NCAA Football — Where My High School’s Name is in the Game [Sports]

At my high school – among the smallest in North Carolina – we aren’t known as the “Rams” or the “Cardinals.” We’re “The Buckin’ Elks.” And Brad Nessler says that name – all of it – in NCAA Football 10 . I know of no other institution of learning, NCAA FBS, FCS, Division II, III or high school, that goes by “the Buckin’ Elks” for its athletic nickname. So today, when I used NCAA 10’s Teambuilder to create my high school on a lark, my jaw hit the floor after play-by-play man Brad Nessler introduced us by that very name. Watch the video. I’m not making it up. Elkin is a five-time state champion – four this decade – but we are definitely not among the nation’s top-of-mind high school programs. Our 2002 title , the first since the fabled 1967 champions , came with 18 players on the roster. I have a few theories as to why we made it in. EA Sports Tiburon probably realized, with the new Teambuilder interface, that some of their installation base would create their own high schools and be thrilled to hear their nicknames. Of the zillions of high schools in the United States, a bunch are already covered by existing mascots. So why not go pick out the more unique ones, especially recent champions, and give someone a thrill? I made an offhand, highly anecdotal test of unique school names. Nessler doesn’t say the name of Mount Airy’s “Granite Bears” (2008 NCHSAA 1-A champs, ‘09 runners-up). Nor does he announce the Washington (N.C.) High “Pam Pack.” Both come through as “the home team,” which is what the CPU offers up when it can’t recognize a nickname. However, “Nimrods,” the hilarious nickname of Watersmeet, Mich. High, is also said by Nessler. But that school was featured in an ESPN advertisement, and also the subject of a USA Today profile five years ago, far more notoriety than we Elks have ever seen. So who knows what’s going on here. Somewhere, for some reason, someone asked Brad Nessler to announce my high school for battle in a college football video game, but not because every single school in the United States, or even my state, was included in his script. Like Michael Moore finding the Russian missile pointed at Flint, Mich., I will not stop until I track down who was behind this. And why. Oh, and, Starmount, East Wilkes, Forbush, Surry Central – if it’s in the game, it’s in the game. That means we are and y’all aren’t. So suck on that. Update: On my brother’s request, I tested out whether his North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics Unicorns ( “Hook ‘em ‘Corns!” ) made the game. They did.

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NCAA Football — Where My High School’s Name is in the Game [Sports]

NCAA Football — Where My High School’s Name is in the Game [Sports]

At my high school – among the smallest in North Carolina – we aren’t known as the “Rams” or the “Cardinals.” We’re “The Buckin’ Elks.” And Brad Nessler says that name – all of it – in NCAA Football 10 . I know of no other institution of learning, NCAA FBS, FCS, Division II, III or high school, that goes by “the Buckin’ Elks” for its athletic nickname. So today, when I used NCAA 10’s Teambuilder to create my high school on a lark, my jaw hit the floor after play-by-play man Brad Nessler introduced us by that very name. Watch the video. I’m not making it up. Elkin is a five-time state champion – four this decade – but we are definitely not among the nation’s top-of-mind high school programs. Our 2002 title , the first since the fabled 1967 champions , came with 18 players on the roster. I have a few theories as to why we made it in. EA Sports Tiburon probably realized, with the new Teambuilder interface, that some of their installation base would create their own high schools and be thrilled to hear their nicknames. Of the zillions of high schools in the United States, a bunch are already covered by existing mascots. So why not go pick out the more unique ones, especially recent champions, and give someone a thrill? I made an offhand, highly anecdotal test of unique school names. Nessler doesn’t say the name of Mount Airy’s “Granite Bears” (2008 NCHSAA 1-A champs, ‘09 runners-up). Nor does he announce the Washington (N.C.) High “Pam Pack.” Both come through as “the home team,” which is what the CPU offers up when it can’t recognize a nickname. However, “Nimrods,” the hilarious nickname of Watersmeet, Mich. High, is also said by Nessler. But that school was featured in an ESPN advertisement, and also the subject of a USA Today profile five years ago, far more notoriety than we Elks have ever seen. So who knows what’s going on here. Somewhere, for some reason, someone asked Brad Nessler to announce my high school for battle in a college football video game, but not because every single school in the United States, or even my state, was included in his script. Like Michael Moore finding the Russian missile pointed at Flint, Mich., I will not stop until I track down who was behind this. And why. Oh, and, Starmount, East Wilkes, Forbush, Surry Central – if it’s in the game, it’s in the game. That means we are and y’all aren’t. So suck on that. Update: On my brother’s request, I tested out whether his North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics Unicorns ( “Hook ‘em ‘Corns!” ) made the game. They did.

