News:: PlayStation Vue drops its cheapest packages, now starts at $40

Until now, in some areas, PlayStation Vue offered "Slim" versions of its streaming TV packages that dropped local TV channels and cost $10 less than the standard options. Now, as it's rolled out local broadcasts from more networks and in more places it has pulled the plug on those Slim options. Without the $30 per month Slim Access bundle, now its cheapest offering is the standard Access package that costs $40 per month.

Source: Deadline, PlayStation Vue FAQ

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News:: Free 'director's cut' update coming to Chroma Squad

Behold Studios has announced a free update coming to the PC version of their tactical role-playing game, Chroma Squad. For those unfamiliar, Chroma Squad follows a group stunt actors who decided to strike out on their own and make a Power Rangers-inspired TV show. You do everything from balancing budgets to buying cardboard monster suits.

"Director's Cut" Features: 

• New Game + - The adventure no longer ends after the credits roll- with the "New Game++" features you can keep playing with your current party, facing procedural generated enemies and goals on the episodes, crafting new items, and perhaps making different story choices that could lead to unexplored paths!

• Revamped Mecha Fights - The Mecha Fights have been completely revamped to be faster and more fun, and the random chances were replaced by new reflex mini-games!

• New “Heroic” Difficulty - Difficulty levels have been completely rebalanced to offer a more customizable experience, including a new super-hard mode called "Heroic Difficulty"!

• Revamped Encounter Balancing - We have also tweaked a few encounters in the game that were famously unfair or long (*cough cough* Mini-Kaiju Squad *cough cough*)!

• Bug fixes and performance improvements - we also fixed some bugs and the game should be running smoother and faster overall!
  

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News:: Bleach live action film teaser promises some big anime sword action

Live action adaptations are all the rage these days and anime is no stranger to that jump to the realm of IRL. Rurouni Kenshin (also known as Samurai X) received a trilogy of good live action films beginning in 2012, which met great success and helped fast tracked some live action adaptations of anime properties that required bigger budgets such as Fullmetal Alchemist and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.

Bleach is one of those properties and the sudden news of production and filming last year surprised a lot of people last year and now a teaser for a live action film is now here for you all to check out. This live action film adaptation is based on the first 8 volumes of the Bleach manga (everything before they go to Soul Society) and is slated to come out in Summer 2018 in Japan.

The film will be directed by Shinsuke Sato, who directed the live action film adaptations of GANTZ and the live action Death Note film sequel, Death Note: Light Up The New World. Starring Sota Fukushi as Ichigo Kurosaki, who played lead Gentarou Kisaragi/Kamen Rider Fourze in the 2011 TV show Kamen Rider Fourze.

Bleach is one of those anime shows that had a big following alongside Naruto and One Piece for a long time since the manga's beginning in 2001. That following is still around despite the end of anime in 2012 and abrupt manga ending in 2016.

This adaptation will be distributed by Warner Bros Japan, the same folks distributing the upcoming live action Gintama film and did the same for aforementioned live action Rurouni Kenshin films as well, so there is a chance that this might not turn out as bad.

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News:: Deal: Dark Souls III: The Fire Fades Edition now under $40

If you've sat on the sideline on the excellent Dark Souls III, today you've won the waiting game as the complete edition is now its cheapest yet. This weekend at GameStop, Dark Souls III: The Fire Fades Edition is heavily discounted down to a low $40 price.

This edition comes with the complete season pass, which includes the expansions Ashes of Ariandel and The Ringed City. On console, Fire Fades Edition was released back in April of this year, whereas the PC's Deluxe bundle has been around since the game's original April release in 2016. While the PC's Deluxe Edition was on sale earlier today for $35, that price is now out of stock at digital retailer DLGamer (they do have the standard edition for $23, which is cheaper than Steam's Summer Sale price of $24).

Dark Souls III Weekend Deals

• Dark Souls III: The Fire Fades Edition (PS4, Xbox One) — $39.99  (list price $50)
• Dark Souls III (Steam) — $22.99  (list price $60)
• Dark Souls III (Xbox One Download) — $24  (list price $60) <- Gold Required

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News:: Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2 are joining EA Access

In the coming months, EA Access and Origin Access subscribers will be able to play two of the publisher's high-profile (and generally well-liked) 2016 games -- Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2 -- as part of the $5-per-month service. They're coming "soon," according to EA. I wasn't expecting them yet.

Today's announcement didn't pinpoint an exact date, but by September 2017, subscribers will be able to play those full titles and trials for the upcoming sports lineup.

Pretty dang good gets for Access members, especially Titanfall 2, what with its free DLC.

