe to…

Nobody? said being t??he Coolest Girl in School would be easy…

Well, nothing about that description seems terribly abnormal to me. I'm sure branding their game the "Grand Theft Auto for girls" was a two-pronged strategy to illicit outrage both for anything having to do with Rockstar's controversy magnet and the sexism of assuming girls don't enjoy ganking fly whips and "hollin' 187 with my gat in yo' mouth," but that doesn't change the fact that the snippet aptly describes things that actually occur in high school. I'm sure I'm not the only one who experimented with drugs, teen sex or being a bi*&5y c&??;%^ to others, and short of putting in a minigame teaching?? proper tampon removal (so as to avoid TSS), the entire thing seems rather blasé when compared to the realities of being a teenager.

Of course, people have their quota of whining to fill. Hit th??e jump for reactions. 

From GP:

Online expert Christine Dav?iault of Montreal’s Concordia Univers?ity questioned whether youthful players would grasp the game’s subtle humor:

I just don’t think most people will see it as tongue-in-cheek.?? (Youth players) are at a crossroads in the formation of their personalities and a game like this basically fosters a warped idea of what constitutes success and how to get it.

Youth media consultant Anastasi??a Goodstein thought CGIS migh?t be a liitle too real to be fun:

Coolest Girl In School sounds a lot like high school. Do girls need to play a game to remind them of high school’s depress?ing soci??al hierarchy?

Those are both valid concerns, but as we age, we seem to forget how Machiavellian high school actually is. It's a time in which people hone skills they'll need to get along in the real world, onl??y following humanity's evolution from animals, the human equivalent of "play fighting" is both more cerebral and nefarious.

Plus, honestly, kids are kinda stupid, and high school is the perfect opportunity to learn exactly how ??close they can get to the fire without being burned. ??While I'm sure the game could be found guilty of terrible gameplay or unrealistic depictions of high school math, forgetting that children live in a vacuum of stupidity and a lack of consequences is just plugging your ears when the teapot starts whistling and snorting cocaine.

The post ‘GTA for girls’ causes controversy, sky is blue, Piplup still adorable appeared first on Destructoid.

Courtesy of Siliconera we bring you that picture above from (where ??else?) the Land of the Rising Sun.

Yes, it's funny that Pokémon are so famous, and Piplup is adorable, but I think the real point here is how utterly ironic this whole thing is. Japan, in creating these ornamentations, has inadvertently begun celebrating a God forced upon them in days of yore by Caucasians by deitizing a brand that has become simply godlike ??in terms of its following and units sold, which they themselves have been pushing to our side of the globe for a decade or so. In a way it's the ultimate expression of the triumph of capitalism over religion during the Christmas season, and an excellent example of the subtle Japanese manipulation of the world around them.

On the other hand, Piplup is really adorable.

The post Japan puts the ‘rampant consumerism’ back in Christmas with Pokemon decorations appeared first on Destructoid.

As an amateur Internet historian and a professional whatever-I-do-here, most of my skills are completely underwhelming. As often as I tell women in bars tha??t I'm really very hilarious (on the Internet), few seem to offer me immediate sex or money, at least until I mention ??that I'm also a certified brain surgeon ... which I'm not.

Recently though, my skills finally came into play upon reading an article in RADAR about former DEN founder -- and current IGE founder -- Marc Collins-Rector. If you're familiar with the dot-com bubble burst, you'll recall that DEN was a company that supposedly created video for the Internet, in much the same way Youtube does now, only back then it was a terrible idea, even without a boardroom full of child molesters.

Hit the jump for more.

The story is long and twisted, but basically Collins-Rector and fellow IGE founder (and former Disney child star) Brock Pierce created DEN almost specifically to take venture capital money, that they then blew on houses, cars, and luring young boys into those same houses and cars (with the promise of e-stardom). When DEN failed due to massive corruption and the fact that even if it had ??been a realistic idea it was a decade ahead of its time, and the company heads found themselves under scrutiny for sodomizing young boys, they fled to Spain.

Then, in 2002, the gents were captured in Marbella, Spain by Spanish authorities. For the next few years, Collins??-Rector fought extradition to ?the States, but eventually failed. After being dragged back home, the prosecution botched the entire case, Collins-Rector was only asked to pay a small fine, and he vanished yet again.

