Why I Still Read Penny Arcade
Basically for Tycho’s wordsmithing:
People like games for all kinds of reasons. Perhaps they are flattered by them somehow, told what they want to be told about themselves and vile, unnamed others. Oh! And occasionally games are fun. Even if they don’t model class tensions for some reason. Obviously, they would be better if they did!
You can also be surprised by a game, have it come outta nowhere and create for itself some immaculate mental foyer in your… brain house. Just run with it. It’s much trickier when a game is known to you. But what if a game is not just as good as you wanted, but was as good as they said? The annals of gaming yournalism are lined on each side with the crucifixions of perfectly good, even great games that simply didn’t conform to the narratives that they themselves created. But it actually happened this time. You know? They weren’t retroactively made a heap of fucking liars. Let ‘em ride that shit around for a bit.
He’s referring to Titanfall, so it’s somewhat topical to boot.
Posted on February 18, 2014, in Miscellany and tagged Penny Arcade, Quote of the Day, Titanfall, Wordsmith. Bookmark the permalink. 2 Comments.
In An Age 
My problem with Penny Arcade as a comic is that, without Tycho’s words, the point of most of them are so obscure and so vague (given the clues within the comic itself) that have no idea what they are referring to or why they might be funny on 4 out of 5 tries.
Basically, to my mind, a comic that needs a paragraph of text to explain why it is funny and relevant most of the time is failing in its chosen medium.
But as a mixed medium experience where Tycho’s words are forever appended and considered mandatory, it works.
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I actually agree completely – I find it rare that the comic itself is even remotely humorous, especially when compared to other webcomics I read. But I stay for the posts.
And that’s why I also hate with a burning passion what they’ve done recently, e.g. making you click to “expand” the main post.
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