Comments on: Penny Arcade Adventures Demo

By: Optimaximal

Optimaximal — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 07:44:30 +0000

Oh look, it’s now on Steam!

http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=app&AppId=18000&cc=GB

By: Ben Abraham

Ben Abraham — Mon, 26 May 2008 13:12:27 +0000

I’m surprised at the amount of hate around here

It’s RPS. Apparently, it’s cool to hate!

By: Joonas

Joonas — Mon, 26 May 2008 12:56:01 +0000

I knew it wasn’t cool to like Penny Arcade, which I do, but I’m surprised at the amount of hate around here, haven’t seen such behavior before. I don’t know about you guys, but I just don’t read comics I don’t like. No point spoiling your days thinking about how much you’re not into them.

By: MrMelons

MrMelons — Sun, 25 May 2008 05:18:39 +0000

I don’t know who Ted talks to but last time i checked in the states PAX was one of the biggest gaming expo’s on, at least the West Coast. So as far as everyone hating them at this point i would step out of the closet Ted because you seem to be in the dark on that matter.
That said i would say they are probably one of the best gaming sites i have ever visited. Through their site alone ive been introduced to a lot of games i would have never even heard of because they were underdog titles. Which brings me to the point that the reason they don’t want to do steam is because they want complete control over their products much like parents want full custody of their children. Also they are planning on using GreenHouse as a gateway for Indie game creators to have their own Steam like system in which to get their names out there. This point should come as pretty cool for at least some of the writers on this site considering i see many posts related to indie games on here all the time.

By: Ozzie

Ozzie — Sat, 24 May 2008 14:49:31 +0000

I never hated them, but often the comics lacked a punchline, or it was all too similar.
Surprisingly though, I like them more now than some years ago.
Haven’t read them for some time in between, though.

By: Winterborn

Winterborn — Sat, 24 May 2008 13:37:23 +0000

I like some webcomics, mainly Questionable Content, but yeah never got PA. Good articles though.

By: tWB

tWB — Fri, 23 May 2008 16:03:19 +0000

Birdoman — For my part, I took the title of that xkcd literally: I think he’s actually making an argument based on “mindless positivism” (perhaps “remorseless positivism” might be a better term) as a rhetorical strategy. “Oh, so you’re sure there’s no such thing as runaway anthropogenic warming? Well, let’s just sit here quietly and see if Bangladesh floods out in another decade after the polar ice sheets melt. I’m quite curious to see the results of possible catastrophic oceanic flooding and massive saline intrusion into Gulf Coast farmlands. After all, it’s not every day you get to see billions of persons forcibly relocated by system global catastrophes. But, maybe you’re right and nothing will go wrong. We’ll see.

“Oh, so now you want to talk about carbon offsets? But you were so sure a minute ago….”

Whether such an argument would work is another question, but I don’t think the author actually believes the “devil’s advocate” position he’s taking.

By: dhex

dhex — Fri, 23 May 2008 16:00:31 +0000

the concept of a penny arcade game is still deeply confusing to me. it’s a sort of ha ha ur ur type funny so, which seems like an odd property to build a game around.

By: Jaxtrasi

Jaxtrasi — Fri, 23 May 2008 16:00:25 +0000

Birdoman:

While I’m not much of a fan of xkcd (we have a long-running tradition of pointing out that a given conversation we just had, with stick figures added, would have been considered a fine xkcd by the writer) but that specific comic isn’t so much intellectual elitism as a nervous admission of “bad thoughts”. He’s saying that on a perverse level, knowing you’re right in the long term could feel better than proving yourself right in the short term, even if it’s awful for everyone. I don’t believe this to be his actual philosophical position. If it was, he wouldn’t write the comic that he does.

As long as you don’t expect it to be clever, funny or particularly observant, it’s one of the better ones, specifically for its humility.

By: brog

brog — Fri, 23 May 2008 15:58:07 +0000

Birdoman: huh? because everything a character says in a comic is what the author believes?

By: Birdoman

Birdoman — Fri, 23 May 2008 14:59:52 +0000

http://badwebcomics.blogspot.com/ – All the webcomic criticism you’ll ever need.

The problem with XKCD is that it’s so damn smug with its “oh I do maths, I’m so above you” attitude. Just look at http://xkcd.com/164/ – for a guy who likes to write about philosophy at some level, that’s a strange abdication of morality: the history of science makes it obvious that winning the argument is half the battle, and to think otherwise is mindless positivism. I do read it, I (mostly) understand it, and it is sometime amusing, but damn if it’s not incredibly annoying. Lucid-tv and Nobodyscores! are much more rewarding.

For the game itself, didn’t mind the wandering around, and the rewards for inquisitiveness were enjoyable, but the combat was a bit flat. Great dialogue and art tho’.

By: Okami

Okami — Fri, 23 May 2008 14:39:10 +0000

@GothikX: I guess that would be ok then. Problem is, I played the demo on my office pc and then downloaded the game at home, so I had to sit through all the cutscenes for a second time.

I guess they’ll get away with a five years prison sentence in that case..