I credit my wife with introducing me to Heather Dale. Thanks, dear!

Ok, that was REALLY good.

This has been repeating for the last week around here. Fortunately, the wife seems to like it.

There, look at that! My first post and not a single word about squids! Oh, wait…

And to help bring us back into the swing of things, here’s the most epic video of all time.

Now, I’m sure you hear the word “epic” a lot, used for many different things. But THIS… THIS is the true definition of epic.

So, I basically disappeared from the Internet this month. Where have I been? Well, I got married. And I have had ZERO time for basically anything. But now we’re settled in to our new house, and hopefully I can start posting again. And my wife has an account on the blog here now, so she can post stuff to keep you busy. If you like squids, that is.

Bah. They’re just doing a sub-par remake of our movie.

Here you go. A very nice Vocaloid rendition of a Touhou song.

In the year 2052, human civilization is on the brink of collapse. A deadly pandemic known as the “Gray Death” is taking a huge toll on the world’s population. It has no cure, but a synthetic vaccine, Ambrosia, lessens the effects of the virus. However, it is in critically short supply, and all of it goes to government officials and others who are deemed vital to the social order.

Since the common folk have no hope of getting Ambrosia, riots occur worldwide. Many terrorist groups are also formed, with the stated intent of assisting the commoners.

You play as JC Denton, a nanotechnologically-augmented agent working for the United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition (UNATCO). UNATCO was established with the intent of maintaining peace, and combating the continually-expanding numbers of terrorist groups.

Deus Ex is a highly immersive FPS/RPG, the likes of which I have not seen before or since. The game will accommodate many different playing styles. If you want, you can go in and go in and go in and go in like the US Marshall with guns blazing, shooting everything in sight. Or, you can sneak through the game, lockpicking all the doors and silently knifing enemies. Or you can pick up a sniper rifle and pick off everyone from a distance before they even know what’s going on. It is completely up to you.

But the moment when I realized that this was the greatest game of all time, was near the beginning. I was exploring around, and strolled into the ladies’ restroom, where a lady promptly told me to go away. A little while later, I was receiving orders from my superior, and he told me to stay out of the ladies’ restroom. I spent the next five minutes laughing my head off. It’s the little details like that that truly make this an awesome game.

Deus Ex – “I wanted orange! It gave me lemon-lime…”

One of the best conversations in the game.

Buy it on Steam.

Day 11. The penultimate day. Tomorrow you will learn what the greatest game of all time is. But today, we come closer to it than ever before.

For those who haven’t played the first MDK, (which you should,) MDK2 starts out with a brief retelling of what happened. In the form of a comic book. With an EPIC narration.

The three main characters are Kurt Hectic, Max, and Dr. Fluke Hawkins. Kurt is a janitor, who never wanted to be a hero. Max is a robotic, six-legged dog that smokes cigars. Doc is an eccentric man of science. And they’re all busy celebrating their victory over the evil alien invaders. But of course, it’s not all over yet. There’s still another alien Minecrawler making a mess of Edmonton. (What’s a Minecrawler, you say? It’s like a tank. Only the size of an ENTIRE CITY.) So Kurt goes down to save the world. Again.

You can play as all three characters. Kurt is your sniper type. He goes around, sniping enemies from a distance. Max has six limbs. So obviously he has to hold a gun in EACH OF HIS FOUR HANDS. So he runs around shooting at everything in sight. All while smoking a cigar. You can’t get more awesome than that, folks. Finally, the Doctor solves puzzles. Being an old guy, he’s not terribly proficient in combat. Most of his time is spent with puzzles. His primary weapon is a toaster. A TOASTER INFUSED WITH SCIENCE.

The gameplay is fun. Brutally challenging, perhaps. But fun. (Well, not challenging for ME, of course…) The dialogue is extremely well written. I love it so much, I can replay, in my head, the entire game word-for-word. Seriously, I can. Try me.

The soundtrack is absolutely amazing. Electronica, woo! This was one of the earliest games that I went out and dug around in the game files to rip out the soundtrack. JUST LISTEN TO THAT.

MDK2 also officially has the coolest bad guy from all games ever.

MDK2 Wazzup

Remember this? This was like, one of my first videos on the blog here.

Buy it on Good Old Games! (Or Steam. But GOG comes with bonus stuff and is cheaper.)

Alternatively, you can get a new HD version with 2011 graphics from Beamdog. (I haven’t gotten the HD version yet, though. So I am not, as of yet, able to give it the Xbolt Seal of Quality.)