Battlefield 1, Titanfall 2, the FIFA 18 Play First Trial and more are coming to EA Access [EA]

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News:: Retroid discusses the SNES mini and whether Nintendo will get it right this time

Hey everyone,

This episode of Retroid discusses the biggest retro news of the year so far, the announcement of the Super Nintendo Classic edition. We recorded a little over a week ago, just after the reveal. It's possible that our own Jonathan Holmes may have forced the announcement by using targeted, carefully applied JOURNALISM to Nintendo's pressure points, and we open the show by discussing how that all went down. You can listen to the show below or download it directly from SoundCloud.

Our first interlude comes at 16:29 and is the music that plays in the Peanut Plain stage in Kirby Super Star. The second at 23:00 is the Super Smash Bros. Brawl remix of Star Fox's opening level, Corneria. The third break at 40:00 plays the Atma weapon theme from Final Fantasy VI. As always, our opening theme comes from Sunsoft's Journey to Silius and our outro music is NES Metroid Ending - arrange version by nicoMS0122 on YouTube.

If you haven't already, you can subscribe to our shiny new RSS feed at http://ift.tt/2siXls6. We'll need one more episode in the can before I can submit the show to iTunes, but we're recording episode five tomorrow night, so it shouldn't be much longer.

If you've missed any of our previous episodes you can check them out from the RSS feed or click on these links. If you'd like to know immediately when a show is posted or just want to send us some questions, you can always reach us @RetroidPodcast on Twitter. Let us know what you'd like to hear about, and tell us how we're doing!

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News:: Netflix's Castlevania series renewed for season 2

We're pretty used to movies getting sequels before they're even released (hell, some get them before they even begin shooting), but television has been slower to pick up on the trend. Probably because they want to avoid awkward situations like The Mummy. However, Netflix is probably the fastest to turn around renewals and they've done so quickly for their Castlevania mini-series. Season 2 has been announced just hours after all four episodes of the show went live this morning. 

We'll have a review up of it soon, but you can already start getting excited for next season despite not having watched this season yet (unless you have). Season 2 will double the episode count, getting a whopping eight in total. No word on if Warren Ellis will return to write again, but from what I've heard from the Flixist staff who have watched the show it would be a very good thing if he did. 

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News:: The only thing better than Splatoon 2

hahahaha holy shit http://pic.twitter.com/Mo4Ch1wBn6

— David Roberts (@davidrobots) July 7, 2017

Happy Friday, comrades.

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News:: Comments of the Week 07: The Power of Crumpets Compels You

So now the tides of E3 have subsided and calm is restored throughout the gaming community, no longer drowning in news and instead swimming straight to the shore in the distance.

That shore, unfortunately, is the location of the summer drought, where no news or releases exist. The shore is a lie. 

Yet, life carries on and with the calm atmosphere come excellent comments, and this week it is I, TheLimoMaker, who will be delivering them to you to enjoy. This week I have included a few extra bits to make the blog more varied...I hope you enjoy. 

Like you have a choice.

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News:: Community Time: Here's the Mr Destructoid tacos you ordered

Dave and I put out a call for art last Thursday called "Thursday Thoughts", and you guys came up with some ideas for us so we didnt have to actually do any of the thinking. Huge thanks to Kimerson for the Mr. Destructoid drawing!

Here's some gold from the community. Its not to late if you missed it, post yours in the comments below (but keep it PG-13!)

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News:: Tencent's hit game 'Honor of Kings' might come to US and Europe

Tencent has been taking on the Western video game market for some time now. The Chinese-based company has a stake in Activision, which in turn owns King, the maker of Candy Crush and an upcoming mobile iteration of Call of Duty. It also bought Supercell, the developer of massive hit, Clash of Clans, last year and purchased a majority stake in League of Legends' developer, Riot Games. Tencent also makes movies and is currently building an eSports complex and has plans for an Honor of Kings theme park. This last game is a massive hit in China, grabbing more than 50 million active users since its debut in 2015; the title brings in an estimated RMB 3 billion ($435 million) every month. According to Bloomberg, Tencent is making a move to bring Honor of Kings to the West, which could end up as serious competition for the mobile games the company also owns.

