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4 * ARTIST PROFILE 8 * 5 GAMES YOUR GRANDMA SHOULDN’T PLAY 10 * WOOLLY WORLD CAPS OFF REVOLUTIONARY YEAR 12 * RED VS BLUE SEASON 13 18 * RAY NARVAEZ, JR 27 * DIAGRAM 28 * EPISODIC CONTENT: ITS OWN WORST ENEMY 32 * HOW FOUL IS MICHAEL’S MOUTH? 38 * (PRE)REVIEWS 42 * ASK THE COMMUNITY 50 * CHANNEL RANKINGS 54 * ISSUE STATS
CREDITS Pg 1 (cover): Illustration and design by James Perrett (JP) P g 2: I l lust rat ion by JP Pg 4-7: Interview by Gabrielle L amb, art from Paddock Pg 8-9: Words by Killerkel (Kelly.E.), illustration by JP Pg 10-11: Words by Matthew VanDeZande, design by JP Pg 12-13: Words by Killerkel ( Ke l l y. E . ) , d e s i g n by J P Pg 14: Illustration by JP Pg 15: Illustration by Lewis Manuel P g 1 6 - 1 7 : D e s i g n by J P P g 1 8 - 2 4 : Int e r v i e w b y Joseph Dalton, design & illustration by JP Pg 25: Design by Lewis Manuel Pg 26: Design by JP
Pg 27: Illustration by JP P g 2 8 - 3 0 : Wo r d s b y Liam Dunlop, edited by Ken Dickerman, d e s i g n by D e c o Wi l s o n Pg 31: Design by JP & Good Guy Gamers Pg 32-36: Foreword by Joseph Dalton, words & research by The Gerund, design by JP Pg 37: Illustration by Kelsey (@ltleopard) Pg 38-39: Words by Dane Hume of Something About a Beard, illustrations by JP P g 4 0 - 4 1 : D e s i g n by J P Pg 42-48: Words and poll by Joseph Dalton, design by JP Pg 50-53: Research b y Ay a , d e s i g n b y J P
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Gabrielle Lamb interviewed artist and RT community member, Paddock! Here’s what went down:
Tell us about yourself. Favorite books, movies, songs? I’m fond of a lot of mainstream series like Harry Potter and Eragon, but I hold books like Pendragon closer to my heart because it’s something I found and enjoyed fully without suggestion. Moulin Rouge and Much Ado about Nothing (by director Kenneth Branagh) are always the first films to come to mind (on the level of how thoroughly I enjoy it each time I watch it) and Songs come as they are and tend to flare up randomly. It’s difficult to just pick a few. Tastes are always changing! What got you into RT itself ? Wa s i t a s i n g l e v i d e o o r a s e r i e s ? As it goes for most of the community in my age group, it would have to be Red VS Blue. Halo has come out and everyone in middle school is super pumped for it. My best friend has literally ruined multiplayer for me and I still find the armor and story just so fresh and new that I gotta find SOME sort of content made up around it and low and behold, Roosterteeth delivers. From the c urrent line up of shows, what is your favorite right now and why? It’s very much a toss up between On The Spot and the “Book Club” version of The Patch. I really like watching the cast and crew enjoy themselves in a game show type setting, but I also relish the moments when Ryan just cannot stand the games the community and members of the talk show suggest. Absolute gold. It has all the fun of a letsplay but in a condensed setting. Why did you start drawing RT/AH? I had moved from my hometown and from the past community I had been in, and a very good friend of mine suggested watching AH’s Minecraft series. We talked about it a lot until I caved and just started doin it! It’s been a wild coaster from there.
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Did you ever expect to get this popular in the art community? I feel like it’s not exactly a popularity mindset? But more of a trickle down pyramid of people’s art you see first and foremost and then spiraling down to find more people of like minded infatuations. I still don’t connect with nearly as many people as other artists do, but I am so thankful for the friends I have made thru it. Even community members who are not content creators inspire me so much and it’s just a fondue of different ideas and skills that I cannot be happy enough for.
A ny a d v i c e for a r t i s t s w h o a re w or r i e d their art isn’t good enough to post online? It’s absolute rubbish! If I could show yall’ the monstrosities I posted without abandon on DA like, 13 years ago, I’m sure the images would curl your toe nails. Accept criticism that you’ve asked for! Don’t be afraid to try to make friends within your age group that also like art! Supporting other artists is so rewarding, everyone has something to bring to the table when it comes to creating. Never try to put yourself down before you’ve had the chance to stand.
W h o’s y o u r f a v o r i t e t o d r a w ? Currently it’s gotta be Ryan, just as he is the most requested? But I absolutely love Drawing Ray. He’s got a good face.
Any closing thoughts on the RT community? It’s presence and effect varies from site to site, but all in all the community itself is warm to it’s core and one of the fastest sobering communities when it comes to heart breaking tragedies, and the loudest party when it celebrates it’s members. The positivity and love alone has pulled me up from bad times and welcomed me back after a long sit down without batting an eyelash. A wonderful community would just be simplifying a list of rather embarrassing compliments, but it’ll do hahaha.
Who are some other RT artists that you admire? Madiniwa, Zerotation, Kingsdarga, padalickingood, unclearrabbitii, pinstripe-art (aka mrpinstripesuit), and idk if they consider themselves to be RT artist category, but absolutely shanenpae. Huge insp for figure drawing! There are so many more but these few pop into my head almost immediately. c:
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Head to Paddock’s Tumblr for more amazing art!
