Half-Life protest takes on Steam

Emboldened by the recent success of internet whinging, viz. the forestalling of SOPA and PIPA, something like 30,000 Half-Lifers are gathering to protest the vortex of mystery that seems to have swallowed Half-Life 3.  Their plan:  to play Half-Life 2.  All at the same time.  They appear to be following Gandhi’s playbook here, protesting a lack of one thing by consuming a lot of something else.  Gandhi probably wouldn’t have chosen a game about shooting anonymous quislings in the face as the venue for one of his protests, but this Half-Life thing is actually quite similar to his celebrated salt march.  You know, the one where he gathered together thousands of Indians to protest the Salt Act and then sent everyone home to drink a lot of water.  Time will tell if Valve is as unshakable as the British Raj.

Much Different? More like Much Potemkin Village.

It’s a world record people.  Most concurrent players in an online FPS ever.  And I was on the scene.  Fifty years from now when I’m appearing before awestruck school assemblies to tell the harrowing true story of my war, I’ll get a little misty-eyed as I gaze into the distance and say, “you can’t know what it was like unless you were there.  I was there, man.”  But I hope the kids won’t ask for any details.

Still enjoying Skyrim despite crippling implausibility

Perhaps, Philosoraptor, but let's not get in too deep just yet.

I’m still enjoying Skyrim, warts and all.  It plays rather like I imagined Daggerfall would in my pre-release fantasies circa 1995.  Others have noted the unlikely omnicompetence of the Dragonborn and I agree the whole setup is thoroughly ridiculous when viewed objectively.  It takes effort for me not to obsessively nitpick over some of Skyrim's painful implausibilities.  I've uncorked many ancient crypts sealed and ignored for centuries, finding every one lit up like a circus with torches and braziers.  Have the restless dead spent the decades of their shuffling afterlife tending the fires for my eventual convenience?

Still, I continue to suspend my disbelief.  Like most stories and all high fantasy Skyrim overflows with unlikelihoods and if you want to play, you just have to play along.  You can’t enjoy magic, amphibious lizard men wearing clothes or soul-powered cutlery if you can’t make peace with the attendant silliness.  Star Wars wouldn’t be very interesting if Luke Skywalker grew up to be moisture farmer after all, and a fantasy RPG wouldn’t be much fun if the protagonist were a dashing, moustachioed NPC and the player a bowlegged, muck-ranching peasant with ringworm who struggles to raise turnips and taxes.  No, the hero of a story needs to be remarkable in some respect, even if flawed in others.  If Skyrim wants to remove all doubt by making me remarkable in every conceivable way, a demigod who shouts people off mountains, summons cabbages by the thousands and craps critical hits, well that’s cool—I always wanted to be the life of a party.

Value added? Terraria being shrinkwrapped

The best Super Nintendo game never made?

I don't understand marketing but I've seen enough MacBook Pros to know it works.  So when I read Terraria—a year-old game that's already sold more than 1 million $10-or-less copies and is practically given away during Steam sales—will soon be available in a retail box for $30, I wasn't baffled by the apparent superfluity.  No, I assumed the same marketing genius that brought us the five-blade disposable razor is at work here and certain to strike gold again.

Oh, except Terraria Exclusive Collector's Edition is exclusive to both collectors and the English.  If you're in the colonies and want to be overcharged for the posters and keychain, you'll need a pal across the pond.  That's a sticky wicket.

TL;DR: Torment is a bad game.

How dare you criticize me, mortal?

For years, if you’d asked me what the best game I’d ever played was, I would’ve said “Torment.”  I bought my copy way back in 1999, before the horseless carriage conquered our streets.  Things were simpler then.  If you failed to doff your bowler to a bemonocled gentleman passing you on the promenade, why, his valet would strike you square on the jaw and you’d deserve it, too.  

Torment didn’t sell well but is fondly remembered for its poignant story and remains a cult favorite that routinely tops best-ever lists.  When Roger Ebert opined that video games can never be art, he was repeatedly offered Torment as refutation.  I agree that its story was superbly compelling, but if we set that aside and consider Torment as a game, it’s far from artful.  It’s bad.