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Tycho

What is true, absolutely true, is that Blizzard does not allow people to play Diablo III while they are not connected live to their servers.  It is at this point that interpretation, reason, and cynicism create a drifting mobile of warring, caustic realities.

To put things diplomatically, this is a matter about which Gabriel and I do not agree.  The growing ubiquity of Internet access keeps him from feeling any tremendous sympathy for the increasingly thin band of edge cases.  Plus, and this may be applied as a generality, he is unfond of hippies and this type of complaint is situated in the continuum of Hippie-Type Shit, like how James tipped your bong after a monster rip and the whole fucking thing is seriously like whatever.

For my part, and I’m not, like, The Lord or anything, but the gulf between able to install a Spawn copy of the game and not being able to play offline at all seems pretty deep.  Don’t really know what else to tell you.  I saw that Blizzard came out with a response response, expressing their surprise at the consumer reaction, when this is more or less how consumers react every single time they learn the precise circumference of their golden leash.

By their own admission, Diablo isn’t not really focused around a PVP experience; if you’re playing with someone who has duped items or whatever, all it means is that you will be more likely to defeat Satan.  Without a means to gain advantage over another, “cheating” as a concept becomes substantially more opaque.  Who is the cheated party, precisely?  Satan the Devil?  Fuck him, who cares.

Who is being cheated?  This is the part of the movie where, in a series of retrospective realizations cut with you looking at your own face in the rearview mirror, you come bit by bit to the heart of it.  The person you are cheating is Blizzard, Blizzard in the aggregate, with your attempts to interfere with their digital marketplace.  You mustn’t play offline or goof around with your files or any other naughty business because they are endeavoring to transform your putative ownership into a revenue stream.

There, now don’t you feel better?

(CW)TB out.

(instrumental)

Tycho

August Tenth - so, Wednesday? - is the last day to buy your ticket and have it sent to you.  Otherwise, you’ll have to pick it up at the door.  Which is also fine!  Up to you.  

(CW)TB 

Gabe

My friend Brian over at Kotaku posted a nice preview of Fruit Ninja for Kinect. In it he mentions the fact that the game will notify you when someone has beaten your score. Since he had the game early and so did I, he says he was competing with me. I hate to break it to you Brian but you were competing with my son. Lil’ Gabe is the Fruit Ninja in our house.

Brian seems to like the game but it was not a huge hit at my house. Even Lil’ Gabe got tired of it after only a few games. Fruit comes up on the screen and then you try and cut it by waving your arms. That’s pretty much all that happens. once you’ve sliced a couple hundred bananas the novelty goes away. Especially if you’ve already sliced said bananas on your phone or tablet. From my point of view there’s just not much there.

Now, From Dust on the other hand is an incredible Arcade title. I’ve been puzzling my way through this game for a couple weeks now and I still love coming back to it. They do an incredible job of mixing in new mechanics as you progress so that the puzzles stay fresh. I highly recommend grabbing the trial at the very least.

-Gabe out

Tycho

It’s ready to be tested under load - you can find it at beta.penny-arcade.com, and any bugs or issues you have with it can be mailed to webmaster+beta@penny-arcade.com.

(CW)TB

Gabe