Penny Arcade

Everyone is grabbing Super Mario Galaxy, right?  Right?

Two years ago, at The Last E3 Ever, I can recall wandering around the Nintendo booth’s bizarre inner temple, wondering if they had well and truly gone mad.  I was going to cut them some slack, as I’d been wrong about the DS, and was prepared to invest what little optimism I possess into their surreal, prophetic dream. 

  I found a couple other items to enjoy, Excitetruck especially.  But until I saw Galaxy, I didn’t really get it.  And once I had it, it clung.  It was like a secret I knew but could not tell, and the knowledge that you’ll finally be able to play it for yourselves is an immense relief.  I never felt especially convinced of my ability to express the game, anyway.

One often sees the multiplayer mode of Super Mario Galaxy dismissed out of hand in reviews, but I know that for Gabe and Kara it’s almost a perfect fit.  This second player can have as much or as little gameplay as they’d like:  similar to Double Dash, breaking out the full suite of controls into a cooperative experience can expose some amusing synergistic gameplay.  This other player can boost jumps, hold obstacles, grip enemies, and fire candy "bullets," but their best trick is to pick up distant Star Bits - Galaxy’s delicious, omnipresent collectible.  Player One can focus on the tight platforming while Player Two manages the playspace.   

Everyone online seems to have tracked down a copy of Mass Effect, which leads me to wonder if MS will actually hold to their November 19th embargo for reviews.  Acclimating myself to Knights of the Old Republic was made easier by the wealth of brand totems available in every eyeful of game content.  Up until now, BioWare’s best games have relied upon existing worlds to give them this heft.  Honestly, I wondered if they were up to the task.

After about hour three, there was enough information present about the setting to buoy the game events, and I was enraptured.  Before this, I mostly found myself frustrated by performance dips and pronounced texture pops - Gears of War fans will recognize this second one, and its source in the Unreal Engine, almost immediately.  Now, with the girders of their context firmly set, I don’t even notice these occasional intrusion of these things.  There is only a constantly unfurling space opera of profoundly humbling scope. 

Once you’ve gotten your bearings, I suggest you try playing the game with the Film Grain and Motion Blur effects turned off.  It’s strange, but I think I actually prefer it minus the condiments.

(CW)TB out.

  the one you never liked

The Arcadia Battle Academy is meeting again tomorrow night. We’re meeting every other Tuesday now at the Comic Stop. If you’re interested, it’s 6pm to 8pm and it’s all Pokemon all night. I just wanted to post a reminder to all those attending that the new Secret Wonders expansion is nowavaliable . I know some of you guys are working hard to beef up your starter decks. The most important thing you can do is get a good bunch of supporters in there. Secret Wonders actually introduces some great new supporters like Roseanne’s Research and Team Galactic’s Mars. It’s also got two new Lvl. X Pokemon for the Psychic and Dark decks out there. I think we’ve got about twenty people right now, kids and adults. We’d love to have more though. If you’re into the card game or you want to get into it you should definitely come by.

I’d also like to direct everyones attention towards a couple Child’s Play auctions.

The first is a PAX 2007 signed Guitar Hero Guitar. I actually remember seeing this thing making the rounds at PAX this year and the list of autographs is pretty impressive. Here’s a "mostly complete list":

* Tycho and Gabe
* Wil Wheaton
* Jonathan Coulton
* Caitlin Glass (Winry from FMA)
* Gus Sorola, Geoff Ramsey, and Burnie Burns (Simmons, Grif, and Church from RvB)
* Harmonix Employees (Makers of Guitar Hero): Alex Rigopulos (Co Founder), Sean Baptiste (Community Director), Dan Teasdale (Senior Programmer)
* Dave Grossman (Co-Creator of Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, and the new Sam and Max)
* Ron Gilbert (Co-Creator of Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion)
* Members of Optimus Rhyme
* Members of The MiniBosses
* Liz Enthusiasm from Freezepop
* MC Frontalot

The auction actually ends tomorrow so if you’re interested best to get over there now.

The other auction is for all your WOW players out there.

Shelbi of the Bronze Kettle is auctioning off her ridiculously cute Warcraft illustrations. You’ll get a drawing of your character that you can use however you like as well as a little charm you can attach to the mobile device of your choice.

The auction ends on the 15th so follow this link for more details and to make a bid.

Also a reminder that you can now purchase tickets for the Child’s Play dinner and Auction. Details and tickets here.

Thanks to everyone out there in the community supporting Child’s Play this year. We should have our first update to the donation bar soon.

-Gabe out

I got an interesting mail this morning from Daniel Erickson the principal lead writer over at Bioware Austin. He says they have an opening in their writing staff and he’s having a hard time filling it. Daniel wanted to know if he could put the word out here on Penny Arcade and I’m more than happy to help. So do you want to write for the new Bioware MMO?

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Hey Guys,

So here’s the situation we’re in. BioWare games require a great deal of
writing. Storylines, world building, characters, journals - and about a
bazillion lines of dialogue. What makes my job harder is not only does
all of this writing have to be high quality - something not always
demanded in our industry - it can only be done by writers who understand
the complexities of interactive fiction. Take the average screenwriter
who doesn’t play RPGs, place him in front of the writing tool from
Neverwinter Nights and you’ll get a linear story with a complete lack of
Player agency and no interesting decisions. Just trying to explain the
concept behind writing without a protagonist to someone who has never
even been a dungeon master can be like showing card tricks to a dog.

Which brings me to the current problem. The BioWare MMO is the largest
thing we’ve ever done by leaps and bounds. We’re talking a double digit
writing staff working for years (yes we’ve already been working for well
over a year). Now I’ve realized I need even more writers and I’ve got no
reliable way of predicting where they’re going to come from. In the
history of the company, we’ve had published fantasy authors,
screenwriters and editors all wash out of BioWare’s training program. On
the flip side, we’ve had fantastic kids right of college, an ex CNN
producer and a former gift wrapping clerk from Singapore all succeed in
the BioWare writer family. Previous job of lead writer for Baldur’s Gate
2, the highest rated PC RPG in history? Travelodge manager.

So yes, we’re shaking the usual trees and our HR folks are turning over
all the rocks they can think of but I had to go through over three
hundred qualified candidates to find the team I have now so a lot of
those trees have done already been shook. With that level of challenge
around finding writers, I want to throw out an open invitation for
anyone out there that thinks might be the strange combination of RPG
fiend and talented writer to grab a copy of Neverwinter Nights and start
putting together a writing sample. I don’t care if you can script, just
put three guys in a field and attach conversations to them. Make the
plot compelling, write the NPCs as real people who could exist in a
believable world even if the PC wasn’t there, give me an interesting
choice or two and you’re done—easily something can be done over a
weekend and there’s a ton of great community support online if you’re
really tech deficient.

Anyone out there want to write for the game company with three of the
top five rated RPGs of all time on their biggest project ever?

Head here: BioWare Jobs

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