When we arrived we were lead downstairs into a giant cement floored warehouse. Two tables were set up in the center of the massive space. As I rounded the corner into the room I saw probably fifty or so spectators holding up signs with sayings like “EAT OUR BALLS!”. I did not however see their team. Just as I began to wonder where they were the music kicked in.
A door on the far side of the warehouse opened up and a team of men in white polo shirts emerged. The one in front was pushing a hand truck. Chained to the hand truck was a huge man with his hands bound and a black bag over his head. He was screaming and fighting to break his restraints. They wheeled him up to the table and began to undo the rope around his wrists. Once his hands were free he howled like an animal and tore the bag off his head. He stopped for a second as if stunned by the sudden light. They placed a paddle in his hand and he stared at it like a murderer who had just been released from prison and handed a gun. Then he leapt off the hand truck and proceeded to run around the room shaking his paddle above his head and screaming at the top of his lungs.
I turned to an Amaze employee standing next to me. “Just out of curiosity, what number is that guy?” I asked.
“That’s Gabe, he’s our number two. What are you?”
I didn’t hear the question at the end.
“I said what number are you?” he repeated.
I stared at the wild man my mouth suddenly dry. “Two.” I said.
"The people from Screenlife were wearing orange shirts when they were playing with an orange ball? What a dick move."
We cleared our kits and balls with PA in email before we started, as did they theirs. Would you believe we broke all but one of our white balls while prepping for the big day? Unfortunately we don't have away shirts yet, but that expense will probably come through any day now.
"They keep backing off way too far from the table"
You try returning a Khoo topspin smash to the back corner from up close. I don't recommend it, but perhaps you have borrowed Scott's bionic arm.
"Plus they had really bad manners in terms of not admitting their luck when hitting the side of the table or having balls roll over the net."
We all know when someone got lucky, and everyone gets lucky. A sheepish grin is all the apology required, but sheepish grins don't always make for great TV.
"I do have to wonder what the guy in the pork pie hat thinks he looks like. The chain really completes the look."
At 2-all I told Justin to turn his hat backwards so that he could then turn on the machine, but he refused to go over the top. If only he'd listened to me. Chad went full-on wifebeater; the results speak for themselves.
"Has kiko ever not completely humiliated his opponent?"
Kiko does this thing before serving where he slices his paddle over his throat, then immediately whips in the serve. It is terrifying. I believe he is a hitman.
Thanks, Robert and PA, it was a lot of fun. We'll see you guys soon.
PS thanks for stopping by Alok. I dunno if you keep up with the PA series, but anything ping pong related is always highly anticipated, and this one was no exception. Know that your destruction brought some joy into the world. Hope you guys set up another match!
Houk the Namebringer on
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Raneadospolice apologistyou shouldn't have been there, obviouslyRegistered Userregular
edited February 2011
hey Alok
you seem like a stand-up dude in the face of some of the ruder criticisms of the forums
The guys from Screenlife are INCREDIBLY gracious - DO NOT BE RUDE TO THEM. ('sup Alok)
As far as playing away from the table - that's how you play ping pong man. When people start hitting it that hard, it's a tradeoff between cutting off the angle of the ball and getting a few extra milliseconds of reaction time. The sweetspot of where you should be depends on who you're playing and how good of a defensive player you are. If I'm up against the ropes, I'll generally be between 4-6 feet off the table.
Our rematch against Bungie is this Friday. We're pretty pumped.
The guys from Screenlife are INCREDIBLY gracious - DO NOT BE RUDE TO THEM. ('sup Alok)
As far as playing away from the table - that's how you play ping pong man. When people start hitting it that hard, it's a tradeoff between cutting off the angle of the ball and getting a few extra milliseconds of reaction time. The sweetspot of where you should be depends on who you're playing and how good of a defensive player you are. If I'm up against the ropes, I'll generally be between 4-6 feet off the table.
Our rematch against Bungie is this Friday. We're pretty pumped.
You should probably check Jonty for weapons before you start
I feel like he would have no problem Tanya Harding'ing the fuck out of you for what you did to him last time
Oh, I've been a PA fan since the beforetime (heya Khoo). PA will be hearing from us again, once we return from the shadow retreat bearing eldritch sidespin knowledge. There will probably be a scroll of some sort.
In the meantime, we have PopCap in March. I can say with some certainty that I am going to leave that match with shards of ball where my cheeks used to be. Those guys are nuts.
