According to The Compact struck between Brenna and I, we must venture over the frozen Devil's Teeth every other year to the hated Spokane, a corruption of Sa Pako Chaon which in the Bureaucratic Mode of the Mid-Hell tongue means "That Place Which Is Arguably Worse Than Other Places."

One index of the esteem I hold Cliff Bleszinski in is that I can spell his last name without looking it up. He has been making games of one kind or another since basically forever. And, having spent more than a decade now in one long, perpetually interesting time, we're going to check in with him at the PAX South Storytime and see what's going on with him these days.

I mean, yeah; from a purely numerical standpoint the Child's Play Charity Dinner And Auction was a roaring success, with just under two hundred thousand dollars raised in a night. This must be considered a joy spigot. But upon the completion of our noble labors, it occurred to Gribz that he might wring out a few more bucks from people by having me remove my coat and perform a little dance that has been called "by turns sad and terrifying" and "the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse."

Something I have been trying to figure out for a while is this weird inferiority complex some people who write about games seem to have about games. I've been thinking about it for ten years or so, and I only figured it out last night.

I realized, with some horror, that we had not covered Gabriel's perspective on Rainbow Six, which is that it is "bad" and also "not good." What's more, perpetually descending into fortified lairs is not, for him, a scenario correlated with relaxation.

Otherwise, it'll be the shortest Q&A ever. Here is Robert's magical form you can fill out!

Most of the Heroes of the Storm we played happened in the Alpha, and then the Beta, beginning when it didn't really have anything like a unified interface. The general rule is that Blizzard doesn't release something as a Beta unless another company would release it at retail, and I think that mostly held true here also.

Just Cause 3, the game that launched a thousand streams, hasn't really been on our radar. There is always more than one game out when a Just Cause drops, which is inconvenient, and we've always been playing the other ones. But God Damn. I think Gabriil has more to say, but if you were wondering what his play loop could possibly look like, here you go.

I’m having a blast with Just Cause 3. It’s a sandbox game with a heavy emphasis on the “sandbox”. Like a real sandbox, I’d say that the amount of fun you have in Just Cause will be determined by how much of your own imagination you bring to the game. You can sit in the sand and complain that there’s nothing to do, or you can make your own fun. I feel like Just Cause 3 is pretty much the same. The tools they give you like the grappling hook, the wing suit, the explosives and all the crazy vehicles are there but it’s sort of up to you to decide what you want to do with them. I’ve spent nights assaulting bases and blowing shit up. I’ve also spent nights attaching cows to cars. The physics are pretty goofy but they emphasize fun over realism which is fine with me. I say give it a try, or at least watch some streams of it because some of the shit that happens in this game is totally bonkers.

One of the the things that make PAX the best show of its kind is the Enforcer corps - a elite cadre that makes the event possible. PAX South is a new show, there has only been, you know, one of them, and we need more Enforcers down there to help it while it grows. Does that sound like you? Sign up and let us know.

We're working through a backlog of Child's Play strips bought at auction, and Pat's got dialed in first. Pat, as rendered here, is our friend Patrick Rothfuss, whose book arrived in the mail one day and I have been a fan ever since. I judged that book by its cover, The Name Of The Wind, and was well served. Pat has also undertaken many excellent turns as Viari, noted sub-employee of Acquisitions Incorporated. I think someday we'll do something big together. For now, we've got this!

We launched a whole bunch of new stuff on Thursday. Pins, tees, hoodies, etc. I believe I made a decree to that effect.

He has different problems at his house than I do. It's funny, if you let it be. It is hard to. But you can see, with your physical eyes, the moment a person learns that what they say doesn't have to be connected with real events.

Kiko and Brian and given me this Alpha-Q level commerce communique. Let's dig in:

In another comic strip ripped from the headlines, our Gabriel has decided to involve a neutral third party in order to mediate between himself and another, different part of himself. I would never presume to tell you things he hadn't told you in a comic, or hadn't authorized in some other way - not unless I had performed a calculation and determined you would be more amused than he would be angry. But I have my own problems, certainly, and I can tell you that being an introvert who is constantly, violently thrust into the public eye is perhaps not an infinitely scalable state of affairs.

Brian is gearing up hard down in the warehouse. He asked me to post this, and I agreed, because he had the look of a deranged and dangerous animal: