What's so great about Two Guys from Andromeda getting together to make a new game? For the answer, let's look at the classic adventure Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers, an adventure so epic it spans at least three different games.

After ripping science fiction a new laugh-hole through three amazing Space Quest adventure titles for Sierra Online, Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy took on one of sci-fi's most confusing elements: time travel. They did this by warping the slightly-heroic space janitor that just wants to keep the galaxy clean.

The entire game is one hilarious moment after another, aided greatly by Laugh-In's Gary Owen's on narration duty in the CD-rom version of the game. But by far the funniest moment of the entire series is realizing that the top of the screen features an entirely different game name. That alone is worth helping Two Guys from Andromeda make a new game.

Memorable Moments and Lines from Space Quest 4 [YouTube]

It seems as if everyone in the Raleigh game development scene have ridden the slide from the second to the first floor of Epic Games' headquarters. Now, thanks to the magic of shaky iPhone video, you can too.

"You can't miss the slide," everyone and their brother told me as I prepared for my visit to Epic Games headquarters on Wednesday afternoon. After a few hours wandering about the East Coast Games Convention, chatting with the various developers and PR folks attending, I was almost more excited about the slide than I was my chance to lick Cliff's Transformers.

Almost.

Now slide vicariously through me, my friends. Slide and be set free.

Update: Now with more video.

Wait, what? I didn't pay for front row seats to the Mortal Kombat tournament just to be deprived of bloody entertainment!

At least that's what I imagine is running through the heads of the audience when Scorpion decides to forgo a fatality move. They've been robbed of the awesomely gruesome fatalities known to the fighting game. I would not blame them for feeling shafted.

But what a way worse fate Scorpion has actually unleashed on Sub-Zero. Best case scenario, he could have been a full-time hula-hooper. Or maybe a yoga instructor.

For more sick and twisted video game comedy, follow the link to Dorkly.com.

Oh, Little Girl Who Just Found Porn On Her Brother's DS. I'm so sorry this happened to you. On behalf of brothers everywhere, I apologize.

When your big brother got a 3DS, you were so excited to inherit his old DS that you didn't even think about clearing out the internal memory. Why would you? What kind of person would put porn onto his DS in the first place? Isn't that impossible? Who would take the time to figure out how to do that, let alone go through with it?

And is that… a hockey puck? How did that lady even do that?

First of all: Sigh. Yes, that's a hockey puck. I don't know how she did it either.

Secondly, let me tell you something about 13 year-old boys. They'll put porn just about anywhere. The space between their mattresses, the clothes hamper in the guest-room closet; these places are only the beginning. They have porn hidden in places you can't even imagine—at least a couple of nooks and crannies around the house, taped onto the inside of mom's furniture catalogs, digital copies hidden in repartitioned hard drives, and yes, even on their handheld gaming systems.

I'm just sorry you had to find out this way, Little Girl Who Just Found Porn On Her Brother's DS. And furthermore, I'm sorry your brother is experimenting with NHL-themed horse-porn. Rather than attempt to tell you some of the ways it could be worse, I'll just say that this really sucks.

And then I'll immediately regret my choice of words.

I mean here you are, with all your friends around, in the early phases of what will surely be a really fun slumber party. You guys were going to order a pizza, maybe watch a movie.

And now you're in a quandary, quietly wondering if you should show them your discovery or close the DS and never speak of this again.

Better take a closer look, just to be sure you're seeing what you think you're seeing…

Yup. That's a horse's leg, all right.

By now you must be familiar with WesterosCraft, the long-running (and long-insane) project to reconstruct the entire world of Game of Thrones on a single Minecraft server.

Project lead Jacob Granberry has been cranking out videos of the project all month, and it's looking better than ever. Here are some of the team's creations:

---

Dragonstone

Best known as the castle where Stannis Baratheon rules, Dragonstone is an old-school Valyrian creation that's chock full of dragon-themed rooms and furniture.

---

Castle Black

Situated next to the gigantic, icy Wall, Castle Black is home of Jon Snow and the rest of the Night's Watch, who protect the North from spooky things.

---

Pyke

Pyke is the castle of House Greyjoy, best known as "a bunch of dicks."

---

The Eyrie

Crazy old Lysa Arryn lives here along with her son, crazy young Robert.

---

The Sunspear Water Gardens

The lovely, private palace where the princes of Dorne spend most of their vacation time.

Sony's made a big revelation today with the disclosure of the multiplayer component coming in God of War: Ascension. Our preview explains the motivations and mechanics of the mythological prequel's gameplay, but what if you just want to see it in action?

Well, then, just click play on the stream above to see game director Todd Papy talk about God of War: Ascension's multiplayer and what it's like to take the reins of one of Sony's biggest first-party franchises. Does the video above change your expectations for Ascension's online play?

God of War: Ascension – Multiplayer Announcement Live From Santa Monica Studio [PlayStation Blog]

In an interview with Gamasutra, Tim Heaton, the studio director of Total War developer Creative Assembly, described their development process as Metacritic-focused and "brutal."

