Let me set the scene. DayZ, a mod for ArmA II, is one of the bleakest, most brutal video game experiences you'll ever have.

In keeping communication, convenience and supplies to a minimum, leaving players to their own devices in an empty world out to kill them, it gets what makes a zombie apocalypse so appealing to people.

It's lonely, it's dangerous and most of all it's terrifying.

So imagine my surprise the other day when, while hiding in a house in the middle of a town eating my last can of sardines, I hear a car horn.

No, not a car horn.

A bus horn.

You don't see many vehicles in DayZ because you need to repair them to get them running.

To repair them you need parts, then to run them, you need gas.

Yet here was a bus, riding right through town, horn blazing. And it was full of people.

Running outside, I flagged it down, all the while thinking "what the fuck is going on, I am hailing a bus in the middle of the zombie apocalypse". That and "This has got to be a trap, right?"

Nope. It stopped for me. I got on, and wasn't killed. There were around eight other survivors on the bus, and they were having a blast. It was a party bus. A party bus full of dudes, sure, but a party bus all the same.

People were shouting at the driver to do tricks, to take them to specific places, to stop here so they can pick their buddy up, etc. It was the first, and only time I've ever seen during the game where people weren't acting like terrified bags of meat and could instead let their guard down.

Instead of running from zombies, we all laughed as zombies ran hopelessly after us, safe in our metal sausage fest while they groaned and stumbled and eventually died when the driver would get bored and back over them.

All those laughs ended up getting most of us killed. So confident were we that the zombies couldn't get us on the bus that we all forgot about the other faction at play in the game: asshole humans. Stopping at a dockyard to pick up some food from some corpses, we were jumped by bandits, and those who weren't initially gunned down were finished off when the bus - our glorious party bus - went up in flames.

In fact, the clip I posted the other day was captured almost immediately after the bus blew, and was me and a few other survivors running for safety.

Rest in Peace, party bus. You were the best of times, shielding us temporarily from a game that's about nothing but the worst of times.

Note: Those who are new to ArmA II with this mod, know that party buses are actually a bit of a thing.

[Music]

Jiggly, sweaty fighting game, Dead or Alive 5, is slated for a September release. Tecmo, the game's publisher, is eyeing a million selling hit. [Tecmo Koei]

Via Vice mag's tech site, Motherboard, we get a look at one of the best pieces of work ever done on a Game Boy. And it's not even a game.

In response to recent excitement over things like the iPhone's Game Boy camera app, Michael Byrne shares this clip, made by some friends of his back in 2001, that uses an actual Game Boy camera. To show 15 things you should never, ever do in a men's toilet.

Entertaining and educational, it is.

The 1-Bit Camera App Is Cool, But Here's a Whole Movie Made With the Game Boy Camera [Motherboard]

The Book of Watermarks is an adventure game released in Japan, and only in Japan, in 1999. Rare for a Japanese adventure game, it featured full-motion video acting and 3D visuals. Oh, and it also tipped its hat to the work of William Shakespeare.

Though it's of course heavily inspired by Myst, being a puzzle-based game in which fancy cutscenes break up gameplay found on static screens, The Book of Watermarks finds its own space through its use of an actor/narrator and for being a Japanese game that's almost entirely played out in English.

Yup, while it's subtitled in Japanese, and was developed in Japan by a Japanese studio, the narration and many puzzles are in English. Given the game's Renaissance setting, that's some serious dedication to context. It even opens with a quote from Shakespeare's The Tempest, and as HG101 point out, seems to be loosely based on the events of the play as well.

With a wonderfully late-90s look and sound (the music is as Enya as video games get), The Book of Watermarks is one of those game that, although you've likely never played it, is still super interesting to read up on.

If you agree, HG101 has a nice in-depth write-up on the game you should definitely check out.

I sure hope not!

Hi there Kotaku, and welcome to your Thursday night open thread. We're almost there! We're almost to the weekend! Can you smell it? Can you smell the weekend?

It smells like... hamburgers. Mmmmmm.

Here, from the internet, are some things to read and maybe talk about.

