Humpday Bump: Blizzard’s Cartoony Vengeance Edition

Posted By: Dave Bast In: Gaming News On: 16 May

On Wednesdays I spend my time looking for a digital buffet of gaming goodies – I post them here on the Humpday Bump.

Today’s bump features a pretty funny inside joke from Blizzard regarding their not-so-secret cow level in Diablo 3. If you remember, a few years back fans of the Diablo series were up in arms about the possibility that the next installment in the franchise looked a little too bright and cartoony for their tastes. Roughly 2,000 went so far as to formally petition the game’s release. Well now it appears as if Blizzard will get the last laugh, as they are parodying the drama with an all new secret cow level.

Blizzard has always had a flair for theatrics, but this is something else, even by their standards. Apparently someone over there decided to make fun of all the negative press they received back in 2008 by making a bubbly and colorful secret cow level in Diablo 3. Thanks to Zerofire over at Battle. Net’s EU forums the secret land of Whimsyshire is a secret no more. To be honest, there is no better way to fend off the trolls than by blowing their complete and utter silliness out of proportion. The video can be seen below if you don’t mind having the surprise spoiled.

Well this is no surprise. In case you forgot, what with Diablo 3 and all, Minecraft was released last week to XBLA and so far it’s sold over one million copies. In case you were keeping track this means that Notch and Mojang have collected about a third of the world’s money, but my math is fuzzy. Not only that, but apparently this version of the game was profitable in less than an hour. Not bad for a game with graphics you would have seen in the first edition of Nintendo Power.

Also released this week was Max Payne 3 which has so far received almost nothing but positive reviews. Gamasutra has scoured most of the critical reviews about the game and so far the worst review is that “Max is an expert at falling down with style.” Buzz Lightyear references aside, it looks as if Rockstar’s got another hit on their hands, and this is before people have really sunk their teeth into the multiplayer.

Ok, ok here’s some more about Diablo 3, sorry it can’t be avoided this week I’m afraid. GamesBeat has reported about what’s been going on over at Diablo 3’s Metacritic page. Apparently some angry fans have decided to tank the game’s Metacritic score over the problems surrounding the game’s launch, most notably the now meme’d error 37 message. I have to say, even when mad, gamers still have creative flair.

Finally, Arma II: Combined Operations had a resurgence on Steam this week due to the ridiculously popular Day Z mod. Even though it’s still only in alpha, the popularity of the mod has put Arma II: Combined Operations onto Steam’s top sellers list. This goes to show that no matter how many games feature zombies, if it’s done well, players will always come over to check it out.