PC Gamer - October 2011

SPY
THE

BU T WHO WATCHES THE SPY?

internet, The Spy chooses to believe no one would be weird enough to fabricate this information for no particular gain.

The Spy is adept at reading bet ween the lines. Did you know, for example, that “Please, I’ll tell you anything, just give my shoulderblades back!” is actually code for “Kill me now, I’ll never talk! I would shrug at your torture attempts if I still had my shoulderblades!” Nor do many of The Spy’s interrogation subjects.

So when 2K CEO Strauss Zelnick says, “We don’t really talk about it in detail, but you will see future Duke IP coming from this company,” The Spy knows that he isn’t asking for his shoulderblades back. He’s saying

akarta, 1973: the Durian
conspiracy. Zimbabwe, 1966: the
Cathcart affair. Bellevue,
Kind of like Watergate. Never could figure
out if there was anything to that.

In Valve’s trash this time: patch notes.

Nothing strange there—Newell alone prints 326 pages a day about his current location with his cybernetic inkjet mouth.

It’s the only company The Spy knows that updates its bricks. But this time it wasn’t just “Updates to Gabe Newell’s location have been released. These updates will be applied when you look at him with your eyes.” This time, they were for DotA 2.

DotA 2—don’t capitalize it, you wouldn’t like it when it’s capitalized—is Valve’s remake of the Warcraft mod that invented a genre. The notes appear to detail a series of changes to the internal build of the game, written for the sentient robot-orphans Valve enslaves to test its unreleased games. If true, they reveal the inclusion of an inbuilt live-streaming service called Dota TV, and dozens of beloved playable heroes from the original DotA: Razor, Moon Rider, Puck, Pugna, and Oneimmakinguptotraceinformationleaksa.

On one hand, the documents are detailed and look authentic enough; on the other, why shouldn’t they?

DotA 2 is a remake of a free game with a long history of updates, so it wouldn’t be hard to fake a few future ones.

Against his years of experience to the contrary, though, and pretty much everything that’s ever happened on the

and pretty much everything that’s ever happened on the

A Duke Nukem

movie isn’t out of the question.

The Spy has won eight gold medals for dumpster diving.

they’re going to make more Duke Nukem games, despite that, in The Spy’s personal opinion, the last one was the most pointless and repellent thing burnt to a DVD since the 1994 Gaddaffi/Mowlem sex tape; The Spy spent the last 17 years of his life destroying every copy of.

Zelnick’s clever code was in response to a question about Duke coming to non-interactive mediums. This means that a.) The Spy has another 17 years of hunting down and obliterating offensive DVDs, and b.) a Duke Nukem movie isn’t out of the question.

What is out of the question, sadly, is a Blade Runner game from Gearbox Soft ware. The unfortunate souls who carried Duke Nukem’s coffin for the final stretch to its release were considering a range of other tie-ins for their next game. The Spy obtained what Gearbox referred to as its “dream list” of properties to work with in future games, and later learned that all of them had miraculously been approved. Blade Runner was on that list, and Warner Bros. was fine with it.

But not long after Gearbox head honcho Randy
Pitchford teased this beautiful dream he crushed it.

Pitchford cites something called “money” in his reasoning, whining that such a game would only “sell”

600,000 copies, and that this would “destroy” Gearbox.

Man up, Pitchford. The Spy didn’t get to where he is today—nor did he manage to so perfectly conceal where he is today—by shying away from completely destroying himself. In fact, The Spy now completely destroys himself before and after every meal, as a safety precaution and palate cleanser.

Wait—The Spy has found a page from Valve’s refuse
he hadn’t noticed before. “Updates to Gabe Newell’s
location have been released. These updates will be
applied when you look at him with your eyes. Major
changes include: he is now behind you.”
Newell! Drop the crowbar, or I’ll put a bullet in your
inkjet faster than you can say “ERROR: BULLE T IN
INKJE T.” Spy out. TheSpy

their next game. The Spy obtained what Gearbox

Man up, Pitchford. The Spy didn’t get to where he is
himself. In fact, The Spy now completely destroys
changes include: he is now behind you.”
a
INKJE T.” Spy out.