During a promotional event for heavy metal adventure game Brutal Legend, Jack Black was reportedly consumed in flames when a fan’s too close lighter tribute ignited the hem of his polyester muscle costume. First responders say it was nearly eight minutes before a horrified passerby splashed the star with a large cup of soda, extinguishing the blaze – admirers had mistaken Black’s agonizing screams for his signature metal yells.

Nathan unravels his silk black tie, exhales a steady, cigar huff of a breath, and takes another swing at the Windsor knot. “Who named it the Windsor,” he says aloud to no one in particular, “Because he sure got the sore part right.”

Nathan’s caught himself doing this recently – quipping to himself. A weird tick he must have picked up during that miserable quest for El Dorado.

The next morning, screenshots of the kitten rape mini-game surface for the first time. It appears that a button must be pressed in time with the rhythmic humping of Gay Tony’s buttocks. If done incorrectly, the digital kitten explodes in a mess of guts and semen.

Rasool: You don’t really expect a terrorist leader to get a real sense of ennui upon seeing the infidel government fall to pieces under a hail of bullets and missiles – but I mean, what, do they think we never played Fallout 3?

“It’s the nature of Google. The strong make it up stream. The weak flounder,” says Activision CEO, Bobby Kottick. “That said, we do understand cod’s having a reel hard time.”

The character of Kratos is very different in this Chinese translation. Instead of being a ruthless, vengeance-driven zealot with a passion for disemboweling his enemies, “Mr. Bald” is a Han government worker who drinks too much tea one evening and has vivid dreams of a fantasy world in which he must whip magical beasts into submission.

Attempts to drag more excitement out of the game led Walsh to throw a number of Beatles-themed Rock Band parties. “It turns out all people want to talk about is why their favorite song isn’t in the game. Jennifer, my girlfriend, was all like ‘Where’s “Hey Jude”? Where’s “A Day in the Life”? What the fuck is “Boys”?”

“Thank the tropical setting,” says 1UP’s David Ellis in a glowing review that opens with lavishing praise on the game’s true-to-life peat physics. “The lower canopy’s foliage practically drowns the earth in organic material. Just wait till you see the colluvium deposits!”