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NCAA Football — Where My High School’s Name is in the Game [Sports]

Happy Happy [Note]

To: Ash From: Crecente Re: Tim Rogers Is Everyone’s Friend Today the year ends. I will spend the last moments with my wife and son watching a movie probably, eating great mounds of popcorn and drinking champagne. The eating and drinking are things I practiced daily while on vacation, but in the month I was in Australia I watched about two hours total of television. The rest of the time I spent hiking, site-seeing, hanging with family and reading. I ended up reading through seven books over those four weeks. Loved it. What you missed: Uncharted 2’s Sloppy Fiction Blizzard Helps Cops Track Down WoW Fan, Suspected Drug Dealer What Are You Playing This Holiday Weekend? Win An Autographed copy of Zelda: Spirit Tracks and More Iraqi Kidnap Victim Subjected To PlayStation New Year’s Marathoning: Video Games or TV?

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Happy Happy [Note]

Happy Happy [Note]

To: Ash From: Crecente Re: Tim Rogers Is Everyone’s Friend Today the year ends. I will spend the last moments with my wife and son watching a movie probably, eating great mounds of popcorn and drinking champagne. The eating and drinking are things I practiced daily while on vacation, but in the month I was in Australia I watched about two hours total of television. The rest of the time I spent hiking, site-seeing, hanging with family and reading. I ended up reading through seven books over those four weeks. Loved it. What you missed: Uncharted 2’s Sloppy Fiction Blizzard Helps Cops Track Down WoW Fan, Suspected Drug Dealer What Are You Playing This Holiday Weekend? Win An Autographed copy of Zelda: Spirit Tracks and More Iraqi Kidnap Victim Subjected To PlayStation New Year’s Marathoning: Video Games or TV?

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Happy Happy [Note]

Kotaku’s Most Popular Posts Of 2009 [Wrap Up]

