T w e n t y S i d e d
Hey. You guys aren’t tired of this meme, are you? This is still okay, right?
Cool, cool. Just making sure.
Spoiler Warning 3×1: Andrew Ryan’s Pipe Dream
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.
Hello, person from the future. This space used to have an embed from the video hosting site Viddler. The video is gone now. If you want to find out why and laugh at Viddler in the process, you can read the entire silly story for yourself. At any rate, the video is gone. Sorry. On the upside, we're gradually re-posting these old videos to YouTube. Check the Spoiler Warning page to see the full index. |
Mass Effect 2: Mordin Solus Part 1
Introduction
Half a year ago I promised that I’d write more about Mass Effect 2. After scourging the lame-brained main plot, I felt like I needed to explain why I liked a game despite the failings of the story. I mentioned that Dr. Mordin Solus was the best part of the game. It’s true, but it’s more than that. He’s the best character in the game, and his backstory is linked to the best mission in the game, which stems from the most interesting elements of the Mass Effect universe. Mordin stands above the other characters in the game because his dialog is good, and his dialog is good because he’s perched atop a mountain of lore. I feel like I can’t talk about him until I talk about the mountain. Which is why it took me half a year to write this. Every time I sat down to write 1,000 words about Mordin I found I needed to write 3,000 words about other stuff first.
If you haven’t gotten the clue yet, this series is going to be a long ramble about stuff that many of us will already know. Also, I’ve sprinkled the text with TvTropes links because I’m feeling sadistic.
In Mass Effect 2, the story of Dr. Mordin Solus doesn’t begin when you meet up with him. It begins two thousand years before the opening of the first game. So before we meet Mordin, let’s meet the galaxy…
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Mass Effect 2: Mordin Solus Part 1”
Stolen Pixels #221: After Curfew, Episode 9
Dr. Breen is back! I gave After Curfew a break after the big seven part series leading up to strip #200, but I think it’s time for another.
What gets me: As of the first 9 comments at the the Escapist, it was obvious that 3 of them didn’t read the side text. I always knew this was probably the case, but I didn’t want to know, if you see what I’m saying. I’ve come to accept that a good portion of the coming generation are a bnch of txt spk-ing lzrs, but have we really come to the point where 1 in 3 human beings will look at this:
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…and say, “Oh man. No way am I going to read that whole thing.”
Sadness.
Postcards from WoW, Part 5
My favorite NPC in World of Warcraft is this guy:
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It’s very hard to take a picture of this guy and even harder to give it the proper context, but what you’re seeing is me riding a gryphon up the almost sheer vertical face of a mountain. I don’t know of any way you could reach this spot on foot, and even if you could the ground would be too steep for you to hold on. You’d slide right off the mountain.
Yet there’s this dwarven guard always milling around up here. I still chuckle when I see him. What must he have done to get assigned guard duty on the barren backside of the mountain where no other creature can tread?
I’ll be very disappointed if I manage to click on him someday and see he’s just named “Ironforge Guard”. I like to think he’s a named NPC with some scandalous mistake in his past. Perhaps his name is Brawler Ironliver. Six years ago the king returned from a difficult military campaign to find a vat of Kingly Ale had gone missing, his ceremonial mount was wedged in the door of his majesty’s bedchamber, his teenage daughters were both pregnant, his scepter had been affixed to the front of a statue in a profane manner, and Brawler Ironliver was passed out on his throne wearing nothing but the royal crown, which was not on his head.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Postcards from WoW, Part 5”
Scott Pilgrim vs. MY FACE
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Scott Pilgrim vs. the World can’t possibly be as tremendous as it seemed yesterday afternoon. Looking around, everyone else seems happy to call this a great movie. Sitting in the theater, I couldn’t escape the feeling that this was a legendary movie, the likes of which I haven’t seen since Back to the Future or Raiders of the Lost Ark.
You should not trust my opinion on this. Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Scott Pilgrim vs. MY FACE”
Minecraft Everyday!
Have you found out about Minecraft yet?
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It’s sort of like a first-person Dwarf Fortress. Procedurally generated world, which can be altered through digging and building. Minecraft is (I’m told) the work of a single individual. A multiplayer version is in testing now.
If you like, you could blow a few hours playing the free version of the game game or reading the development blog. I mean, it’s Saturday. That’s what Saturday is for.
From The Archives:
The Strange Evolution of OpenGL
Sometimes software is engineered. Sometimes it grows organically. And sometimes it's thrown together seemingly at random over two decades.
Trusting the System
How do you know the rules of the game are what the game claims? More importantly, how do the DEVELOPERS know?
Batman: Arkham City
A look back at one of my favorite games. The gameplay was stellar, but the underlying story was clumsy and oddly constructed.
Patreon!
Why Google sucks, and what made me switch to crowdfunding for this site.
Project Frontier
A programming project where I set out to make a gigantic and complex world from simple data.
MMO Population Problems
Computers keep getting more powerful. So why do the population caps for massively multiplayer games stay about the same?
Do It Again, Stupid
One of the highest-rated games of all time has some of the least interesting gameplay.
The Brilliance of Mass Effect
What is "Domino Worldbuilding" and how did it help to make Mass Effect one of the most interesting settings in modern RPGs?
Autoblography
The story of me. If you're looking for a picture of what it was like growing up in the seventies, then this is for you.
Free Radical
The product of fandom run unchecked, this novel began as a short story and grew into something of a cult hit.