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An interesting 2-D puzzle game, your grandmother will probably delight in how simple this game is on the surface. Play your cards right and she’ll be having a rage induced epileptic fit just in time for her “afternoon nap” and your conveniently planned D&D session. She wasn’t using the basement, anyways!
There are several reasons for this one. For one, the game has micro-transactions, and as any telemarketer, insurance scammer, or politician knows, old people are perfect targets for aggressive manipulation! You certainly don’t want her using your credit card. Also, as the game includes a plethora of violence, if you don’t shell out the 60 bucks for her fatality coins, she could end up becoming a combo master, unleashing her pent up sexual aggression upon you. You know, if you’re into the kind of thing.
Look. Do you really want to teach your grandma how to be a professional criminal? How to kill without leaving a trace? How to operate military weaponry and transportation? You’ll never be able to take away her driver’s license! Do yourself a favor and don’t let your gran play this one. She’ll just end up becoming a pimp, and you and I both know you can’t afford to up her penicillin prescription.
Virtual reality seems to be the next big thing in gaming, so why not let gram-gram in on the bottom floor? For one, the longer you hook her up to a VR headset, the less time she’ll nag you about spending time with her and/or taking her to visit her “friend” who’s in coma. Once you strap her in, she’ll be like Neo before he realized he was in the Matrix. You may be free to collect her social security, but she’ll forget how to eat, drink, and use the bathroom, all of which will fall on you to do for her. Plus, the headset might eventually burn through her retinas, especially if you’re letting her play on your old Virtual Boy.
The last thing you need is good ol’ getting a hold of this one. First off, considering her constant state of delusion, one of two things will happen. Either she’ll think she’s Kratos and try to rip your limbs off, beating you with them in a desperate attempt to get more orbs, or she’ll think she’s some sort of overly sexualized female character. This brings me to my second point. If she thinks she’s any female from the series, she will try to have sex with you. And, if she’s a sex goddess, that makes you Kratos, which means you can’t stop until you’ve broken her vase, if you know what I mean.
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This has been a year of evolution for Nintendo. First, they overcame Mario-fatigue by looking outwards rather than inwards, partnering with Koei Tecmo to create the fan-favorite Hyrule Warriors. Next, after observing the success of toys such as Skylanders and Disney Infinity (and surely being aware that they were taking up more retail shelf-space than all of Nintendo’s consoles and games), Nintendo created the much-sought-after Amiibos. This creation was also Nintendo’s first step into accepting as their identity the negative percept¬ion that their games were just toys. The second step in Nintendo’s evolution, however, was creating games that were blatantly toys – starting with the claymation-inspired Kirby and the Raindow Curse and continuing with the revolutionary and wildly successful Splatoon, in which gamers play as squid/child-hybrids battling it out with buckets, brushes, rollers, and toy paint guns.
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retailers within hours (and sometimes minutes) of being released, they, like Skylanders and Disney Infinity figures, have one crucial flaw – a distinct lack of functionality outside of video games. Thus far, all three lines of figurines have been static, hard-plastic figures with no physical-life play value. The Yoshi’s Woolly World line of Amiibo figures seeks to change that. Instead of standard plastic figures, Nintendo is releasing miniature Yoshi plushies that offer reallife play value. In addition to the green, blue, and pink standard-sized plushy Amiibos, Nintendo has recently announced a “Mega Yarn Yoshi” that is over twice the size (for over twice the snuggle-power!) of its counterparts. In-game, these plush-toys will spawn yarn-Yoshi’s of the same color that mimic the movements of the player-controlled Yoshi. Amiibo figures from other games will be compatible with Woolly World as well, allowing the player to make their in-game Yoshi look like other Nintendo charThese changes are now coming together in Yoshi’s acters such as Mario, Donkey Kong, and Samus Woolly World, which takes the best of those ideas Aran. and improves their every aspect. While it is a classic 2D Nintendo platformer, it expands on the func- The game itself is the cutest, cuddliest, most unbeartionality of the Skylanders-and-Infinity-inspired ably adorable thing ever to happen in the gaming Amiibos and embraces the “toy-like” stigma in the industry. The entire world is made out of soft, cushy most adorable way yet. wool (as you may have guessed from the game’s title), and every element of the gameplay reflects While Nintendo’s Amiibo figurines have taken off that. In place of Yoshi’s trademark throwing-eggs at an unprecedented rate, frequently selling out at are balls of yarn, which can be used to bop baddies
and solve puzzles (in a two-person game, one of the players can even transform into a ball of yarn that can be thrown around to reach those soft-and-fluffy hard-to-reach places), and instead of kicking like crazy to stay in the air longer, Yoshi’s little woolen legs turn into little woolen helicopter rotors to give him that extra boost. As far as plot goes, it is pretty standard for a Mariofranchise platformer – something or someone has either gone missing or been kidnapped, and the player must traverse a world of uncanny obstacles to recover or rescue that item or character. But this is Woolly World, so the cuteness factor of the story has been ratcheted up – green-yarn-Yoshi’s yarn-Yoshi friends have been magically turned into multi-colored yarn balls by yarn-Kamek, and it is up to green-yarn-Yoshi (with the help of red-yarn-Yoshi) to recover their yarn-Yoshi friends and . . . sew them back together, maybe? The E3-2015 trailer for the game was not specific to that end, but one thing is for sure – the story will be adorable. With other big-name titles such as Star Fox Zero and The Legend of Zelda pushed back until 2016, Yoshi’s Woolly World has become Nintendo’s closer for this year. If the company handles the rollout of the plushy Amiibo figurines, with the standard-sized toys allegedly coming before the game’s release date and the Mega-Yarn-Yoshi being delayed until November, Yoshi’s Woolly World will have staying power to last through the holidays and propel Nintendo into a strong start in 2016. As long as Nintendo can continue to learn from the past year and provide enough of the toys on the respective release dates, they will succeed, and this will be an adorably exciting couple months for faithful fans. Words by Matthew VanDeZande (aka Retrograder) @Retrograder_GX Pictures by Nintendo
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Red vs. Blue (RvB) is the staple series of Rooster Teeth, established over 10 years ago. Over this period, RvB has grown spectacularly. From the machinima, to the animation quality, the voice acting, and the writing, the Rooster Teeth original continues to innovate and impress. Season 13 maintains this tradition.
