More crumbs for the Elden Ring obsessed

A known-about game getting a Steam page feels like the sort of headline we'd run in 2007, but screw it �it's Elden Ring. W??e're allowed to be excited, and I genuinely am.

Heck, Steam even tweeted about it this afternoon.

The store listing covers info you probably already know about �you're a Tarnished one who must ?set out to explore the vast Lands Between on your magical steed, with spells to learn, challenging combat to master, and "huge" dungeons to delve into.

I will say, I hadn't come across a few of these screenshots before, including the stormy swordfigh??t, the crystal cave, and the veiled whatever-that-is. I uploaded the latter screenshot to our CMS as "Elden-Ring-who?s-that-lady-screenshot.jpg."

Otherwise, yep, there are "Online PvP" and "Online Co-op" features in Elden Ring, which is worth reiterating. Here's the exact wording: "In addition to multiplayer, where you can directly connect with other players and travel together, the game supports a unique asynchronous online element that allows you to feel the presence of others."

Best of all, the previously mentioned January 21, 2022 release date is still on track. I am?? absolutely prepared for the possibility that the launch could slip, and I'll be okay with it. That said, until I hear otherwise, I'll be planning on some sleepless January nights.

As a member of the Elden Ring subreddit put it, "I don’t know why but this made my day."

The post *Sound the alarm*: Elden Ring has a Steam page appeared first on Destructoid.

This freaky old Big Daddy concept art is making the rounds, and the face cannot be unseen

If I went through the rest of my life without ever seeing a Big Daddy's face underneath its suit, that would've been A-okay �but fate had another id?ea.

Courtesy of a late-night tweet from Andy Kelly, there's this fresh-to-me hell: a glimpse of BioShock's main squeeze without the cool suit mask?ing its face. I c??annot turn away.

//twitter.com/ultrabrilliant/stat??us/14123219448679096?32

It's pretty wild to me that I've somehow never come across ?this art before.

It's a simple "Big Daddy without a helmet" search away �one of many pieces of concept art that will pop up for BioShock �and I ??guess I just never bothered looking. That said, some questions are prob?ably best left unanswered, and officially, it's clear that the game's creators would rather leave the canon look of the Big Daddy's face up to our imaginations.

It's hard to differentiate ??their bodies and their suits considering that Protector Program candidates' "skin and organs were grafted and integrated into their suit, to become one functional unit." The stuff you learn in-game, forget about, and get reexposed to years later on wikis, I swear. No one ever said Rapture was a kind place.

Apologies for opening such a fleshy can o??f worms here. We're in this mess together.

The post Y’know, I would’ve been fine never seeing a Big Daddy’s face beneath the helmet appeared first on Destructoid.

IGN is reporting on a story in the Nikkei Business Daily which claims Japanese developers fear the end of the days of wine and roses for N??intendo's Wii. Fears run the gamut from "Nintendo has been the only beneficiary of Wii's success as it was able to predict demand for the console" to "the Wii is only a fad and its popularity will fade". The same devs cite the recent Japanese slowdown in Wii sales as an indicator of the oncoming "Wiicession".

Of course, the perpetual lack of Nintendo's baby here in American stores tells a different story, but obviously the system still lacks a strong library when compared to the Xbox 360. Between The Big N's hesitance to allow hot, sexy violence on its platform and their heavy reliance on redundant first-party series', there is a definite silicon ceiling on the nu??mber of titles the system can ever see, adding further credence to the devs' fears.

Then again, so what? Didja hear that Sonic is in Super Smash Bros. Brawl?! DIDJA?

SONIC!

Yeah, they'll be fine. 

The post Japanese devs nervous about Wii?, tiny singing girls, underwater nuclear testing appeared first on Destructoid.

This letter was shared with us by Destructoid reader kariomart, where he made a shocking and terrible discovery about the true source of corruption in America's youth. Usually we wouldn't run somethi??ng like on the front page, but it's just too damning a story not to tell. This was sent directly to Jack Thompson and so far has been ignored. Does Jack truly not care about our children? Just read this shocking letter and prepare to be sickened to the core:

Dear Mr. Thompson,

I have come across a STARTLING discovery after doing months of research on school shootings and other related violent acts.  What is the one undeniable co?mmonality between Eric Ha??rris, Dylan Klebold, John Lee Malvo, and the VT gunman?

No, not video games. This is something far more sinister and pervasive in our society: they were ALL owners and wearers of denim pants, or?? "blue jeans," as is their slang term with the youth.  I've researched these "jeans" and discovered that they are readily available in literally thousands of retailers.  Worse than that, they are marketed to our children and I have discovered that they are even tailored to their body sizes!  With names like Wrangler (obvious play on the word "strangler") and Levis (obvious anagram for "evils"), it is a wonder we haven't seen more school shootings?.

These murder accessories have no business being in our society of sunshine and lollipops.  Therefore Mr. Thompson, I implore you: join me in my crusade against jeans and help save our kids.  I am gi??ving you until 7:38 pm Friday to accept my offer.  If you decline, I will have no other choice but to assume you support this?? vial leg wear and are a proponent of corrupting our nation's children and I will do everything in my power to stop you.

There you have it. I am fully convinced that this is the real r??eason why people go insane. The evidence is there, the correlation exists, so it HAS to be -- yet Jack Thompson does nothing. If you truly believe, as I do, that this is a serious pr??oblem, I suggest you let Thompson know. Let everybody know. Spread the word, because we have to fight this before Levi claims another.

The post Destructoid read?er warns Jack Thompson about the true evil in America appeared first on Destructoid.