When 2009 is said and done, the Kotaku readership will have viewed the site more than 600 million times this year, an impressive mountain of clicks, comments and—based on this year’s most read posts—lecherous gallery ogling. Of the top ten most voraciously “read” posts, two feature Zoey from Left 4 Dead in various states of undress. The word “porn” appears in two headlines, the word “stripper” in another. Another features the highest concentration of unicorns we’ve ever seen on Kotaku. In other words, you guys are pervs who come for the steady stream video game coverage, but pounce on an opportunity to see a boob. While many of our original reviews— Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 , Borderlands —and features—Owen’s on the Gamerscore obsessed and Fahey’s on the Everquest obsessed —garnered heaps of attention, it’s these posts, for better or worse, that outperformed everything else. Seriously. This Should Be Illegal. Best Buy’s bullshit pricing on Geek Squad services isn’t anything new, but the screengrab tag was in 2009. These lightning quick hit posts are often light on editorial, but always generate interesting discussion. L4D is NS4W With Nude Zoey Mod Everybody loves Left 4 Dead survivor Zoey. And some lust for her, expending enough effort to get the poor girl’s pants off in the game by way of the nude Zoey mod, a hit with the readership. We’ve not yet heard of Left 4 Dead 2’s Rochelle getting the same treatment. Tales Of Horror From The Circuit City Liquidation Danny. What a dick. Games, Not Porn, is Adult Actress’ Secret Pleasure Porn stars, they’re just like us! Minus the constant, overacted sex, of course. Unsurprisingly, Ms. Raven’s two other Kotaku posts, drew similar horny crowds and our fair share of detractors. Leaked Star Wars Battlefront 3 Gameplay Footage Portions of the remains of Free Radical were on display for Star Wars Battlefront fans to mourn the developer’s passing. It was this video, the most viewed video of the year on Kotaku, that gave us a peek at Battlefront 3, showing just what some of that artwork would have looked like in motion. Strippers or Counter-Strike – Which Gets a Gamer’s Attention? It was a rhetorical question. Left 4 Dead Reaches Ultimate Milestone: Parody Porn Pretty disgusting, considering the fantasy rape nature of these Left 4 Dead parody videos that feature full penetration, but Zoey fantasies really go far with the fellas. I’m glad my mom doesn’t read this site! PS3 Slim Vs. Xbox 360 Elite: Tale of the Tape Not much more than a feature spec for feature spec comparison of the then relatively new PlayStation 3 slim redesign and the Xbox 360. And readers flocked to it. The Year, NSFW Owen’s end of year wrap up of the year’s stories that required shutting one’s office door, which really wasn’t that bad to begin with, considering the nightly pantsu stories that Ashcraft posts. The Konami Code Makes ESPN.com Magical! For a few, glorious moments, ESPN.com was “cornified.” Type in the classic Konami code and visitors were soaking in rainbows, ponies and unicorns. It’s the post that launched a thousand tips of the “Hey! Did you know that the Konami code works on Facebook?! LOL!” nature. Yeah, we heard. Thanks! Well, thanks for sticking with us another year, Kotaku kids! We appreciate your business and promise to never post anything not safe for work in 2010. Pinky swear!

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Kotaku’s Most Popular Posts Of 2009 [Wrap Up]

Kotaku’s Most Popular Posts Of 2009 [Wrap Up]

When 2009 is said and done, the Kotaku readership will have viewed the site more than 600 million times this year, an impressive mountain of clicks, comments and—based on this year’s most read posts—lecherous gallery ogling. Of the top ten most voraciously “read” posts, two feature Zoey from Left 4 Dead in various states of undress. The word “porn” appears in two headlines, the word “stripper” in another. Another features the highest concentration of unicorns we’ve ever seen on Kotaku. In other words, you guys are pervs who come for the steady stream video game coverage, but pounce on an opportunity to see a boob. While many of our original reviews— Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 , Borderlands —and features—Owen’s on the Gamerscore obsessed and Fahey’s on the Everquest obsessed —garnered heaps of attention, it’s these posts, for better or worse, that outperformed everything else. Seriously. This Should Be Illegal. Best Buy’s bullshit pricing on Geek Squad services isn’t anything new, but the screengrab tag was in 2009. These lightning quick hit posts are often light on editorial, but always generate interesting discussion. L4D is NS4W With Nude Zoey Mod Everybody loves Left 4 Dead survivor Zoey. And some lust for her, expending enough effort to get the poor girl’s pants off in the game by way of the nude Zoey mod, a hit with the readership. We’ve not yet heard of Left 4 Dead 2’s Rochelle getting the same treatment. Tales Of Horror From The Circuit City Liquidation Danny. What a dick. Games, Not Porn, is Adult Actress’ Secret Pleasure Porn stars, they’re just like us! Minus the constant, overacted sex, of course. Unsurprisingly, Ms. Raven’s two other Kotaku posts, drew similar horny crowds and our fair share of detractors. Leaked Star Wars Battlefront 3 Gameplay Footage Portions of the remains of Free Radical were on display for Star Wars Battlefront fans to mourn the developer’s passing. It was this video, the most viewed video of the year on Kotaku, that gave us a peek at Battlefront 3, showing just what some of that artwork would have looked like in motion. Strippers or Counter-Strike – Which Gets a Gamer’s Attention? It was a rhetorical question. Left 4 Dead Reaches Ultimate Milestone: Parody Porn Pretty disgusting, considering the fantasy rape nature of these Left 4 Dead parody videos that feature full penetration, but Zoey fantasies really go far with the fellas. I’m glad my mom doesn’t read this site! PS3 Slim Vs. Xbox 360 Elite: Tale of the Tape Not much more than a feature spec for feature spec comparison of the then relatively new PlayStation 3 slim redesign and the Xbox 360. And readers flocked to it. The Year, NSFW Owen’s end of year wrap up of the year’s stories that required shutting one’s office door, which really wasn’t that bad to begin with, considering the nightly pantsu stories that Ashcraft posts. The Konami Code Makes ESPN.com Magical! For a few, glorious moments, ESPN.com was “cornified.” Type in the classic Konami code and visitors were soaking in rainbows, ponies and unicorns. It’s the post that launched a thousand tips of the “Hey! Did you know that the Konami code works on Facebook?! LOL!” nature. Yeah, we heard. Thanks! Well, thanks for sticking with us another year, Kotaku kids! We appreciate your business and promise to never post anything not safe for work in 2010. Pinky swear!

