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YamiNoSenshi posted:It's too much. Stretching the whole idea into three games just made the whole thing wear thin. Taking the old rear end in a top hat protagonist joke and seeing how far you can push it is a fine idea, but making three games out of it is too much. We've got almost random character growth. Rufus seems to constantly almost realize the error of his ways, but he has to snap back so he can do the next horrible thing the developers thought of. We're coming up pretty fast on the "who is the unforgivable shitbagel who came up with this" thing I mentioned earlier, by the way. I'll save the big rant for when Yami gets there but for the moment just know that saying I don't care for the sewers is something of an understatement. quote:And Hermes explaining that Rufus is designed to not learn is the laziest of lazy cop-outs. What gets me is they don't say it in a way that suggests they're actually trying to explain something. They say it like it's a punchline. "Oh yeah, we hosed up your DNA and you can't learn from mistakes" in the most casual loving manner and then they just move on with their lives; Rufus, the guy whose bread and butter is dodging responsibility, hears a man take responsibility for 90% of the grief Rufus has caused himself in life and he lets it slide. Like I don't even know how to take that. They clearly want you to just laugh and move on like Rufus and Hermes do, but this is like an actual serious issue in the plot and backstory. If they're going to run with this they need to explore it more.
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Sep 10, 2014 05:47
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| # ? May 11, 2024 16:21 |
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That entire segment with Bozo's family just reminded me of Rabbits to no end. Probably just due to the disconnect going on but wow, Bozo's life just sucks.
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Sep 10, 2014 07:49
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Dr. Buttass posted:We're coming up pretty fast on the "who is the unforgivable shitbagel who came up with this" thing I mentioned earlier, by the way. I'll save the big rant for when Yami gets there but for the moment just know that saying I don't care for the sewers is something of an understatement. I know exactly what you're talking about. I tend not to read into things at all, but that still made me step away from my computer for a minute. So I guess if you need a reason to keep watching, you should know the unquestionably worst thing Rufus does hasn't happened yet. The update for episode 9 is on the bottom of the previous page.
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Sep 10, 2014 13:09
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You know, when you start comparing Rufas to history's greatest monsters and go "Yeah, I could see him doing that.", you really have to wonder. Hell, even compared to fantasy/scfi's monsters "Yeah, I could see him being a chicken that's not a chicken." Edit: Quoting the update for people who are lazy:
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Sep 10, 2014 13:22
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And now I find myself wondering how we'll get Bambina from the Floating Black Market to Porta Fisco before the world ends. She's been mentioned too much to not show up.
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Sep 17, 2014 23:12
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This episode brought to you by a trio of fuckups. I typo-ed a reference I could not stand to a typo in, then Youtube rejected the fixed version as a duplicate video, then I noticed a mistimed subtitle. I should keep count of how many times I have to render these things. And our new, NSFW platypus: 
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Sep 18, 2014 01:53
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That rope salesman is so morbid. You can show him all your items or look if they match the ropes.
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Sep 18, 2014 08:21
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That psychiatrist bit was great. Nothing quite to bring into perspective just how screwed up Rufus's life is than to reflect on it in the most out of context manner possible.
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Sep 18, 2014 14:23
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Ramos posted:That psychiatrist bit was great. Nothing quite to bring into perspective just how screwed up Rufus's life is than to reflect on it in the most out of context manner possible. The other options for the inkblots give similar dialog, so I'll put that in a bonus video along with anything interesting the rope salesman says when I show him my vast and eclectic inventory.
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Sep 18, 2014 15:56
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This episode brought to you by... hold up. I only had to render it once. It's an equinox miracle! All but platypus 1, 2, and 5 collected. $5 says I missed one.    Edit: The other inkblot options give pretty much the exact same responses as the first set, so it's not worth showing off. I've only got one thing in my inventory that gets a good response from Ol' Ropey, so that'll be in a regular video down the line. YamiNoSenshi fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Sep 23, 2014 |
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Sep 23, 2014 03:07
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A musician named Cowboy Dodo, and he doesn't sing country. He raps. This game.