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If there is one thing missing from season 13, it’s a huge, badass, cinematic fight scene. Instead, action sequences utilize this season’s strengths, often melding together combat with dialogue and plot to form more meaningful conflict. This creates action driven by story, as opposed to story driven by action. Now, this doesn’t mean there aren’t some really good battle sequences. For example, the conflict ending with the crashing spaceship is particularly striking, especially after the mirrored platform fight. But they don’t quite hit the note that previous seasons attained - such as season nine, episode 17.
The last season in a three part arc, season 13 puts a lot of weight on its shoulders as fans clamor toward a climactic and satisfying resolution. That being said, RvB season 13 has almost everything a lover of the series wants. It’s packed full of humor, from the witty to the obscene. The animations have continued to improve, looking more and more natu- In other words, season 13 will best be rememral with every season. And, of course, the voice acting bered for its story and characters, as opposed to provides a wide range of characters, each as unique its action. When people talk about their favorite and memorable as the last. moments, most will recall the final scene in which we see Felix, or possibly Epsilon’s ending dialogue. This Season 13 has a ton of references, including isn’t to say the fights aren’t memorable, but when juxpopular and nerd culture. It’s highly self-referential, taposed with the season’s story elements, the winner rewarding long time fans for their loyalty as the writ- is clear. ing reiterates old jokes and events with a new coat of paint. Speaking of which, the writing is remarkable. RvB season 13 is an impressive and well fitting Each line of dialogue feels as if it truly derives from addition to the series. It tickles the audience in all the its source character - nothing feels out of place. This right places and is a more than satisfying ending to an is the greatest strength of season 13, something that incredibly well written story arc. For fans of the show, Miles Luna, current director and writer for the series, this is a must see. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, possibly all certainly composed to near perfection. The story is at the same time. To the entire RvB team: you did a well paced, the characters develop in realistic and fantastic job. Can’t wait until season 14! interesting ways, and each episode leaves the viewer wanting more.
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JD: Everyone with a passion has one defining thing that sparks their passion. Every painter has a painting, musician has a song, etc, that inspired them to their craft. It’s obvious that gaming is a big passion for you. What is the one game that sparked your passion that has stuck with you your whole life? RNJ: Probably the first game I ever played or ever even saw--when I was a kid, my grandfather had an old-school NES, and had Super Mario Brothers, and I have distinct memories of watching him play, and playing myself at the age of two, and from what I’ve been told, it took me two weeks to learn how to jump. And if you remember the NES controller, it was only two buttons, so two-year-old-Ray wasn’t exactly good at games, but experiencing that for the first time and having a lot of fun with it sparked my video game passion. What I guess my family thought was my life going downhill--eventually I proved them wrong, it was going uphill--was all my grandpa’s fault. So thank you, Grandpa Frankie, for putting me in the position I am in now, because without you, I would absolutely not be here right now. JD: How did you discover Rooster Teeth? RNJ: I discovered Rooster Teeth from a high school friend named Tom. He introduced me to episode 2 of Red vs Blue Season 1, and I thought it was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen, and we were big Halo fans, and that was around the time of Homestar Runner, so we’d watch both of them. And Roosterteeth. com had the community section, so I immediately made a profile and got glued to Rooster Teeth because of the community aspect, the episodes, and all that stuff, and that was when I was….fifteen? So probably about ten years ago. So that was the first time I was introduced to them. And obviously, Achievement Hunter came along, with the Lets Plays and so and so. Once again, without my buddy, Tom, I would not have discovered Rooster Teeth, and would not be where I am today as well.
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JD: Like many of our readers and contributors, you got your start with Rooster Teeth by creating content. For our readers who aren’t familiar with your story, would you mind telling us a little bit more about how you got your start? RNJ: So, when Achievement Hunter got started, it was just Jack and Geoff, and they were trying to do a lot of things with just the two of them, which, you know, you can only do so much with two people. So eventually, they opened it up to the community to make guides. And achievement guides were the prevalent thing back then--this is before they were doing Let’s Plays and This Is.. and all that--it was strictly achievement guides. Maybe an easter egg video every now and then, but mainly achievement guides. I remember seeing two videos in particular. My buddy Mike Kroon, his was the first video I ever saw. It was an achievement guide for The Darkness, for something you got in the very beginning. I thought it was very cool. And then, Fragger did some achievement guides for Jumper, an awful, awful game, and I thought, “This was pretty cool. These guys, I don’t know if they went to school for this or anything but it looked like fun. So I bought a Dazzle capture card, because back then, standard definition was fine, and everything I’ve learned was from YouTube. I’m not formally trained in any way whatsoever. So I would just record these guides in 360p on my Dazzle. I think everyone had a Dazzle when they started, and a lot of people still use them for retro games. They work great for what you need em’ for. But yeah, so I was doing that for a while, I’d say two-and-a-half to three years for fun, not getting paid. Then Geoff offered me a one-year contract. He said “Hey, we like what you do. If you would like to take this more seriously, we’d be willing to give you a one-year contract, give you some pay, and you’d have to put out a certain amount of videos per week (two or three, depending on the week). So they would send me games, and I would do my best to make videos for them, and I did that for a year. Then the contract they gave me ran out. At that
same time, I was working small jobs (Game Stop, UPS seasonally), but for a large chunk of that contract, I was unemployed, collecting unemployment from New York and living off the contract money, and after that was up, I was like “Hey Geoff, I need either a job, or I need to go find a ‘real job,’ because I can’t just live off of unemployment.” Fortunately, my family was really supportive, and would help me if I got into a tight squeeze. He told me to hold on, got me an interview that day, and later on the same day, I found out that I got the job, and had 3 weeks to get to Austin, TX. That three weeks was pretty hectic, but thankfully I was able to get there, find a place to live. Thank you to Michael for allowing me to stay [with him] for three weeks for my apartment to open up. And then I started my career at Rooster Teeth--formally. JD: What was it like, working for Achievement Hunter? RNJ: It was great. When I first started there, it was all about achievement guides. I was brought in to help with them, because that was kind of my forte. Obviously, as time moved on, we moved towards the Let’s Play thing, because it was so popular, and then we’d have all these series and shows and stuff like that. But it was a blast. I was there for roughly three years (when I quit, I was about two weeks away from my three-year anniversary). So for three years, we had a lot of fun, played a lot of games, did a lot of stupid shit, and it was a lot of fun to just play game with four or five of your closest friends--just coming in, hanging out, shootin’ the shit, and making dumb videos that people would like, and going to conventions like RTX was a blast, and it was a good three years. I learned a lot. Good things and bad things...without Rooster Teeth...there were a lot of things that I learned there about streaming, and just in life in general.
started out in the community, and now he writes Five Facts, which is a weekly show, it’s been going for... gosh...it feels like forever at this point. And then you have Jeremy, who is one of the more recent hires, who did stuff for Community Hunter videos, and now he works there as well. So it’s very hard, but if you make yourself stand out in a way, you know, do it because you enjoy doing it, don’t do it in hopes of working at Achievement Hunter--because if you only do it because of that, I think your work will suffer-you want to do it because you enjoy doing it. I did it because I enjoy doing it. Obviously, in the back of my head, I was like “Hopefully, one day, this will work out,” but I enjoyed doing achievement guides. And to this day, I still like getting achievements and stuff like that. I’ve been doing it for years. But yeah, I think the coming up through the community is the best way, because Rooster Teeth is really good about hiring through the community--I mean Barbara, Me, Michael, Jeremy, Matt, and people like that, we all just came up through the community. So use the website, make some friends, make some content, and who knows what will happen in a couple years. Or you could be like Ryan and come up through Craigslist. Or like Kerry, who I think just asked them at PAX or something.
J D : Wh at a d v i c e d o you h ave for re a d ers who dream of working at Rooster Teeth? RNJ: I would absolutely recommend to come up through the community if you can. It’s very hard, because when I came up, there was only a handful of us. Like I said, it was me, Mike, Fragger--you could probably count the number of people making videos on both hands. But now there’s so many people trying to do what we did, and I mean, you have people who have success stories. You have Franco, who
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JD: Now, as most of our readers are well aware, you’ve largely moved on from Rooster Teeth. With that being said, you’re still involved in X-Ray and Vav. We’re in the thick of Season 2 right now. Are you enjoying voice acting? RNJ: I am enjoying voice acting. Doing it myself has given me a great respect for people who do it professionally, or even people like Lindsay, Barbara, and Michael who do multiple voices for multiple shows and they actually have to alter their voice, where for me, X-Ray is just me. I can just more-or-less be myself, and Lindsay and Jordan have done a great job writing X-Ray to more-or-less be me. But it’s so very hard to do things in the booth where we record by ourselves. So, if we’re having a conversation--if I’m talking to Gavin for example--He’s not in the booth with me. I just have to pretend he’s there, and conversing by yourself is kind of hard. Thankfully, Lindsay’s in the booth to help me out, and doing stuff like inflection is very hard when you’re reading off the script. I don’t do very well with scripts. I prefer off-the-cuff improv in that sense. But it’s been a lot of fun. I feel like I’ve struggled a little bit, but I feel like maybe I’ve gotten a little bit better, and as long as X-Ray and Vav keeps going on, I’ll definitely keep doing it! JD: What’s your favorite moment from the show so far? RNJ: Probably me pretending to be a baby, coming out of the stroller, and saying “Goo goo gaa gaa, bitch!” JD: Ok. You get a million dollars, but the Re a lit y Au g menting Journa l f rom X-R ay and Vav Season 2 is real, and a shitty fanfic writer will narrate your life. Would you do it? RNJ: God no, not for a million dollars! That’s my whole life! Maybe for like, a year? I’m only like 25, so no, I’m gonna have to pass on that. A million dollars is a lot, but I don’t wanna be kissing dudes, or being...I don’t know...half an animal or something for the rest of my life. JD: Now, I know that RT hasn’t announced a Season 3 yet, but will the city need more saving?
