Last-known intact launch-bought Xbox 360 spontaneously combusts on 4th birthday

Mmm! Toasty!

“It was almost as if someone at Microsoft flipped a switch and torched it!” said a heartbroken Gaspode Smaug-Baschtod, telling the tale of woe regarding his original launch-day-bought Xbox 360. On the stroke of midnight on the 4th anniversay of the console’s public launch, Mr Smaug-Baschtod’s 360 started to smoulder before flames erupted from the top, filling his poky little bedsit with foul-smelling plastic smoke.

Only days before, Mr Smaug-Baschtod had been happily crowing about the fact that most of his friends and colleagues had returned at least 2-3 consoles each while his launch model soldiered on without scratching his disks, red-ringing or otherwise misbehaving.

Microsoft refused to make an official statement on the spontaneous combustion, but were quietly surprised that this original launch model had lasted so long. Apparently built by an assembly line worker on a friday afternoon just before he was due to be laid within an inch of his life by his long-term hold-out girlfriend, the stricken Xbox is now enjoying a free holiday in Germany courtesy of Bill and the boys.

Woman wearing Porridge Face Mask beaten to death at L4D2 Midnight Launch

Janice shortly before popping down to Gamestop's midnight L4D2 Launch

A woman has been brutally stomped to death after unwittingly turning up to a Left for Dead 2 Launch Party at her local Gamestop wearing an oatmeal face mask.

Janice Rumbold, 32 from Cockermouth, struggled through floods and gales to attend the launch in order to secure a copy of the game for her boyfriend Lars Pinhole. A group of 10 youths apparently mistook her for a roaming undead after she’d allegedly asked them if they’d “ever tried Brains Faggots”.

The sorry chain of events ended in the tragic monkey-punching of Janice who was pronounced undead at the scene.

Meanwhile, Gamestop sold £1200 quid’s worth of the game to hungry punters later on in the evening.

Lord Mandleson appointed “Pyrate-Finder General” in shakeup of UK copyright law

Pucker up, torrent monkey, it's hot-poker-up-the-jacksy time!

Pirates and torrenters are scurrying into dark chasms of fear tonight as the UK government plans for a Pirate-Finder-General have been unveiled, with Lord Peter Mandleson appointed as the first PFG.

The Pirate Finder General will be given appropriate powers to deal with those who wilfully infringe copyright including:

1) Being able to sneak into their house and take a dump in their computer’s DVD ROM or CD ROM Drive

2) Culling of the first born of any pirates / torrenters who bear young

3) Drawing a big red X in dripping paint on people’s front doors

4) Running down hills in force 9 gales, with cape billowing in the wind, roaring at the top of their voice

Other countries are looking towards similar measures to combat piracy, which has got completely out of control and has been very naughty since the invention of the Internet by George A. Intzarnecht in 1886.

Nintendo aims to combat DS piracy by “wagging a finger and saying ‘NO’ in a very stern voice”

A sexy DS pirate, yesterday

After attempting to cajole DS owners into grassing up R4 sellers and distributors, Nintendo has opted for the alternative tactic of “wagging a finger and saying ‘NO’ in a very stern voice” at DS pirates who have now shifted their focus to the DSi.

Nintendo’s security strategy has been to ensure that each and every model of DS is fully pirate-friendly, and the DSi is no exception. Sexy lady pirates like the one pictured above are falling over themselves to download copies of the Brain Training ROM rather than shelling out 2o of the queen’s finest pounds for the privilege of improving their grey matter.

Nintendo has also announced that if the finger wagging and stern voice doesn’t work, they’re going to start a leafletting campaign, an online boycotting blog of notable R4 and pirate flash card sellers before informing them that “they won’t be their bestest friends any more”

Monetizing your time for what you play is the future of games consumerism

Kotick, gimme the casshhhhh!

Activision have had it all their own way for too long. After an extensive survey, 10 gagillion gamers who asked their moms have put together a Guild of Gamers who will monetize their playing time, charging companies for every hour of their own time they spend playing that company’s games.

World of Warcraft Player Sutekh the Third said yesterday “Fuck paying for dat shit. I’m givin’ up mah own time, mah own hours and dat shit don’t come cheap so Imma gonna let Activision finish, and imma gonna charge those fuckaz for my time!”

