Last night a DJ saved my life. In a fit of Europop-induced euphoria (europhoria) I’d leapt gazelle-like from the dance floor, over the perspex partition to land on and straddle the DJ’s professional DJing decks. I rhythmically slammed one foot on each rotating vinyl and immediately began the manic crotch juddering that signalled the beginning of my signature dance move, The Remorseful Widow. After just a single counter-rotation of each leg, however, I realised my position atop the decks was was physically untenable. I dislocated both knees and fell face first into a trough of ginger beer. My life flashed before my eyes, from my water-birth right up until the very moment I ironically drowned in a shallow vat of fizz. But then something curious happened.
The flash kept going, continuing past my own death. I saw one whole week into the future. The future of gaming news. Or should I say, gaming knews?
TUESDAY: Dead Space 3 expands micro-transaction model to include game-completing ghost
Buoyed by fan support for the game’s recently announced micro-transaction model, which allows players to pay small fees to unlock new weapons, EA will vow to extend the pay-to-win system even further. Starting tomorrow, EA will announce a tiered system of payments which will serve to enhance and progress your game experience more quicklyand with less input from you than ever. For 69p a special space ghost will appear on screen and drag you screaming through the floor and to the game’s final boss fight, bypassing seven hours of gameplay. For only £1.29 however, an EA-partnered proctologist will visit your home and make banshee sounds in your ear while unexpectedly sliding an icy index finger into your rectum during the scary bits, presumably in order to heighten the sensation of being frightened on a space ship or on a moon or wherever they’ve set this one.
WEDNESDAY: Gabe Newell drops news of yet more advanced technology in development at Valve during otherwise mundane college presentation about economics or something
Valve boss Gabe Newell will co-chair a speech on the macro-economics of expanding businesses in digital marketplaces at the College of Burlingtonhampton on Wednesday, during which he will spend less than three sentences revealing the culture-shaking news that all humans have in fact been living in a Valve-curated virtual “life arena” for three weeks as part of a closed beta test of their Steambox living room console. Participants will have no memory of opting into the beta, as part of the life arena testing experience included eradicating any knowledge of giving consent for Valve to use retinal harmonics to induce the necessary brainwave functions. He will briefly mention that the only known side-effect, the only clue that we were no longer living our normal lives, is that some of our text messages didn’t send. He will then return to discussing economics (which, to be fair, is actually very interesting if your interests are broader than simply ‘videogames’)as if he isn’t some sort of incredible genius from the future.
THURSDAY: No news
Ken Levine will tweet something about the new My Bloody Valentine album but that’s pretty much it.
FRIDAY: Arma 3 devs rename everything in hope of distancing selves from further problems with Greek authorities
Having already changed the name of Arma 3’s island from Lemnos (a real place) to Altis (not a real place), Bohemia will announce a further set of changes designed to create a firmer reality buffer between their military simulator and the planet on which we live. To this end, the Grook island of Altis will now float four thousand feet above the ocean on a vast and immensely beautiful rocky plate, a serene and idyllic hovering paradise that wanders the globe in search of the seven mystical Dragon Balls, presumed lost in the Clone Wars but hinted at by writings discovered in an ancient tomb by Nathan Drake. Accurate ballistics will still feature.