Penny Arcade

I was telling my sister about how when Brenna and I first moved to Seattle, we inadvertently popped into a bar which was the kind of bar you pop into if you are a lady who likes ladies.  I told her the name of the bar, and she laughed and laughed.  This wasn’t merely a gay bar; it was apparently a very gay bar, one you might not be gay enough to enter.  She said it had a “bath house” downstairs, which I was surprised to learn, because I thought that was more or less an urban legend.  It was a striking piece of imagery: the town I knew, undergirded by erotic warrens jam-packed with unregulated sex.

I forget what I was talking about.

Oh!  Now I remember.  We made a comic about Find My Friends.  Okay, whew.  Alright!  I’m back.

I’ve been playing Puzzle Craft because until three days ago I had no idea there was such a thing as a Puzzle Craft; I saw it on this or that Round Up (Joystiq, I think) and the prose was so hot with heat that I wondered how I could have missed such a thing.  That’s the easy part, actually: attention is a currency, and it was simply spent elsewhere.  But as someone who endured both a pronounced, obsessive Dungeon Raid phase in addition to a rapid descent into the Triple Town “lifestyle,” the ability to play both games simultaneously was an incredible timesaver.

  But playing Puzzle Craft reminded me of 10000000, which is rendered verbally as “Ten Million.”  If I had to choose a game from the last year that had the biggest effect on me, one I’ve thought about the most, that’s almost certainly it.

It’s Match 3 I guess, I guess?  That’s not my memory of it at all.  The game is about a person stuck in an oddly well appointed dungeon, one with a safe, comfortable bed and a weight room.  Sliding tiles around was so abstract to my actual goal that it was almost effervescent.

The goal of any run on the dungeon is to get out.  What this means is that you lose every time, every every time, until you win.  And you win once.  It’s about increments - you might come back with some wood or money or something to progress your character, maybe you unlock different potions that customize each run, but the entire play experience is The Montage.  This is the part a movie runs through very quickly with driving musical accompaniment.  In Ten Million, every bicep curl is rendered with maximum granularity.

When I finally did beat the game, I barely realized that I had; I was by that time so trained, so armed to the gills, and so deep in mystic trinkets that in functional terms I just walked out of the dungeon.  I never played it again; why would I go back?  I’d escaped: not just from the metaphorical dungeon, but from the reptile twitches of obsession, trying to make order out of those symbols.  That’s a gift, a real gift.  And I don’t think that was an accident.

(CW)TB out.

this ain't real

I’ve been playing a lot of Call of Duty recently, which isn’t strange. What’s strange is that I’ve been playing it on the Wii U. It used to be that if a multiplatform game came out, there was no question what system I was going to buy it for. The Xbox 360 was the obvious choice for a number of reasons but the biggest one was Xbox Live. For a single player game I still wanted to be connected to my friends list and for a multiplayer game, well that’s where all my friends are. Getting an invite while I was watching a movie or playing some other game to join my buddies in some CoD was great. My PS3 is a good Blu-Ray player but I don’t really use it for games except the occasional first party title. In fact I think the last thing I played on the PS3 might have been Heavy Rain. The original Wii was the same way. I figured any multi platform game is gonna look like shit on the Wii and the online experience was a joke. I kept it plugged in for Zelda and Mario games but that’s about it. So the fact that I’m not only play CoD on my Wii U but fucking LOVING it is pretty bizzare.

So what is it about the Wii U version that makes up for losing access to Xbox Live? For me it’s the gamepad functionality. At any time you can tap a button on the Wii U gamepad and shift the video from your TV down to the handheld screen. For a gaming dad this feature is a blessing. You people without kids might be surprised to learn that when you have children you need to alter your gaming routines. First of all the TV simply isn’t always available. Much of the time it’s showing the same Curious George episode for the millionth time or being used to re-watch the entire Lego Ninjago series from start to finnish. The ability to start up and play CoD on the gamepad without ever having to use the TV once is incredible. Normally I’d wait until the kids were in bed to play a game like CoD but now I can sit there on the couch with my kids and play an M rated game without them even noticing. More importantly I’m not playing some bullshit mobile version of CoD, I’m playing the real game and earning real XP! When they leave or go to bed I can tap a button and send the video back up to the TV and keep playing.

Even once the kids are asleep it continues to be an awesome feature. Let’s say your wife wants to watch that bike messenger movie starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. She says it’s because she really likes bicycles but you know she’s had a crush on that dude since he was Dougie on Family Ties, and that’s fine. She can watch her movie on the TV while you lay on the couch next to her and play Call of Duty! I’m telling you husbands and fathers out there, this is the mother fucking killer app! Tycho and I tested out the multiplayer last night and when he joined the party he couldn’t believe my level. I was already level 30 and I’d only picked up the game a few days ago. I told him it’s all because of the gamepad. It’s so easy to snatch it up when it’s just sitting there next to couch on it’s charging cradle. Half time during the Seahawks game? Kids are watching Brave? Wife is watching NCIS? Yeah I can get a couple rounds in. You don’t even have to leave the room!

If you’re not a single guy who can sit around his apartment all day in his underwear eating chips and playing CoD I’m telling you, the Wii U version is a gift from God. In fact it’s so good that I will probably buy every multiplatform game for the Wii U from now on as long as it has this functionality.

-Gabe out

Hey, do you want to see a really big number?  Try this one:  $5,085,761.  I have another number, too, which is even bigger.  Check this one out: $17,596,670.

The first of those two numbers is this year’s Child’s Play result, which is more than ever before by well over a million dollars.  There are many, many worthy charities out there, and the need was especially great this year, so I didn’t commence with my usual hard-sell.  But apparently the hard-sell isn’t required, because…  wow.  That’s more than the charity raised in the first five years of its operation.  The second number is Child’s Play donations to date, over the last ten years.  I think we may rightly call that “a mind-boggling, borderline confusing number,” and I think that we may allow ourselves two or three consecutive minutes of pride.

Jamie’s added a final post to the official Child’s Play Website with a message of breathless thanks to the community and well-deserved shoutouts for The Humble Bundle, LoadingReadyRun’s Desert Bus, Mario Marathon, and Zeldathon.

(CW)TB