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RNJ: I certainly hope so. We’re only halfway through Season 2, and some interesting developments are
happening. X-Ray’s not pleased with Vav, he brought back his friend Dwayne, so things will certainly get interesting for the rest of Season 2. I’ve only recorded a couple of episodes past the break, so I have no idea what’s gonna happen in the last few episodes! JD: Of course, your main focus has shifted from hunting achievements to livestreaming on Twitch. Could you tell us about what sort of content we can expect from your stream? RNJ: I’m a variety streamer, so with my streams, that means, pretty much, I’ll play whatever I want. A new game, an old game, a game for achievements, a game to play with chats, I have the freedom to play whatever I want, and I feel comfortable with that. Some channels will stick with one game--I use Destiny a lot, because I know some streamers stick to Destiny, and they grew their channels with Destiny. There’s pros and cons to both. The pro to being a variety streamer is you can play whatever you want. The con is sometimes you’ll be ten minutes out from a stream, and you’ll have no idea what you’re going to play. No schedule, you kind of wing it. Whereas the other way, if you are a specific game streamer, for example, with Destiny, you know what game you’re going to play every stream and what you’re going to do. That said, the con is obviously, you’ve geared your audience to that game, whereas I’ve seen some friends who have built a lot of their viewers on Destiny and decide “well I’m going to play something else today” and then their viewers will drop. They will be like “my favorite player is not playing Destiny. I’ll just move over to another streamer who is playing Destiny.” So, there’s good and bad for both sides. So yeah, I’ll play pretty much whatever I want. I try to go for at least
four hours a day, I stream every day except Mondays tweet when I’m going to go live so I can give you guys and Thursdays. A lot of shenanigans, a lot of good a little bit of a heads up, if you want to catch it live. times, and a lot of video games being played for sure. If you can’t catch it live, because of time zones, work schedules, or whatever, I put all of my streams online at Youtube.com/B1GnBr0wN. Thank you 16-year-old Ray, who thought it would be a good idea at the time, and I have stuck with it ever since. It was my first Gamertag, and I guess I’m sticking with it!
JD: There’s been a lot of buzz lately over YouTube Gaming. Some streamers are leaving Twitch completely to go to YouTube Gaming. Are you considering making the switch, or do you plan on staying with Twitch? RNJ: I plan on staying with Twitch for a while. My audience is all on Twitch right now, I started streaming on Twitch in December 2013, and I’ve been streaming full time for five months now, so my audience is built around Twitch. I have a YouTube channel, and I put all of my streams on there to archive them. Twitch definitely has issues, all sites do. There are other alternatives out there like Hitbox, and obviously YouTube gaming, but YouTube Gaming is fairly new, so there’s obviously some issues that will most likely be ironed out over time. I just like Twitch a lot. I like the chat, I like the emotes, I like the website, and I’ve been using that site for years now, and I’m just kind of adjusted to it. YouTube Gaming looks great. I will say that I don’t like the chat too much...that’s the only thing I’ve really noticed from watching it every now and then. But Twitch is my home for streaming, and I plan to stay there for as long as possible. Now, of course, if Twitch ever goes under, I’ll look at other alternatives like Hitbox and YouTube Gaming. JD: When and readers watch
where can our your streams?
RNJ: You can go to Twitch.tv/BrownMan. Like I said, I stream every day except Mondays and Thursdays. I don’t have a set time. I kind of stream whenever I wake up, or whenever I’m feelin’ it. If you follow me on Twitch, you will get alerts. If not, you can follow me on Twitter, Twitter.com/RayNarvaezJr. I always
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JD: Ok. Rapid fire time: Favorite game to stream
JD: This is the last one of these. It’s the most important question in the interview, and I will judge you on this: Favorite starter Pokemon
RNJ: Right now, I’m gonna go Mad Max, but overall, I’d probably have to go YuGiOh! Legacy of the Duelist RNJ: People always ask me this, so if I have to go with the original three, I’ll go Squirtle. Overall, I really JD: Favorite game to play like Chimchar from Diamond and Pearl, because I thought Infernape was such a cool Pokemon. RNJ: I like playing Tetris every now and then. People are always shocked at how good I am at Tetris--I’m JD: Is there anything else you’d like to say to our readers? not great by any means--but I play Tetris a lot so people are always like “Oh my god, you’re so good!” RNJ: Thanks, Joe for having me. If you’re reading So I’ve always been kind of like “Yeah! I’m ok at this this, and if you’ve checked me out at any point in my game!” career, be it Rooster Teeth or Twitch, or if you’ve ever said hi to me, taken a picture with me, thank you very JD: Favorite game to watch much. I always appreciate any of the fan interaction I get! Never be afraid to come up and say hello to RNJ: I watch a lot of speed runs, so I have a lot of me. I know sometimes people feel weird, feel scared, friends who do speed runs, so whatever they’re they’re nervous, they’re shaking. Don’t worry about streaming. Yoshi’s Island, Super Mario World 2, it! I’m a normal person, just like you, who just loves Mega Man X, Goldeneye, a lot of the old games when video games, so never be afraid to come up and say they are being speed run are interesting to me. But if hello! you’re speedrunning a game that I have some knowledge about, I’m absolutely interested in watching it. ----------------------------------------------------------------JD: Favorite movie RNJ: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. JD: Favorite TV Show RNJ: The Walking Dead, anything with Gordon Ramsay, or Chopped. My girlfriend and I love cooking shows. JD: Favorite online show RNJ: Let’s Plays from some of my favorite guys; Achievement Hunter, Funhaus, Game Grumps, Markiplier JD: Favorite gaming console of all time
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RNJ: I’m going to have to say the Xbox 360, because 1) it introduced achievements, which changed my life forever, and 2) without that system, I wouldn’t have done Achievement Hunter, and wouldn’t be where I am now. Next to that, it would be a tie between the Nintendo 64 and the Super Nintendo.
