When I was enthusing about this game on Facebook, I tried to think of any game in my entire life that had held as much moment-by-moment fun as this one, and came up blank. Although I prefer games without so much swearing, and I'm having to be cautious in how much my 10-year-old nephew gets to play this (a little at a time, with direct supervision for everything but the mini-games, and discussion about objectionable content), I found it absolutely delightful from beginning to end - it seems like the ultimate love letter to fans of countless moments from the history of both games and geekdom - and now I'm playing it over again to capture footage for music videos.

The character creation is astoundingly complex, and to see my green-haired, goateed space-elf chick show up in all the cut scenes, snarking in an up-pitched voice like Daniel from Extra Credits ("Kinzie, why is my brain on fire?"), tickles me every single time. Wish they'd make a machinima program based on this game's style, because man, would I have fun with that.

Here's how I tried to explain it to my mom (SPOILER):

"So you're a gang leader who becomes President of the United States, and then aliens attack Earth, capture you and stick you in the Matrix, and you have to destroy parts of the simulation to get free while trying to locate and rescue your friends. Oh, and you hack your way into a variety of super powers, which avoids all the vehicle-driving sections I have such trouble with, because you can run like Sonic the Hedgehog and practically fly.

"And when I first saw a friend playing this, the moment I understood it to be a game worth taking note of, he was sky-diving through the center of an alien ship, dodging lasers and flaming debris as an awesome rock song struck up and the quest objective simply stated "BE A BADASS"."

When I was enthusing about this game on Facebook, I tried to think of any game in my entire life that had held as much moment-by-moment fun as this one, and came up blank. Although I prefer games without so much swearing, and I'm having to be cautious in how much my 10-year-old nephew gets to play this (a little at a time, with direct supervision for everything but the mini-games, and discussion about objectionable content), I found it absolutely delightful from beginning to end - it seems like the ultimate love letter to fans of countless moments from the history of both games and geekdom - and now I'm playing it over again to capture footage for music videos. The character creation is astoundingly complex, and to see my green-haired, goateed space-elf chick show up in all the cut scenes, snarking in an up-pitched voice like Daniel from Extra Credits ("Kinzie, why is my brain on fire?"), tickles me every single time. Wish they'd make a machinima program based on this game's style, because man, would I have fun with that. Here's how I tried to explain it to my mom (SPOILER): "So you're a gang leader who becomes President of the United States, and then aliens attack Earth, capture you and stick you in the Matrix, and you have to destroy parts of the simulation to get free while trying to locate and rescue your friends. Oh, and you hack your way into a variety of super powers, which avoids all the vehicle-driving sections I have such trouble with, because you can run like Sonic the Hedgehog and practically fly. "And when I first saw a friend playing this, the moment I understood it to be a game worth taking note of, he was sky-diving through the center of an alien ship, dodging lasers and flaming debris as an awesome rock song struck up and the quest objective simply stated "BE A BADASS"."