It's a reality I've learned to deal with over the years that upon reaching any level of notoriety, crazy comes out of the woodwork. That's not to suggest I'm a celebrity by any means, but I've been on the internet a long time — some of my earliest writing was on "blogs" before the word ever existed, and I've had to deal with anonymous nastiness in a variety of incarnations. Nevertheless, I have still always been willing to put myself out there; being in the spotlight combined with an opinionated and often acerbic personality means that sometimes retaliation crosses the line. This is my experiences with one such individual, Jonathan Beitel, and how he has been harassing me for the last six months.

The internet had one of its periodic explosions over something inconsequential this weekend (not Whitney Houston) which, as it's prone to do, became Massive Drama as the initial issue was exacerbated and then picked up by more mainstream awareness. In this particular example, BioWare employee Jennifer Hepler joined Twitter. If, like me, the significance of this action flew over your head allow me to explain what I've learned from my deep minutes of research into her identity.

Wherein one demure piece of criticism becomes a license for "professional" bloggers to invite the internet as a whole to harass critics.

I do not like Jim Sterling. This isn't anything I'd really classify as a recent or sudden discovery, but rather — much like with 4chan trolls in general — something I prefer not to talk about much because Jim Sterling is the sort of individual who thrives on negative feedback, seeking to inspire as much of it as he can to validate some stylised image of himself as a Disaffected Internet Cool Kid. As a regular writer for Destructoid (amongst other places) he typifies the mentality that makes most people think of immature, greasy basement dwellers when "gamer" is said out loud.

I didn't really have high hopes for BioWare's foray into the crowded MMOG field — I've consistently tried out most releases since WoW came out so many millions of players ago and the results have ranged from interesting to boring, but never long-lasting. It wasn't that SWTOR itself was particularly bad, but if it hadn't been for the discovery of Flashpoints shortly after leaving the starting area I might have walked away from the game thinking it nothing more than pretty cut-scenes framing "kill ten rats" quests.

Ever willing to push the bar when it comes to new innovations in dispelling the sort of feelings traditionally associated with that activity known as gaming, publishers are going to great lengths to attach chains to legitimate purchases in the misguided (and overwhelmingly unsupported) notion that it will prevent piracy. Almost as terrifying to publishers as piracy is the used-game industry, and to this end more and more are including one-time use codes for significant pieces of content that are only available to second-hand buyers if they pony over twenty bucks for new keys. With this in mind, seemingly, Capcom has released a title for the Nintendo 3DS, Resident Evil: Mercenaries 3D, which has its own innovative twist on the DRM schemes of yore: the cartridge contains a single saved game file which cannot be reset or deleted, locking the player to a single route of progression through the game.

At its heart, Duke Nukem Forever is a first person shooter that basks in its own heritage, more interested in reminding the player of how awesome Duke is — and by extension, the series itself — rather than providing any new reason to think so. "I'm amazing because I think I am" is the motto of 2011's Duke, and Gearbox's implementation seems more interested in being offensive for the sake of it than for any sense of funny.