A wizard visited me in a dream last night. We were sitting cross-legged in that infinitely long corridor out of The Matrix, idly rocking back and forth and trying not to make eye contact, both waiting for the other to speak first. “Have you–” I started, before the greying wizard silenced me by placing his gnarled wooden staff against my lips. “Steve,” he spaketh. His voice was like that sound when Indiana Jones pushes a button in a tomb and the ceiling starts to move. “It is important that we carry out our work before you wake.” He gestured to the old grandfather clock from my dead nan’s house, how on earth did that get there!?
The wizard used two dusty fingers to slide a plain white card across the floor between us. I picked it up and turned it over. In gently embossed embossed Helvetica I saw written on the card a collection of gaming news stories. But not any gaming news stories: gaming news stories that had not yet come to pass. This week’s upcoming gaming news stories.
I can share them with you now.
TUESDAY: BioWare appeases all Star Wars fans by just creating one massive planet-sized NPC whose gender and sexual orientation is randomised every seven hours
All romances are going to take place on top and inside of an almost perfectly spherical, 17,000 kilometre wide NPC called Grace. Players must take turns at this quest by entering the NPC’s orbit and waiting there until a free ‘romance slot’ opens up, or they may avail of a ticketing system that will send queuing players a winky smiley via SMS as soon as their requested slot and preferred configuration of the gargantuan NPC’s sexual identity is ready. All other romance outside of Grace will be strictly prohibited, and any attempts to use the ‘flirt’ dialogue choice causes your PC’s disc tray to repeatedly eject and shut again angrily.
WEDNESDAY: Floating, sentient, trans-dimensional cloud of pure contempt becomes new Diablo 3 game director
Following Jay Wilson’s controversial departure from the Diablo team, on Wednesday the absence of a figurehead on which the Blizzard forums can cruelly and unfairly focus all of their negative emotions will summon what science and religion will unite to call an Otherworldly Scornfiend. The Scornfiend will enter our plane of existence as a shimmering wisp of crackling, acrid orange fumes before rapidly increasing in size as forum members feed it accusations of repeated incompetence and personal failures. As it morphs and extends it changes form. It may appear to one person as a ghastly, dog-sized wasp. To somebody else it will take the form of a sad, sobbing old woman.
No matter how it appears, it will constantly emit a painful low frequency humming which will become a deafening and hellish dirge as the unfazed hate-vacuum cheerfully announces Barb nerfs and delays to PvP updates. The agonising howls of absolute mortal terror will be heard around the globe as the cloud’s poisonous reach extends, while Jay Wilson will meanwhile begin work on a sequel to 1994 SNES classic Blackthorne.
THURSDAY: WarGaming.net continue to discover ever more elaborate catacombs filled with dumb and pointless ancient Burmese treasures in their search for 100 missing Spitfires
Having sadly failed to dig up any aeroplanes in Burma, WarGaming.net will discover four more supposed burial sites using their super-powered and possibly magical ground x-raying device. While these sites will fail to yield a single aeroplane, they will contain a vast cache of dazzling jewellery, opulent, ruby encrusted crowns and football-sized diamonds dating back to Myanmar’s Toungoo and Konbaung Dynasties. “Not even one Spitfire in this one either,” a resigned WarGaming.net CEO Victor Kislyi will sigh as he shuts yet another tomb’s hand-carved obsidian portal. “What rotten luck,” he will moan as he leans on a gold and platinum sceptre and then accidentally knocks over a pile of flawless emerald tiaras. “Bloody planes, where are they?”
FRIDAY: Zombie game publisher frustrated by rapid falloff in their SEO since last week desperately attempts to continue to cause controversy using dead women
Press release will read: “What if we showed you a picture of a decapitated woman with the caption ‘I was told it’s hard for a woman to get ahead in this industry, but this is ridiculous!’, would you write about our zombie game again please? What if we just started personally insulting you? Come on guys, we’ll do anything here up to but not including talking about the zombie game we’re making.”