Gaming for Love: Finding Love in MMOs

"I Love the World" of Video Gaming

If you're getting dominated in TF2, ganked in AoC, pwned in Halo 3; feeling blue after finishing MGS4 or down in the dumps because your 360 RRoD'd — or if you're just feeling awesome and want to feel even better about this crazy habit we have, which forces us to sit inside for hours on a perfectly good day otherwise, then just watch this video that ThatsMrOffDutyNinjasent us, and sing along.

This is a parody of the Discovery Channel's "I Love the World" promo, and that's the original soundtrack to which Gamers Prodigy brilliantly matched the game footage. It's fabulously hilarious and sentimental at the same time. For me, at least.

There's at least one cameo here that's in your wheelhouse ... boom-de-yada, boom-de-yada, boom-de-yada ... Everyone give the commenter to your left a big hug.

"I Love the World" Video Game Edition [hosted by CollegeHumor, created by Gamers Prodigy]

We Love Golf Preorder Nets Wiimote Body Bag

We Love Golf is coming out on July 15th, and if you preorder now at Gamestop, Game Crazy, Circuit City, Toys R Us, the Official Capcom Store, and several other fine gaming retailers you can get your hands on this snazzy red Wiimote body bag! Now you can recreate scenes from the hit television show CSI: Mushroom Kingdom, zipping up your dead controller in this stylish corpse sack before loading it into the Wii ambulance peripheral and spraying the area for fluids.

Pretty nifty preorder bonus if you ask me, but what the hell does a body bag have to do with golf?

We Love Golf Preorder Gift [Capcom Unity - No, I'm not actually that stupid]

The Life Love Game Design Challenge named its winners today. The Flash game design challenge sponsored by Jennifer Ann's Group asked developers to come up with games about teen dating violence prevention without using violent content or a violent theme.

The $1,000 winning design "Escape Your Boyfriend's Room" by Jorge Goyco is an interesting point and click game that manages to get both the warning signs of an abusive relationship across as well as how you can get yourself out of the relationship. I loved the look of the game and its approach to the subject matter really impressed me.

The first runner up $100 prize was handed out to "A Walk in the Park by Jared Sain." I loved the look of the game. My only suggestion is that maybe the game could do a better job of explaining how to get out of an abusive relationship. The final $100 runner-up was "Decisions, Decisions by Mark Kakareka"

Only a company twisted enough to market a game to kids where the goal is to feed cute animals their dead and mate with their siblings could come up with this unholy pairing. Speaking to MTV Multiplayer's Stephen Totilo, Viva Pinata: Trouble In Paradise designer reveals that they had successfully connected the Xbox 360 and DS versions of the paper animal game...but it was too late.

"We got it to work, but it was too late in the development cycle," Cook said, presumably talking about the cycle of the DS game. If only they'd thought of it sooner, he laughed. "It's one of those things where you just kick yourself."

Nintendo DS - Xbox 360 Connectivity Considered For 'Viva Pinata: Trouble In Paradise' [MTV Multiplayer]

The Western release of Capcom's We Love Golf! for the Nintendo Wii approaches, and with two exclusive characters in the release, Capcom had to come up with two special Capcom classic-inspired costumes for each one, so they decided to let the players choose.

Out of a field hat contained choices such as Roll Caskett from Mega Man Legends and Captain Commando (my choices), the votes came out in favor of Morrigan from the Dark Stalkers series and Ken from Street Fighter. Morrigan will be portrayed by the lovely Stephanie, while Mark will don a red gi and blond locks, becoming the first African-American Ken Masters.

It may look a bit odd to you, but I used to have a black friend who dressed up as Ken for anime conventions, so these screens just bring back fond memories.

Gears of War 2 Getting Meat Shields, But Does it Need Romance Too?

Last night Microsoft hosted a dinner with Shane Kim and Kudo Tsunoda for myself and four other game journalists after the Electronic Arts gathering. For most of the dinner our group huddled around the table talking games and eating Hawaiian fusion food.

Tsunoda, who was unfortunate enough to be sitting right next to me, spent much of the evening trying not to answer questions about Gears of War 2 and his new role as the game's general manager. He said he felt fortunate to be working at Microsoft Game Studio and in particular to be working with Cliff Bleszinski and the folks at Epic Games.

MTV's Stephen Totilo and I tried to pin Tsunoda down on how the game would fit into the Gears universe. Was it, Totilo asked, part of a trilogy. We haven't decided yet, Tsunoda responded and then tried to change the topic, saying that the game has plenty of things to do in the way of improving on the original title.

