Penny Arcade

When Sony’s Jack Tretton claimed it was impossible to find a Playstation 3 at retail, we cautioned them about the use of out-and-out falsehoods - suggesting that they instead massage verifiable facts.  But later in the same month, vile morlock Phil Harrison told GameDaily that rumble was merely some vestigial bullshit about to be shorn off by their futuristic love machine.   

That’s not why they didn’t include it, of course: it had nothing to do with the "future."  At other times, the story was variably one of cost concerns or technical hurdles.  Despite the fact that both of their current systems include web browsers, I’m not sure if they’ve heard of the Internet.  It took me about five minutes to reconstruct their concussed media narrative - a bewildered, tragic thing stumbling through the woods very late at night. 

The Wii remote - the very icon of a system whose technical sophistication is played for yuks in developer circles - crams in a pointing device, an auxiliary input, motion sensing, rumble, a speaker, and writable memory.  And it came out around the same time as the Sixaxis, so I feel confident saying that (by this point) mankind had mastered those strange forces.  The reality is that Sony’s ongoing legal "rumble" with Immersion over their force feedback patents necessitated this entire Sixaxis abortion.  Of course, they did eventually pay - years later - just as we will all pay next spring, when the new controller is released in the States.  This would have been a great opportunity to decouple the battery from the pad, or jettison those sloppy triggers altogether.  Why didn’t they?  I’m sure they have a very good reason.

The Halo reviews started dropping yesterday, if you actually need information of that kind to make your decision.  But similar to the recent Team Fortress 2 review, I have to wonder how you can "grade" a title that includes rich community interaction and polymorphic content a week before the Goddamned launch.

I’ve come to interpret 10 ratings as a kind of failure state.  Not a failure on the part of a reviewer, mind you, simply a failure of the mechanism to deliver a credible result.  Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas got tens.  It isn’t especially great as a function of its mission to mission gameplay, but it’s vast beyond reckoning.  If you take everything you can do in that game and assign it an arbitrary number, even if that number is a Goddamned fraction the value in aggregate must be ten.  It would be more than ten!  Except ten is the top.   

Consider The Orange Box, as delivered on next-gen systems:  for Sixty U.S. Dollars, you receive Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episodes One and Two, a completely new game called Portal, and one of the most hotly anticipated multiplayer shooters ever in sequel to Team Fortress.  Measuring a single game is an affront to thinking people; measuring five at once is the murder of reason.     

(CW)TB out. 

  the words left choking in my mind

Well tomorrow is the 25th and many of you will probably start celebrating tonight. I’d like to believe the midnight parties and festivities are related to my Birthday tomorrow but it’s more likely your all excited about Halo 3. I had the chance to play through the entire single player campaign with Tycho and Robert and I can say you probably will not be disappointed. I never really got into the Halo story. I thought it was because there just wasn’t much story there to get into. I got this link last week though and I realised that there’s actually a really cool story, the problem is the games do a terrible job of telling it.

I recommend reading this thread before you tackle Halo 3. It lays out the history of the Halo universe really well. Like any sequel it helps to have played the previous games but in this case I don’t even think that’s enough. The story in Halo 3 simply doesn’t make a lick of fucking sense on it’s own and they make zero effort to help players that might be new to the series. I don’t mean there isn’t a movie at the beginning that’s like "previously on teh Haloz!" I mean they just assume you know everything in that thread forwards and back. Honestly though it’s Halo. You can play through the thing, shoot a bunch of guys skip all the cut scenes and have a damn good time. It’s just sort of sad that there’s such a rich universe there that the games aren’t conveying.


I’ve got some stuff to say about the Halo 3 advertising as well but I don’t want to spoil anything. We can talk about it later this week once you’ve all had a chance to play it.

I wrapped up our eight page Assassin’s Creed comic last week. Those of you who purchase the Limited Edition of the game will get a bunch of cool stuff including a copy of our comic. It’s a little prequel story that provides some background info on the main character. I think it turned out pretty good and I’m excited for you guys to see it. The game ships in November but I’ll go ahead and post the cover now so you can see my take on Altair.

-Gabe out

Thanks to everyone for the happy birthday mails, I do appreciate it. A few of you asked so I’ll go ahead and admit that I am turning 30 today. Kara and some of my friends orchestrated a crazy surprise party for me over the weekend. I thought we were just going to see a movie but when we walked into the theatre it was packed with all my friends and family. It’s funny the movie we had gone to see was the Brothers Solomon. It was so fucking bad that we actually asked the theatre to turn it off. I’ve walked out of bad movies before but asking the projectionist to burn the film was a new one. We ended up at my favorite steak house afterwards and then finished the night at Gameworks. It was one of the best days I’ve ever had and I really can’t thank Kara and my friends enough for setting it all up. I guess I’m supposed to be old now or at least scared that I’m getting old. It’s funny because at the party my presents included a bag full of Pokemon cards (scored a Holon Farmer!), A Star Wars play set, and a silver DS. I got a bunch of other cool toys too and someone joked that in a couple years my son and I will be getting the same presents. I think the problem a lot of people have is they think they need to outgrow toys. I really don’t think getting older matters as long as you never stop playing.

The surprise party was obviously unexpected. What I had actually asked to do for my birthday is going down tomorrow night (Wedensday the 26th). It just so happens that one of my favorite artists is playing downtown. Kara and I are going to see David Wilcox at the triple door and I’m beyond excited. Tycho actually mentioned him in a post a while ago about his favorite music. If you live in the area and you’re into the whole singer/storyteller sort of thing I highly recommend his show.

So thanks again for the B-Day wishes and maybe I’ll see some of you tomorrow night at the show.

-Gabe out

The Crash of the Titans demo just landed on Xbox LIVE. I just finished it and I was really impressed. It’s a beautiful platformer with some really slick animation and character design. It also does a great job of capturing the feel of the old Crash games. It ends a little abruptly but it definitely sold me on the game.

-Gabe out