Broken Age Top 10

Go buy Broken Age. It is your civic duty as a citizen of whatever noble country you’re from, and a fundamental obligation of all human beings living on this planet. Or maybe it’s not. Sometimes I’m prone to hyperbole. But the world definitely needs more of Tim Schafer and Double Fine. Or maybe just the gaming world, which is like the real world, only better.

Hear me out, though. And when I’m done, maybe you’ll feel inclined to go purchase a copy of the game for reasons. So without further verbal ado, I present to you…

Top Ten Reasons To Buy Broken Age

1. Double Fine kicked down Kickstarter’s door with a spiky black death metal boot, and paved the way for many great games that would never have received funding through pre-Kickstarter means. So if you’ve played any game from a Kickstarter campaign post-Broken Age, then you owe Tim and the Double Fine gang. Go now and tithe at the Altar Of Imparting, so that they may eat of the fruit of their labors.
2. Art. Say what you will about any Double Fine game, but the one thing you have to admit is that all of them have distinctive art styles. Whether it’s the fever dream Saturday morning cartoons on acid style of Psychonauts, or the cute, cell-shaded whimsy of Costume Quest or the zoetrope charm of Stacking, the one thing Double Fine doesn’t do is photorealistic, bump-mapped, high poly real world boring. They do arty things with, like, lines and colors and stuff. We need more color and style in games. Photorealism has its place, but so does a flying two-headed baby monster.
3. Tim Schafer is made of magic.
4. Yeah, everybody hates the Meat Circus, but the rest of Psychonauts was brilliant. Sure, its platforming was a little rough and the graphics have a considerable lack of excessive normal mapping and barely any overly abundant ubiquitous shades of brown and urban camo seen in the biggest AAA titles of today, but what it lacks in plastic, creepy valley terrorist rag dolls, it more than makes up for with having actual art. Distinctive design, memorable characters, a unique story, clever dialog, etc… If you think games should sometimes be about something more than just running down a hallway and spraying your friends with high caliber ejaculate from your shootporn gun, then you need to support people who make games that offer ejaculate-free alternatives.
5. Two words: Grim Fandango. We’ll never be able to repay Tim for that one. Not only is it one of the best, most loved adventure games of all time, but playing it actually makes you a better person. Probably. If something feels like it’s missing in your life, like somewhere deep in the dark recesses of your soul there’s a little hidey hole filled with all the nothing you’ve never managed to put into it, then it’s probably because you’ve never played Grim Fandango. Go track down a copy and save yourself. Then, after you’ve become whole again as a person, go buy Broken Age.
6. Music. Specifically, iMuse…or whatever Double Fine could decide to call it after they recruit Michael Land and get him working with Peter McConnell again to create a new, modern version of the classic MIDI-based, interactive music system that LucasArts probably still holds the exclusive rights to. Not that anybody is using it, or anything. MIDI fell out of favor well before iMuse could realize its full potential as digital orchestrations took over. But it’s due for a comeback. Buying Broken Age could help make that happen.
7. Broken Age needs to outsell expectations. I have no doubts that Double Fine will make a decent profit from the game, but it needs to do more. It needs to sell beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, simply because the gaming industry needs to see that there’s not only a market for point and click adventure games, but for all kinds of games that don’t fit the shootporn/sportsball/team arena/MMO/GTA mold. How much more money and how many more man hours were needed to create Grand Theft Auto 5 than it took to make Psychonauts? The answer is, a helluva lot more than it took to make Psychonauts. And Grim Fandango and Day Of The Tentacle and Full Throttle, and even the entire Monkey Island series combined. Probably several times over. But does that make GTA5 the best game of the lot? Nope. GTA might offer a different kind of fun than Psychonauts, but that doesn’t mean it’s more fun than Psychonauts. If anything, both games have the same amount of funs. It’s just that GTA’s funs go in a different direction, usually involving whichever direction requires driving on the sidewalk and mowing down pedestrians.
8. The classic Lucasfilm/LucasArts lineup. Maybe you’re old enough to remember the LucasArts days. Maybe you’re not. Either way, how cool would it be if Double Fine had enough capital on hand from Broken Age sales to buy the rights to the classic LucasArts franchises that Disney’s newest victim is never going to do anything with? Sure, it’s not likely to ever happen, but imagine what it would be like if Ron Gilbert finally told us the secret of Monkey Island. Maybe Bernard and Dr. Edison would get into one more wacky adventure. Heck, even Pipe Dreams could get a sequel! Well, I mean other than its cameo in Bioshock.
9. Humor. We need more of it, and it’s not easy to do. Humor is one of the hardest things to pull off in a game, which is why so few games even bother trying. But for whatever reason, probably because Tim could tell you that you only have three weeks to live and somehow make you laugh about it, Double Fine nails it every time. Whether its an overt joke or subtle satire, they’ve mastered the fine art of making us giggle. And scientists have used advanced scientific techniques to scientifically prove that laughing makes you live longer. So buy Broken Age. Do it for Science!
10. Because I asked nicely.

Still not convinced? Go read my Broken Age NottaReview to find out more about the game itself, why it’s good, and why you should buy it. I mean, with totally different reasons in addition to the 10 reasons I listed here. That’s like, at least 50% more reasons right there! It’s unreasonable to expect that you could reasonably avoid all these reasons I’m throwing at you. So just stop trying. Close your browser, launch Steam and GO BUY BROKEN AGE.

Want some books? 'Course ya do!

NOTE:  I know times are hard and yeah, I need to make a living too, but if you want to read any of my books but can't afford to buy them right now, hit me up.

I'll take care of it.

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You've been warned.