Everyone assumed we'd seen the last of him, at least until a story appeared in the UK newspaper Sun. RADAR sums it up well: "Marc Collins-Rector, nattily dressed in a tan blazer and blue shirt, sporting a pair of Wayfarers and carrying a silver-topped cane, stands outside a PC World in London, accompanied by a teenage boy lugging a newly purchased set of high-end computer speakers. The headline: "Tycoon Paedo ??on Prowl in UK.""

It seems he's managed to weasel his way back into the creepy side of the Internet by putting up the cash to fund IGE along with his protégé Pierce. While no one has yet claimed he's continued his Sodomite ways while in Europe, one assumes leaving a child alone with him would be like leaving a ham alone with John Goodman: if you're lucky, it will only be devoured.

If the destabilization of virtual economies wasn't enough of a deterrent to the use of gold-farming services, hopefully this story seals the deal. I'm not writing this up to necessarily push anyone away from their God-given righ??t to break MMO EULAs, but personally I'm not a fan of creepy old dudes fondling kids. Just remember, the next time you decide to drop $50 on that Grecian Helm of Eromenos, you've quite possibly supplied four lines of blow and a handful of Gummi Bears to a balding middl??e-aged man who only wants to use those consumables for evil.

The post As if gold farming couldn’t get any worse, now it funds pederasty appeared first on Destructoid.

Every once in a while, in between the e-mails demonstrating all the inventive ways in which women conceal their naughty bits behind gaming appliances, and pictures of Brian Crecente's head pasted on a centaur, we receive missives that are of real importance. With gaming quickly becoming the latest de facto iteration of the world's youth as reflected in pop culture, SUBOTRON's recent open call detailing the artist space they have ava?ilable in Vienna instantly calls to mind Warhol, Nico and Sedgwick eating pigeons and painting pictures of ducks on coffee mugs, or the Medici sponsorship of Leonardo, Donatello and ??the other two turtles.

Despite my completely fabricated view of world history, I can tell you this is the sort of once-in-a-lif?etime chance that only comes along once ... in ... a lifetime??. Yeah.  Since my brain is obviously falling apart, let's let SUBOTRON tell you all about it:

As you may know, SUBOTRON invites artists in residence to work here in vienna on a regular basis.
They get a studio at the museumsquartier for free and money to cover expenses.
background infos on the quartier21 site here.

In exchange for being an artist in the medium of gaming periphery and looking good in a beret (it's in the application! I swear!), they put you up in f&%*in' Vienna, Austria. Yes, the same Vienna that?? bred Johann Strauss, Fritz Lang and motherf*$&in' Falco!

I could go on for pages about how awesome this opportunity is, but in the interest of brevity, I'll sum up my feelings thusly: if I hadn't already offended absolutely every Austrian I know by constantly referring to their country as "the Canada of the South P??acific," I'd apply for this in a second. God knows I look sharp in a beret.

Hit the jump for more.

That quote I showed y?ou guys up there was a bi?t retracted. Here's the full version including application details:

As you may know, SUBOTRON invites artists in residence to work here in vienna on a regular basis.
they get a studio at the museumsquartier for free and money to cover expenses.
background infos on the quartier21 site here.
deutsch hier.

artists in residence so far :
- indie game designer JANUZ (Munich)
- streetartist SPACE INVADER (Paris) space-invaders.com
- character designer RYOSKUKE TEI (Tokio) furifuri.com
- gameboy-sequencer innovator OLIVER WITTCHOW (Hamburg) nanoloop.com
- gameculture videoblogger GAMEJEW (Los Angeles) gamejew.com

we are now looking for a femal?e artist who suits this alignment.

topic :
games & gender

date of residency :
march & april 2008

requirements :
- concept of what you will be working on during your stay : fine arts / design / hard-soft-ware / theory / …
- cv

send to :
office@subotron.com

deadline :
friday 14. december 2007

we are looking forward to exciting ideas !

Did you all notice that one of their artis??ts in residence is DToid pal Gamejew?

