[PA Comic] Friday, September 5, 2014 - Strategery

Dog · September 2014

[PA Comic] Friday, September 5, 2014 - Strategery

Strategery

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2014/09/05

Hargaad of Omnar · September 2014

This pretty much sums up my childhood with my younger brother.
Co-op games were less about winning as a team and more about who was the first to die.
This shit happened
ALL
THE
TIME!

Edit: Also, adult me loves my brother, but 15-year-old me fucking hates when he takes all the health in Gauntlet: Dark Legacy when he has full health and I'm sitting under 25% health left.

Zovoka · September 2014

Ah yes. An old favorite. Midway Gauntlet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauntlet_(1985_video_game)

I used to play that on the Midway Classic games for game cube.

"Valkyrie is about to die."

exup35 · September 2014

my mate used to do crap like this all the time - like jump into the "exit to level 10" warp just to laugh as we all get butchered while his elf runs around grabbing all the keys, opening up all the walls, attracting all the mobs then leaving them to the rest of us...

Don't even get me started on Toobin . . .

belligerent · September 2014

They played a gauntlet tourney at PAX. They have a new one coming out. At the end of each level, even though it's coop, one person would "win" the level.

Phreaky1 · September 2014

Lol, this has to be a Comic about my buddy when he won the Next Level Tourney at Pax. He never lost at Gauntlet, and it totally looks like what he did in one of the rounds!

Lupison · September 2014

I, too, listen to "Ask Me Another" on NPR

Hevach · September 2014

Hargaad of Omnar wrote: »

This pretty much sums up my childhood with my younger brother.
Co-op games were less about winning as a team and more about who was the first to die.
This shit happened
ALL
THE
TIME!

It's worse when game seem actively designed to cause this shit through normal play, and not just callous disregard.

In elementary school, Battletoads was the greatest enemy to humanity we faced. The last time I ever played it with another person (I was literally grounded until the game wasn't cool anymore after this), my friend and I spent twenty minutes negotiating an honor system to ensure the game didn't fall apart halfway through the first level. There were rules, agreed-upon tactics, penalties for failure to comply, and a strict protocol for dealing with health pickups and weapons.

It worked great in level one. Level two, we made it almost to the bottom of the chasm when a mistimed attack caused him to hit me and cost me a life. We paused, the penalty was paid (one indian burn, plus a charlie horse for flinching), and we went back to the game. A second dispute came up in level 3 when the invader things start grabbing your health bar, I ended up with more health than I started with, meaning I must have stolen one from him. Pause, penalty, proceed.

We get to the jet bike thing in level 3, and realize the negotiations never accounted for who got which bike (because every kid knew the bottom bike is faster). So he killed me, took the "better" bike, and... I don't remember what happened next, only that we weren't allowed together unsupervised again until like sixth grade.

It's not limited to six year olds, either. After a single session of New Super Mario Brothers Wii, my wife didn't talk to me for two days. "I'm sorry, we were both falling in the pit, but by jumping off your head I saved myself so we could at least finish the level." "No, so YOU could finish the level. Alone. Want a list of other things you can do alone for a while?"

Madican · September 2014

While my memories of Gauntlet co-op are fraught with dickish moves, they still don't come close to the sheer hatred Mario Party could inspire.

Hahnsoo1 · September 2014

Strategery is one of my favorite neologisms (Is it really a neologism when it's over a decade old?).

http://youtu.be/nOUuKQlGdEs

Of course, my second favorite word is Lockbox.

Reiskaeae · September 2014

Meh, good ol' trolololol. Only way to win is not to play.

No one even shits the red bricks.

Hargaad of Omnar · September 2014

I didn't mean to spawn a thread of Gauntlet-hate; I'm sure there are other games that had equally poor co-op parameters.
Everything else we played was usually fool-proof for cock-blockery. We played other games like Perfect Dark (N64), Super Mario Kart, and other shit that was less co-op and more a free-for-all, but the two games that came to mind when I saw this comic was Gauntlet: Dark Legacy and Mechwarrior 3050.
Fuck co-op Mechwarrior 3050; it is extremely biased towards the person controlling the bottom half. It's terrorism, really: whoever controls the top half has to shoot everything the bottom half directs you towards without regard to what and where the top half wants to be attacking.

Hargaad of Omnar · September 2014

Reiskaeae wrote: »

Meh, good ol' trolololol. Only way to win is not to play.

No one even shits the red bricks.

But you have to get even somehow...
I know! I'll cheese the fuck out of hadoukens in Street Fighter!
What? You picked Ken against my Ryu? Fuuuuuuuuuu...timer ran out, nobody wins.

noxumbra · September 2014

the phrase "tuck into" is one I love to use. I thought I was the only one!

Fenlain · September 2014

Always fun to see them throw the word jagoff into a comic.

Randy Butternubbs · September 2014

I cannot stop laughing at "turk the fuck out" dear god

Commander Zoom · September 2014

It's been years, but I still remember the time the Announcer declared:
"ELF has eaten all the food lately."
Followed moments later (as we started a new level) by:
"Your shots now hurt other players."

I don't think he lasted five seconds.

Obstreperous · September 2014

"An arrow has touched my food! I can no longer eat it!"

Jortalus · September 2014

"I'mma turk the fuck out" is what I plan to say at Thanksgiving dinner this year, now.

Hevach · September 2014

Hargaad of Omnar wrote: »

Fuck co-op Mechwarrior 3050; it is extremely biased towards the person controlling the bottom half. It's terrorism, really: whoever controls the top half has to shoot everything the bottom half directs you towards without regard to what and where the top half wants to be attacking.

I'll have to remember this game if I ever find I need to open up a roster slot in my friend circle. Sounds like relationship cyanide.

Qumaden · September 2014

Randy Butternubbs wrote: »

I cannot stop laughing at "turk the fuck out" dear god

"turk the fuck out" is going on every Thanksgiving related correspondence I will ever write henceforth.

Linktm · September 2014

Fenlain wrote: »

Always fun to see them throw the word jagoff into a comic.

Seriously, what's the deal with that? I'm from Pittsburgh and I've always wondered where Tycho picked it up.

cB557 · September 2014

Hevach wrote: »

It's not limited to six year olds, either. After a single session of New Super Mario Brothers Wii, my wife didn't talk to me for two days. "I'm sorry, we were both falling in the pit, but by jumping off your head I saved myself so we could at least finish the level." "No, so YOU could finish the level. Alone. Want a list of other things you can do alone for a while?"

At first it's nice when you realize that you can go into a bubble and be rescued whenever you want. When something like the above happens, you have a solution. But then you start running into those times when some small thing goes wrong, everyone bubbles reflexively, and you fail the level because everyone is now in a bubble.

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[PA Comic] Friday, September 5, 2014 - Strategery

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