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Kotaku’s Most Popular Posts Of 2009 [Wrap Up]

These Shadow of the Colossus Tans Might Be A Lil’ NSFW [Nsfw]

Crossing one more game off the Things To Be Moe-fied list is this doujin tribute to Team ICO’s PlayStation 2 classic Shadow of the Colossus , a sixteen strong collection of less furry, far cuter colossi that’s borderline maximum risky . That’s Valus the Minotaur and Dirge the Sandworm, just with a lot more flesh, the stuff of very bizarre sexual fantasies. But it’s also the stuff of Comiket 77, now sadly closed and far out of reach for someone who might want a copy of this “tan” tribute to Shadow of the Colossus. You can see more of fan artist Shigatake’s work at the very, very not-safe-for-work Sankaku Complex, the artist’s personal site or his Pixiv account. Any Comiket goers happen to grab a copy of this? Shadow of the Colossus-tan [Sankaku Complex (NSFW) via Fort90 ]

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These Shadow of the Colossus Tans Might Be A Lil’ NSFW [Nsfw]

So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish [Goodbye]

After nearly a year and half of being Kotaku’s San Francisco Correspondent and default token girl*, it’s time for me to say goodbye. GamePro is whisking me away to that fabled land of print journalism I’ve heard so much about. I can easily say that my time here has been well spent. Kotaku taught me more than Stanford University’s graduate program in journalism ever did and gave me the chance to write about things I really care about. You know, instead of just boobs, Japanese role-playing games and scandals. Not that I mind writing about those things — actually when you combine all three, it can be pretty fun — but the world of video games is a lot larger than that. That’s part of why I went to Stanford; to convince them that this is a subject that deserves the attention of journalism, and yes, being a games journalist is compatible with being a “real” journalist. *After Leigh Alexander and Maggie Greene moved on, that is. Here are some of the things I’m most proud of: Knocked Up: A Look At Pregnancy in Video Games — I’d been pitching this feature idea for years to different publications, but Kotaku was the only outfit that let me run with it. I still find the topic fascinating and I still go out of my way to play games that let you get pregnant in some fashion. It’s very much my “thing.” Pieces of You: Rebuilding Myself on Consoles — Breakups suck, but my work at Kotaku got me through a really nasty one. I still can’t believe Stephen Totilo let me keep the Jewel song title in the headline. Kotaku’s Super Huge Pumpkin Patch (Parts One , Two , Three and Four ) — I’m a sucker for crafts projects and I find that there’s no other video game blog on the Internet that makes room to post stuff like this as well as shoes, cakes, video game wedding stuff, etc. It took me three hours on Halloween weekend to upload all those images, but it was worth it. Girls Night With The Most Male Game Of 2009 — Yes, it pissed people off. Yes, I got death threats. But what’s most important to me is that this article got people talking. I’m still amazed when I skim through the comments at some of the genuinely thoughtful discourse that goes on in there. Hope to see more of it where I’m going. And I still hope to see women in Modern Warfare 3. My Master’s Project, “Writing About Video Games: Journalism, Criticism and Mainstream Media” — I can’t let the full copy of this 7000-word beast see the light of day yet because in my mind, it’s still not “done.” While working on it, I got the chance to interview Totilo before he jumped ship for Kotaku, N’Gai Croal as he was leaving Newsweek , Seth Schiesel from the New York Times , Jamin Brophy-Warren of