As Creative Assembly works on a game, they'll do what Heaton refers to as "Metacritic analysis," breaking every feature down and looking at it from both the player's and reviewer's points of view before scoring each one on a 100 point scale. Features that aren't measuring up are cut.

It's easy to see this as just one more step towards the "Metacriticization" of game development—which, in a literal sense, it is. But then again, when I read the interview, it didn't strike me as some bloody-minded, creativity-killing approach but rather a healthy, if focused, cut-cut-cut mentality.

He adds, "And so if we see one flat line and it's not where we want it to be, we then will cut it. Well, we'll cut it really late in the day. I think teams are really scared about doing 90 percent of the work and then cutting it. It's kind of like, 'Well, it's nearly finished; I... I've done all the work! Please don't cut it! I'm sure I can make it better.' And we're fairly brutal on that."

Heaton says he would much rather reject a feature that the studio invested resources in, than have it left in the game and affecting its quality. "You know, every step of the way — from the beginning to the end — we're talking about a 90 percent Metacritic," the Creative Assembly director emphasizes. "That's our goal. That's what we tell Sega. And we communicate that through graphs, basically, of where we think we are."

That approach—be stringent in your assessment, and cut everything that doesn't meet your standards—actually sounds like a smart way to run and complete a project. And it seems to work—Empire: Total War and Total War: Shogun 2 both have a 90 on Metacritic, and Napoleon: Total War is in at 86.

More to the point, all of those games are really good. They're also humongous, loaded with systems and features, the exact sort of project that could really go off the rails without some judicious pruning.

The "brutal cutting" mentality is a healthy one to have when working on a project. Whether you're writing a novel or recording an album or putting on a stage production, often the solution to a given problem is to cut out the entire problematic bit, particularly when you're working with a deadline.

The issue then, may just be just that Heaton is using using Metacritic as a measuring stick. After all, this is a site that equally weighs reviews from some pretty funky outlets (and, ahem, doesn't include Kotaku at all).

Plenty of game developers have shared horror stories about withheld bonuses, insane crunch-hours, and generally hellish working conditions, many of which are undertaken in the pursuit of high Metacritic scores. Whether Metacritic is the cause of that or (more likely) simply a convenient measuring stick for profit-minded publishers, the site certainly does play its role in a fair amount of games industry dysfunction.

But I'm not sure that this specific approach—cutting lackluster features in pursuit of a 90—qualifies as dysfunctional. It would seem that when Heaton says "90 on Metacritic," he's saying, "Has functional, fun gameplay and systems that are polished to a high standard."

Cutting features in pursuit of that goal doesn't seem particularly brutal. It just seems like maintaining high standards.

How Creative Assembly's Process Breeds Quality [Gamasutra]

My trip to North Carolina to attend the East Coast Games Conference in Raleigh last week was a ruse, a feint. My real target was a (mostly) unassuming office structure in the Raleigh suburb of Cary, the birthplace of some of the greatest games of the past decade.

The company that was once Epic Megagames moved from Maryland to North Carolina in 1999, a year after changing the face of the first-person shooter with Unreal. The game engine that powered that multiplayer classic, the Unreal Engine, took on a life of its own, its three iterations providing the framework for hundreds of titles, from Microprose's 1998 Star Trek: The Next Generation: Klingon Honor Guard to En Masse Entertainment's massively multiplayer online game Tera, launching tomorrow in North America.

Of course Epic Games continues to make its own hit titles as well. The Gears of War trilogy is one of the biggest franchises on the Xbox 360, granting design director Cliff Bleszinski the superstar developer status the creator of Jazz Jackrabbit so richly deserves.

That's Cliff's office up top, looking very much like my own desk at home, only more expensive. A fellow Transformers fan, his shared workspace features not one but two Fortress Maximus figures, perhaps the most coveted of all figures in the series' history. I may have licked one of them; I'll never tell.

Who'd have thought I'd find a haven for the bot-lover inside this relatively non-descript office building?

There isn't much in the lobby of the Cary, North Carolina office that would hint that this was the birthplace of an entire generation of video games; I suppose that's to keep the riffraff out, a security measure I bypassed thanks to Epic's Dana Cowley, who graciously offered to guide me through the maze-like corridors. Corridors filled with cases of awards, swag, and memorabilia.

Aside from the cases of toys, games, trophies and guns, the first real indicator that there's something special going on here is, oddly enough, a simple sign on the wall near the lair of Epic's legal department.

Not quite as impressive as it was in the cartoons, but less likely to be invaded by the Legion of Doom.

Dana led me through the cafeteria area, where an impressive array of beverages in humming gas station-style coolers was free for the taking. A long counter in the center of the kitchen area would be filled with hungry developers on my way back through, scarfing down barbecue on tables arranged in the shadow of a looming indoor rock-climbing wall.

And then there's the slide. More on the slide later.

From there Dana led me into the building's cavernous motion capture studio, home of the roadie run.

