Austin, Texas. Oct 31/2000.

John Romero and ION Storm today announced a lawsuit against the web site known as FRAGtopia.com and it's owners. Mr. Romero alleges that both he and his company were slandered by two employees of the news site, a Dave "Marauder" Kratky and Kristopher "Rune" Macmillan. The suit claims that the site has posted numerous false and slanderous claims, and that sales of the company's flagship game "Daikatana" were hurt badly by a review posted on said site by Mr. Kratky. The review allegedly called the game "Shit", "The most disappointing game I've ever played", and a "devil spawned creation." Mr. Romero says in his suit that all of these claims are patently false. The site has also made multiple sexist references to the breasts of Romero's lover and level designer Stevie Case, using words such as "Wow!" and "Amazing!"

Daiktana, which is the second game that Mr. Romero's ION Storm has released was met with disdain, hatred and outrage by the gaming community, and has suffered phenomenally low sales. ION Storm is blaming pirating, and of course, FRAGtopia.com.

We asked both parties involved in the case for comments. Mr. Romero was the first to respond.

"I was deeply and emotionally scarred by the comments these heartless bastards made about my glorious opus, and myself. I just can't stand there and take anymore of every web site and gaming magazine running down myself, my products and my girlfriend. If one merely were to look at the only unbiased web site on the Internet right now, Planet Daikatana, one would see that the game is magnificent! It's well worth playing, and amazing. The PD web site will be my primary offensive weapon in court. I'm also hoping that my hair, and perhaps having Stevie show up in a tight halter top will aid our case, and win the judge to our side."

When asked, the main defendant in this case, Mr. Kratky commented "Yeah, whatever. All I have to do to get these guys off my back is bring a copy of Diaktana in to the court room and get the judge to play it. I'm off the hook, most likely, and hey! Maybe the judge will even order a break up of ION Storm. They could break it into two different companies. "Shit" ION Storm, and "Warren Spector a god" ION Storm. Then at least we'd know which games were safe to buy. Remember, it's not illegal to tell the truth, but false advertising is illegal. That's what ION Storm is doing here! Remember, John Romero's hair doesn't kill people.... but you never know what it's up to!" Mr. Kratky then wandered off, muttering something about "Emulation" and "Beer good"

Upon hearing these claims, Mr. Romero apparently flew into a fit of rage, blamed the low sales of Daikatana on pirating and FRAGtopia, as well as accusing them of starting World War 2, the drug war in America and the spread of AIDS. He then demanded that his minions bring him the head of Mr. Kratky on a stake ala Doom 2. When we asked exactly what he meant by this comment, he said "I think I left my lawyers in my Ferrari. I'll be back in a minute." <Insert squeal of tires here>

FRAGtopia lawyers responded to these accusations, claiming that the events atributed to their client were actually the fault of ozone layer depletion caused by Mr. Romero's excessive use of hairspray and mouthwash.

The suit goes to court someday, somewhere.

In related news Mr. Romero and ION Storm are also preparing to launch a lawsuit against a defendant known only as "The gaming world" which names over 40 million defendants across North America, South America, Asia, Europe, the UK, Australia and Africa. Surprisingly, the one known gamer in Antarctica was also named. The law suit claims that since people are too "fucking stupid" to recognize a true work of gaming genius when they see one, they should pay a tax on their mental retardation.

The gaming world was unavailable for comment at this time.