Source: Bloomberg

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News:: Microbial Musings: The Division

The last time I wrote about microbiology stuff was when I  discussed the Cordyceps fungus and its role in The Last of Us - namely why I felt it was somewhat improbable. I found a lot of enjoyment in applying my micro knowledge to that sort of thing, and it got a good reaction so I think going forward here or there I’m going to try to write something in that vein.So without further ado, I’d like to take a look-see at The Division - a Ubisoft multiplayer type game that I have not played as of yet, to keep that tradition from The Last of Us going-and ponder if such a thing could happen.  Also please understand that I’m a microbiologist in major/graduation mainly and not a researcher...yet. Even if I were my focus is not on viruses, but on bacteria, so I can’t claim to be perfect here. This is based on some research I’ve done both in my schooling and via looking up internet sources; I won’t claim it's all perfectly right even if I believe it to be, so I apologize for any errors if they are present.

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News:: Can you top this flying motorcycle shotgun kill?

After about six hours (according to Steam) of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, I finally played a match last weekend in which I secured my first and second kills, ever. Meanwhile, folks are out here like:

damn i got outplayed http://pic.twitter.com/fdHD7IxOzX

— dame (@m0ron) July 5, 2017

Ruthless.

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News:: Paradox giving free game or DLC to customers affected by price increase

Paradox Interactive is good people. While they inexplicably increased the prices of the majority of their titles and DLC in multiple regions, much to the chagrin of their fanbase, they quickly changed their minds in the face of criticism and decided to make things right. The price increase was a move made to level out regional pricing of their games, but made a lot of their fanbase pretty miffed, especially in Russia and Western Europe, two regions which were hit the hardest by the move.

The deal is, if you bought a Paradox product from between May 17 up until now, you can opt in for a free game or two DLC as compensation for the difference. Those who pre-ordered Steel Division: Normandy 44 in any currency except the mighty US Dollar can also opt in to take advantage of this deal. There is a lengthy forum post up explaining the process of how to take advantage of the offer.

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News:: The Switch may already contain NES emulation capabilities

With a supposed Netflix-style library of NES games coming to the Nintendo Switch online service next year, and the ever-looming thoughts of a Virtual Console for the handheld hybrid, it wouldn't exactly be shocking to hear that an NES emulator was contained within the console.

According to modders who are working on the Switch right now, there is a NES Emulator embedded in the firmware codenamed "flog". http://pic.twitter.com/HCUbiDGnG6

— Source Gaming (@AllSourceGaming) July 6, 2017

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News:: Valkyrie Drive: Bhikkhuni's PC port is perverted garbage

Another day, another shitty port of a Vita booby game releasing on Steam, and wouldn't you know, it's buggy as hell. Heck, it wasn't all that great to begin with according to CJ's review of the original release which I more or less agree with, at least negativity wise. 

For those unfamiliar, this is a game by the Senran Kagura producer, another 'popular' booby game series, only instead of being a fighting game, this is more of a button-mashing beat-'em-up similar to the Warriors series. Spoilers: You never get to see tits because I guess Japanese developers like teasing or at the very least frown upon child nudity; can't blame them, most people do. There are robots that grab boobs and incestuous kissing, however.

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News:: Pyre is like a mystical version of NBA Jam and I love it

While I’ve known about Pyre for roughly a year now (having seen it twice at PAX East), I never got the chance to sit down and play the game. Since I’m a fan of Supergiant’s previous works, I just kind of figured it would be the same high-quality adventure-style game we’ve previously gotten from the studio. Transistor played like a more strategy-driven take on Bastion, but it shared a lot of the same gameplay quirks, for instance.

Nothing could have honestly prepared me for Pyre. While it definitely mixes genres to create a unique core, its main gameplay loop is like a mystical, RPG-infused NBA Jam. Yes, its an action game with arcade sports undertones. It is fucking glorious!

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News:: Is Marina from Splatoon 2 Nintendo's first Black leading lady?

I've talked to a lot of people who've worked for Nintendo, and when it comes to race, they've all said the same thing about the company - they don't want anything to do with it. That doesn't mean that Nintendo doesn't want anything to do with minorities. Rather, it means that when it comes to their games, Nintendo wants to stay out of the "race conversation" as much as possible, not unlike how they wanted to avoid "being political" with Tomodachi Life and the "gay marriage bug."

This is probably why most Nintendo characters appear Caucasian or Asian, depending on who you ask. Link looks pretty white to me, but a lot of Asian folks I've talked to have said that he looks Japanese. A lot of anime characters are designed the same way. You're supposed to see yourself in them, or at least, see them as a familiar face. Problem is, if your skin is darker than beige, it's a lot harder to see yourself in Link, and just about every other Nintendo icon for that matter.

My guess is Nintendo doesn't want it to be that way. They'd like to make characters that look like everyone everywhere, as that could only work to bring in more paying customers. Since that's not possible, and because People of Color make up such a small part of Japan's population, they likely just stick to what they know, valuing inclusion of the many over the desired inclusion of the few. That could explain why out of the 133 amiibo currently released worldwide, only one of them is a Black dude, and he's not even an original character. He's a gosh darn repaint.

