[PA Comic] Monday, July 1, 2013 - Arcadia

Geth

Arcadia
http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/07/01

Neuroskeptic

Panel 2 is a masterpiece. If the words were different, it wouldn't work. If Gabe's face were different, it wouldn't work. But it all comes together, the perfect fusion of writing and art. Or something.

Gaslight

Neuroskeptic wrote: »

Panel 2 is a masterpiece. If the words were different, it wouldn't work. If Gabe's face were different, it wouldn't work. But it all comes together, the perfect fusion of writing and art. Or something.

There is something about the way Turtles is bolded and italicized that kills me.

Jam Warrior

Living the dream.

Skull2185

I'd love to set up, my own arcade in my house. All the old games I loved playing as a kid set to freeplay, mmmm.

There was this place near my house as a kid called Mr. Arcade. All the games were set on freeplay, and it was like, a ten dollar entry fee. The games were ok, there were a few good ones in there. My favorite was House of the Dead, because I could go all Jon Woo akimbo pistols.

RatherDashing

As someone who is still getting settled, I sometimes wonder how non-millionaires afford massive game collections like AVGN or Egoraptor have, or thousands of dollars worth of 40k miniatures for eight different armies. Then I remember that other people remodel their houses or collect nice cars, so for a middle-aged person who doesn't have those "actual man" hobbies, it leaves a lot to spend on gaming.

Delzhand

We've seen how this ends. Gabe burns it down.

Lucascraft

So is Mike and/or Jerry actually wanting to build an arcade? Seems neat.

Also, this is a pretty literal comic. A Penny Arcade comic about arcades. I like it.

jothki

I'm glad that pinball simulators have gotten pretty good. I don't even want to know how much it would cost to maintain a single real table, much less a dozen of them.

DXMage

The on going joke when going out to eat with my son is that when he gets food in his beard someone says "I HUNGER!"

ahdok

RUN COWARD

Commander Zoom

RAAAAAAAAAARRR!

KoopahTroopah

News post says it's legit. Has pictures too. Looks pretty nice, can't wait to see it completely finished and packed with arcade machines.

KalTorak

bwahahahaa

Tycho wrote:

I did not create any arcades in my garage this weekend. I mowed part, part, of the fucking lawn!

HOLY SHIT

(CW)TB

Rottonapple

Delzhand wrote: »

We've seen how this ends. Gabe burns it down.

indeed

Dedwrekka

This can only escalate into awesome.

kingworks

I practically grew up in an arcade but, alas, Sinistar was nowhere to be found in my neck of the woods.

Warlock82

I love Jerry's response at the end there

Edit: Also I have never played Sinistar :P

Agent0fN0thing

For Mike's sake, I hope his garage is air-conditioned, because this weekend was absolutely murder from a heat perspective (at least by the mild standards of Seattle).

mogdemon

I loved this strip! PA consistently gets at least a chuckle from me but I busted out laughing when I read the last speech bubble. I adore how Gabe and Tycho (the characters) have differing tastes & have been set against each other many a time, but at the end of the day they're both grown adults who've held gaming dear to their hearts since they were children.

Slickie

That second panel is amazing. The juxtaposition of the TMNT arcade game to accursed mortality, Gabe's facial expression, and the stark white emptiness as a background.

Sublime.

miaAusa

I love today's comic now I need to build my own Arcade like this, I love how he has chosen many classic games for his arcade

Tleilaxu

Is this the same (possibly haunted) garage as was in this comic?

KalTorak

Tleilaxu wrote: »

Is this the same (possibly haunted) garage as was in this comic?

This is one of my favorite comics of all time, because of this case:

Stambovsky v. Ackley, 169 A.D.2d 254 (N.Y. App. Div. 1991), is a case in the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, that held that a house, which the owner had previously advertised to the public as haunted by ghosts, was legally haunted for the purpose of an action for rescission brought by a subsequent purchaser of the house. Because of its unique holding, the case has been frequently printed in textbooks on contracts and property law and widely taught in U.S. law school classes, and is often cited by other courts.

MortalToaster

We have a Puzzle Bobble tournament going on at work on our multi-game machine (it's an arcade cabinet hooked up to a PC with a ton of emulators on it). That game is incredibly addictive

my_belly

A quick bit of advice:

You will be tempted to set these machines to "free play" - do not do this.

Get yourself some custom tokens made - they're expensive, sure, but they are awesome and they will be unique to your arcade, and they make awesome gifts. Put these tokens in a big bucket in the middle of the arcade.

Buy some token mechanisms from an arcade parts supplier. At this point you are shaking your head because that sounds like some sort of crazy nerd technical wizard activity, but you should stop because it's not. The old mechanisms are held on by a couple of screws. Unscrew them; slide the old mechanism out; slide the new mechanism in; replace the screws.

Why should you do this? Because dropping a token into an arcade machine is where all the magic is. Even when they're free and you have a huge bucket of them. Also, Gauntlet on freeplay sucks ass - why play carefully when you can have unlimited health? Much better to give yourselves a stack of 8 tokens. Much better to feel that rush, fumble with that coin; sure you can always go to the bucket and get more tokens, but you have 15 seconds before the game resets - RUN MOTHERFUCKER, RUN!

Evermourn

Probably hard to find due to the non standard cabinet but mike should try to get Battlezone. Best arcade game ever.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlezone_(1980_video_game)