A slightly more cogent Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 player who goes by the gamertag “Sexwomble” added “We’ve heard a lot about charging gamers for multiplayer, charging gamers for extra levels and content but nothing about how companies are going to redeem us for the hours we spend playing their stuff. I’ve got other stuff I could be doing after all, and it’s unfair of games companies to expect to get my time for free.”

A spokesman for Activision, purveyor of addictive binary nonsense claimed that “This could break the industry. By late 2010 we could all be going back to an era where everything’s available on cassette, and development teams end up being dissapated down to just a couple of stinky B.O – smelling guys working in their mother’s basement on games”

The DeadPixelsOnToast interview – Tim Langdell

We took some time out of our busy schedule to nab an interview with Edge Games’ Tim Langdell, putting to him some of the questions DPoT readers came up with.

DPoT: “Tim, why are you such a cunt?”

Tim Langdell: ” Er…what?”

Next week: Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision

EA acquires leading cockroach racing syndication rights

Lucky Luke, 9 times champion of the "Under Fridge Grand Prix" yesterday

After the recent acquisition of social network gaming giants Playfish, EA has expanded its borders a little further with the announcement that they’re also branching into World Class World Championship Cockroach Racing.

The sport, started in a Brisbane hotel accidentally by bored staff between fag breaks, has become a global phenomenon with followers of the spectacle numbering in the tens of dozens. For a small wager, participants can pit champion insects against each other on a grubby kitchen floor.

“We feel the time is right to expand into other markets and move away from hideously unsuccessful boxed-game IPs that aren’t making us enough money” said Charles Zitchawoski, Brand Attainment Manager at EA’s sumptuous Green Shores headquarters. “Cockroach racing might be niche at the moment, but for a relatively tiny development cost, a couple of larvae and some rotten fruit we can put together an attractive consumer experience that far oustrips the tedious and mind numblingly boring computer games market”.

Several key projects in EA’s upcoming 2010 catalogue have been shelved to make way for cockroach racing including FIFA 2010, NHL 2010 and that funny game with the bloke in it who keeps falling off his skateboard, you know, the one who looks a bit like that bloke off the telly.

Visit the official EA Roach Racing site here

Bayonetta Special Edition comes with Book, developer diary, “Making of” DVD and…er…a plastic Bayonettarse

50-cheek combo - FIGHT!

Uncharted 2 had a plastic dagger, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 had a pair of perv-friendly night vision goggles designed to fit one of those plastic spastics society kid-shaped money collection boxes. Now Sega has jumped aboard the bandwagon by offering a selection of worthless gaming tat for its £60 special edition.

A sumptuous coffee table art book is included in the gigantic box, with various promotional and conceptual art renders showing off various characters including the titular heroine from the game.

There’s also a developer diary, detailing the trials and tribulations of bringing a successful new IP to the trickiest market in the world, the Japanese games market, and of course plenty of detail on why the main character looks like a bizarre cross between a giraffe, a librarian and an S & M supermodel.

There’s also a “Making of” DVD. Running for over 180 minutes, it goes into every exquisite detail of how 3D modellers spent over 5,800 man hours tweaking every triangle and curving every crevice of Bayonetta’s fantastic posterior.

Finally, not to be out-done by CODMW2’s plastic goggles, Sega will also bundle a plastic arse with the SE.

Let’s see the Home Delivery Network deliver that beauty unsquashed and untarnished.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 “Oops, sorry I didn’t mean to put my foot through your body”

Ey, where's the fucking Duty Free Wodka?

One seriously disturbing scene in newly released videogame “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2″ has disgusted gamers and the general populace alike.

The scene, spoilerised below, is as follows:

You are recruited as a black ops CIA agent a bit like Jack Bauer but without a cool haircut. Infiltrating a terrorist cel, you’re forced to walk through a Russian airport, gunning down everyone in your path.

The most shocking part of the scene swiftly follows, as you realise that Infinity Ward are a lazy bunch of arseholes who couldn’t even be bothered to factor in proper collision detection, so most of the time you see other members of the terrorist cel often walking ankle deep in corpses, and passing right through them as they progress through the airport.

In today’s society, it’s sickening enough that we’re exposed on a daily basis to travesties of lazy programming but in this case, the imagery and complete knackering of immersion in the game beggards belief, and politicians should be lobbied as soon as possible to ensure that slack-arsed shit like this doesn’t happen again.