T w e n t y S i d e d

In case you rugrats missed it, Jack & Diane is a song reference. Despite it being a huge hit, I was only vaguely aware of the ditty at the time. I didn’t get into regular pop music all that much. Instead, I remember this station. (Seriously? There’s a Facebook memorial page for a radio station that went off the air two decades ago? Crazy.) While everyone else was listening to John Couger, Madonna, Blondie, and the Police, I was listening to Echo & the Bunnymen, New Order, Depeche Mode, and the Cure. I find it curious that current movies set in the 80’s all treat the latter as the music of the day. In my experience, the former was the actual sound of the 80’s. There were a dozen pop stations around Pittsburgh back then, and only one alternative station. A small station. Which was based in New Kensington, not Pittsburgh. And which went out of business. The soundtrack for Grosse Point Blank is revisionist history in my book.

You realize what this means, don’t you? It means I was a hipster before any of the other Spoiler Warning cast members were even born. Checkmate, babies!

What? Oh, right. New Vegas. Yeah. Fallout and stuff. Sorry.

I liked the part where Josh exploded a man just off the dining room while everyone was eating. And how nobody so much as turned their head to see who died.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Fair warning: This week of Spoiler Warning is really strange. I don’t know why, but every single member of the cast takes a turn at going absolutely bonkers at some point this week.

Just wait. It only gets worse from here.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

We quote a bit of Die Hard in this episode. Trivia: Mumbles saw Die Hard for the first time ever last week. Welcome to the party, pal.

We’ve been raving about the game, but some people are still foggy on the details of why we like Half-Life 2 so much. So here is Rutkarn’s answer, taken directly from the episode. (As nearly as I could, given the combat sounds and the other two idiots talking over him.) THIS is Half-Life 2, as made by ANY OTHER FPS STUDIO:

Here is a run down of what would have happened if any other studio had made this:

Cutscene intro: NEW YORK – You see citizens being mowed down in the streets. A narration plays over, “It is the future. Aliens have invaded the planet and begun oppressing the masses. Humankind can make no defense against it. But now, GORDON FREEMAN is being released by the G-man…”

Gordon wakes up: What? What’s going on? You’d better start giving me some answers, G-man!

GMAN: Well, Freeman… you are my pawn in this matter. I’m sending you to this place for my own reasons. Go kill some dudes.

You arrive there, and your sexilicious bikini babe companion will immediately start accompanying you, spouting wise-cracking one-lines and getting hung up on the environment while you go through the vert narrow New York streets, firing uninspiring guns and hiding behind cover.

And your enemies would be called, like… the Necro-forms. And they would all be these horrible half-human creatures that would howl and shriek.

And then the final boss would be the G-man.

Valve, thank you for not making that game.

Next week we’ll be back in the Mojave Desert. See you there.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

In this episode we mention SoldierHawke, who is currently doing a blind run of Half-Life 2. You should check it out. It’s pretty rare to find people who can go into this game truly “blind”. Much of it has been spoiled in discussions, comics, memes, and songs. To have gone seven years without having any of the major plot elements being spoiled is quite an accomplishment.

We also mention Concerned, the Half-Life 2 webcomic.

So, the proper order of things is:

Step 1) Get the game.

Step 2) Play the game.

Step 3) Read the webcomic.

Step 4) Play the subsequent episodes.

Step 5) Watch the let’s plays, listen to the developer commentary, listen to the soundtrack, play through the game on all the difficulty levels or with various self-imposed restrictions, play the mods, play co-op, try to find all the secret areas, mess around with cheats, go for all the achievements.

Step 6) Join the everlasting flame war against the heretics who refuse to acknowledge the purity and goodness of the series and fail to revere it as the very zenith first-person shootery. Remember, you can’t enjoy the game properly until you convert everyone else, everywhere on the internet, to our way of thinking.

Steps 7-one million) Join the rest of us in the eternal and hopeless wait for Half-Life 3. Welcome to purgatory, dumbass.

Enjoy!

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.