Thanks, Ray! Remember, catch his streams at Twitch.tv/BrownMan, and follow him on twitter at @RayNarvaezJr. Also, catch X-Ray and Vav Saturday mornings at RoosterTeeth.com! Interview by Joe Dalton
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So you’re sitting there, patiently waiting for the download of the third episode of Tales From the Borderlands to complete. You’ve waited long enough, played the previous instalments several times over, scrutinising your choices with each turn, asking yourself, could I have done better here? What if I hadn’t sent the loader away to save itself? What if I’d ran Vasquez over with the car rather than causing his gun to explode?
If you’re like me, you’ll burn through the lot in an hour, and then replay the last section to see if you could have helped Athena by throwing her the shield rather than standing there like a gormless idiot shouting “MOVE” with no hint of irony as a rather mean-spirited pensioner fires a rocket launcher at her.
The satisfaction fades, and the withdrawal kicks in. What the hell are you going to do now? Therein lies the problem. Withdrawal from a good game can be more effective than an Activision-backed marketing budget. You’re left satisfied, yet wanting more. For a game released in a standard format, the ability to use the player’s hunger for a sequel or expansion is integral to creating a lasting franchise, and is essential when planning to market a follow-up title.
to essentially bookmark the series for future play, and save a bit of cash in the long run. While season passes do partially counteract the player being pulled away from the series by another title, allowing the player to refrain from playing the series until all the episodes have been released, there is still the inherent problem of the player having the plot spoiled on them.
Then, after realising that Athena’s shield catching skills plummet way below Fiona’s uncanny ability The download finishes, and you find yourself with to state the obvious, BECAUSE PLOT, you’re left a whole new collection of life or death, do or die, feeling satisfied. A job well done, another engaging speak or shut up decisions to make. experience delivered by Telltale and Co.
The problem for a game released in an episodic format, is that this satisfaction rarely lasts longer than the length of the latest episode that the player has completed. In other words, for some players at least, the amount of time you spent enjoying the game can be directly proportionate to the amount of time you are excited for the next instalment. There are many factors to consider here, for example, a players run through of an episodic series can be interrupted by the release of a triple A title, or even a flash sale on Steam or the console marketplaces.
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What is probably the most concerning obstacle for the developer though, is the fact that the player may have bought an episodic series before, and not completed it for one reason or another. Many will not buy one episode if they don’t think they’ll have time to run through them all. They’d rather miss out on the whole thing rather than risk wasting money on a game that they might never complete.
These problems I’ve listed so far though are problems that the player has a major hand in. By simply being careful on social media and on the internet in general, the average player can avoid spoilers, and most will play through the entire game if they’ve Now granted, this sort of scenario is counteracted in forked out the cash for the season pass regardless of part by the use of season passes, allowing the player the other games that they have on their to-play list.
There are a few problems from the developer’s per- start wondering what had happened to the project. spective, mainly with the writing, and the actual Had it been shelved? Had they ran out of money? structure and gameplay of the series itself. Was this going to be a case of another masterpiece being left behind, without even an attempt at a I draw your attention to the Broken Age, a follow up? Had Mr Schafer finally come across an Kickstarter project overseen by Tim Schafer and obstacle that had prevented him from fulfilling his Double Fine, who brought us some innovative yet promises? under-appreciated titles like Grim Fandango and Psychonauts. Act Two came out almost a year and a half later, and reviews rather disappointing, with some denotThe problem with Broken Age was how well exe- ing it as Act One in reverse, with no new elements cuted the first episode was. It received critical to retain its momentum as an incredible return to praise from all angles, with most hailing it as a the point-and-click genre for Double Fine. It wasn’t supreme return to form for Mr. Schafer, and with bad, it was just something we had already played a the Kickstarter backers fully confident in the fact year and a half ago. Many felt that a great deal more that their money was being put to good use. could have been done in the time that Double Fine had. Then six months passed. Enough time for people to
Life is Strange-a rather strange game itself-was a title that came out of nowhere. No one expected it-there was no market gap for the format the game came in-because at this stage, most believed that the episodic market was cornered by Telltale.
if handled improperly can, at best, stop players from buying the nest episode At worst it can tank your game because of a massive consumer and industry backlash.
This game about a teenage girl returning to her hometown gathered a cautious-but well deserved-respect from reviewers upon the release of its first episode, noting its innovative twist on the genre: giving the player character the ability to rewind time.
Here’s the problem. The game had the stones to tackle the incredibly sensitive issue of suicide, yet it did not offer any significant closure to the player until the next episode. For some reviewers the wait for resolution was too long, meaning that some players had to deal with a lot of mixed emotions at the end of the second episode.
