Beginning this month, I’ll be taking a different approach to publishing GameSpite issues. I’ve discovered that spending an entire weekend (and change) editing others’ work once a month is basically like being at work one weekend a month, minus the overtime. Oh, wait, we don’t get overtime. So it’s exactly like spending the weekend at the office, come to think of it. Well, my apartment doesn’t smell vaguely like a locker room. I guess that’s something.
Anyway, I think a more moderate approach is in order. So, now each “issue” will now comprise a month’s worth of content, but it will be doled out two articles at a time, every Monday. Please continue checking the Issue Six link each week for new additions. Actually, don’t bother, because I will post them here, too. Still, the Issue Six link to the right will come in handy at the end of the month, when everything is finally available.
I realize this reduces the sheer amount of awesome you get at once, but sometimes doling out awesome into little chunklets of awesome can be just as satisfying. Anyway, this week’s edition additions:
Sympathy for the Combine
Pleased to meet you, hope you guessed mHKSSSHKSHSS
OUTBREAK OUTBREAK OUTBREAK
Citizen of interest, please surrender immediately to the nearest Civil Patrol unit or by clicking this image link.
The Secret of Monkey Island
In last month’s sense-defyingly sensational ish, Magnificent Bob Mackey duked it out with his nemesis to determine the true champion of adventure game justice! His Maniac Mansion megablast was countered by a powerful Space Quest judo chop. Things look bad for our hero! Will insult swordfighting bring him an impossible victory, or merely shame? Read on, true believers!
According to Wikipedia (arguably the source for such matters), the Combine Overwatch soldiers are also post-human cyborgs, and the high-ranking ones are mind-controlled. I don’t know if that means we should feel bad or not for clocking them with various projectile bric-a-brac, but I felt it was worth noting.
Though I did feel bad for them when you overhear Breen give them a stern dressing-down in the prison level of HL2. Have you ever tried to stop a physics major with a rocket launcher and a magic radiation suit? It’s not as easy as one might think. Give them a break, man.
I think I like this approach a lot more. Although I really liked the previous issues, every new issue kind of intimidated me with the sheer number of articles.
Getting them like this makes them much more approachable and I’m not as likely to skip over any of them.
I’m cool with incremental awesome.
I MUCH prefer getting a couple of articles every Monday.
Both articles were funky AND fresh. My thanks to the writers and to Jeremy for presenting them!
On a tangent, are the new release columns getting moved over to Tuesdays now?
Columns and ‘zine will probably wobble between alternating Monday and Tuesday until I decide which sequence works best.
Well played, sirs. Of course, imagine my shock when I learned that the Insult Sword Fighting quips were all penned by Orson Scott Card of Ender’s Game fame. And, unless I miss my mark, the rest of the insults in MI3 and MI4.
Bryan: The fact that Barney can pass as a low-level Combine CP officer tells me their indoctrination is really, really minor. Or else that Barney is a cyborg. Which would be cool!
Oh, wait. My reading comprehension just kicked in. Yeah, I left out the higher-level Combine on purpose. Though they’re still at least partially human, they opted for massive surgery and conditioning in order to join the upper ranks — they bought into the Combine’s transhuman program enough to give up their soft bits and voice boxes, so I figure they don’t deserve any pity.