I literally hate everyone who has ever drawn a breath, but if I had to choose one person to visit Viennese pubs with and use as a human prop in trying to woo naive young Viennese students -- the sort who are easily impressed by anyone who can actively claim to be an artist and a cowboy (as Americans are internationally known) -- it would b??e GJ.

Or Storm Shadow.

But definitely one of those two.

The post SUBOTRON seeks e?lectronic culture artists for? Viennese salon, adoring groupies appeared first on Destructoid.

After the jump you'll find the just-released list of Achievements for the Xbox 360 version of the upcoming blood, guts n' dinos FPS Turok. Normally this wouldn't even blip on our radar of actual, useful news bu?t something about this list sticks out like a bloody limb that once belonged to?? your best friend. Have a look:

	Grab Bag	10
	Kill ??at least 1 creature, 1 enemy??, 1 teammate, and yourself in the same round of a public match

We ask that those of you literate enough to read the above text help those who aren't as educated, but for those of you who are both stupid and lonely, I'll put this as simply as possible: Turok rewards players for murdering their own team members!

This is the point at which I realize even with bold-face font, illiterate readers of this site still probably couldn't read that text, nor could they read these words I'm typing currently ... or any of this site for that matter. If you're illiterate, what the hell are you doing on the Internet? We don't even have any pictur??es of coo??ters or adorable kittens on this page.

Idiot.

	Triple Kill	20
	Kill 3 opponents within 4 seconds of each other in a ranked match
	Thorn in Side	20
	Kill the Flag carrier 5 times in a ranked match
	Co-Op 1	30
	Finish Co-op Map 1
	Co-Op 2	30
	Finish Co-op Map 2
	Co-Op 3	30
	Finish Co-op Map 3
	Hometown Hero	25
	Return 5 Flags to your base in one public game
	Arch-Nemesis	15
	Kill the same player 5 times in a row without killing anyone else in between during a public match
	Crack Shot	15
	Kill 5 opponents in a public game with headshots
	Accuracy Award	20
	Achieve an accuracy of 75% or greater with at least 20 shots fired in one ranked match
	Great Round	15
	Finish a public DM match with a Battle Rating of greater than 100
	Grab Bag	10
	Kill at least 1 creature, 1 enemy, 1 teammate, and yourself in the same round of a public match
	Unbreakable	30
	Play through a ranked match without dying
	Pacifist	15
	Play a public match with no shots fired or kills awarded, capturing the flag at least twice
	Dino Hunter	15
	Kill 20 Dinos in one public game
	Exterminator	15
	Kill 20 Bugs in one public game
	Resurrection	15
	Finish a player match free-for-all game with at least 10 deaths and 10 kills
	Gamesman	15
	Play a full round of each gametype in public or private matches
	Retribution	15
	Knife kill your Rival in a public match
	Primitive Weapons	15
	Play a public match using only the bow or knife, earning at least 10 kills
	All-Purpose Warrior	30
	Win 10 public games of each team game option (Small Team, Large Team, Co-Op)
	Medal of Citation	25
	Achieve 100 player kills in ranked matches
	Medal of Commendation	50
	Achieve 500 player kills in ranked matches
	Boomstick	10
	Destroy a dilo with the stickygun during a public match
	Arsenal	20
	Kill at least one enemy with every weapon in the game during public play
	Massive Battle	10
	Participate in a public 6 on 6 team game
	Buddy Blowout	20
	Play a full 8 on 8 private team game
	Multiplayer First-Class	35
	Finish a ranked match with 100% accuracy and at least 5 kills
	Multiplayer Master-Class	40
	Finish a ranked match with all headshots and at least 5 kills
	Practically Canadian	20
	How aboot defending your flag, eh? And that's in ranked matches, sorry.
	Big Game Ribbon	20
	Whoa momma!
	Angler Ribbon	20
	Fishing anyone?
	Sell Your Shotguns	35
	Complete "Mother Superior" without using the ORO Shotgun
	Dino Dominance	25
	Knife kill 50 creatures in the Story Mode campaign
	Turok Service Ribbon	40
	Complete the Story Mode campaign and unlock Inhuman difficulty
	Turok Campaign Ribbon	60
	Complete the Story Mode campaign on Inhuman
	Sniper!	40
	Head shot 10 enemies in a row during the Story Mode campaign
	Impaler Ribbon	10
	Pin an enemy to the wall with an arrow in the Story Mode campaign
	Turok Defense Force	25
	Successfully fight off 20 Raptor mauls during the Story Mode campaign
	It's A Trap!	15
	Get dinos to kill 5 soldiers by sticking them with the flare in the Story Mode campaign
	Loud Love	15
	Kill 3 soldiers with one ORO Copperhead Rocket Launcher shot in the Story Mode campaign
	5, 4, 3, 2, 1... BOOM!	15
	Kill 3 Soldiers with one Frag Grenade in the Story Mode campaign
	Pincushion	25
	Pin 50 enemies with the Bow in the Story Mode campaign
	Man or Animal	30
	Record 100 stealth kills of soldiers with the ORO P23 Combat Knife

