If you missed the three episode season finale of Community this week, it was a pretty good way to conclude the series while still holding hope alive that the show might go on. It also means you missed the episode, “Digital Estate Planning,” which puts the study group inside a videogame to help Pierce claim his inheritance.

Above is one of the better segments of the episode, as Annie and Shirley try to gear up for the great adventure to come and Britta is, for once, actually good at something. And fun as the clip is, it really was the weakest of the three episodes aired. Still, I don’t always get opportunities to encourage people to watch one of my favorite television shows, so I’m going to take the chance while I’ve got it. 

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Feature

Your Retro Reference Guide to Community’s “Digital Estate Planning”

A complete list of the old-school gaming nods made by The Greendale Seven.

By: Bob Mackey and Marty Sliva
May 18, 2012

Community creator Dan Harmon isn’t a stranger to video games; he’s been public about his love for the medium, so it wasn’t surprising to see the first episode of last night’s season finale hat trick devote itself completely to old-school gaming references. What would have been a throwaway gag in any other sitcom took over most of “Digital Estate Planning’s” 22 minutes, as Jeff, Britta, Pierce, Shirley, Abed, Annie, and Troy found themselves participating in a multiplayer platformer in an attempt to wrest the Hawthorne Wipes fortune from the grasp of a bastard child. This episode overflowed with visual gags devoted to the blocky roots of gaming culture, most of which flew by at a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it pace; but, thankfully, your friends at 1UP are here to comb over this chunk of comedy gold to dig out the purest pieces of retro gaming nostalgia. Read on, and be sure to let us know if any references slipped past our intricate knowledge of gaming’s past.

“Digital Estate Planning’s” title sequence doesn’t seem to point to any specific title; it’s more of a pastiche of retro games that gave the player a brief preview of all the playable characters and their awesome abilities. Though Gilbert’s fake game offers a resolution and color depth the NES could only dream of, the opening credits feel a lot like the intro to the NES version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

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Behold, Feminist Frequency! You may have heard about its popular webseries Tropes vs Women; the name appears on conference indexes due to its keen insights. It examines popular culture by identifying trends in the portrayal of women, looking at different forms of media such as comics and advertising.

Now Anita Sarkeesian is looking to our fair hobby with a Kickstarter project that examines the tropes in gaming, schemed along the styling of last year’s fascinating video series. In the past, Feminist Frequency has scrutinized LEGO, The Hunger Games and the Smurfette Principle. As her critiques are always engaging, this project sounds exciting.

Given that it has already reached its funding with just one day having passed, it seems there are plenty who want these videos to soon be freely at hand. You can look forward to hearing in a few months’ time about the five ways women are commonly represented which Tropes vs. Women in Video Games will assess, including the Fighting F*cktoy and the Damsel in Distress. I, for one, can’t wait to give them a glance!

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EA Sports has officially announced NHL 13, this year’s iteration of its critically acclaimed hockey series. After releasing two teaser trailers this week that suggested NHL 13′s gameplay innovations would rival the franchise-defining debuts of the Skill Stick in NHL 07 and real-time physics in NHL 11, the publisher listed two major gameplay changes and two new modes in the announcement press release.

In NHL 11 and NHL 12, the physics engine only simulated collisions between players. This year, a feature EA Canada is calling True Performance Skating “authentically replicates the explosiveness, momentum and top end [sic] speed displayed by today’s NHL players,” thanks to “physics-driven skating and over 1000 new animations.” After seeing Rangers defenseman Ryan McDonagh chase down Devils forwards on would-be breakaways in the Eastern Conference Finals, and prevent the skaters from getting off good shots, I’m excited to find out if that kind of play will happen in NHL 13.

The other new feature, an artificial intelligence system called EA Sports Hockey IQ, promises to overhaul the behavior of and interactions between players, goalies, and teams. Until now, players didn’t have true awareness of everything happening on the ice, and goalies couldn’t react to anyone but the puck carrier. It also sounds like the system will differentiate teams by bringing hockey strategy into play, and let you customize those strategies to craft your own play style.

EA Canada is also expanding Be A GM, which it says is the series’ “most popular offline mode,” to the Internet. GM Connected lets friends join in a 30-team online league, with the option of playing as a player, general manager, or coach. In addition, the developers are working on a mobile app that will presumably offer some level of interaction with a league when people aren’t playing on their console.

NHL Moments Live will be a hockey equivalent of the Madden Moments Live feature in EA’s Madden series, a mode that lets players relive salient moments from the 2011-12 NHL season and sometimes challenges them to rewrite history. The “Live” part of the equation means that EA Canada will periodically update the mode with moments from the 2012-13 season.

EA will be releasing a Stanley Cup Collector’s Edition for NHL 13, which comes in a tin embossed with Lord Stanley’s Cup and offers a variety of digital bonus content for $79.99:

• Two Stanley Cup® Theme Hockey Ultimate Team packs featuring randomized player items from the Western and Eastern Conference Champions
• Gold Jumbo Hockey Ultimate Team Pack (Regular) featuring 24 randomized items, including an exclusive Wayne Gretzky Hockey Ultimate Team Legend and six other rare items
• A CCM Boost Pack featuring the all-new CCM RBZ stick (For use in Be a Pro and EA SPORTS™ Hockey League)
• A 10% discount on a one-time purchase at shop.NHL.com

NHL 13 will launch in North America for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on September 11, 2012, and in Europe on September 14, 2012. Expect more details on the game at E3. For now, you can check out the first screenshot in the gallery below, and continue to vote on the player who will appear on the NHL 13 cover; the campaign is currently in the quarterfinal round. (The only correct choice, of course, is Henrik Lundqvist.)

