Wherein uncle Cuftbert fights big daddies to free little sisters in order give big brother the mother of all knuckle sandwiches.

There are now 91 comments. Almost a hundred!

For reasons that will be apparent in two paragraphs, I’m typing this with my head down, eyes helf-open and fixed on the keyboard. Please be tolerant of errors and typos. Fixing them would hurt me more than they hurt you.

Tuesday (today, for some of us) was my birthday. It was my 39th birthday. It was not a good one. In fact, this is the second-worst birthday so far, only narrowly edged out by the first one where someone pulled me from the warmth and tranquility of the womb and into this nightmare realm of war, famine, and Michael Bay movies.

About a week ago I came down with an eye infection. It started out mild. Just a bit of redness on the eyelid. “Ah. Probably just spending too much time at the computer”, I thought, “It will clear up in no time.” This theory was disproven over the weekend, when it did, in fact, get monumentally worse. And gross. And painful.

If I close my eye, it burns like my tear duct is churning out mace by the gallon. If I open them, the infected eye is pierced with agony because the dang thing refuses to focus on anything or adjust to the light. Covering it up doesn’t seem to help. So it only hurts when my eyes are closed or I’m looking at things. This means the only way to escapse the pain is to sit upright in a dark room with my eyes open, looking at nothing. While this is a tedious way to spend one’s time, it’s better than watching a Michel Bay movie so it’s sort of a mixed blessing.

It’s been days since I’ve slept more thn two or three hours at a stretch. Now I can’t see and I can’t think. This has made me a little irritable. And it’s ALL YOUR FAULT.

No. Sorry. It’s not totally your fault. Anyway. On my birthday I went to see the doctor and she gave me some weapons-grade antibiotics. I can’t read the label to save my life, but I’m pretty sure it says something along the lines of, “Jam this crap into your eyeball every four hours until you’re out of medicine or the thing falls out, either of which should fix the problem.”

So that’s what I’m doing. I have my LCD monitor set to minimum brightness right now, and I can only behold it with fleeting sideways glances. I have to piece togethe rthe world around me with momentary peeks. So all I see are painful flashes of light and abrupt cuts from one disjoined blurry image to the next. So it’s sort of like watching a Michel Bay movie all the time. Which is the worst part.

I’m actually doing a lot better. It’s only been six hours since I took the first dose of medicine, and it already hurts way, way less. I don’t know if I’ll be back to normal tomorrow or if I’ll end up taking the rest of the week off. We’ll see.

So this has been a rough birthday. But still. At the end of the day I can at least be grateful for one thing:

At least I’m not 40.

There are more than 133 comments. But less than 135

As I mentioned in the comments section of the last episode, at the time of that recording, I hadn’t played Bioshock in six months. I didn’t really know what I was doing – I hadn’t even remapped the keys before we started recording. Though, to be fair, how long have we had the standard WASD shooter keymap now? Why does crouch in Bioshock default to ‘c’ and sprint to ‘crtl’?

In any case, these problems have been rectified with this episode.

Enjoy.

I bet you won't even read all 104 comments before leaving your own.

Steam, at the very least as a digital distribution platform, is great. Now I know Shamus has expressed a number of very valid concerns about the idea (and indeed, strong possibility) of a Steam monopoly and all of the ways that could go wrong – and I am in absolute and total agreement with every one of those concerns – but there is a reason Steam is by and large the PC digital distribution platform. I can, with confidence, say that the sales held regularly on Steam have led me to try dozens of games (if not hundreds – my account has nearly 125(!) games on it) I would never have considered playing otherwise. One such game is an odd little title released back in 2008: Mirror’s Edge.

I’m not really sure what mirrors have to do with anything…

When Mirror’s Edge came out, I’d been following it with some interest, but I thought the concept was, frankly, rather crazy (First-person acrobatics? Tell me that doesn’t sound like a recipe for frustration and disaster). And the reviews I skimmed after the game was released seemed to reinforce this notion. But when the game is on sale on Steam for $5? Well… It can’t be that bad.

Right?

(more…)

There are 78 comments here. I really hope you like reading.

The internet is plastered with ads for Kane & Lynch 2, sequel to the original ugly self-important chore from Eidos in 2007. If the sequel is anything like the first, you’ll pilot a completely unlikable jerk from one murder spree to the next in order to thwart some bad guys so bland I can’t think of a metaphor boring enough to… meh. The combat had all the fun and energy of churning milk in January. I quit when the story got to Havana. I have no idea how it ended. But in the alternate ending I wrote for myself on the wall using a black sharpie tightly clenched in one fist, Lynch died, Kane’s men died, the cops they gunned down recovered and then launched an enormously successful anti-crime program for youth, the secret conspiracy guys continued to do nothing interesting forever and ever, and Kane’s stupid ass went back to prison. If this is not how the game ended, please don’t tell me. I’m happy with the one I wrote.

What? Oh. Sorry. Anyway. Kane and Lynch 2 is everywhere and yet nobody talks about the wonderful things Telltale games is making for us. This is my own small attempt to rectify this injustice.

There are 76 comments here. I really hope you like reading.

Hey. You guys aren’t tired of this meme, are you? This is still okay, right?

Cool, cool. Just making sure.

Many comments. 54, if you're a stickler

Something to think about for a second before venturing forth is that this is the first episode of the third season of Spoiler Warning, which introduces our fifth host and the first BioShock game (which is our second first-person shooter and the second game where Josh gets to chug a fifth to cure secondary wounds) as well as our first session to feature a fourth commentator.

Here is a breakdown of who is on the show:

Josh plays the game, records the episodes, and edits them. He’s a sometime anime reviewer at the Escapist. He’s also one of the admins of the Death by Kukri Team Fortress 2 server.

Mumbles is our President of Bioshock Commentary. She’s also one of the admins of Death by Kukri.

Rutskarn is our Director of Bioshock Commentary Services. He runs the blog Chocolate Hammer and was the 37th President of the United States. He’s also a fully licensed punologist.

Shamus is our Lead Bioshock Commentary Engineer. He photoshops the Spoiler Warning title cards and also runs the blog Twenty Sided. And if you clicked on that link you really need to slap yourself. We’re working on the honor system here, so do the right thing. Use your dominant hand, open palm, aim for the cheek.

197 comments. Keep commenting and you're liable to break the internet.