Having already purchased two fifths of The Orange Box over the last few years, the level of value I have derived from it is "fantastic" but not "supernatural." For Gabriel, who never finished the second Half-Life and never purchased the first episode, the aforementioned Box represents an intimidating and possibly even brutal level of content for one's holiday dollar. It's hard enough trying to keep up with all the games that are coming out, but when you start putting more than one game on the disc the difficulty is compounded. We're lucky, then, than the best thing on there can be completed in only a couple hours.

Today's comic outing can be found here.  A reader sent us a link to an eBay auction for a decommissioned Titan Missile Base a couple weeks ago, and we're still completely obsessed with the possibilities.  We felt confident that once you learned of it - and truly considered its fabulous subterranean potential - these fantasies would become a universal affliction.

Today's post is by Raph Koster.  Raph Koster is...  well, he's Raph Koster.  He's also Raph Koster.   He's had his hand in so many MMOs and been the engine of so much player controversy it would be hard to summarize him in a couple italicized paragraphs.  It's fair to say that he has considered the systems unique to persistent, multi-user environments as much as any person alive - probably more.  He has his own company now, making something called Metaplace, which is both the mechanism behind his new game and a platform for people to make their own multiplayer experiences.

I used to go to a toy shop in the mall and play with the Rokenboks there, when I had the time to go to toy shops in the mall for hours and not buy any things.  I'm excited to see what shakes out with the NetDevil's LEGO MMO, but I had so much fun playing with those weird little toys that I've always wondered how a cooperative game based on civil construction might work.  I'm lucky to know someone who could actually answer this question. 

This is today's comic, which represents an authentic conversation between my son and I.  There really should be some kind of licensing requirement for procreation. 

Today's post is from Joel DeYoung, who worked on The Simpsons: Road Rage and The Simpsons: Hit and Run.  He's on over at Hothead now, working on our shit, but this post isn't about his contributions to the regular industry:  it's about his incredible work on SquawkBox.  What is that?  Well, you'll find out soon enough.  I couldn't believe I'd never heard of it before. 

Our newest comic is available here, regarding the blogger that Nintendo fired recently. As usual, Gabriel and I disagree absolutely on virtually every point of this discussion, my own perspective favoring greater liberty while he presents a naked defense of fascism. The two universal axioms we were both able to agree upon were that:

Well I got the job! You're looking at the new regional manager of the Dunder Mifflin Spokane branch. I think it's fair to say this is supposed to be a sort of ARG and so far I'm not very impressed. The branch sites still have very little functionality and the stuff that does work doesn't work very well. It's got probably the worst forum system I've ever seen. Also just a heads up to everyone who has applied for a job and is waiting to be hired, hiring new employees seems to break the site. With that said I'm willing to give them some time to work the bugs out. My guess is they did not expect a branch to have 2000 employees on day one with six hundred more waiting to be hired. So let's give them the benefit of the doubt and see if they can fix their shit. They've given the branches our first challenge and it's a pretty good one. We need to create our branch logo. Any employee can submit  one and I recommend you do since just entering earns you valuable " SchruteBucks". We'll vote on our favorite and that will become our branch logo. They've got a pretty cool deal set up that will actually allow us to buy merchandise with our branch logo on it. I don't think I'll go nuts but a coffee mug would be pretty classy.

-Gabe out

We have constructed a new comic, available here. If you ever fear that the site will be long bound in narrative chains, be at peace. You can be entirely sure that we will get bored of it long before you do.

Our newest comic is available here, tenuously connected to its predecessor by thick cords of despicable continuity. We'll do what we can on our end to break the shackles of causality. Until then, hold onto something.

I saw over at PvP that to help promote the new season of the Office, NBC has set up something called Dunder Mifflin Infinity. Kara and I are big fans of the show and I'm a big fan of crushing PvP. So when I saw that Scott and Kris had applied to run a branch of Dunder Mifflin I knew I had to do the same.  I've applied to be the manager of the Spokane Wa, branch since that shit hole happens to be where I grew up. Now I just need fifteen employees to sign up for the same branch using this code:  s4g8c5lwvs  and the job is mine. I'm assuming there's some Office fans out there to help me with this. I'm not exactly sure what we'll be doing but the site promises that branches will be rewarded with prizes for completing certain tasks. All I know is that we've got to beat those sons of bitches at the Central Pencader, Deleware branch!

-Gabe out

Before other games began to creep up - closing their hands around my neck, crushing my trachea - I was feverishly at work on Eternal Sonata, with breaks to slam my head against the XP ceiling in the CoD4 beta. I would sometimes wake with a Nintendo Dual Screen in my clutch, the battery run aground, my hard earned progress long having sailed into the ether. I had assumed it would be difficult to keep pace with releases, but I did not expect to be destroyed. We are strapped to this medium, and then broken upon it.