the Wall Street Journal and Georgia Tech Associate Professor Ian Bogost — it was an all star cast. Kotaku made that possible by giving me access to these heavy-hitters and its articles make up about a quarter of my source list. Here’s a tiny sample of my conclusion: Time will tell if Schiesel and Brophy-Warren’s editors care enough about video games to move their coverage into a more prominent place either in the print edition or in the online arts and entertainment section. If that happens, maybe their stories with replace the “point and giggle” stories in mainstream media. Time will tell if a vocabulary for talking about games emerges that are integrated into pop culture the way words and phrases like “Western” and “tear-jerker” can describe a movie to an audience that hasn’t seen it. If that doesn’t happen, words and phrases like “gameplay” or “free-look” and “sandbox” used in the reviews that most games journalism produces will remain impenetrable jargon specific to video games hobbyist magazines. Time might also make room for games journalism to grow up a little bit more, to develop into something that can be understood all 228 million American adults instead of just the 114 million who play them. Well, that about does it for me. Take care of yourselves and take care of each other. Have a happy, safe, New Year! Image Cred

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So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish [Goodbye]

New Year’s Marathoning: Video Games or TV? [Television]

The last and first day of the year for me has always meant spending way too much time in front of the TV. Be it playing video games until I pass out or watching televised marathons, I consider it a guilt-free over-indulgence. This year will be no different. I’ve got a sizable backlog of games to play including Demon’s Souls, Total War: Empire and early builds of Dark Void and Dante’s Inferno. But there’s also plenty of television to watch. I’ll be definitely catching as much of New Year Day’s Doctor Who marathon as possible and I’ve spent a chunk of today flipping between The Twilight Zone and the Three Stooges. What about you? Games or TV? If TV is your televised poison of choice here’s a rundown of the marathons I spotted while channel surfing: New Year’s Eve Discovery Channel: Ghost Lab USA: Burn Notice History Channel: Strange Rituals TNT: Las Vegas A&E: The First 48 Syfy: The Twilight Zone WGN: In the Heat of the Night AMC: The Three Stoogies TCM: The Thin Man The Travel Channel: Bizarre Food New Year’s Day BBC America: Doctor Who Discovery Channel: MythBusters Cartoon Network: Loony Tunes The History Channel: Ice Road Truckers A&E: Criminal Minds Syfy: The Twilight Zone WGN: Barney Miller

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New Year’s Marathoning: Video Games or TV? [Television]

The Legend of Zelda: The Wedding: The Video [Clips]

Kotaku reader Kyle was nice enough to share the private, nerdier moments of his recent The Legend of Zelda themed nuptials with the rest of us, showing off the amazing Zelda cartridge cufflinks conceptualized by his bride. Now there’s video. The special “Kotaku Cut” of Kyle and Ashley’s day at the altar gives a closer look at many of the Zelda-inspired aspects previously unpublished—including the Triforce-esque engagement ring, the invitations and the Link tunic color scheme chosen for the bridesmaids’ dresses. Because I know that if there’s one thing the Kotaku readership loves to chat about, it’s bridal wear. Things get a little awkward when Ganon shows up, drunk, but Kyle handles it with grace. Thanks again, Kyle!

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The Legend of Zelda: The Wedding: The Video [Clips]

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