My latest comic. The Team Fortress 2 announcer continues to run Breen’s show… with hilarious(?) results.
I have to say I’m really enjoying doing this this long-ish story arc / crossover thing. I haven’t had this much fun since my Strong Bad / Sam & Max crossover. Maybe it’s time to break down and admit this is my calling in life. I was put here to write fanfiction.
I wonder what it feels like to have self-esteem?
The Best of 2013

My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2013.
Joker's Last Laugh

Did you anticipate the big plot twist of Batman: Arkham City? Here's all the ways the game hid that secret from you while also rubbing your nose in it.
This Game is Too Videogame-y

What's wrong with a game being "too videogameish"?
The Mistakes DOOM Didn't Make

How did this game avoid all the usual stupidity that ruins remakes of classic titles?
Silent Hill Turbo HD II

I was trying to make fun of how Silent Hill had lost its way but I ended up making fun of fighting games. Whatever.
Yeah, I always wonder who thought cardboard boxes and the like would be a great place for bullets. I mean…maybe if they were labeled with an appropriate company name but they’re always just completely blank boxes. Sorry, completely unmarked empty besides from one thing of bullets cardboard boxes. It leaves you wondering who in that world put that there. Is there some crazy person running around emptying all the boxes and some second crazy guy running around “filling” boxes with bullets. I just really hope nobody ever fends off the zombie/alien/whatever apocalypse because they’ll then just die of disappointment when they realize that everyone decided to throw out everything society would need to rebuild afterwords.
Didn’t think I’d ever be saying this here but….First.
you realize you play video games all day, and program as a hobby? (yes i know it’s your job too but you still do it as a hobby right?) You write funny little comics and currently you are hosting a show where on the weekend you and two other guys sit on a (virtual) couch and chat about a video game one of you is playing. you realize these are all activities high school boys participate in? you’re basically a high school kid and lots of high school kids write fanfiction. thats the way it is.
Be nice now. You are just jealous. Or maybe I am. Hard to tell. We might both be.
I know I am.
pffft. I’ve wanted to be a professional geek since before I was in high school.
Now I program all day, and as a hobby! (Also, occasionally video games.) It’s fantastic.
Shamus has one up on me, though – he’s raising a family, too! One day, I hope to be more like Shamus.
Perhaps you didn’t get to be what you wanted when you grew up. If not, I’m sorry.
The Strong Bad/ Sam and Max crossover was amazing, Shamus. Fan-fiction by nature isn’t Evil or bad, just that, most of the people who write fan-fiction are terrible writers, or decide that two of their favorite characters need to become romantically involved, or decide to add in their “Original” Characters.
Keep it up!
Well you know what they say: 90% of EVERYTHING is crap! That includes fan-fiction.
So here’s to Shamus and the rest of that wonderful (and elusive) 10% out there!
Indeed. Contrary to popular belief, good fan-fiction does exist.
You just need to dive beneath the ocean of crap to find it.
http://www.shamusyoung.com/shocked/
Good fanfic.
I think the figure should be increased for Fanfiction.
But, I agree. After all, Their is professional Grade published fan fiction, Their are somewhere in the vicinity of 30 books in Issac Asmiov’s combined Robots/foundation universe, not written by him. And then of course, The Extended Star Wars universe has got all kinds of that.
You mean like Yu-Gi-O meets Anne Frank? Seriously, it’s out there. It made my brain bleed a little but not as badly as the mental enema necessary to cope after becoming aware of the “Jurassic Park” fanfic that features Muldoon becoming…intimate…with a velociraptor.
And those are just two of the many reasons that I am shamed and humiliated that my daughters now write fanfic.
Then again, it doesn’t take fanfic to be a horrible writer. I’ve seen plenty of non-fanfic stuff that made me reach for the mental dran-O. I may or may not have been responsible for writing some pretty wretched stuff myself, especially around jr. high. And the fairy tale murder mystery I’m working on currently may or may not be equally deserving of ridicule.
The next three Zelda’s and Galaxy 3!?!
…am I a bad person when I say I really would kill for that?
No, it’s just a nice warning for us not to tell you any secrets after the Combine invasion.
Zeldas and Galaxy? Hmm. I think metro could have held in there for Episode 3 if he really wanted.
Generic henchmen these days. No willpower
I know I would nuke Megaton for Episode 3. With a smile on my face and no regrets.
i’m pretty sure some of us would nuke megaton anyway.
Well, yeah, I would nuke Megaton for a grilled cheese sandwich and a glass of Coke. It’s a dump.
I’m just saying, if Valve came up to me, dangled Episode 3 in front of me, and told me “You can have this Episode 3… if you nuke a town full of innocent people!“?
I’d nuke it, quest around the overworld for twenty-odd levels to get parts for a new one, and nuke it again, just to be on Gabe Newell’s good side.
Well sure, If it’s in a game world, who cares?
But, If Gabe Newell demanded that you nuke, oh say, Colorado Springs. Would you do THAT for EP3?
Let me answer that by saying that I have never been to Colorado Springs and I will probably never go there, and the ‘people’ living there are no more real to me than those living in a SimCity game.
So I guess what I’m saying is, of course not, I’m a human being and it’s just a video game. I might consider it, though.
What about all the boxes of rubbish in HL1 and the expansions? I broke open a lot more boxes of tissues and apple cores than I did useful supplies, or at least sometimes it seemed that way.
Having a game (level) in a wall mart full of stuff would be kinda fun. Especially with a physics engine and a grenade launcher. I see potential. It would certainly be more interesting than the currently oh-so-popular brown/grey chest high walls that are scattered arbitrarily (but very conveniently in sprint-distance of each other) in the brown/grey countryside.
Fallout 3: Super Duper Mart. Include the rocket launcher that shoots trash, have fun.
GRAVITY GUN!
sorry, just the first thing that comes to mind when physics are combined with lots of stuff.
At least Half-Life 2 has the decency to generally use smaller boxes.
In HL2 boxes with stuff in them were also labeled “supplies”.
This reminds me of a site which listed ~every game that featured boxes.
I can’t find it anymore, however :(
Are you possibly thinking of Old Man Murray’s “Start to Crate” feature(?)? http://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/39.html
No dice. That is a pretty interesting ‘feature’ (for lack of a better word), though.
This is actually the first Stolen Pixels in a while that I laughed heartily and out loud to. (Well, maybe there were other recent ones, but I don’t remember them.) So this one really worked for me. Good job.
Also, your hypothetical bulletless crate situation made me chuckle or guffaw or something.
Further, you needn’t worry about your self-esteem. We read it, so it’s not like we have it either. XD
(Considering as you’ve written probably a thousand pages of fanfic at this point, including the 400+ from Free Radical –which I’m about halfway through now, and loving it, especially the opening chase — maybe you should try and pursue writing game/movie-to-book adaptations once your Escapist contract/deal/whatever runs out.)
I have to agree, Breen’s “huge box for just a pistol” was unrealistic.
In real life, Breen would have to pull out a bunch of packing foam, bubble rap, etc., than get his pistol. :)
(I have gotten quite a lot of packages along these lines.)
Heh, at work I just got a box of boxes, where half it is filled with newspaper…
I don’t know why it’s funny, it just sturck me.