• If Pinterest had been invented in the '90s - Yeah, it'd look like this. But man... were the 90's THAT long ago? This almost seems 70's...
• I want this ink-pirate T-shirt
• I don't know what to make of this rumor about NBC canceling its shows either - ...but I hope it's not true. Jeez. On the upside, if it is true, it means that Parks & Recreation won't have an opportunity to slide into mediocrity like other shows whose names rhyme with "The Office."
• Examining the world's oldest 'Computer' - Computer is in quotation marks because this thing is oooold.
• You know you want to enter this ugly pancake contest - though what a strange name! The pancakes here are clearly still delicious. I kind of think all pancakes are delicious, though.
• The 50 best band logos of all time - Yes. Some excellent choices in here.

And there you go. Have good chatting, see you tomorrow. I'm going to go have a hamburger.

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier hits shelves on May 22, a week from Tuesday, but Ubisoft is already letting everyone know about extra stuff they can buy later on this year. Specifically, the "Arctic Strike Map Pack," coming your way July 3 for $10.

The pack includes new maps, a new multiplayer mode, weapons "to give you the supreme edge over your enemies," and a co-op map for Guerilla Mode.

Hard not to see this as Ubisoft seeing the stink over day-one DLC for Mass Effect 3 and just deciding to wait a couple of weeks. I guess it could be fig-leafed as "developed separately but concurrently" or whatever, but if they're this certain of what it's going to offer 10 days before the main game shows up, sounds like it's already baked. It'll run $9.99 or 800 Microsoft Points, depending on what currency your console uses.

The YouTube user Birgirpall has a reputation for C4-induced antics in Battlefield 3, and that's what's going on here—a series of rocket-jumps on a Zodiac boat, launching the craft where no boat has gone before, or would be expected to be seen.

This video carries the obligatory "I'm On A Boat," by The Lonely Island feat. T-Pain, which has NSFW language, but it does open with a sweet monologue from Community

This is How You Fly a Boat in Battlefield 3 [Ripten]

The update live now for Super Monday Night Combat introduces Steam Trading (among other upgrades and fixes), which means you can pickup crossover costume items in both this title and Team Fortress 2 for the super low price of nothing.

Four items kick off the "Friendship is Sharing" campaign for Uber Entertainment, two for each game. You unlock the hats and uniforms by reaching certain levels in Super Monday Night Combat. Here is the lowdown.

• The Gunslinger Hat, worn by Sniper in TF2, is unlocked when you get Agent Level 5 in SMNC.
• The Engineer Uniform, worn by Combatgirl in SMNC is yours when you get Agent Level 10.
• The Soldier Uniform and Rocket Launcher is Megabeth's in SMNC once you get Agent Level 15.
• Finally, Pyro will get the Assassin Helmet if you can reach Agent Level 20.

More details, plus full update notes, at the link.

Rule Changes: 5 - 5/10/12 [SMNC Forums]

College is all about getting exposure to new ideas and experiences. For me, after I made friends with a couple of PC gamers my sophomore year, those experiences began to include countless new games. We routinely played Worms Armageddon or Heroes of Might and Magic III (hot-seat mode on both) until dawn and then kept going through the next day until somebody finally won.

But most importantly: without those friends, I'd never have met Diablo II. They introduced me to the mega-popular classic at a time when it was still THE thing in online gaming. In the fall of 2000 through the spring of 2001, I'd find myself logging onto battle.net at strange hours and exploring my way through isometric-inspired semi-random caverns.

Amazon. I always played an amazon. Because I wanted to play a female character, and because for my play preferences the all-purpose ability of javelins—throw 'em! stab with 'em!—never could be beat.

I still have the actual CD of the Diablo II soundtrack over in a corner of the living room (though I made MP3s from it well over a decade ago). Matt Uelmen's score added a level of atmosphere to the game that no amount of graphics or gameplay could achieve on their own. Even now, listening still gives me the urge to spend the night exploring. And, you know, slaughtering a demon or two. Or two hundred.

Man. I do like a good Portal 2 remix. This one, however, is on another level.

It was created by Will Bedford, and I've been listening to it all day. For real. Maybe it's the happy pop chord progression. Or the kicky beat. Or the triumphant Cave Johnson breakdowns. Or the double-time section.

Or I don't know, the whole thing. Give it a whirl, you'll see what I'm talking about.

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Here's another quick one, called "You Monster." Excellent. Sing it, Cave!

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(Thanks, Steven!)