I hope your Videogame Tree is up and you've left out your NES controller for Father Gameness, because today is National Videogames Day! Proving that there is indeed a day for everything, from quitting smoking to wearing condoms, National Videogames Day is one of two game-based holidays, accompanying July 8th's Videogames Day. This is just like that day, except the word National is at the beginning, and that makes it very different indeed .... for crying out loud. According to Holiday Insights, this is what NVD (fully approved by A???merican Greeting Cards, of course) is all about:

Video Games Day celebrates popular video games that stormed onto the market, and changed the way your kids play games. From Atari to Nintendo to Xbox, video games provide al?l too man??y hours of playing time on your television set.

How do you celebrate this joyous event? Why, you play videogames of course! Every single game you play this day will carry a lit??tle bit of pixie dust with it, infused as it is by National Videogames Day magic. I can feel my dignity just peeling away with every word I type. 

We might as well play along. Tell me what games you want to honor for National Videogames Day. What titles have? tou??ched your heart through the years, which games industry figures you want to give thanks to and what games you will play for this arbitrarily chosen, thoroughly meaningless faux-holiday. Feel free to post and let the world know. 

[Thanks, Justin]

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Griefing is the all-too-common practice within online games of a player -- generally a youthful one -- entertaining th?emselves by making life harder for other play??ers. The practice has long been the scourge of the Azeroths and Norraths of the world, but as often as it comes off as mean-spirited, it's also incredibly hilarious if done correctly.

In that spirit, Something Awful -- the 'Net's answer to Don Rickles circa 1972 -- has collected a treasure trove of their members' finest moments in griefing, and some of them are incredibly witty, ?exhib??iting the finest in high-brow humor. For example:

Company Of Heroes

My brother and I were playing against each other, as we do every Wednesday night. He lives in Canada and I'm in Miami, so it's ni??ce to run each other over with tanks instead of talking on the phone or some stupid shit.

One night we were on the Semois map when I employed a new strategy. After build??ing a few defensive positions and scattering my men all across the map so they'd take forever to find, I took a photo from my brother's wedding into the bathroom and jerked off to his wife.

The post True Griefing Tales: This is much easier than actua?lly being cre?ative appeared first on Destructoid.

When the Gamecock boys announced they would be holding a eulogy for E3, many scoffed, many scratched their heads in bewilderment, and a few even coughed uncomfortably and shifted in their ?seats. After all, what did an indie publisher know about an event that vanished from existence before they were formed? Proving exactly how presc?ient the Gamecock boys are though, they had the foresight to get other people to make asses of themselves on their behalf, and with that in mind, they tapped our very own Boss Bot Niero to eulogize the mo'f***er.

You've already seen how it actually went down, but The Boss also thought you should have a special behind-the-scenes look at what the eulogy was originally planned to be. Once Niero realized exactly what he had signed up for he panicked and was unfit for anything other than drink??ing heavily and crying into the lonely night, and I was called upon to exhume the corpse of Oscar Wilde and see just how much wit I could shake out of his desiccated bones. From that decrepit cor?pse flowed the original draft of the eulogy, which you can find after the jump.

For the first time this year, we'll be spending the summer months without the warm embrace of the Electronic Entertainment Expo. Certainly, the warmer months will not seem the same without thousands of sweaty people bordering on exhaustion rubbing up against each other in an orgy of poor hygiene and sexual repression, but I'd like to think E3 would want us to carry on. It would advise us to live each day to the fullest, and not mourn its passing; nay, instead it would want us to proudly carry on, bags of cheap merchandise in hand, and remember the good times we once had.

My relationship with E3 was, at times, a tumultuous one. From the first time we met, we knew there was a special connection, but like Romeo and Juliet, or Ike and Tina, we found ourselves constantly starcrossed and destined to break one another's hearts. I recall one particularly hot summer in the City of Angels -- 1994, I believe -- I was a young Robot with dreams of making it big in a city covered in bountiful teats on which to suckle, and E3 took me under her wing. We spent the days enraptured with developer news, booth babes with more interest in Eddie Vedder than the Sony PlayStation and the scent of fermenting nerd, but the nights … well, the nights were ours. I can't count how many evenings I spent lying in the fake grass of Los Angeles, whispering to her of my forbidden desires to fill her cavernous convention hall  with myself, and my friends (often at the same time).

Sadly, though, 'twas not to be. Her parents would never have approved of her robosexual tendencies, and I found love in the steely embrace of a cargo ship bound for Cuba. We remained in close contact, but things were never quite the same. While I would still visit her every year, the spark was gone, and she had changed. The last time we spoke, she had become pregnant with the child of an abusive games industry. She had changed from the majestic, strong woman I once knew to a harlot whose existence consisted of cooking dinner and catching drunken beatings from an uncaring Peter Molyneux. It pained me to see her so, and I was forced to cut off contact.

When I heard of her passing last year, I was stunned. She always seemed like the kind who wouldn't roll over and die so easily, but after years of abuse, the games industry had finally crossed a line. When the coroner asked me to come in and identify the body, I found her lying on a cold slab; her body was bloated from years of neglect, her hair a mess, and all traces of the beauty I once knew had been wiped clean by the continual physical assault she had been subject to. I cried that day, long and hard, and I swore from then on that I would keep her memory alive, not the memory of her final, hobbled days, but the memory of the caring woman who, was, in fact, a video game exposition.

With that in mind, ladies and gentlemen I ask you to keep her memory alive. Whenever you see the glimmer of hope in a child's eyes or you unwrap the latest copy of John Madden Presents Watership Down 2009, remember that without E3, none of us would have crabs.

Thank you.

The post E3 2007: The E3 Eulogy B-Side appeared first on Destructoid.