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"No one gets away with murder in my town." *wink* *wink* (a creepy Fallout 3 story)

*wink* *wink*

For a variety of reasons, I've been suffering a crippling "fever" of stress recently. And this "fever", this "fever" can only be cured by one thing... more Fallout 3.

I gave Fallout 3 a first shot almost a year ago but honestly didn't have the time or motivation to get into it back then. It didn't help that when I first booted it up I was surrounded by a handful of my roommates, which for whatever reason put a lot of awkward pressure on me as to how quickly and "awesome" my customized personal avatar was. This left me with a Wasteland hipster dude named Bobbin with an imminent identity crisis. Ultimately we just couldn't get along (it's not you, it's how I designed you, Bobbin).

On my second go with Fallout 3 the lovely Ramona came into my post-apocalyptic life. I may have taken more than an hour to carefully configure her physical looks and S.P.E.C.I.A.L. traits but it was well worth it. She's pretty much my ideal alter-ego (better even, than my old Rockband avatar): a badass Asian lady with a silver-grey mohawk. Spirit like Tank Girl, heart like a Care Bear. Just the way I would want my Wasteland persona to be.

Ramona and I were a match made in the Capital Wasteland, and last night I finished the game with embarrassingly good karma (I mean it when I said "heart like a Care Bear"). That said, naturally there were points in the game where I meddled with chaos and headshots at innocents, bringing out Ramona's untapped wickedness. These sudden bouts of violence were of course quickly followed by loading a wholesome previous save, though sometime I let the weight of smaller evils carry with us so we wouldn't forget. Like the time I beat Tunnel Snake leader Butch to death with a baseball bat. That was absolutely awful.

There was also that one time I ran down all my Karma in Megaton.

It was right before bedtime and I had already saved the game at my own private shack in Megaton. Steph was still finishing up Plants vs. Zombies on his iPad, so I decided to play the "Kill everyone in Megaton" game. It too, was pretty awful, but I was bored, curious and wanted to see what items I could pry from the cold bodies of my Mega-friends.

I had probably destroyed 70% of the town's population when the town Sheriff, Lucas Simms, started to chase me around shouting things like "No one gets away with murder in my town!" and other disappointed phrases on repeat. I figured now that he turned into a red stick on my HUD, as soon as he got close enough he would start shooting-to-kill.

Strange thing is, he didn't. Lucas Simms followed me into houses, and when I exited, suddenly somehow there he was again, shouting that I was a bad person. When I ran towards him, he floated backwards, but when I ran away he followed close behind. Assuming that it was a definite glitch that he wasn't shooting at me, I cornered him into my apartment hoping to set some sort of attack mechanism off so that I would have good reason to shoot back at him. But he didn't, and worse yet, he was smiling. A chilling, permanent ear to ear grin.

And that's... when I turned off the game.

*clicks off flashlight*

A quick post about that Twin Peaks game... I mean, Deadly Premonition

Agent Cooper vs. Agent Francis York Morgan - photos via Twin Peaks Brewing Co. and Neogaf

Deadly Premonition is one big pain in the ass to play. The game controls are unbearable, the graphics are reminiscent of some game that debuted on the N64 years ago, and gameplay is tripped up with frequent bugs and quirky quests that make the whole thing feel insufferably slow.

That said, there are so, so many obvious parallels between Deadly Premonition and Twin Peaks that despite its many faults I can't help but reserve a certain desire to play it just to see how far its mimicry goes. In my first two hours of play last night I've noticed the following likenesses:

• You play as Agent York, an FBI agent from the big city who's come to a small town to solve the mysterious homicide of the beloved 18-year-old girl Anna. Sound familiar?
• You begin the game in a mysterious room surrounded by red trees with the floor covered in red leaves. You revisit this room in your dreams, sometimes at the start of a level. There's no midgets, but there are a pair of creepy twins (that actually replaced twin midgets from an earlier build).
• Agent York is constantly narrating his thoughts to some character named "Zach", not with a tape recorder, but through some communicative device in his head (aka York's crazy???). I assume the player is "Zach", but no-one else in the game speaks to "you" except for York.
• York is very particular about his coffee and biscuits.
• You collect trading cards in the game and they look exactly like the real trading cards for Twin Peaks. (shown above)

Now just so we're clear my fellow Twin Peaks fans, despite the similarities this is not the game you'll want to buy an Xbox for. The game just clearly comes off as the low-budget bastard son of a hypothetical Twin Peaks game. Deadly Premonition has a few things in it that separates it from the tv show, like the whole survival horror gameplay and the fact that Agent Cooper is way cuter than Agent York, but at the end of the day it's painfully obvious where the game got its characters and storyline. 