The post Turok Achievements unveiled: they’re promoting team-killing now? appeared first on Destructoid.

There's been a lot of petty sniping towards Halo from both the anti-Microsoft crowd and the contrarian, anti-mainstream crowd ever since the pre-release hype for Halo 3 began building up, but absolutely no one, regardless of how tightly they cling to their myopic, childish beliefs, can deny one simple fact: Halo is a brand that sells.

To drive that point home, we bring you news courtesy of GameDaily: it seems that the latest novelization based on the Master Chief's fictional realm has debuted at #3 on the New York Times bestseller list and #23 on the USA Today bestseller list. The novel, entitled Halo: Contact Harvest, is the first book written by (Halo creator and Bungie St??udio??s' lead writer) Joseph Staten.

I'd like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to Mr. Staten for his tremendous achievement here. I remember when my novel, Jurassic Park, hit the NYT list; I was utterly ecstatic. My mother still has a wall covered in news clippings about that book and it's the first thing I tell women about myself when I meet them. Shortly following that, I tell them I drive a tank.  Then I drive over to Michael Crichton's house, steal his tank, and take the ladies for a ride around the neighborhood, pausing only to point out trees that look like small dinosaurs -- like those they might have read about in my novel, Jurassic Park -- and to deep tongue kiss them inappropriately.

The women, not the trees. You can't tongue kis?s a tree. 

The post Halo novel becomes NY??T best seller, just like my novel Jurassic Park appeared first on Destructoid.

Guys, I'd love to spend an hour crafting a deep, engaging story about why my hair hurts this week, but honestly I'm too absorbed in Assassin's Creed to give this whole thing much thought. One of the true joys of a gig like this is that instead of half-assing your work because you're fiction??ally sick, you can just honestly say "I'm half-assing things because I have to go run across a series of rooftops, dive into a bale of hay, then emerge to stab an Arabic warlord in the neck."

The only way the game could be better if it was actually an adaptation of Léon. As much as I've always been a vocal opponent of pedophilia, nothing goes better with wholesale slaughter than sexual tension with a 12-year-old Natalie Portman (double points if she's covered in grime). I've been e-mailing Ubisoft daily with my plot ideas for Assassin's Creed 2, but after I sent the storyboards for the, uh, "romantic interlude", I think? they got a little creeped out.

I never should have included that duck ... 

W?hoever decided to put a tilde over the "n" in ??the word Piñata is a dick.

Hamza "CTZ" Aziz:
Been catching up on Halo 3 on Live??. I'm s?o erectionally happy that my 360 is back!

Topher Cantler:
I've been switching the bad English voice acting back to the original Japanese track in Eternal Sonata (<3 to Lauren), then playing Super Mario Galaxy, Contra 4, and I would be playing some Rock Band if Nick's review copy wasn't oh-so very late.

Jim Sterling:
As predicted it hasn't changed from last week. I have completed the single player of CoD4,  beaten Portal and crowbarred my way through Half-Life 2 and Episode One. Still fighting through Bladestorm: The 100 Years War and Dynasty Warriors Gundam.

BlindsideDork:
Shooting some zombies in Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles mostly. I can't wait to try out Half Life 2: Episode 2. Of course, the usual Picross DS has been thrown in the mix but I haven't picked up Dementium: The Ward in awhile since the hic?cup that is the save feature.

