Changing culture, one gamerscore at a time.

If only. I'd never need my Oyster Card again.

Me and my girlfriend have been gawping over this cosplay prop for the past five minutes, and it felt only right to share it with you guys, unless you’ve already seen the original news post on the Escapist. Apparently, cosplay girl asks cosplay boyfriend for cosplay Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device, girlfriend gets coolest toy in the world, ever. I can see Valve actually asking to buy this off of the couple, in all honesty; their lobby already consists of Half Life and CounterStrike memorabilia, so why not Portal? Regardless, I think it’s about time Valve sorted out their online store. I ordered two t-shirts and a CD, recieved said items, then got hit with a customs charge that was higher than the items I paid for in the first place, after not being warned in any way on the site. Either the G-Man is their site designer, or I’m blind. I still want a cube plushie, though.

In other news today, techno-universes will be explored once again, as San Diego’s Comic Con has had the privalege of watching the Tron 2 trailer. I think this is a fairly risky venture, because I’ve never heard of a single film that continued on from a predecessor after thirty or so years, and wasn’t either completely different (Star Wars) or just farcically bad (The Italian Job). Best of luck to them, but they’ll either need a stellar cast, or someone like Darren Aronofsky to pull this off. Speaking of him, if you get the opportunity, go and check out The Wrestler. I saw it tonight, and while it is wildly different from the likes of Pi and Requiem for a Dream, it’s still a marvellous piece of film-making, and worth the two hours spent.

Rockstar has their rumour mill firing up once again, as the GTA IV: Lost and the Damned set of achievements has magically appeared, and while they seem fairly logical, take a look at them and tell me if you agree that the wording of the achievement descriptions sounds like something you’d hear from a non-English speaking fan site, as opposed to Rockstar Leeds:

• Get Get Good Wood (50 points) – In the Bike Races, whack off 69 bikers with a bat
• Easy Rider (100) – Finish the story
• Full Chat (70) – Your backup are riding at their best!
• The Lost Boy (25) – All hail the leader of The Lost!
• One Percenter (5) – Billy is back on his bike

Compared to the somber “Spend five minutes at a five-star wanted rating” it seems a little too LOL OMG; too excitable, and I seriously doubt they’d put something as unintelligable as Get Get Good Wood, unless Eurogamer have typoed that particular one. We’ll see, I suppose, I just feel a little confused as to the One Percenter achievement, as if it was me, I wouldn’t bring back a percentage system that takes 100 hours plus to clear in the main title, for a few hours of DLC; there’s not going to be enough there, to be honest.

In other news, my column for the week is up, this time on Japanese role-playing games and our friction with them as lovers of Western stories that actually follow a sane pattern; hit the link for the article.