T w e n t y S i d e d
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Experienced Points: The Rise, Fall and Rise of Adventure Games
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.
Stolen Pixels #222: Breen Interviews the Companion Cube
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”
From The Archives:
Why Batman Can't Kill
His problem isn't that he's dumb, the problem is that he bends the world he inhabits.
Spec Ops: The Line
A videogame that judges its audience, criticizes its genre, and hates its premise. How did this thing get made?
Chainmail Bikini
A horrible, railroading, stupid, contrived, and painfully ill-conceived roleplaying campaign. All in good fun.
PC Hardware is Toast
This is why shopping for graphics cards is so stupid and miserable.
Final Fantasy X
A game about the ghost of an underwater football player who travels through time to save the world from a tick that controls kaiju satan. Really.
Netscape 1997
What did web browsers look like 20 years ago, and what kind of crazy features did they have?
Patreon!
Why Google sucks, and what made me switch to crowdfunding for this site.
Silent Hill Origins
Here is a long look at a game that tries to live up to a big legacy and fails hilariously.
What Does a Robot Want?
No, self-aware robots aren't going to turn on us, Skynet-style. Not unless we designed them to.
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.