Yes it had its faults: everyone knows about the “hella selfies” nonsense, and at times the plot seemed rather dull. That is, until the end sequence of the second episode, that deals with the veritable minefield subject of suicide-a heavy subject for most, that
Had the closure offered at the beginning of the next episode been lacklustre or clumsy, then the game would have tanked completely. This was reflected in the reviews for episode two, as lot of critics felt that if the series was to fall flat on the next episode, then
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it would have tarnished what was otherwise a sat- Granted, it was eventually going to happen, a story isfactory if somewhat clumsy plot, with some very driven game was always going to take on a sensitive interesting and innovative gameplay mechanics. issue that affects millions of people, it was whether or not it pulled it off that most critics were interI would argue that while Life is Strange was brave ested in. Had it gone wrong, not even the bravest of enough to tackle the subject through a medium indie developers would have gone near that sort of that most believe is ill-equipped to deal with “real” subject matter. issues, it left itself in a very precarious position.
All that being said, I believe that a game in an episodic format, executed correctly, can be phenomenal. Although Telltale seem to have a monopoly on this particular story driven genre, I really wouldn’t be surprised if more and more small time developers turn to it. We are beginning to see the early signs of this with games like Gone Home, and Dear Esther clocking positive review scores from critics across the board. Granted, these titles are not episodic, and some of their counterparts such as Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture missing the mark almost completely, but from these titles, I can only see the next logical step for an indie developer who is looking to create an entirely narrative driven game, is releasing their title in an episodic format. From an indie
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developer’s perspective though, the main obstacle that most will face is creating an experience that is rich enough to justify releasing their game as such. When that time comes, it’ll be tough for the genre, and for the people who regularly consume episodic games. They’ll have a harder time finding the experience that they want, and we all know that there will be twenty lousy titles for every little gem that makes its way on to the market. For now though, I’ll have to content myself with counting the days until Tales From the Borderlands is released.
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Foreword: At BIGBITE, we’re always actively looking for writers and content creators! One day, I was browsing the Rooster Teeth subreddit, when I found this gem of a post. So, naturally, I reached out to the author, and he was more than happy to allow us to share his work with you! Unfortunately, in order to prevent this article from being over 10 pages, we had to cut a lot of it out. If you enjoy it, you can read the piece in its entirety over at reddit.com/r/roosterteeth! - Joe Dalton
Rage Quit is the show that introduced me to Rooster Teeth and it’s still one of my favorite shows. As a result, Michael is my favorite RT personality. Everyone can make a video where they scream and curse, but what Michael does is turn his rage into comedy. Because of this, I rewatch old Rage Quits from time to time. They never get old.
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One time when I was watching an old video, I thought it would be funny to count how many times Michael swore. Just for fun. Then I watched another video and counted the curses, and before I knew it I was filling an Excel file with numbers. Eventually I switched to SPSS, because I had to use that program for school and it had a lot more options. Compiling these statistics was also a way to practice using SPSS.
I made the habit of keeping track of different curses, so instead of 1 number for every video, I would have a row of numbers. I even made a custom list of click counters so I could play the video on the right side of the screen and click the buttons on the left side. There are a couple of things I didn’t count as curses. Some of these were because I don’t see them as a curse, but some were just because I first heard them 50 videos in and I couldn’t remember if they had appeared earlier. I could have added them in as a new category, but that would mean re-doing all the earlier videos to see if I hadn’t missed one or two curses. Fuck that. To name a few: “(oh) (my) God”, “retard”, “pee”, “poo”. I also didn’t count a curse if Michael reads it from the screen (“Crazy Jesus is
online”), but I did count cursing that Michael wrote (e.g. in a highscore table or on-screen text edits) or that he spelled out. If Michael types “fuck” and then reads it to himself, that’s counted as 1. I want to make clear that this is supposed to be a quantitative research (if you can even call this research). I understand that most people would say that ”You motherfucking cunt” is worse than ”You shitty asshole”, but if I wanted to get that information into the analysis, I’d have to assign point values to the offensiveness of the curse or something, and it would become much more of a question of opinion: Which curse do I think is worse? Also, pretty much everyone would disagree with my evaluations. I never had the idea to do this. Comparing the videos based on total curses would be unfair to the shorter videos, so I wanted to compare the curses per second. I couldn’t divide the total curses by video length, because the videos differ in intro and outro length. Intro and outro put together
could range from 16 seconds to about 40 seconds. To eliminate this, I subtracted the time that intro and outro take up from the total time for each video. The biggest difficulty was when Michael starts cursing very rapidly, which usually happens when stuff is almost going bad for him. It’s hard to say exactly how many shits or fucks there actually are in a barrage like that, but the 0.5x function on YouTube is a lifesaver for these moments. Also, these numbers may differ from what you count when you go through a video. God forbid I miss one. You’re free to re-count all videos, but one or two more or less isn’t going to change anything for the big picture.
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Before we turn to the numbers and graphs, here are a couple of special moments or videos: • Rage: With this title in mind, Michael throws a fucking curveball. Not a single curse was uttered. My file shows a big row of zeroes. % f-bombs of total curses? N/A. • Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3: The part at 3:14 is a beautiful fast-paced mix of all kinds of curses. • FLOCK!: Because of the title of the game, Michael did his best to replace every “fuck” with “flock”. These weren’t counted, because I see it as censoring yourself similar to saying “fudge”. Still, 13 f-bombs managed to slip through Michaels self-filter. You’ll see that this video is an outlier on most graphs. • Sonic Spinball: Gavin influences Michael’s language use, because at 1:09, Michael says “bint”. After a quick Google search I learned that the meaning is basically the same as “bitch” and have counted it as such. • Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved: “You fucking piece of cuntbag”. That is all. • DOOM II: Again Gavin influences Michael’s choice of words: “Fuck off you fucking mingey spaff ” • Joust: “This is fucking FUBAR, fucking foob’, fucking foob’”. A creative use that I was unfamiliar with. Because it means “fucked up beyond all repair/recognition”, I counted it as “fucked”. • Monkey Poo Flinger: Shockingly the video with the most instances of “shit”, even though I didn’t count “poo”. • Electronic Super Joy: Gavin shows his hand again as Michael uses “nob” and “quim”.
