Penny Arcade

I can remember when Gabe was telling me about Dauntless, a game we’d never heard of in a booth we’d never seen before at PAX South.  Gabe spent most of his time there, and the promise seemed to be a free to play Monster Hunter.  And that’s more or less what they did.

In terms of play arc, it’s Monster Hunter in its basic shape.  You fight rude behemoths of various elemental polarities in order to make clothes out of their guts.  Outside of that, everything else is either streamlined substantially or just… broken off.  Monster Hunter has a ton of things which some might consider sophistication and others consider busywork, but I’ll always have a soft spot for demonstrative chefs who are also, you know… cats, the roasting of a juicy haunch, those things which help to build a weird subculture of shared experiences.  If you like to Hunt Monsters you might like the Dauntless take on it, or you might long for those rings of lacy embroidery it has done away with, but having tried and failed to get Gabe into various Monster Hunters over the years Dauntless lets us get close.

Plus, multiple platforms can play together, so (like when we were playing Star Trek: Bridge Crew) he can play on PS4 if he wants and I can play on PC and it’s fine.  Well, until three platforms worth of players all want to play at the same time and now there’s a queue.  Gabe plays more than I do, and he says there’s been bumps, but if you gotta have a problem...

We’re gonna try to play some Dauntless this afternoon at 2pm PDT on the stream, if we can beat said queue - I think he and I are relatively close in power, so we should be able to grind up a couple beasts and squish them into armaments.  And then, we’ll start the cycle anew.

(CW)TB out.   

Gabriel and I tend to approach things so differently that we can often accurately predict how the other will feel about something, simply by modeling our own position at a high level of detail and then inverting it.  One thing we do agree on is that, if we are really enjoying a game, we will often stop somewhere near the end.

It’s not, like… a good plan on the surface.  It’s the opposite.  Liking a game is one thing, but getting sucked into a game and living in there is something so rare that we naturally prize it, apportion it, even ration it.  So he’s back into Days Gone after a break, and we discussed how for some reason in games weird cults have fuckin’ relentless brand identity and an uncanny knack for message discipline.  If you’re being driven by a singular psychic or biological entity, I’ll follow you there - though a lot of the hive’s time does seem to be invested in troubling knick-knacks.  But if you’re just some dudes that think shit is way fucked there’s gotta be somebody, some Middle Management Layer, that cluckingly prunes the behaviors of those arranging things so they burn correctly in that hot curtain of blessed, cleansing fire.

New Acquisitions Incorporated: The “C” Team dropping tonight at 4pm PDT, as per usual - back in the airbrushed Nautical Space Fantasy of the old Spelljammer stuff.  And, don’t forget!  The Shadow Council - those mysterious acolytes that make up the enthusiasts of the show - can put their spin on events with my quests in Idle Champions Of The Forgotten Realms.  Give it a try!

(CW)TB out.   

I was all kindsa ready to get down on this Rage 2 stuff, the id Software/Avalanche combo has the texture of a summer mixtape, and every video up until now was deeply weird in a way that made me appreciate whoever had decided to pay for all this - a sequel to something that felt more like Engine than Game, for which I bear them no ill will.  Why you would do it, and then how it could then manifest this kind of manic energy, is the kind of impossible horseshit that I naturally gravitate toward.  It had that indie, auteur patina.  We loved Mad Max, even when stupid people said it was bad.

And, you know, Rage 2…  it’s fine.  That’s Gabe’s review, and he played way more than me.  I’m on some Jean-Luc shit - there’s fewer days ahead than behind, people3.  I gotta think about how I’m spending my motherfucking time.

The intro isn’t weird, it’s incoherent.  It’s one of the more half-hearted introductions I’ve played recently.  It looks like there’s something wrong with it.  Borderlands is harder than it looks, guys - you can’t just not give a shit, because then you end up with something like this, where it feels like you didn’t give a shit.  I definitely didn’t spend enough time with it, but nobody’s paying me to play through this.  If anything, I’m out money - the question at this point is complex.  Do I spend more time - that phenomenon instinctively recognized as the ur-currency - trying to get value out of the sunk costs?  I mean, last night, the choice was to watch the most depressing movie I’ve ever seen in my life or play Rage 2 and I went with the movie.  I put my soul in a tomb instead.

If you’re looking for company this afternoon, consider joining us in the studio for our 2pm PDT playthrough of Phoenix Wright - I’ll be joined by Ryan Hartman, Amy Falcone, and the returning Kris Straub playing a cast of…  well, of about ten.  It’s something people people seem to enjoy, and we include ourselves in that number.  See you then.

(CW)TB out.   

I’m typing this on Thursday because I am getting up at eff o’clock on Friday to pick up Amy and go the Airport so I go down - literally down, on a map - to The Descent.  Which is a D&D Event celebrating the new campaign stuff!  Our own book comes out next month (!!!), June 18th, but the Multiverse has continued to spin in the meantime, and down seems like a scary direction.  Let’s see where they end up taking us.

  Elyssa and I will be down there with The “C” Team, and I’ll be playing a solo game in the guise of Omin on Friday with a bunch of people way, way more famous that I am.  Mike was mean about it.  The end!!!

For most stuff, Josh will be hosting from our own channel at twitch.tv/pennyarcade, but a couple of these things are only like ten minutes long so maybe it’s fine if you just go the D&D Channel?  However you want to do it is fine; I’m just glad anybody cares about this shit.  There’s other content available as well, but if you’re looking to enhance quadrant one specifically to find our stuff, I’ve put Elyssa’s schedule for us right below.

Friday 4:00pm - 5:30pm: Opening Ceremonies
8:15pm - 10:15pm: Game with Jerry and Kate on Main Stage (“The Descent, Part 2”)
Channel: twitch.tv/dnd

Saturday 9:00am - 9:10am: PA Dragon Talk Interview with Jerry and Lidija Channel: twitch.tv/dnd
12pm - 1:30pm: AcqInc: The C Team Game with Patrick Rothfuss as Driebus
Channel: twitch.tv/dndlive3

Sunday
8:40am - 8:50am: Idle Champs Dragon Talk Interview with Ryan
Channel: twitch.tv/dnd

(CW)TB out.