Nick Chester:
This week, I played quite a bit of Rock Band, before picking up Assassin's Creed and Super Mario Galaxy. I also have Blacksite: Area 51, Neves (DS), and Aqua Teen Hunger Force Zombie Ninja Pro-AM in my back pocket. Times are tough.

Faith:
I've been playing Brain Age and Dragon Quest Monster: Joker on my Nintendo DS. This game is such a Pokémon rip off.
I've also been playing Shrek and Roll and Puzzle Quest on XBLA. I played the demo of Overlord and now I totally want this game.
On my Wii, I've been playing Boogie and EA Playground. I hope to pick up Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles today too.

Dale North:
The nonconformist in me wants to loudly say that I'm playing anything that doesn't have a plastic guitar in it, but I know there's some big fans around these parts, so I'll stop here. Like a true G (geek), I'm still playing Jeanne D'Arc and Persona 3, and Phantom Hourglass has just made its way into my rotation.

Colette Bennett:
Lifesigns, Ontamarama, Puyo Puyo 15th Anniversary and Super Mario Galaxy. While all the games are good, Galaxy is an actual delight to play.? I can't remember the last time I laughed out loud in delight when playing a game. It's wonderful.

Nex:
I'm falling in love with my PSP (Slim) all over again. As much as I ragged on it for months over the lack of software, it's finally catching up to the DS. Between Dracula X Chronicles (which I just completed), Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops Plus, the insanely underrated MegaMan: Powered Up ($10!!) and Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness, I've spent a lot of time t??his week wondering how I could turn it into a woman for procreation.

Also, despite Rev's review, I picked up Assassin's Creed yesterday. It's got minor technical flaws, but otherwise that was the best 60 bones I've spent since Guitar Hero III. Take the open-world freedom of Grand Theft Auto, the joy of merely running and jumping found in Crackdown, and the fun in methodical killing found in Hitman, wrap it all in a trés or?iginal double-plot line exploring the Crusades and Futuristic morality, and you've got a game that I'm going to be playing for months.

Almost forgot, I also played Rock Band, Mario Galaxy and Contra 4, but those apparently didn't warrant a mention.

Leigh Alexander:
Aside from just starting Fire Emblem, lazy Leigh has had a strictly portable week -- still smashing my head against Dracula X on the PSP, just started Ys: Ark of Napishtim, and am also playing Phantom Hourglass still. There's a ton of things I wish I was playing, but despite being a FAMOUS INDUSTRY TASTEMAKER who has a legion of orphans bringing me truffles and petits fours on gilded plates just so they can hear what I think of video games or perhaps to beg for their freedom, I mysteriously did not receive review copies of almost anything good in the past fe?w weeks.

Chad Concelmo:
I have played nothing else besides Super Mario Galaxy. I even have the sexy Contra 4 sitting on my nightstand, but I have denied its passionate company for more time with my new favorite Wii game. In fact, this may be the only "Games of the Week" where I will ever be able to talk about Galaxy, so I don't want to waste a single line of text: SUPER MARIO GALAXY IS ONE OF THE BEST GAMES I HAVE PLAYED IN YEARS! IT IS INCREDIBLE! I LOVE IT MORE THAN DOLPHINS!

Brad Rice:
Silent Hill Origins, bitches. My PSP is getting plenty of love between that, Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness, and Jeanne D'Arc. I really need to stop buying tactics RPGs -- I'm never going to have a life otherwise.
 
Oh, some shit called Galaxy came out, right? Nah, didn't touch that.

Ron Workman:
Catan, 99 Nights, take pictures of Nex through the window that he thinks has good blinds, and Viva Piñata:Party Animals.

Tristero:
As much as I appreciate our beloved David's parting gift to me of Cliff Notes to the Half-Life universe, the instant Super Mario Galaxy came out, I dropped Alyx like yesterday's dirty laundry. I knew I wouldn't need anything else besides Mario the moment I heard Charles Martinet screech out the title from t??he Wii menu. Does anyone else think it sounds like he's ??been hitting a bit of the Juniper Jizz lately? Homeboy was most definitely crunk when he recorded that.

