Looks totally safe.
Oh that’s no typo.
You’d think that it would be, given our preponderance for mangling the English language, but you’d totally be wrong. Instead, it is a nod to a hidden Blizzard gem within the strangely compelling world of the campaign story in Starcraft II.
Our tale starts in the Cantina aboard the Hyperion. We’re just hanging out with our buddy, Tychus Findlay, who we should mention is starting to get some serious “suit smell” going on, if you know what we mean.
If you don’t, go and buy Starcraft II. We’re hilarious, sure, but go buy the damn game.
Got it? Ok. Back to it.
So here we are with Tychus. We have a few drinks, talk to the Merc guy, and generally make ourselves known around the Cantina – even to that one guy over on the right who snarkily tells us “I’m off duty, sir.” So? This is OUR SHIP. If we want to talk to you you’d better have something interesting to say, or maybe we can drop you off on one of the next infested planets we come across.
Off duty. Hah! The revolution does not go off duty.
Anyway, we’re chilling out – mostly – and we happen to glance up at the TV screen above the bar. Normally, this is filled with the face of Donny the News Guy, who hates us with a passion and makes us out to be murderers at every opportunity. This time, just as we’re walking out the door to go chat up Arial in the Lab – go Jim! – we notice a colorful green background on the screen.
Wondering what it is we’ve seen, we head back but can’t get it to show up again. Damn it.
Of course, this made us curious, and we went online and spoke to a few friends. Turns out that Blizzard has hidden a fake ad for a Terran Marine “iPistol” in the game, complete with Apple’s commonly-used television commercial features. The Marine dances in front of a bright-colored background, iPistol in hand and silhouetted in black. When the ad ends, a tag line plays across the bottom of the screen.
“iPistol. Take your shot at life.”
Yes. Hell yes.
Really, this is nothing – it’s like the working arcade game in the corner of the Cantina or the fact that you get an achievement for asking Matt Horner what he won in last night’s poker game - it doesn’t do anything to advance the story.
But that’s the catch, isn’t it?
It’s details like these that make a story, that set it apart from what could be a very serious, very brooding game about the state of humanity and its tendency to want to exterminate anything different from itself, and how often that tendency extends even to other humans.
By including things like the iPistol ad and other comedic lighthearted-ness, Blizzard manages to elevate a good story to a great one, one that won’t be seen by the majority of players, many of whom will never touch the campaign or blow through it so fast they won’t notice.
We like the touches. They’re the good kind, not the bad touches of other games. Bad touches are bad!
We do not need an adult.