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Sep 23, 2014 04:59
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Tuxedo Ted posted:A musician named Cowboy Dodo, and he doesn't sing country. He raps. And he sounds like a Beastie Boys solo cover. 
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Sep 23, 2014 05:03
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In the original he is actually voiced by Smudo. This probably doesn't mean a lot for American viewers, but he has a quite recocnizable voice.
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Sep 23, 2014 09:37
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Oh lord, Rufus is just finding new and terrible ways to be a complete jerk.
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Sep 26, 2014 17:42
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Just wait. This is nothing.
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Sep 27, 2014 01:33
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Well, tack 3 more counts of child endangerment and neglect onto Rufus's rap sheet. 
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Sep 28, 2014 21:38
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 The humor in the van was not very funny.  I hope Goal kills Rufus somehow at the end.
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Sep 29, 2014 00:42
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SystemLogoff posted:
I'm sure Rufus is going to die at least twice more before the story is over.
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Sep 29, 2014 01:28
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Not much to say for this episode. It's mostly setting up for further shenanigans and/or crimes against humanity. But there is a guest appearance by the best character in the series. 
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Oct 1, 2014 23:38
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We've been talking about it for a while, but it's happened. Episode 14 contains... the thing. At least, I think it does. Otherwise I have no idea what Dr. Buttass is referring to.
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Oct 7, 2014 22:56
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I didn't think anything would quite top the Organon's singing as the most horrible thing in the video. I couldn't have been more wrong.
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Oct 8, 2014 02:12
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Ramos posted:I didn't think anything would quite top the Organon's singing as the most horrible thing in the video. I couldn't have been more wrong. That part was unbelievably, painfully loud. I think it was the loudest thing in the entire series. I had to rip my headphones off during the recording, and it doesn't fade out once you get control back.
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Oct 8, 2014 02:50
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Yeah, that is most flagrantly the thing. Let's be real here: The series has not, before now, exactly been pure as the driven snow. The games have been riddled with questionable jokes and cringeistical moments where you can't tell if it's the writers or just Rufus being ignorant. But what the first two games had going for them was that, mostly, it was relatively mild. You could give Daedalic the benefit of the doubt and say "Yeah they kinda goofed there, I hope they do better next time." The sewers bring that crashing down. The sewers, the entire sewers, this whole festering, gangrenous leg of the game, could not possibly have been conceived in innocence. This is the point where Daedalic said to themselves, "You know what our game really needs? Some good hearty Family-Guy-style satire! Real humor is dangerous and offensive! It's not a joke unless someone feels bad about themselves!" June's fate shrieks, at the top of its lungs, "We knew what we were doing! This was by design! We did it on purpose!". If June were a completely different character in every possible respect this "gag" would still be in questionable taste and probably not funny, but Daedalic made all the right decisions to push it to "absolutely unforgivable". It's not just that June is a black woman, it's that, with the exception of a single literal background character, June is the only black person in the series; Daedalic introduced a black woman into their compendium of shades of white for the explicit purpose of abusing, subjugating, and demeaning her. The old panhandler complains not because what Rufus did is an inherently horrible thing to do, but because she doesn't like June's dance. And just look at that dance; it's one of the highest quality animations in the series. This was lovingly rendered by animators who thought that this, this, was supposed to be the height of your experience in playing the Deponia series. Also note: in buying the giant burritos (for reasons almost as stupid and contrived as this puzzle) you've removed the five zlottis from circulation, crashing the sewer's sorry excuse for an economy and essentially trapping June there since she now has no means of getting the crank handle. I'm trying to decide how the fact that June is the sweetest character in the entire series slots into this entire pegboard of terrible; on the one hand, there's no narrative satisfaction in so gratuitously punishing someone who so little deserves it, but on the other hand, if June were a terrible person, that would arguably be worse, because then you have introduced a single black woman into this overwhelmingly white series for the explicit purpose of being abused, subjugated, and demeaned, and deserving it. More than any other puzzle in the series, the organ grinder is just plain unnecessary; it doesn't move the story forward so much as stand in its path until such time as it deigns to step aside; it reveals nothing of Rufus' character that isn't communicated just as effectively by less egregious parts of the series; and it brings no catharsis to anyone I want anything to do with. If Rufus had just straight up mugged the panhandler for the five zlottis that would still have been a better and more morally upstanding solution to the puzzle. You'll shortly be using the kids in something which could, itself, be in the running for "the thing," and the nonsense in the pub had me side-eyeing the game so hard flounder were looking at me funny, but I think for sheer, unfiltered malignity June takes the cake.