Dyson:
I've been playing Contra 4 DS for review, along with a whole lot of Super Mario Galaxy, which has seriously cut into my Contra 4 time (sorry Aaron!).  I've been desperately hoping for some free time so I can download and play Blue's Journey for the Virtual Console. Blue's Journey holds a special place in my heart for being that one game that, if I had b??een an incredibly wea??lthy teenager, I would have bought a Neo Geo for.

Gameboi:
I've been toying around with CoD4 and Assassin's Creed, but Super Mario Galaxy has flat out floored me. I've barely scratched the surface of the game, and it has wowed me in ways that I haven't felt since Super Mario 64. It's dream??y. If you somehow don't manage to like this game, I have to call your taste into question.

How many of you went gay for Galaxy this week? My guess: all of you. 

The post Destructoid’s games of the week for 11/18/2007: Mixed messages edition! appeared first on Destructoid.

Ever since it was revealed to me (yesterday), Game Center CX: Arino's Challenge has become my own personal video game equivalent of the Mo-dettes: absolutely no one's heard of it, it'?s amazing and bringing it up in casual conversation will either make you look like a pretentious douche or the coole?st person since Steve McQueen.

Since I'm assuming very few of you have heard of it either, here's Game|Life's rundown of some of the minigames it contains. The title is sort of an improved Warioware, based on a Japanese television show. It's essentially a collection of large mini-games (oxymoron?) that emulate classic titles, from Galaga to The Legend of Zelda, in the hopes of cashing in on our collective nostalgia. Of course, if T-shirt companies and 20% of the content of our site and many sites like it can easily tap that vein of enthusiasm, you can be damn sure a Nintendo DS title could as well. That is, assuming it comes to our country. As it s?tands, the game is Japan-only, but since it's getting press from this article (goodbye fourth wall!) and all of G|L's coverage, we're hoping it gets a translation tootsweet.

(Editor's Note: This entire piece was written specifically so I could use the word "tootsweet." Take that as you will. -- Nexsweet) 

The post Game Center CX: the coolest game I hadn’t heard about until yesterday appeared first on Destructoid.

Earlier today (yesterday?) reader-cum-tipper Aerox sent us a link to this Associated Press piece discussing EA's second quarter earnings. Or, more specifically, EA's second quarter losses. It seems that the gaming behemoth lost $195 million dollars during the quarter due to "how it accounts for sales of online-enabled games, now recognizing the sal?es on a deferred basis over an estimated service period."

Not having easy access to their financial records -- or the green visor and helpful Chinese grad students necessary to read them -- I can't definitively say this is the sort of thing a company tells its shareholders to keep them from taking up the torches and pitchforks and going all Mary Shelley on its reanimated ass, but it does seem somewhat coincidental. We've been hearing reports of how EA's position as the top dog of third-party gaming has been lost to Activision for quite some time now, and if they are indeed doing even worse than we've been hearing, you have to imagine that EA's offices are filled with analysts and accountants screaming and running through the halls while vainly searching for metaphorical life boats in case the metaphorical ship begins literally sinking and they somehow all drown in the middle of Northern California. I can't imagine the shareholders would be very pleased they had invested in a company able to capsize while on dry land, so EA has probably got the spin machines spinning like young girls still amused by turning in rapid circles until they become dizzy and fal?l on the ground.

Then again, if my fictional scenario does come to pass, I'd like to think at least a few of the shareholders would be impressed by the pure surreality of the whole thing. At least until they realize they've lost tons of cash, and the laws of physics no longer apply. That sort of thing makes for a really bad weekend. 

The post EA loses nearly $200 million, begins ushering wome??n and ch??ildren to lifeboats appeared first on Destructoid.

The first two Call of Duty games were widely praised as the next step in the first-person shooter genre. They had bombastic action sequences, gripping storylines and enough Nazi-bashing to make George Patton squeal like a young girl. Even today they stand out as the finest examples of the ultra-over-saturated World War II FPS subgenre, but like the Treaty of Versailles the series' string of stunning successes couldn't last forever. Call of Duty 3, while ??a competent game, certainly didn't live up to the brand, and while above-average, was seen as the low point of the series.

