Penny Arcade

We only know two people who don’t live within a half an hour of us, and with Kiko‘s arrival a couple days ago they’ve both been here in the last three weeks.  We have decided to celebrate this event as we celebrate all other things, which is to say, play videogames.  We also play videogames when we are not celebrating.  I’m not really unhappy with the system, I’m just making a note of it.

The only issue with our recent explicit revelry is that it has brought the ire of the apartment complex down upon us.  Their crimes are many, though, and they’re hardly in a tenable position regarding infractions.  There’s the lady right next door, who I think might just be a really big badger with a shirt on.  There is a sound from B-14 that could only be a large animal chewing a freshly fallen birch, which I feel lends credence to my badger hypothesis.  If the bitch wants to chew on some wood or be a badger or whatever that’s fine, I can handle it.  But directly above us - and I mean right above us, suspended there - unholy acts are committed on a regular basis, and you don’t see us running to the manager.  This guy is either killing a woman or engaging in some penultimate act of tantric erotica, and I honestly don’t care which, but I do wish they would use their indoor voices! 

The thing is, we do honestly try to lay down some rules about noise at the beginning of each event, but it never pans out, because capturing the flag is like fireworks in your heart.  The trouble in this venue started with Soccer Slam, where it’s like my mind knew that I could not explode with sound but as soon as we’d land a Killer Kick or a one-timer I’d be off the couch wagging the wavebird at the television in a derisive way.  We were only playing against the computer then, too - when the Halo gets in there, it’s Living Room versus Computer Room, that ancient and bitter rivalry born with the very firmament.

Also, hopefully you’ve seen it already:  the trailer for Quentin Tarantino’s (Spell checker suggestion:  “Tarantula’s”) newest movie is now awailable.  I didn’t know what to think at first, but the second time I watched it I felt joy.  I’ve always really liked his dialogue, that’s why I see his movies, and there isn’t a whole lot of that to judge here.

(CW)TB out.

out of the darkness into the light

Kiko and his lovely wife are visiting us this week all the way from San Diego. The cool thing about having Kiko here is that he loves 2D fighting games as much as I do. Sure Tycho will sit down and play a fighter with me for a few minutes but I know his heart isn’t in it. I don’t know exactly when he stopped liking fighting games but I know the last fighter I can remember us both playing together in a very serious way was Tekken 3. Fighting games continued to come out after that and he never really seemed interested. The more I think about it the more I think that after Tekken 3 aliens may have taken the Tycho I know back to their mother ship and replaced him with some kind of mandroid. Sort of like Last Starfighter only I doubt he’s off saving the galaxy. They probably just needed him for some kind of intergalactic Iron Chef show where human is the secret ingredient. He always did look especially juicy.

Anyway, I mentioned last week that I had Guilty Gear XX and was really enjoying it. But there is really only so much fun you can have battling the computer in games like that. You can’t really appreciate a fighter until you play it against another human. Well Kiko and I jumped head first into Guilty Gear and we discovered levels to that game that I could not have dreamed of. At one point we were actually considering hooking the VCR up to the television just so we could watch some of these matches later. The fights look like well choreographed anime. The characters move so fluidly from one move to the next that it often seems like the matches were pre-planned like some kind of animated WWE. I said it before but if you like 2D fighters and you have a way to play import PS2 games go get this fucker right now.

So a woman called me this morning and said she was from Entertainment Weekly. I hung up on her because I figured she was a solicitor and I’m really not interested in a subscription. Then I get a call from a guy I talked to a while ago who reminded me that he had written an article about us for Entertainment Weekly and asked why I hung up on their fact checker. Needless to say I feel like a fucking idiot right now.

Check out the latest Hook Up right here.

Also my e-mail seems to be fucked up. Sorry if you can’t get through to me right now.

-Gabe out

I talked to the lady from Entertainment Weekly again and this time I didn’t hang up on her. She says the article on PA should appear in the issue that hits stands next Friday. That’s one week from today. I don’t know how robust it will be but some people asked about it so I thought I would share the info I had.

Kiko, Monkey, Tycho and I just spent about three hours playing Guilty Gear XX. Some really weird shit gets said during these matches that you just don’t hear in other fighters. Stuff like, “Fuck your teddy bear!” or “No not the swimming!” It has the strangest bunch of characters I’ve seen in a fighter since Jo Jo’s Bizarre adventure. I think this is the game that will get Tycho back into fighters. When I saw him bring up Gamefaqs to find some combos I had to choke back some tears.

-Gabe out