Here are some stats: • Mean time: 293 seconds (4m53s) SD=171 • Shortest and longest time: 81s (1m21s) & 1608s (26m48s) • Cumulative time: 57427s (15h57m07s) • Mean total curses: 71 SD=33 • Cumulative total curses: 13840 • Mean total f-bombs: 47 SD=22 • Cumulative total f-bombs: 9159 • Mean curses per second: 0.255 SD=0.086 • Mean f-bombs per second: 0.172 SD=0.066
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I’ve made some graphs in an attempt to visualize the data.
Graph 1 shows curses and f-bombs per second as the series progresses. I’ve labeled some of the spikes to show the video title. Notice the huge drop at #38. Graph 2 shows the spread of the f-bombs to total curses percentage. I’ve added some indication lines to show the percentages. The two labeled outliers are easy to explain: One prominently features shit, for the other, Michael attempts to replace “fuck” with “flock”. Graph 3 shows all curses in all videos split up in categories that I made up. You can see that Michael clearly favors “fuck”, in all its forms. Graph 4 shows how the video length compares to the total curses. Again, I’ve labeled the dots.
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Now, the only analysis method that I can recall from the statistics course that I needed SPSS for, is to compare groups of cases. The question I want to answer is: Does Michael curse more or less when he has a guest in the video as opposed to when he’s by himself?
total curses = 70, mean curses per second = 0.263 The difference in mean total curses is not significant (p = 0.579). The difference in mean curses per second is significant (p <0.001).
So we can conclude that Rage Quits with a guest have There are 15 cases where he has a guest, mean a lower amount of curses per second. This makes total curses = 78, mean curses per second = 0.159 sense, because I only counted Michael’s curses and in a video with two people Michael isn’t the only one There are 181 cases where he’s by himself, mean talking. If he’s silent, he’s not cursing.
-TL;DRMichael curses a lot in Rage Quit (13K+ times). The amount of times Michael says fuck is over 9000, even though he censors himself sometimes. Two-thirds of Michael’s curses contain “fuck”. Michael curses less when he’s not alone because he talks less. And I’d like to end this article with a quote from the man himself: “How am I supposed to read these stats? Look at these analytics! It’s a bunch of fucking gobbledeegook!” Words by /u/The_Gerund
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Sicario Words by Dane Hume “Every day across that border, people are killed with his blessing. To find him would be like discovering a vaccine.” There is a person in Mexican gangland culture who when called upon can do things that even the cartel cannot muster. That person is called a Sicario. Translated in English it simply means ‘hitman’ and if you’re unfortunate enough to be on this person’s list then the chances of you keeping your life are slim.
form of Emily Blunt (Edge of Tomorrow, 2014), Oscar nominated Josh Brolin (No Country for Old Men, 2007) and Academy Award winner Benicio Del Toro (Traffic, 2000). Villeneuve is a director that first caught my attention back in 2013 with the critically-acclaimed Prisoners, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Hugh Jackman. He would work with Gyllenhaal again later that year in psychological indie-flick Enemy, which admittedly I didn’t catch until just a few months ago despite having been on my radar for some time. Alongside regular collaborator and renowned cinematographer, Roger Deakins, the pair have developed a unique way of telling a story and are even set to work together on the upcoming Blade Runner sequel (HYPE!).
Dennis Villeneuve’s intense action-thriller wowed audiences at Cannes film festival and is set to be one of the biggest hits of the year when it’s officially released this month. The plot follows an idealistic FBI agent who is enlisted by an elite government task force official to aid in the escalating war against drugs on the lawless border area stretching between the U.S. and Mexico. Pretty exciting stuff that’s made considerably more-so with the inclusion of three top-shelf performers in the Sicario will be out in the UK on October 8 and is already out in the US.
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The Walking Dead (Season 6)
Words by Dane Hume
The fifth season of The Walking Dead was considered by many as the best in the entire series, while we were treated to a finale that literally left us on a knife edge with an old face turning up at the worst possible moment, alluding to a possible confrontation in the upcoming season. With tensions rising between the group and residents of Alexandria, season six looks set to be an even more devastating affair than ever.
Not only that, but judging from some of the posters and trailers which have been released it’s looking more and more likely that season six will be the most exciting story yet, with early indications pitting Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and the group against the residents of Alexandria and the recently returned Morgan (Lennie James). With tensions at an all-time high and loyalties divided, there’s also been an interesting announcement that Tom Payne has been cast as Paul “Jesus” Monroe - one of the Having witnessed first-hand some of the atrocities major players that fans of the comics will recognise. of the world around them, Rick and Co are no longer the ‘ask now, shoot later’ troupe that we grew accus- All I can say is long live the Ricktatorship! tomed to. Instead they are a much more cohesive unit that have been transformed into consummate Episode one “First Time Again” will be aired survivors by the experiences and people they have in the US on October 11 encountered, with some almost becoming villains on AMC and UK on themselves. This, mixed with the naivety of October the Alexandria residents leads to some 12 on of the most heart-wrenching and FOX. chaotic scenes throughout the show, with some even starting to question Rick’s authority.
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