Today's Penny-Arcade comic made me realize one of the reasons why Penny-Arcade is so popular, beyond the gaming references and poop-jokes. No, it's because there's a full-page blog explaining the concept behind the comic itself, along with a forum page and the occasional podcast, which without the jokes would barely make sense if not for the word, "Fuck." I was reminded of this mainly because the comic makes no sense by itself. There's three panels. Panel One: a man is dragging a PS3 by a rope. Panel Two: A man wearing a Killzone-style mask is dressed like Moses, holding his hands aloft. I recognize this mask only because I was one of the few people playing Killzone on my PS2, while normal human beings with Xboxes were playing Halo.
Both games are highly overrated, in my opinion. I only recently purchased Halo and Halo 3, and have only played them sparingly. I think I've played less than an hour combined. It's a first-person shooter in which you can't aim properly at your intended target because you have no zoom or scope, plus your enemy has a fucking force-field all the fucking time, so you can shoot them point-blank in the fucking face fifty times, and nothing will happen. It's like the game has a glitch, only it's an integral part of the game design. Killzone and Halo 3 are completely similar in that the online matches rely entirely on the participants making a mad-dash to the level's secret weapons cache and then blowing the enemy away with ridiculously overpowered guns. Skill is determined by how fast you can find these weapons and how long you can keep them. It's kind of opposite to other online shooters like SoCom and Call of Duty, where you go into the match with pre-determined weapons, and the game because more about vantage point.
Panel Three: The same character throws red-ringed XBox 360s into a pile.
The joke?
It's in there, somewhere, but you'll have to read three paragraphs at least and click on two hyperlinks and watch a youtube video to understand it. This is comedy in the 21st Century.
This is a common occurrence for Penny-Arcade, and it would probably be difficult for most new readers to get into the series based on it. You have to understand that usually the new comic will go up first, and then about four hours later there'll be the integral news story behind it. You usually have to read the entire story before clicking on the comic link, which is why the front-page will always be the news post. Some people might not even realize that Penny-Arcade IS a comic from their site-layout.
But I like the idea of there being a reference to draw off of. Imagine how much better Far Side by Gary Larson would have been if someone had fucking explained it to you. "Okay, there's a snake in a spaceship, right? And it's trying to abduct these cows, which are running on two legs. Hmm... You should just smile and nod your head." I personally always get pissed off at political cartoons that reference news stories from eight days prior that were buried in the back of the paper, and there's no other source to draw on to understand what you're looking at. "Okay, there's this guy with big teeth in a suit, and he's riding backwards on a donkey, and Obama is laughing at him. Also, Obama is dressed like Mohamed and holding a bomb. Hmm... This could be trouble." It's like listening to Dennis Leary's stand-up: it makes you feel stupid for not immediately recognizing the most abstract and elusive reference.
Family Guy is starting to lose most of it's appeal based on this kind of referencing. It like watching a movie-trivia quiz show now more than a cartoon. I can get about 95% of the references off the bat, but some take months, if not years, for me to acquire. I always wished that somewhere on the DVDs, such as in the commentary section, they'd elaborate and explain which movie or TV show they're quoting, but often the writers and creators are just as confused. "I don't remember which, but it was definitely from some 80's movie," I've head them say.
MADDENING.
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