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Oct 8, 2014 09:21
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Dr. Buttass posted:Yeah, that is most flagrantly the thing. Let's be real here: The series has not, before now, exactly been pure as the driven snow. The games have been riddled with questionable jokes and cringeistical moments where you can't tell if it's the writers or just Rufus being ignorant. But what the first two games had going for them was that, mostly, it was relatively mild. You could give Daedalic the benefit of the doubt and say "Yeah they kinda goofed there, I hope they do better next time." I agree whole heartedly. Like I said before, I never read into stuff like this. Somebody has to come along and point out, "Hey, that bit of the game was kinda sexist/racist/bigoted," and I'll look and probably agree. But when I got here, I had to step away from my computer the first time. It's just so flagrantly offensive. Almost every other horrible joke has that bit of goofy humor. When you turn the baby dolphins into cat food, my reaction was more on the lines of "Haha, that's awful." Even the part with the kids we'll see next episode has enough silly setup to let it slide a tiny bit. But the June part isn't funny, and it isn't cute. It's just inexcusable.
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Oct 8, 2014 13:52
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If this game hadn't literally given the female lead the name Goal- btw  - and constantly had everybody fight over her and loving around with her brain 'Because she should go with me!' I'd probably be surprised that things actually reached the level of selling a RareAcumen fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Oct 8, 2014 |
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Oct 8, 2014 19:54
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Yeah I was slowly going more and more  as that scene went on.
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Oct 8, 2014 20:25
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The scene with June was actually called out by a review I read before I played the game, so I spent pretty much the entire sewers cringing in anticipation of what I knew was coming. Even so, it still managed to catch me off guard a little just by dint of how utterly over-the-top cruel it is, the way they went about it. You don't just use some adventure-game wiles and cajole her into this; you break her utterly and take advantage of her when she's at her lowest point. And this, Daedalic expects you to laugh about. I just, I really don't get it. I don't get how someone could have seriously conceived of this, I don't get how it was approved by the people in charge, I don't get how the game got all the way to market without a single person on the team saying, "Hey guys, this is like massively horrifying and offensive, maybe we shouldn't put it in the game."
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Oct 8, 2014 22:55
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Dr. Buttass posted:The scene with June was actually called out by a review I read before I played the game, so I spent pretty much the entire sewers cringing in anticipation of what I knew was coming. Even so, it still managed to catch me off guard a little just by dint of how utterly over-the-top cruel it is, the way they went about it. You don't just use some adventure-game wiles and cajole her into this; you break her utterly and take advantage of her when she's at her lowest point. And this, Daedalic expects you to laugh about. Award winning game. Best German adventure game and best story of 2013. And it's easy to fix. Crank them up and get the space heater since it's warm above ground. And they could do something funny with the Rufus in the city since he doesn't know what he did to deserve their praise. Then have Sewer Rufus dance for the 5 zlotti. Heaven knows he deserves that.
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Oct 8, 2014 23:10
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Yeah, having a token black character as an exotic dancer is already pretty cringeworthy. But no, they had get even lower than that and make her a act like a monkey.  I've had my problems with Rufus actions so far, but this really takes the cake. I don't get it at all how something so racist could end up in the final game and how many people had to go: "Black woman, forced to act like a monkey, yeah that's funny, and not offensive at all!" 
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Oct 8, 2014 23:50
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What gets me is that the game calls it out itself, through June. So not only did they clearly know it was awful, they wanted to make drat sure that everyone playing knew it too. It hadn't even clicked with me that she was black, and that made it extremely racist on top of being a horrible thing to do to a good person (and that it was on purpose), until they had her say "You sold me?"
