I officially need an explanation

[Vitriola]

I've really never known, or needed to know, what all the hoopla was about for portable games, because I don't play games. But this quote on Penny Arcade makes me feel old, and probably not speaking the same language as anyone else does anymore.

It's been reviewed much better on the mobiles than it has been on the portable, but I imagine that people who review games that you play on a phone have a more forgiving palette.

What the FUCK is the difference between a portable and a mobile? For FUCK'S sake, people!

[Jack Straw]

games you play on your phone aka they "all blow goats"

vs games with ac!d like metal gear

[hygraed]

A "portable" is something like a DS or a PSP; that is, a handheld gaming system. A "mobile" is Limey parlance for a cell phone, although it seems to be cropping up here in the States more and more.

I do agree that differentiating between a "portable" and a "mobile" without offering an explanation of either is poor writing.

[Worm]

I imagine "mobile" as a genre could refer to all phone and pda games. Those guys apparently threw away a Nintendo DS given to them by EA for their maggot little charity, because they didn't open the box and wanted to blog about how beyond reproach they are.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Those guys apparently threw away a Nintendo DS given to them by EA for their little charity, because they didn't open the box and wanted to blog about how beyond reproach they are.

That's the best part of all this. And I have seen your work on other bulletin boards this evening, and I agree with you completely. You're going to encounter some very, very stupid people by typing those opinions, but you won't encounter any here.

The Penny Arcade website is like Wikipedia. Go out into the world (well, the 5% part of the on-line world that gives a shit about an on-line encyclopedias and comic strips) and say, "I hate the Wikipedia," and people - on average - will get mad. "What the hell is wrong with you?" they will say. "I use it all the time. You're dumb." What they don't get, unless you explain it to them, is that you're not against encyclopedias, you're against some of the practices of that one.

PA is the same way. As I am desperately attempting to get some fresh blood on this bulletin board, I'm going to go ahead and guess that randomly insulting a possible reader's favorite web cartoon is not the way to go about increasing the size of the community here, and I'd rather have people to talk to than hold these screeching nerd opinions. But! Everything there is to know about why I dislike that website comes into play here:

They were given a Nintendo DS, signed by Doom programmer John Carmack, from Electronic Arts. They wrote (and drew) a snide web comic about it. They gave the DS away to -- and here I am just going on what Worm has written elsewhere -- the guy who best made a cake look like an engorged penis.

Then, later, they read the note that came with the DS and found out that it was supposed to be for charity. Whoops!

But Jesus Christ, how fucking jaded do you have to be to just start treating received hardware like shit? I am personally amazed and overjoyed when computer hardware I specifically order and pay for manages to arrive at our house. I am absolutely flabbergasted if I can order a save kit from eBay and see it in my person within a month. But not these two clowns.

Let's go backwards in time for a second. When you're a kid, you want to get into the field you're obsessed with, and unfortunately that sometimes that takes an enormous amount of talent and luck, unless what really gets you going is construction or, like, murder. I know my father said, "Study hard and get a degree, and you can make computer games in your spare time." Well, those two guys managed to figure out a way to make being tangentially involved in the gaming industry their jobs, but in the meantime they completely lost any sense of what it's like to be in the real world.

This is unbelievably depressing! I have days, I'm sure we all do, where we'd like to say, "If only I could make a career out of my hobby. Stay at home, work on my surfboards / lobser traps / knitting, it'd be great." Well, PA shows what happens when you manage to achieve that. Without the shit-eating, daily grind and total aggravation of the real world, nothing you create will have any worth outside its own sphere of influence, and you'll ultimately turn into a spoiled, brain-dead dick in the ass.

Working in an office is a soul-crushing experience, but as this little venture shows, not living in the real world is somehow, strangely worse. They've gone beyond snuffing out the dreams who we were when we were kids ("I want to make video games!") but they've crushed any hope we have as adults by making us fear turning into them.

[Worm]

Robb, that's way more apt that any of the shit I've been spewing. I'm just peeved that these guys are adopting ethos that originally belonged to the the band 'Millions of Dead Cops' and don't have the depth of character to be genuinely thankful when someone tries to help them out, or to be apologetic when they literary throw it back in that someone's face.

Let me try to paint the scene. They apparently didn't even take the DS out of it's box, so that's factual inaccuracy number 1 for my little skit that follows.


T: "Hrm why would they send us a game & system for review(us being serious game reviewers) when they already know we have a system?"
G: "It must be some attempt to compromise our ethics (those of a serious game reviewer)"
T: "Hah, no one can buy Penny Arcade. We will send this off as a prize and I'll pen a damning comic soon after!"
G: "I'll get my paints!"
T: "This will be the most powerful news post we have ever made!"

cue them realizing they fucked up and saying JUST THAT, without any attempt to act genuinely apologetic.

[bruce]

When you're a kid, you want to get into the field you're obsessed with, and unfortunately that sometimes that takes an enormous amount of talent and luck, unless what really gets you going is construction or, like, murder.

To make a successful, long-term career out of murder probably does take a fair bit of talent and/or luck.

Bruce

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

To make a successful, long-term career out of murder probably does take a fair bit of talent and/or luck.

I guess when you put it that way, it does sort of make sense. I knew there were some holes in my argument up there, I just wish they didn't reveal themselves on the choppy-chop-lyebath part. Argh!