It's also the home of a pile of NERF weapons and a mannequin that's seen better days.

Those colorful NERF guns lie discarded in the corner due to a recent addition to the mocap setup, a set of 'lifelike' firearms, weighted so that actors carry them properly. One does not simply grab one of these weapons and casually wave it about. Well, unless you're Dana Cowley.

From the motion capture studio I was led upstairs to the rec room, an arcade overlooking the cafeteria, where a pair of employees were engaged in a fierce ping pong battle amidst classic arcade cabinets.

The tour led us past the offices of some of Epic's most notable figures, and I couldn't resist leaning in and grabbing a few shots to capture the environment these titans of gaming called home. For the most part they were exactly as I expected, from the box cluttered hang-out of Epic VP Mark Rein...

...to the neat and tidy office of President Mike Capps.

And then of course there's Cliff's place, the room I could happily die in.

Between the cafeteria, Cliff's office, and the company's extensive library of manga, video games, and comic books, Epic headquarters is the place I'd head for if the zombies attacked. It might not be properly fortified, but with the development team behind Fortnite in the house I'm sure we could come up with something.

It's the perfect environment for creative gaming professionals. They just need to do something about the lawn decorations.

It's quick as can be but there's an obscure teaser for Activision's next big first-person shooter on the Call of Duty website.

The concentric circles on the loading screen for CallofDuty.com contain morse code. You probably know what it says already, but it's safe to consider this a sneaky sort-of confirmation from Activision. (If not, watch the video above.) Kind of an anti-climax, given all the leaks that have trickled out, but Activision could surprise everyone by revealing something different.

[Thanks, tipster Carsten!]

Last Friday, Sega introduced us to the sequel to their alternative to Nintendo's Mario Kart. Racing against their PR team and the Sonic brand manager, I learned how developer Sumo Digital is working on setting Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed apart from their first Sega kart racing title.

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, which Kotaku first reported back in February, separates itself from its predecessor with one strong point. While Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing had a variety of vehicles for players to race in, Transformed takes your track adventures to the sea and land with boats and airplanes, respectively.

The demonstration in New York last week introduced me to two tracks: Panzer Dragoon and Super Monkey Ball. Track designs serve as more than just your friendly battleground; they are nudges toward various Sega games. Though I've only seen two in the demo, we'll hopefully at least see a set to match each character appearance. So far the character selections include all the usual suspects, as well as a few new additions like Vyse (Skies of Arcadia) and Gilius (Golden Axe).

Throughout these tracks, you seamlessly transition from standard driving to flying and boating. Airplane-racing is, to me, a fickle art in video games. Aircrafts that aren't responsive to my direction, and/or can't pull off my intended moves smoothly is an immediate recipe that ends in my controller against a wall. And possibly me in a corner regretting the decisions that have led up to that moment.

Transformed is no stranger to my overly-tempered frustration. Fortunately no controllers were harmed in this process because the flying routines are by no means terrible. They are more uncomfortable than anything too damaging. Depending on your aircraft-flying preferences, you may even enjoy it. But if you're anything like me, you'll wish flying was faster and smoother. It's more fun that way.

Alternatively, one area where fighting your control fits is on water. Steering a boat through rapid flowing waters complete with waves and even whirlpools is difficult, but it's the good kind of difficult. It often feels like your boat is sticking to the water in all the wrong directions, but it simulates the rougher experience of boat racing. Water races were my favorite, because a minor jump from the elevation of a wave is an easy opportunity to do a barrel roll and gain speed. I'm told that in the future the developers will implement a similar boost system for aircrafts.

As you'd expect, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed includes item pick-ups that give you firepower to wield against your friends. This is where things get interesting. Not only do you have the power to piss off your friends by racing past them, but you can be the reason they froze into a stack of ice cubes or got knocked out of first place with Sega's version of the infamous blue shell.

These bonus items are currently limited for the first-time viewing, but with Sega's promises of more interesting weapons to come. One of the more exhilarating moments in a game like Mario Kart was waiting for your deadly gift to reveal itself from the slot machine-like animation, crossing your fingers for a set of red shells or a thunderbolt. Hopefully Transformed will inspire similar feelings once the armory feels more advanced.

What separated Sega's kart racing title from Nintendo's, though, is the characters. Besides choosing from iconic Sega characters for aesthetic reasons, each one has a special ability outside of the items they pick up. It's incentive to pick a character over the design of their car or your memory in playing with them. Each one opens up a new angle for a customizable playstyle and experience.

There's no word yet on what those special abilities are, but strong hints are dropped that gamers can look to Sega's first kart racing title for an idea of what they might be.

Some games are best enjoyed with a side of embarrassing your friends. And when it comes to embarrassing your friends, why not run them off the road in an intense kart racing match? Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed looks to be serving up a new kart racing title with more than a few ways to antagonize your friends, whether that's in the air, land, or standard ground tracks.

After playing several rounds in each track, all I can definitively say is that I want to spend more time with the game. If only to regain my gaming dignity after a little more practice.