Justin Marks, writer of the Street Fighter: Legend of Chun-Li film, is aware that most gamers have wanted to wed Chun-Li (and possibly worse) since we were yay high, but it looks like we can expect a dignified treatment of the leading lady, played by Smallville actress Kristin Kreuk.

But... but what about the infamous anime shower scene?

Grandma, You're Sitting at the Gears of War Table

ResignedGamer's back at it again with a series of odes to Leisure Suit Larry and San Andreas' Carl Johnson, bravely touting them "the last true romantics." Rejection again is the theme, at least for Larry — which was a game more about getting shot down than it ever was getting hooked up. An example:

infinite fetch quests
chocolate, roses, and rings
won't make her love you

So true.

Haiku for the Last of the True Romantics [Resigned Gamer]

What is love? Is it an emotion? A chemical reaction? According to developer Eskil Steenburg, Love is a first person not so massively multi player online procedural adventure game, which is a real mouthful. At it's heart it is an online roleplaying game with low system requirements, randomly generated monsters, and a graphical style purposefully meant to look like concept art. Dig deeper and you'll find an entire world at your fingertips. While we;ve previously mentioned the game here and here, the folks at PC Gamer recently had a chance to demo the game and were blown away.

The technology behind Love means that the game is editable like nothing we've seen before. Eskil points his mouse at a wall and clicks - then stretches the terrain back and forth, terraforming at will. Then he fires a gun at the side of a wall and it's blown away - digging a cave into the side of a cliff. He then trots through this tunnel, dropping into pastures on the far side.

Noitu Love 2 Out, Get

From the Best of Craigslist in Raleigh, N.C., here's an ode to true love that, to non-gamers sounds about like Survivor's "The Search is Over." But this should melt the heart of any girl who has taken controller in hand and crusaded against unrelenting hordes of enemies, wondering if there ever was a boy out there who considered her just as worthy of the fight.

"Oh GameStop Girl, how you make my heart meter skip a beat. If you were being held captive in a mountain fortress by a ruthless mutant mafia gangboss and I had to fight my way through 16 levels of fire-breathing undead ninjas with swords the size of small ponies, I would find a way, even if, after every level, a small man continued to taunt me by saying that you were in another castle. EVEN IF."

GameStop Girl, I want to kill robotic zombie terrorists with you - m4w [Best of Craigslist]

The clip is a little old, but also largely unseen, so up it goes. This is some early, early footage (complete with introductory commentary) of Love, Eskil Steenberg's one-man MMO project that we've spoken gushed over previously. Yes, the vid's quality is awful, but even still, once you get to the bits where the sun's out and you can see the whole world wavering like some gorgeous virtual landscape painting, you'll be glad you watched it.
[via Massively]

Bandai Namco's Duel Love takes players into the underbelly of prep school fighting. That doesn't mean the game is only about fighting. At its core, Duel Love is a Japanese "renai game" ("romantic game") where the goal is to get the game's exceedingly male metrosexuals to fall head over heels in love with you. This is standard dating sim stuff, but Bandai Namco tries to spruce up the formula with touch pen touching.

Duel Love, like most renai games, is more reading and less playing. (Thus, that doesn't exactly make it import-friendly!) Onward the "Loved" and the "Hated"!

Listen To Boy Massage Moaning

Yep. I did it. Yesterday I went out and bought man-sweat scrubbing game — so embarrassing! (My wife even refused to buy it for me.) People may not know this, but I'm painfully shy. So doing things like buying suggestive games makes me red. Of course, I have no problem posting some seriouslyfuckedupshit. That's what we call "irony." Anyway, I'll be playing the game over the weekend, while staying at the in-laws so I can review it sometime next week. That's what we call "awkward."

Duel Love On Sale [Akiba OS]

While We Love Golf wasn't playable at Capcom's Digital Day we did get a few more details on the Camelot Software developed game. Two new exclusive characters are being developed for the western market although there was no announcement about who they will be. We did find out however the results of the vote on Capcom's site concerning two unlockable Capcom themed costumes. Not surprisingly, Ken and Morrigan will be joining the ranks of Arthur, Chun-Li and Jill Valentine as unlockable costumes for your golfing characters. The gameplay will be your standard golf game fair with the Wii remote being used like a golf club. Online play will be available through Friend Play and World Play modes