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So today some Unreal Engine 4 stuff surfaced, but I thought most of the pictures look pretty ehhhhhhhhh. Especially after the amazingness that was the “Samaritan” demo video, shown last year. Visual fidelity is nice, but it’s worthless without great design. Because of that, I’ve always thought that a game that can nail down a specific style and execute them well will always be better than a game that is technically amazing but lacks inspiration.

Destructoid Original:
What are you the most excited for at this year’s E3?

Community:
Collaboration: Nintendo and an old friend
Forum thread of the day: Video Game Related Tattoos
Community blogs of 5/17
 
Reviews:
Review: Akai Katana

News:
Things aren’t looking so good for Cave Interactive
Borderlands 2 Limited and Collector’s editions revealed
Diablo III US servers offline, Blizzard sorry for launch
The Walking Dead game serves one million copies
Nintendo Download: Puff balls, arm-less men, and Cullens
Unemployment Quest: Kicking joblessness in the nuts
CCP opens DUST 514 closed beta sign-ups
Ubisoft details Far Cry 3 closed beta
Resonance all set for June 19, pre-orders are now open
Metal Gear Solid HD Collection hits Vita on June 12

Media:
Cel-shaded Lost Planet spin-off EX Troopers looks amazing
Death strikes again in new Darksiders II trailer
First screen captures of Unreal Engine 4 appear
Halo 4 art gets animated
Lollipop Chainsaw Special Edition includes Jessica Nigri?
A feast of new One Piece: Pirate Warriors visuals
Rayman Origins 3DS demo celebrated in trailer
Serious Sam Double D XXL, SS3: BFE headed to XBLA

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With Lost Planet’s roots firmly planted on consoles, it comes as a surprise that the series will soon be making a trip to portables in the form of E.X. Troopers for the Nintendo 3DS. Taking an anime-inspired look and featuring gameplay similar to its console brethren, it appears that the franchise will be bringing some familiar elements to Nintendo’s smaller screens. As sudden as the announcement is, Capcom seems to be taking an unexpected approach for the franchise on portables.

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Xbox Live Arcade is showing Serious Sam even more love. Two games, Serious Sam 3: BFE by Croteam and Serous Sam Double D XXL by Mommy’s Best Games, are coming to the platform later this fall. Talk about a pleasant surprise for gamers who didn’t have the opportunity to play these on PC.

Not much of substance was said about SS3, though Croteam is promising to bring over the full experience. There were plenty of details regarding Double D XXL, on the other hand. It’s an expanded version of Nathan Fouts’ PC game with more weapons, enemies, challenges, and missions.

There’s even a shotgun that shoots bees. This version will also have local cooperative support for two players. Absurd games tend to have pretty enjoyable co-op, so that ought to be a good fit.

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A while ago, THQ released a Darksiders II trailer in which Death jumps around and hits stuff. Here’s part two, with Death jumping around even more and hitting even more stuff. He also turns into the Grim Reaper, which jumps around and hits stuff. Cool. 

I’m pumped enough for the game and can’t wait to get my salty digits on it. Looking forward to it indeedy-do!

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All is grand in TV land, because Toonami is back! That’s right! By fan demand, the gravely voiced Tom will open the hatch to the Absolution once again on May 26 for Cartoon Network’s premier action animation block, this time as a part of Adult Swim.

It’s fair to say that most of us have fond memories of coming home from school and getting pumped with two hours of the kind of programming that adrenaline junkies demanded. Toonami aired a lot of solid shows like ReBoot and ThunderCats, but it was most notable in introducing anime to a wider audience. Shows like Ronin Warriors and Tenchi Muyo were my jam, and it was nice to have them all collected in a dedicated time slot. It felt like something special, as opposed to having all those shows scattered throughout the weekly lineup, as tends to be the case nowadays. And now that Toonami is part of Adult Swim, maybe we’ll see an influx of new shows with a much harder edge, like Cowboy Bebop and Trigun from back in the day (by this I mean NEW shows LIKE the ones I listed, not just reruns).

Other than that bit of news, today welcomes a new Podtoid, previews of FIFA 13 and The Last of Us, a review of bland Sniper Elite V2, and more Diablo III dickery.

Destructoid Original:
Podtoid 202: Your Humble Anal Caretaker
Live show: Serious Sam giveaway on Mash Tactics
The Network Roundup: Time to play
The DTOID Show: Mass Effect 3 DLC, Halo 4, & Diablo 3

Community:
Community blogs of 5/16
Forum thread of the day: The Last of Us

Reviews:
Review: Sniper Elite V2

Previews:
Preview: Making FIFA 13 ‘predictably unpredictable’
First look: The Last of Us

News:
Get Castle Crashers half off on XBLA through May 21
Devil’s Third is having production troubles
Kingdoms of Amalur dev misses $1.25 million loan payment
Treyarch: Black Ops II doesn’t need a new engine
Metacritic user reviews tear Diablo III apart
Halo 4 Limited Edition offers multiplayer maps and more
Mass Effect 3 ‘Rebellion’ multiplayer DLC detailed
DiRT Showdown console release pushed back to June 15
The voices of DCUO: The Last Laugh
PlayStation Vita gets access to more PSP games and minis
First Tony Hawk HD DLC will be Pro Skater 3 stages

Media:
Kenka Bancho’s back with some more punk ass whoopin’
Time to get hyped with this cinematic for The Last of Us
Epic Mickey 2 dev diary talks up camera, co-op play
‘Sausage Fest’ DLC coming soon to Swords & Soldiers HD
New Arkham City behind the scenes vid talks sound design
More fire in the belly with another Dragon’s Dogma video

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