5 videogame-themed April Fools stories – 2011 Edition

Just like last year, I’ve decided to round up five of the better April Fools jokes doing the round on game websites and blogs. There was, as ever, a fair river of crap to sift through for these, but there were some beauties, starting with:

1. Games blog Destructoid now handwritten: This gets kudos for the sheer amount of legwork fingerwork that went into it. This morning Destructoid announced it was winding back the years and slinging the keyboards to launch ‘Faxtoid’, an entirely handwritten blog. I found it adorable, and this is how all blogs of any subject should now look. Because I say so. [Destru — sorry, Faxtoid]

2. Super Monkey Cube, a follow-up to roll-’em-up Super Monkey Ball was jokily announced by SEGA. And promptly went nowhere. Literally. [Sega]

3. Harry Potter TV show!!1! … is not happening, thank the heavens. This is another of IGN’s high-budget April Fool frauds; in 2008 it unveiled a now-infamous Legend of Zelda movie trailer that came perilously close to looking like a real flick. [Via IGN]

4. Solid 22k gold Xbox 360 controller: Astro Gaming was offering a new range of SOLID GOLD Xbox 360 controllers, pads that provided “incredibly lag-free, 0 MS response time performance”. Except, of course, it wasn’t and they didn’t. [Astro Gaming]

5. Gmail Motion: Taking their cue from the recent trend in videogames for motion-based play, Google’s jesters came up with Gmail Motion, an email client based entirely on flapping your limbs in front of your PC. We laugh now, but didn’t we once laugh at that friend who said we’d eventually use inflatable dinghies for game controllers? Exactly. People, this is probably the TERRIFYING FUTURE: [Google]

See also: 5 videogame-themed April Fools stories – 2010 Edition