Since there was never a Twin Peaks game (and I have yet to play Alan Wake), this is acceptable for now, just bizarre. I'll probably keep playing it because, well, I bought it and it's kind of like playing Twin Peaks the game. But man, even the songs from the Deadly Premonition soundtrack all have their Twin Peaks doppelgangers. There's even a (terrible) knock-off Julee Cruise on some of the tracks. Unbelievable!

"Laura Palmer's Theme"   Twin Peaks - Laura Palmer's Theme

"Greenvale"   Deadly Premonition - Greenvale

and

"Audrey's Dance"   Twin Peaks - Audrey's Dance

Thomas Mclaine   Deadly Premonition - Thomas Mclaine

Holy HAUSU

The first run in I had with Hausu, the cult Japanese horror flick from 1977 that messes with your mind grapes, was via this screenshot on Modcult. Naturally everything in that shot peaked my interest in the film, and fortunately for me the newly released 35mm print made it's way to the Castro Theater this weekend. I had to see it, so I did.

It's hard to describe exactly what happens in Hausu, which is more or less my way of telling you to go see it. Just go see it. It's amazing. If you can picture a cross-pollination of your typical Horror B-Movie mixed with some all-girl Japanese Anime, the sunny sounds of 70's Japanese rock band Godiego, and an acid trip, you'd only be imagining the tip of the iceberg that is Hausu. You can read a review of it on the New York Times or watch the Trailer below, but trust me, you just have to see it to believe it.

P.S. For those of you who have seen it, who was your favorite girl? Kung-Fu was at the top of my list but Fantasy was a close second. Also, how cool is this t-shirt?

Start the week with a Trololo, end with a Trololo Shred.

With all the Trolololoing going on this past week, I felt it would be appropriate to end on a Trololololo note this Friday. Via Waxy, Trololololololo shredding is the next best Trolololo video since the original. Sit back and get some beaucoup laffs.

OTHER ESSENTIAL TROLOLO RELATED NEWS:

• Princess Trololololeia (another good remix)
• Trololololo Guy Soaks In His Fame - Adorably Russian, Eduard Khil takes a look at how he's blowin' up on the tubes these days
• And in case you missed it, a comprehensive look at Trololololo's origins.

Happy Friday! And to all of you at GDC, I'll see you at the Game Over show at Giant Robot tonight!

Boba Fett plays Zelda. TROLOLOLOLOLO. It's Monday.

I'm up to my bees' knees in work, GDC has finally returned to my hood, and Monday is casting a heavy dose of lvl. 40 Mondayagra (you know, like, Blizaga, Fiagra... oh never mind) on my brain. Thus, in lack of a better post I present to you three music related stuffs that have come to my attention this afternoon.

First, so as to not disappoint those who were drawn to the title, here we have a video of a sprightly accordion-playing Boba Fett who allegedly can be found roaming the corners of NYC playing all things awesome, including the Indiana Jones theme AND "Saria's Song" from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time:

I have a feeling this is what the Internet would call 'old news'. Whatever. Also, anyone who's spotted him in person should let me know so I can hunt him down next time I'm in the big city. Thanks Tom for the link.

And now, the sensation that is TROLOLOLOLOLOLO. Just click the link, you won't be sorry (or will you).

Internet sluth-ery via Joe Devilla's post has informed me that the gentleman in this video is Edward Anatolevich Hill (aka Эдуард Хиль) performing a song in "vokaliz style", which involves singing a song without singing the words. Even more information about Mr. Hill and his singing can be found in this post. Plus, thanks to Jimmy Kimmel, you can already see Oscar-winner Christoph Waltz perform a parody of Mr. Hill's work. Incredible.

Finally, I'm getting my pomodoros done to Gorillaz's Plastic Beach (releasing tomorrow, but the whole album is streaming here), and this new single from KiD CuDi (via HypeBeast):

KiD CuDi – I Do My Thing featuring Snoop Dogg (produced by Dr. Dre) by Hypetrak