Penny-Arcade

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“800” caption=“It’s not this bad, but we’ve still got a long way to go.”] [/caption] …like many mechanisms of this kind your choices tend to come down to being an omnibenevolent supercherub or the Goddamned devil. -Jerry “Tycho” Holkins WARNING: SPOILERS A member of your crew was double-crossed before he joined you. Eleven of his friends died as a result of that treachery and he wants revenge on the killer. Do you: A) Indulge his obsession and allow him to murder in cold blood when his target least expects it or, B) Convince him that his obsessive revenge will not bring him the closure he desires by obstructing his revenge attempt. ...

New Super Mario Brothers Wii is marriage poison. -Gabe (AKA Jerry Holkins). " The Fullness of Time" In the past two months I’ve learned one very important truth about my friends: they’re complete jerks. Not in any friendship kind of way, but in the if-it-came-down-to-it-would-they-have-my-back kind of way. It all started with New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Nintendo made an important design choice with the game by giving each character physical impenetrability with each other and allowing (almost) the entire moveset to work on fellow players. In a nutshell, you can push, run into, and jump off of your buddies and you can pick them up and throw them around, but fireballs pass through other players. The result can be total (accidental) chaos or it can devolve into actual, sincerely evil behavior toward your fellow players. ...

Hi, I’m Eric and I’m a guest contributor to Dan’s blog. I plan on starting a column on Dan’s blog called “Objection” where I debunk rumors. I’m not sure how often this column will appear, but I’m sure we’ll get it figured out with time. Today I wanted to debunk the rumor that there are no commercial games for Linux. First off, a really insanely quick primer. Linux (aka GNU/Linux to some) is a kernel (brains of an operating system) that is paired with a bunch of programs to make a fully-functional operating system. A Linux operating system package is called a distribution and a distribution can be compared to Microsoft’s Windows or Apple’s OSX. Linux is free software, but that’s not the same as freeware as in that video game you downloaded off the ’net last night that was fun, but over quickly. Although Linux is often given away for free, the free in free software refers to the freedom to do whatever you want with it. You can take all the code and change it and get new functionality. The duality of these attributes leads most people to make the following generalizations about Linux users: they are cheap and they are hackers. ...

Insert another credit, because it’s time for your weekly video game news and you’ve just hit the Game Overview screen. There’s been a lot of news this week, so let’s get right down to it. The Xbox Live Summer of Arcade schedule has been announced and it looks like there are some great games coming soon. 22 July - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled - A 3D update of the classic arcade and SNES beat-em-up, this game could be fun, but then again, the 3D models just look so uninspired compared to the cartoon and their pixelated counterparts. ...

PA I think it’s worth mentioning that the guys at Penny Arcade are universally hilarious. I was tooling around their site today and I found a couple of oldies, but goodies that I thought I would share: There’s one about Pokémon that shows Gabe at his training worst. If nothing it’s a hilarious take on the oftentimes frantic and crazy love of the game that you usually witness in small children. ...

It’s been a while since I’ve talked about it, but I’m still very excited for Valkyria Chronicles. I promised my family that I wouldn’t make any purchases until after Christmas (not that I should be making any at this point), so I have to wait until at least then to hope that I get what promises to be a sweet looking video game. Enjoy the video review. We shall see if it’s as good as it’s claimed to be by people like Shane Betenhousen and the PA guys. ...

Here’s what Tycho has to say about the dialogue in Gears of War 2: Still. There is a point at which “the rookie” says there are a shitload of grubs down there. Marcus Fenix corrects him, suggesting that there are, in fact, “Ten Shitloads.” I want to grant that Gears of War takes place on the planet Sera, where Shitload may be a genuine unit of measurement - but that’s dumb, and this line is dumb, and the people speaking are idiots, and they live in a world of dumbshits where stupidity of a form of currency. ...