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Oct 9, 2014 01:01
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It's probably worth noting - again - that this is a German game. It's not American. While Americans tend to think so, the entire world doesn't necessarily think the same way as Americans. In the northern parts of Europe, humor often tends to be very direct and rough, and mentality tends towards challenging uncomfortable subjects instead of beating around the bush about them. Slavery was never really a thing in these parts. Some countries had colonies with slavery, but it was not really a thing in Europe after long before the US was even a thought. It is something we mostly see from American media. There are of course exceptions, especially among the more sea-faring countries, but Germany isn't one of them. Actually, Germany abolished slavery 300 years before Columbus reached the US. Slavery is much less of a tabu in Europe than in the states because a) it is not really part of nor national shame and b) manu places got rid of it decades or even centuries before the US. Sure, the game is aware the joke is tasteless. That's part of the joke. Germans would (well, older Germans, young ones not so much) get triggered in a similar way with nazi jokes, but you better believe the surrounding countries make jokes about nazism. It is a different mind-set from the American one, where we tend to make fun of and laugh at bad things instead of hiding from them. There is no laughing with or glorifying racism in the game, it is rather making fun of people who actually compare dark-skinned people to monkeys. I know it's important to  to be on the politically correct side of things on SA, but when I got to this part, I didn't particularly notice it as anything special. The monkey joke is old-hat and something you grow out of around the age of 15. Sure, you don't have to approve of the joke, but isn't it is a little culturally ignorant to judge a joke made by a German company in a German game for the German market according to American standards? Sure, it could have been altered in localization, but I think all agree this is not exactly a high-budget title.American media tends to be very same-same and politically correct. Often I find it liberating to see non-American media which doesn't adhere to that. This is not so much about the half-racist half-joke, as it is about the entire series: yes, Rufus is an rear end in a top hat, and the game knows. Sure, the game is rough around the edges (a lot! – the joke wears thin but sort-of comes around again), but sometimes it is nice to see the trope of immortal children in movies transcended just to circumvent expectations; that doesn't necessarily mean you're into killing children. Heck, if the characters had all been anthropomorphized animals, who would have then complained? This is the exact same kind of cartoon violence you see in a Tom & Jerry or Donald Duck cartoon.
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Oct 11, 2014 22:08
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While I agree that slavery was never really a topic here in Germany, that joke still felt quite mean spirited. Why does she have to be naked? That is unnecessarily degrading. They are actually going for slavery here, but as a story element in a point and click adventure this is not to far fetched. You always manipulate people to force them into unwanted labor, so I don't mind the puzzle itself. If it was a random middle aged guy rather than a nice woman, I don't think there would be such a huge problem with that. And having her be caucasian wouldn't have changed anything for me either. I guess the mental step from black person to slave isn't quite as close around here.
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Oct 11, 2014 22:58
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See, I thought of that. There's a lot of stuff in this series I let slide with "maybe it's a German thing." This, I think, doesn't get that leeway for several reasons. For starters, let's say for a moment that it is "just a German thing;" if the plans to release it on the international market were made at any point before the game was actually finished and released in Germany, there was a responsibility to check and make sure that none of their jokes were going to be horrifyingly offensive to their foreign audience. Plenty of East Asian filmmakers censor swastikas out of their films in the international release, or preface the international version with a letter explaining the significance of the swastika, or just plain don't release their film internationally. The swastika is an important symbol to Buddhism that has nothing to do whatsoever with the tenets of national socialism, but the imagery is crazy powerful in the West and it's going to be a distraction. You can say it's "just a <insert country of origin> thing" but that doesn't matter, the foreign audience grew up in their own culture with their own cultural associations and hangups that don't just magically go away just because they're watching a Chinese movie. Your options are, adjust for the difference or accept that they're going to get mad at you. You can't tell them they're the real racists just because something which is perfectly acceptable in your own country is horribly offensive in theirs. Point the second: Just because Germany and a big chunk of Europe did away with chattel slavery way before America did, doesn't mean they can't be racist, and just because the game was made in Germany, doesn't mean the joke isn't racist. "Not racist in Germany" is a really contentious claim anyway; I think I would shy away from this unless I was some kind of avatar speaking for all the black people