With Call of Duty 4 though, Infinity Ward (developers of the original two titles) have taken the reins back from Treyarch (developers of CoD3) and abandoned the World War II setting. This new game takes place enti?rely in the modern day, while clinging sharply to the things that made the series a success in the? first place. How'd it turn out? Hit the jump to find out.

Call of Duty 4 (Xbox 360 [Reviewed], PlayStation 3, Windows)
Developed by Infinity Ward
Published by Activision
Release Date: November 6, 2007  

If there's one thing the first two Call of Duty games did extremely well it's that they set up an engaging story as a backdrop for their explosive action. The stories have never been as philosophically deep as something like BioShock, and they never challenged your own perceptions of morality like Portal recently did, but they do manage to tap into that same visceral feeling as Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan that gives a real?? sensation of meaning to the chaot?ic violence all around you.

Call of Duty 4 succeeds in exactly this same way. It's story is exactly the sort of thing you've seen in hundreds of summer blockbusters since the 1980s: madman acquires nuclear weapons, madman uses nuclear weapons, the good guys form a team of badasses whose only tools are bravado, bullets and explosions, and through the might of jingoism and hyper-masculine guns-as-phalli fantasies the ragtag team of heroes saves the world. While the title has an illusion of depth, the in-game choices all boil down to where you'd prefer to stand when you blow the heads off of incoming Jihadists entirely secular gent??lemen of vagu??ely Persian ancestry.

That's not to say the game is unengaging, however. This is the sort of title that through the magic of intense pacing and clever audio/visual tricks can easily make a 6 or 7 hour play session seem as if it were only 20 minutes. It's a backhanded compliment to say this makes the game's story blow by in a strikingly short amount of time, but compared to other FPS titles, CoD4's sub-15 hour run-time is (unfortun??ately) pretty standard -- and often much more enjoyable.

In fact, if Infinity Ward's main goal was "engaging gameplay" they utterly nailed it. It's easy enough to create a title where you kill people or blow up machinery, but adding a sense of tension to the proceedings is apparently quite difficult, at least based on the number of FPS titles available on PCs and home consoles that are strikingly generic. CoD4 succeeds in this area for two main reasons: first, many subtle tweaks have been added to create almost primal reasons to murder your opponents. From a storyline with an innate psychology that creates a strong illusion of the same us-vs-them philosophy politicians have been using for years to justify the battles CoD4 mirrors, to tiny gameplay nuances such as the ability to return thrown grenades to enemies with a toss of your own, the entire thing feels like you're in the middle of a battle in the dusty streets of some Arabic town. Adding to that enemies that take cover, shout at you in appropriate dialects and wear the same dirty, scavenged military gear their real-?world counterparts are known for, and the game immerses you in a way that few other titles ever have.

Secondly, and most importantly, the game never lingers too long on any particular playstyle. In the middle of the campaign, there's a stretch of three missions where you'll go from dropping heavy explosive rounds on Russian soldiers from the TV-assisted gunner's station of an AC-130 ??gunship, to slogging through the Russian countryside in the middle of the night, to a 15-years-prior flashback where you and another soldier are tasked wit?h crawling through the ruins of Chernobyl with only a sniper rifle and a pistol in a quest to assassinate a local warlord. That last mission in particular, rachets up the tension present in the entire thing to previously unseen levels -- lying prone in a field while Russian troops patrol literally two feet from you is an experience that anyone with even a passing fetish for military ops absolutely must experience.

One of the most interesting points of the whole thing, whether it was int??enti??onal or not, is that this video game demonstrates a breed of warfare that has, in effect, become a video game. This is most striking in the AC-130 mission, which is much easier than either of the ones that come before or after it. It seems that as the layers of obfuscating technology between a soldier and the people he's killing grows, the connection with reality blurs. As I said, the AC-130 mission is strikingly simple, almost a point-and-click affair, and while it does give you an interesting respite from the rest of the game, it also loses a lot of the visceral intensity of being shot at and seeing your bullet split a man's face in two. 