I don't think so. I could be wrong but when I played if you hit it before it touched your side of the table you lost the point, which led some of the more accurate players to try to snipe the ball straight at an unsuspecting player's paddle at blinding speed.
Oh, I've been a PA fan since the beforetime (heya Khoo). PA will be hearing from us again, once we return from the shadow retreat bearing eldritch sidespin knowledge. There will probably be a scroll of some sort.
In the meantime, we have PopCap in March. I can say with some certainty that I am going to leave that match with shards of ball where my cheeks used to be. Those guys are nuts.
Looking forward to it.
As a warning, we lost 3-4 to PopCap. I lost to their #1 in five, (11-9 in the 5th... still burns) and overall their team is on par with us. You've got a solid shot at them, because let's be honest - you could have beat us if those two ridiculous comebacks weren't on the table.
Oh, I've been a PA fan since the beforetime (heya Khoo). PA will be hearing from us again, once we return from the shadow retreat bearing eldritch sidespin knowledge. There will probably be a scroll of some sort.
In the meantime, we have PopCap in March. I can say with some certainty that I am going to leave that match with shards of ball where my cheeks used to be. Those guys are nuts.
Looking forward to it.
As a warning, we lost 3-4 to PopCap. I lost to their #1 in five, (11-9 in the 5th... still burns) and overall their team is on par with us. You've got a solid shot at them, because let's be honest - you could have beat us if those two ridiculous comebacks weren't on the table.
edit: also, SPORTS.
Well, right now I'm #2, so I'm hoping they don't take a trick from Amaze and wheel out Hannibal Lecter or something. I like my liver where it is, filtering out the liquor. I think we can win, but it's going to be tight, and as with you guys I think it's going to be more about what happens in slots 4-7. If #6 and #5 hadn't collapsed like they did, we'd have been 3-0 up going into the last 4 matches, and I like our momentum then.
Anyway, thanks for the warm welcome, y'all. Our forums are also impolite to the opposing team, if by "forums" you mean "bar where we cry over the cask of failure" and by "impolite" you mean "vengeful".
And, by the way, the reason Robert was looking like that is because I was at that time beating Erika in game 2, 9-2. He stared into our souls and then I lost 11-9. So, y'know, I had not prepared adequately for business school psionics. Don't look him in the eyes, that's my advice, he's like a basilisk.
Oh, I've been a PA fan since the beforetime (heya Khoo). PA will be hearing from us again, once we return from the shadow retreat bearing eldritch sidespin knowledge. There will probably be a scroll of some sort.
In the meantime, we have PopCap in March. I can say with some certainty that I am going to leave that match with shards of ball where my cheeks used to be. Those guys are nuts.
is there like some game dev pingpong league that I'm completely unaware of
like
that's why 3DR never released DNF, they were two busy getting their asses handed to them in the pingest of pongs
Penny Arcade has been trying to push for a game industry ping pong league (you'll see the word GIPPL every now and then on our whiteboards) for a few years now. We've gotten Popcap, Amaze/F9, Surreal/Midway, Popcap, Microsoft, Bungie, Screenlife, Suckerpunch and Sony Online Entertainment to all participate. It's tough tho - game release schedules are tough to work around.
Robert Khoo on
Some guy.
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
edited February 2011
Word is Blizzard has been putting a team together for a few years now. They're still tinkering with it, balancing the player line-up, hoping to be ready to play by 2013 or 2014, but when they're ready to play they'll decimate everyone in sight.
Then you'll have to wait 7 years to play them again.
Penny Arcade has been trying to push for a game industry ping pong league (you'll see the word GIPPL every now and then on our whiteboards) for a few years now. We've gotten Popcap, Amaze/F9, Surreal/Midway, Popcap, Microsoft, Bungie, Screenlife, Suckerpunch and Sony Online Entertainment to all participate. It's tough tho - game release schedules are tough to work around.
Man, Popcap gets to field two teams? That's hardly fair.
Posts
I'm not going to kid myself by saying I could beat anyone who played after a week or two of practice.
Well I guess I need to practice this.
Also, "...over or around the net assembly..." holy crap.
EDIT: I stand informed, and no longer think it was a dick move.
_MG_2711-Edit.jpg by thekiko, on Flickr
I like the bald guy in the top picture, he strikes me as an evil super villain, calming walking along side his newest evil creation
this is pretty great too
"The people from Screenlife were wearing orange shirts when they were playing with an orange ball? What a dick move."
We cleared our kits and balls with PA in email before we started, as did they theirs. Would you believe we broke all but one of our white balls while prepping for the big day? Unfortunately we don't have away shirts yet, but that expense will probably come through any day now.