in the country. I looked it up and people of African origin make up less than 1% of the German population according to 2012 census data, and that includes white Africans. I'm not going to say all of the black people in Germany played this game, but I'm not going to say none of them did either, and I'm willing to bet that every one who did noticed the same thing I did: The only plot-important black person in this game exists to be degraded and enslaved. Maybe not all of them were upset or offended but I will guarantee, with about 99.99% certainty, that they noticed, one way or the other, and they understood exactly what Jan Mueller-Michaelis and the entire dev team think of them. Here's a big one: this is not "challenging" an uncomfortable subject. When you challenge an uncomfortable subject, especially with humor, you create some kind of clear indication why it's wrong, usually the person perpetrating it is the butt of the joke. That's not happening here. The game doesn't in any way condemn the racism of the situation; it places Rufus a clear step closer to his goal, and he only feels bad about it when he's in conversation with June and she's being mad at him right now. Rufus isn't the butt of any joke here, except maybe that he is, as you say, childish for jumping immediately to this solution instead of finding a more mature and sophisticated way to denigrate and abuse black people. No, racism was, if anything, an effective solution with no real repercussions, something to keep in mind if he ever finds himself in a similar situation. If this puzzle/joke/scene/whatever you call it were truly challenging racism, it would go more like this: Rufus, having taken his finder's fee, attempts to spend it topside and discovers that the sewer economy was actually so desperately broke that they had been trading around five counterfeit zlottis the whole time. Now, sewer Rufus is subject to mob justice down in the sewers for crashing the economy; city Rufus now has to contend with local law enforcement for passing bad money; and highboat Rufus is left to bumblefuck his way through on his own as usual, until the time comes to meet up with one of the other Rufuses, which can't happen anymore because they're both busy being belted over the head. June takes the head of the mob persecuting sewer Rufus and in his desperation to escape being beaten into a smooth paste and eaten on toast he reveals why selling June into unambiguous sex slavery was necessary to save the world. June doesn't know Rufus well enough to know that he really would make up such an outlandish story in a desperate situation, so she believes him; the rest of the game sees Rufus as June's browbeaten lackey, doing all the dangerous parts of saving Goon, Goal, and all of Deponia while June gets the credit; Goal declares that he is an absolute monster and dead to her, and he's made to stay on Elysium as a janitor who toils every day so everyone else can have the life of luxury he dreamed of. Now, granted, this runs with the assumption that even in this alternate, Jan-isn't-a-racist game, Rufus still doesn't learn from his mistakes or develop as a character. If we suddenly give him the ability to become a better person, we open up the possibility of Rufus still being the hero at the end of the game; the June scene comes much earlier, June plays Jiminy Cricket and hounds Rufus for the entire series, and Rufus eventually redeems himself when he can do the right thing without June shoving him in the right direction. Dr. Buttass fucked around with this message at 01:49 on Oct 12, 2014 |
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Oct 12, 2014 01:44
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Just caught the last episode. Wow. Yep. Thanks for that game.
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Oct 12, 2014 22:06
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This is entirely why, despite liking the first two games, I bought Shadow Warrior instead when I had the chance.
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Oct 12, 2014 22:13
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Guys, guys, guys it's really not that bad of a joke. Look, instead of thinking of it as making a slave joke using a black woman, think of it as human trafficking! See? Already it's way more palatable! 
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Oct 12, 2014 22:56
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Hello I seem to have a 90% off Deponia coupon on steam if someone would like it? I can give it to you I think, I dunno how the trade system works. It's only good through tomorrow though.
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Oct 13, 2014 01:14
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It's just so... so Rufus to undercut his own attempts at kindness by doing something so terrible.
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Oct 13, 2014 04:39
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Now that we've all thoroughly digested Rufus's terribleness, it's time to throw up a new episode for you to chew on.  And only one more of our duck-billed friends to collect. I wonder what Rufus actually does with the eggs. 
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Oct 15, 2014 04:36
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| # ? May 11, 2024 16:21 |
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The good news is I've recorded the rest of the game (there are 4 more half hour episodes). The bad news is the Devils lost to the Rangers while I was subtitling. I blame the LP curse. Gotta catch em all. Which I did. 
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Oct 22, 2014 03:42
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