Call of Duty 2 became a darling of the multiplayer set due to its realism that contrasted sharply with the bouncy, fictional reality of the big FPS of its time, Halo 2. Call of Duty 4 manages to beat out even CoD2's stunning experience by adding an RPG-lite experience system similar to that found in the latter-day Battlefield titles. Simply stated: the more you play, the more you'll unlock useful perks for use in game. Whether they be bigger guns or a more resilient soldier, each perk is useful and desirable in its own way. Sadly this also leads to one of the title's biggest flaws: new players have to contend with gamers who have attained perks that make them almost god-like. While it's never impossible to kill an opponent, the difference in abilities is extremely palpable and will turn off many new gamers immediately. I don't know why they couldn't stratify the multiplayer games based on character level as they have in Halo 3, if only to keep players with similar perk levels competing on even ground. Then again, CoD4 probably can't hope for the kind of online presence a Halo draws, so had they split the playerbase in this ??way, it might be difficult to find games in which to play. Still, having to make the choice between having no one to play with, or having people to play with who can shoot you through walls from 4 miles aw??ay, you can see the kind of issue Infinity Ward had to contend with.

The graphics in Call of Duty 4 are quite good. While I wouldn't go so far as to say they're the new high water mark for the systems it appears on, they definitely convey the environment convincingly. The developers seemingly spent a lot of time adding tiny flourishes like the vague flickering of the green LED night vision goggles or the imprinting of one's own capillaries on one's vision after staring down a flashbang. There are never any jaw-dropping moments, but the entire thing subtly provides further enhancement to the engaging plot by visually convincing you t?hat you're actually there.

As a special aside, I would like to highlight the "death effects". It's typical for ?these titles to g??ive enemies ragdoll reactions to being shot or exploded, but there's something truly striking (and depending on your slant, either extremely satisfying or disturbing) about the massive splatter and violent spasm following an opponent catching a round from an AK-47 in the eye. It never approaches cartoonish, but it definitely conveys the damage a high-caliber round can do to a person's soft tissue.

As much as I'd love to be able to say this title is an absolute must-buy there are issues that mar its surface. As stated above, the game is short. While that may be an illusionary side effect of the intense plot, you'll be wishing for more when it finally comes to its thrilling conclusion. Also, the title is incredibly linear. It offers the spectre of choice in some missions, but when compared to the recent BioShock, you realize you will have seen the entire thing in one play throu??gh.

Combine these with the mult?iplayer system's well-meaning but ultimately poorly implemented experience system, and you have a solid title that would serve better as a rental for anyone who wasn't already excite?d about it enough to buy it at launch.

Score: 8.0 

The post Destructoid Review: Call of Duty 4 appeared first on Destructoid.

Ever since Rare announced they'd be making a handheld Viva Piñata title for the Nintendo DS, gamers have been scratching their heads and furrowing their brows wondering how exactly that came to pass. "After all," they'd remark "does??n't Microsoft own Rare? And isn't Microsoft competing with Nintendo? And ... ohhhhhhh! My precious brain!"? Then, of course, came the seizures.

When we received a tip noting that Develop magazine had interv??iewed Microsoft Game Studios' general manager Phil Spencer about the decision, I realized we absolutely had to make this public. Is Microsoft creating a brave new world where disparate companie?s set aside their differences for the good of the gaming public? ?Not exactly. Here's a quote:

"Rare has a history in making handheld games, and titles for Nintendo platforms. When we acquired the studio that expertise was there and the team was there. As Microsoft we had a discussion – do we want to build that expertise? We decided yes, not so much because we need to support Nintendo – their platform will do fine without us – but because it is important for us to build that experience as a publisher and game developer and understand what it means to build lightweight, maybe shorter session?? experiences, and m?aintain that design innovation."

That all seems like pretty standard PR doublespeak, but I think it's important to remember that Rare has done almost nothing of note on Microsoft consoles, while their history on Nintendo systems is the stuff of legends. Nintendo devotees have a tendency to remember the good old days, and with ridiculous numbers of DS systems in the hand??s of consumers, ??they'd be throwing gobs of cash away if they dissolved Rare's DS team. Yes, they win points for not firing a large group of people, but at the same time they aren't being entirely altruistic.  It's clever, really. Almost the sort of thing deserving of maniacal laughter, tented fingers and the repeated stroking of a fluffy white cat.

Well played Phil. Well played. 

The post Microsoft allows Rare to develop on the DS, possibly to fund Moonra?ker laser appeared first on Destructoid.