"They keep backing off way too far from the table"
You try returning a Khoo topspin smash to the back corner from up close. I don't recommend it, but perhaps you have borrowed Scott's bionic arm.
"Plus they had really bad manners in terms of not admitting their luck when hitting the side of the table or having balls roll over the net."
We all know when someone got lucky, and everyone gets lucky. A sheepish grin is all the apology required, but sheepish grins don't always make for great TV.
"I do have to wonder what the guy in the pork pie hat thinks he looks like. The chain really completes the look."
At 2-all I told Justin to turn his hat backwards so that he could then turn on the machine, but he refused to go over the top. If only he'd listened to me. Chad went full-on wifebeater; the results speak for themselves.
"Has kiko ever not completely humiliated his opponent?"
Kiko does this thing before serving where he slices his paddle over his throat, then immediately whips in the serve. It is terrifying. I believe he is a hitman.
Thanks, Robert and PA, it was a lot of fun. We'll see you guys soon.
In fact I would be surprised if he has not
you seem like a stand-up dude in the face of some of the ruder criticisms of the forums
As far as playing away from the table - that's how you play ping pong man. When people start hitting it that hard, it's a tradeoff between cutting off the angle of the ball and getting a few extra milliseconds of reaction time. The sweetspot of where you should be depends on who you're playing and how good of a defensive player you are. If I'm up against the ropes, I'll generally be between 4-6 feet off the table.
Our rematch against Bungie is this Friday. We're pretty pumped.
I feel like he would have no problem Tanya Harding'ing the fuck out of you for what you did to him last time
In the meantime, we have PopCap in March. I can say with some certainty that I am going to leave that match with shards of ball where my cheeks used to be. Those guys are nuts.
Does this mean another ping-pong episode for season two?
I don't think mere words will do justice to your re-match against Jonty.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Even if there isn't a pure ping pong episode, that rematch must be shown to the world.
hitting it before it bounces on your side?
I don't think so. I could be wrong but when I played if you hit it before it touched your side of the table you lost the point, which led some of the more accurate players to try to snipe the ball straight at an unsuspecting player's paddle at blinding speed.
Could we get a separate PATV series for these, pleeeeeeease. Full coverage of a each inter-office battle. All ping-pong all the time.
Arenas and Ping Pong every day.
Sweep the leg
hey satan...: thinkgeek amazon My post |
Can we talk about what's happening behind Robert???
And Alok, I'll just parrot everyone else that it was really cool of you to come by and give such a polite reply to a post like that.
And you guys were very entertaining to watch. It was really fun watching that game; I hope you guys had fun too.
Looking forward to it.
As a warning, we lost 3-4 to PopCap. I lost to their #1 in five, (11-9 in the 5th... still burns) and overall their team is on par with us. You've got a solid shot at them, because let's be honest - you could have beat us if those two ridiculous comebacks weren't on the table.
edit: also, SPORTS.
Well, right now I'm #2, so I'm hoping they don't take a trick from Amaze and wheel out Hannibal Lecter or something. I like my liver where it is, filtering out the liquor. I think we can win, but it's going to be tight, and as with you guys I think it's going to be more about what happens in slots 4-7. If #6 and #5 hadn't collapsed like they did, we'd have been 3-0 up going into the last 4 matches, and I like our momentum then.
Anyway, thanks for the warm welcome, y'all. Our forums are also impolite to the opposing team, if by "forums" you mean "bar where we cry over the cask of failure" and by "impolite" you mean "vengeful".
And, by the way, the reason Robert was looking like that is because I was at that time beating Erika in game 2, 9-2. He stared into our souls and then I lost 11-9. So, y'know, I had not prepared adequately for business school psionics. Don't look him in the eyes, that's my advice, he's like a basilisk.
:winky:
...
Oh god I'm so sorry.
How many dreams have you crushed
I ask because I'm trying to break into the field and...
hey satan...: thinkgeek amazon My post |
The episode does not show what happened after the match.
With good reason.
hey satan...: thinkgeek amazon My post |
Basically Khoo is the wizened master of everybody ever.
is there like some game dev pingpong league that I'm completely unaware of
like
that's why 3DR never released DNF, they were two busy getting their asses handed to them in the pingest of pongs
Then you'll have to wait 7 years to play them again.
then they couldn't possibly refuse
Man, Popcap gets to field two teams? That's hardly fair.
I want it all on a playlist to listen while I do work/run/live my life.