I've been au Canada at Hothead since Monday, making a final pass on the entire script and writing new stuff for things we managed to fit into the first ep. After two days of this process, I feel as though my brain has been dragging a plough through a stubborn field. Like every other part of this adventure, it's been profoundly educational. I enjoy it, but there is a constant electrical hum in my skull that I assume is the byproduct of creating a universe in real time.

The Crash of the Titans demo just landed on Xbox LIVE. I just finished it and I was really impressed. It's a beautiful platformer with some really slick animation and character design. It also does a great job of capturing the feel of the old Crash games. It ends a little abruptly but it definitely sold me on the game.

-Gabe out

Thanks to everyone for the happy birthday mails, I do appreciate it. A few of you asked so I'll go ahead and admit that I am turning 30 today. Kara and some of my friends orchestrated a crazy surprise party for me over the weekend. I thought we were just going to see a movie but when we walked into the theatre it was packed with all my friends and family. It's funny the movie we had gone to see was the Brothers Solomon. It was so fucking bad that we actually asked the theatre to turn it off. I've walked out of bad movies before but asking the projectionist to burn the film was a new one. We ended up at my favorite steak house afterwards and then finished the night at Gameworks. It was one of the best days I've ever had and I really can't thank Kara and my friends enough for setting it all up. I guess I'm supposed to be old now or at least scared that I'm getting old. It's funny because at the party my presents included a bag full of Pokemon cards (scored a Holon Farmer!), A Star Wars play set, and a silver DS. I got a bunch of other cool toys too and someone joked that in a couple years my son and I will be getting the same presents. I think the problem a lot of people have is they think they need to outgrow toys. I really don't think getting older matters as long as you never stop playing.

The surprise party was obviously unexpected. What I had actually asked to do for my birthday is going down tomorrow night (Wedensday the 26th). It just so happens that one of my favorite artists is playing downtown. Kara and I are going to see David Wilcox at the triple door and I'm beyond excited. Tycho actually mentioned him in a post a while ago about his favorite music. If you live in the area and you're into the whole singer/storyteller sort of thing I highly recommend his show.

So thanks again for the B-Day wishes and maybe I'll see some of you tomorrow night at the show.

-Gabe out

Well tomorrow is the 25th and many of you will probably start celebrating tonight. I'd like to believe the midnight parties and festivities are related to my Birthday tomorrow but it's more likely your all excited about Halo 3. I had the chance to play through the entire single player campaign with Tycho and Robert and I can say you probably will not be disappointed. I never really got into the Halo story. I thought it was because there just wasn't much story there to get into. I got this link last week though and I realised that there's actually a really cool story, the problem is the games do a terrible job of telling it.

I recommend reading this thread before you tackle Halo 3. It lays out the history of the Halo universe really well. Like any sequel it helps to have played the previous games but in this case I don't even think that's enough. The story in Halo 3 simply doesn't make a lick of fucking sense on it's own and they make zero effort to help players that might be new to the series. I don't mean there isn't a movie at the beginning that's like "previously on teh Haloz!" I mean they just assume you know everything in that thread forwards and back. Honestly though it's Halo. You can play through the thing, shoot a bunch of guys skip all the cut scenes and have a damn good time. It's just sort of sad that there's such a rich universe there that the games aren't conveying.


I've got some stuff to say about the Halo 3 advertising as well but I don't want to spoil anything. We can talk about it later this week once you've all had a chance to play it.

I wrapped up our eight page Assassin's Creed comic last week. Those of you who purchase the Limited Edition of the game will get a bunch of cool stuff including a copy of our comic. It's a little prequel story that provides some background info on the main character. I think it turned out pretty good and I'm excited for you guys to see it. The game ships in November but I'll go ahead and post the cover now so you can see my take on Altair.

When Sony's Jack Tretton claimed it was impossible to find a Playstation 3 at retail, we cautioned them about the use of out-and-out falsehoods - suggesting that they instead massage verifiable facts. But later in the same month, vile morlock Phil Harrison told GameDaily that rumble was merely some vestigial bullshit about to be shorn off by their futuristic love machine.

Welcome to the show notes for Downloadable Content 09/19/2007, "In The Love Nest Of Har'akki." The episode is available for direct download at this link, or feel free to subscribe to our new RSS feed - it's over at Feedburner now, so you should probably change it in your aggregator. There is no guide for this one, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the mountains of madness.

Still playing as the doctor in TF2, which is to say that I'm still healing whenever the situation doesn't call for a burst from my fully automatic syringe gun. It's my job to bump that Heavy Weapons Guy from merely unstoppable up to "demonic," or make that Pyro invincible long enough to turn the enclosed space your team is defending into a hellish kiln. And, should my protege go down, I can usually pop back to base in time to find some other blunt instrument. The class is bad news, even minus the chaingun. I can't bring myself to play as anything else.