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News:: Max Brass brings the pain to ARMS on July 12

Taking to Twitter today, Nintendo announced that the final boss of ARMS, Max Brass, will be arriving on July 12. The commish, who has already mined three months worth of salt from this author, will also arrive with his own set of ARMS, along with the stage he's fought on in Grand Prix mode.

Overall, he appears to be a complete beast in the ring.

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News:: PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds full release delayed to end of year

Originally promised to release six months after Early Access this October, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has been pushed back to release "before the end of Q4." Brendan Greene explained in his blog post "I've come to realize that restricting the window to a specific month could hinder us from delivering a fully featured game and/or lead to disappointment within the community if the launch deadline is not met."

As much as I enjoyed the game for a couple weeks, I can't say feel any burning need to play more. New maps and some tweaked features sound nice, and I still would like to see a mode without the blue circle to play long ass endurance matches. However, I feel like the game has run it's course and it's time to move on. In July. Hell I realized some time last month in June that "OK I won a time or two, and I've enjoyed a decent number of streams on the game. I'm done." 

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News:: ‘Hearthstone’s next expansion adds undead fun in icy Northrend

Digital card game Hearthstone started off a new year of themed expansions with April's Journey to Un'goro, adding 135 cards and introducing new concepts to refresh the game. Last night, studio Blizzard announced the second new content block for 2017, Knights of the Frozen Throne, which will launch in August.

Source: Blizzard

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News:: Which is worse: Final Fantasy XV: A New Empire or Futurama: Worlds of Tomorrow?

The lead-up to the launch of Futurama: Worlds of Tomorrow has been entertaining. Since the show’s second cancellation, I’ve been trying to get any heaping helping of Fry, Bender, and Leela available. Last year that meant suffering through A Game of Drones, a serviceable match-3 puzzle game that lacked the defining characteristics of the show. I made my way through roughly 70 levels of that game before growing bored of it and moving on.

Worlds of Tomorrow, out now on iOS and Android, is actually a worse app than A Game of Drones could ever be. It’s a city builder, ala The Simpsons Tapped Out, Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff, Peanuts: Snoopy’s Town Tale, some fucking Garfield game and literally 100 other apps; all free-to-play, all built around the premise people will pay if they don’t have to wait. That’s what city builders are: waiting games. Right now in Worlds of Tomorrow, I’m waiting for Fry to finish doing the robot while also waiting for the Professor to stop admiring various lengths of wire, Amy to stop embracing her robosexuality, and Bender to stop shoplifting for fun. I need them to finish up so I can assign new tasks, or even the same ones once more, as I slowly gain enough money, pizza slices, and Hypnotons to continue.

If this were any other title, any other IP, I would have deleted it long ago. I don’t think I’d even give Animal Crossing this time of day if it ends up being a city builder app. But Worlds of Tomorrow will stay on my phone because of that Futurama charm. I said the lead-up to the game was entertaining. The short commercials featuring original animation were wonderful. I argued these trailers would be better than the game. Spoiler Alert: I was right. The opening animation for the app, featuring two Hypnotoads locking eyes and ripping the universe apart, is genuinely funny and as far as I can tell, completely inaccessible after I’ve watched it that first time.

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News:: Xbox users will soon be able to gift games to one another

I've heard people say we have a bias against Xbox. But it couldn't be further from the truth; behind the scenes in the wacky Mad Magazine like halls of Destructoid, Xbox One is spoken pretty fondly of.

(Heh, it worked, the fools, they will never know the Xbox effigies we burn to the dark lord Baal) *cough* I mean pardon me, I seem to be catching a cold.

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News:: This faux Overwatch Netflix trailer makes a decent argument for a series

I've really enjoyed the cross-media efforts from Blizzard for Overwatch. It manages to stay out of the realm of oversaturation, especially since they're dropping it in variable spurts across sparing shorts and comics from a swath of talented artists -- most recently, we got an anime teaser for Doomfist.

But this faux Netflix trailer does show that the universe is already ready for a Netflix show. I mean just look at Castlevania, which just arrived today on the service -- it's only four episodes at roughly 25 minutes each -- you can basically just put the shorts on the platform with context and you'd have about as much runtime.

Either way the fan project from Lion Montages is worth watching while you try out Doomfist on the PTR.

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News:: Deals: 26% off Agents of Mayhem, Life is Strange: Before the Storm, plus 16 upcoming PC games

A total of 18 upcoming titles hyped at E3 are getting huge PC pre-order discounts at digital retailer GMG. The discounts are coming thanks to an 18% off coupon code that stacks with existing instant savings and yields savings up to 26% off when the discounts combine. This makes for some strong incentives given that pre-order deals on upcoming PC games have been a bit dry as of late.

To get the best deal for almost all titles you'll need to first create an account at GMG or login to an existing one. This gets you their best "VIP" discount - the instant discount that stacks with the 18% off coupon/voucher code. Apply the code at checkout to get the full 26% savings.

Our top pick from the batch of deals below would have to be Life is Strange: Before the Storm. There is a Deluxe Edition available but we honestly can't see how that's worth the extra $5 even though it includes a bonus episode featuring Max Caulfield. Other interesting deals in the mix include next month's Agents of Mayhem or September's Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, the standalone expansion that hopefully will perform bug-free compared to Dishonored 2's initial release.

Use Code: 2017E318OFF

August and September

• 08/15: Agents of Mayhem (Steam) — $44.27  (list price $60)
• 08/31: Life Is Strange: Before The Storm (Steam) — $13.76  (list price $17)
• 08/31: Life Is Strange: Before The Storm Deluxe Edition (Steam) — $18.51  (list price $25)
• 09/15: Dishonored: Death of the Outsider (Steam) — $22.13  (list price $30)
• 09/28: FIFA 18 (Origin) — $44.27  (list price $60)

October

• 10/03: Battle Chasers: Nightwar (Steam) — $22.13  (list price $30)
• 10/10: Middle-earth: Shadow of War Silver (Steam) — $59.03  (list price $80)
• 10/10: Middle-earth: Shadow of War Gold (Steam) — $73.79  (list price $100)
• 10/10: Middle-earth: Shadow of War (Steam) — $44.27  (list price $60)
• 10/13: The Evil Within 2 (Steam) — $44.27  (list price $60)
• 10/17: ELEX (Steam) — $36.89  (list price $50)
• 10/17: South Park: The Fractured But Whole (Uplay) — $44.27  (list price $60)
• 10/27: Assassin's Creed: Origins (Uplay) — $44.27  (list price $60)
• 10/27: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus (Steam) — $44.27  (list price $60)
• 10/31: Fallout 4 VR (Steam) — $44.27  (list price $60)

November and December

• 11/03: Call of Duty: WWII (Steam) — $49.19  (list price $60)
• 11/10: Need For Speed Payback (Origin) — $44.27  (list price $60)
• 11/14: LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2 Deluxe (Steam) — $45.09  (list price $55)
• 11/14: LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2 (Steam) — $22.13  (list price $30)
• 11/16: Star Wars Battlefront II (Origin) — $44.27  (list price $60)
• 11/31: Vampyr (Steam) — $36.89  (list price $50)
• 12/31: DOOM VFR (Steam) — $22.13  (list price $30)

The savings above result in some of the best pre-order pricing to date. Last week GMG ran a similar coupon code worth 15% off, so they are upping the game slightly with combined higher instant savings across the board.

Note that not all games are 26% off. Call of Duty: WWII does not have instant savings so you're looking at a flat 18% off after coupon - which based on our past experience is rather reasonable considering COD titles rarely receive deals, even on the PC.

The coupon/voucher code has a limited run and ends on July 19 at 9:00am Pacific. That gives you almost two weeks to pick any of these titles up at their best price of the year (so far).

Game deals from Dealzon. Sales help support Destructoid.

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News:: Singer Dion sues ZeniMax over Fallout 4's use of 'The Wanderer'

Singer Dion DiMucci has filed a lawsuit against ZeniMax Media over their use of his '60s pop hit 'The Wanderer' in conjunction with Fallout 4.

The reported $1 million lawsuit claims that the song, which DiMucci signed off on through his label UMG, was used as a backdrop to "...repugnant and morally indefensible images designed to appeal to young consumers" in the game's marketing campaign. As part of the signing Dion retained the right to pull the song if it was to be used in a way in which he disagreed.

There was also an alternative option in which DiMucci could have renegotiated for a better fee if he disliked the planned context for his song. Dion has stated ZeniMax never reached out to him, nor did he see said context until after the adverts aired.

1961 hit single "The Wanderer" about a hep-cat seemingly on a mission to find, fuck and forget as many women as possible, reached the #2 spot in the U.S. charts on release, and has been covered by artists such as Bad Company, Bruce Springsteen, and Alvin & the Chipmunks.

Fallout 4 makers sued [The Wrap]

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News:: Barfa! Barfa! Barfa!

He'll also answer to: Pukey, Spewz, and Hurla the Chunk Blower.

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