Penny Arcade

I just jumped on Mechassault to see if they had made liars out of us, but no, it’s still true: the promised content for January is still missing.  This is an example of a topic I want to be wrong on, and the moment I become wrong I’ll mention it here.

On a whim, I called the Software Etc. in Bellevue to see if they had Devil May Cry 2 in stock.  When she said yes, it came as sort of a shock so I just said “Okay,” in a quiet voice and hung up.  Gabriel, enraged, asked why I hadn’t reserved any copies.  I called again and asked to reserve the copies, but then I hung up again before I said who I was, so I had to call back.  We got the game home without incident.

So far I’m really enjoying it.  Sort of surprised to find that it was two discs, but I don’t know that each one is completely full - you simply put in the disk for whatever character you want to play as.  In Gabe’s case the discs were reversed, so we spent an hour or so waiting to play as Dante when we could have just swapped him in.  It’s not that the other character (“Lucia”) isn’t good, and play-wise they’re nearly identical before upgrades.  It’s the pistols we want.  What I’m looking for in a game is to shoot magic guns at two monsters while wearing a really striking coat.

Here are the things I don’t particularly like.  The camera gets really wonky more often than I want it to, routinely obscuring important shit, and while it keeps up with the protagonist quite well it seldom paints a truly useful scene when surrounded by enemies.  I don’t like that, but it’s no dealbreaker.  Most of the enemies are dispatched via a lock-on system, so getting a bead even on things you can’t see isn’t that tough.  The other thing, maybe it’s conscious on their part, maybe it isn’t, is that Dante’s devil blood made him kind of a smart-ass the first time around and you don’t see much of that here.  There were bosses that he had a sort of relationship with during the course of the game, which made for some interesting dialogue opportunities.  Dramatic speeches have, thus far, been fairly sparse.  Capcom dialogue has sometimes been unintentionally amusing, but that has always been part of the charm.  It is very fun as straight blaster, but they’re either changing up the formula here or forgetting they made the first game, and I can’t tell which. 

I’m not sure if you’ve seen the Coke commercial where there is a girl singing about how they should make an effort to keep things “really real,” or something, in any event her commitment to reality is considerable.  Then a rap guy busts out with some Philosophy 101 type shit about disparate interpretations of the real, based on a source reality we will call R.  This commercial, and indeed many commercials, give me the sensation that I am losing my mind.  I feel like the very act of watching them erodes my humanity.  Though, it is nice to know that “real” is now a code-word for facsimile.  I guess what I’m getting at is that I have a Tivo now, and if I never see another Goddamn Coke commercial it will be too soon.

(CW)TB out.

each one a little more
than he would dare to try

I’ve spent some time reading the bios at the Soul Calibur 2 site this morning, and I thought you might also enjoy it.  Some characters don’t have their histories in yet, but there is still plenty available - it’s interesting to see how characters have been changed or replaced.

(CW)TB

Sometimes, when I fix one of my stupid typos in the strip under server load, it fucks up the image.  I think I’ve got it going now.

(CW)TB

Yow, it’s taking some sound beatings out there - check out GameRankings for a list of all the reviews.  A couple gave it four out of fives, but there’s a seven and a six out of ten as well.  Take these under advisement, I suppose.  That kind of depresses me, things started out well enough in the game.  I guess we’ll see.

(CW)TB

You might remember that everyone came away impressed with Duality at E3, and it’s hard not to like it on paper.  I wholly expected it never to see the light of day, that’s how beautiful it was, but I guess we’re looking at first quarter 2003?  Hey!  We’re in the first quarter now!

(CW)TB

I’ve been playing a bunch of Devil May Cry 2 and I was inspired to do some new Gabeart. Click the thumbnail below to see my take on Dante.

I don’t know what to say about some of the bad reviews it’s getting. I agree that the camera can be pretty lame but so far it hasn’t kept me from playing. The action is top notch and the control is just as tight as the last game. I wish DMC2 had a replay mode so that you could watch some of your fights later in slow motion and stuff. I’ve had a few fights where I’ve pulled off some insane shit that deserve saving and showing my grandkids.

I refused to purchase Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Doll House Relationship Sim. This meant that I missed out on the Ninja Gaiden Trailer that came with it. However Gamespot was kind enough to post a very crisp version of it.

To me it looks like Shinobi with good graphics.

-Gabe out

Thank you very much for all the great feedback on the Dante Pic. I got the same questions a lot so I am just gonna answer them here.

The sketch was done once again on my tablet PC in Sketchbook. You can see the uncolored sketch here.

I colored it in Photoshop 6.0. No special tricks or anything. I set the sketch layer to “multiply” which allows me to color on a layer under the sketch and have it show through.

I also got a lot of mail from artists asking for tips and advice. I will be honest with you, I don’t feel like I am at a point in my life as an artist where I can dish out my own little pearls of wisdom. What I can do though is tell you a story.

When I was a junior in High School Mark Kistler came to visit the elementary school where my mom worked. I had grown up watching his television show and so I went down there to meet him. I took along my portfolio, which at that time pretty much consisted of shitty drawings of Wolverine. I got the chance to talk to him and show him my stuff, which he actually liked. He offered me a job working on his next book. It was my job to ink all of his pencil drawings for his book “The Imagination Station”. Feel free to check the credits next time your in a book store for my name. Anyway, the inking was time consuming, tedious and boring work but the way I saw it I was breaking into the industry. I wasn’t exactly sure which industry but I was breaking into it by god.  After about a year of inking he rewarded me with the opportunity to do the cover art. Not a bad pay off the way I saw it. After everything was all finished and the book went off to print he paid me what I now know was fucking didly squat for the amount of work I did and gave me this advice: “Draw every day, no matter what.” For some reason those words stuck with me.

If you take time every single day to draw you cannot help but improve. Just take a sketchbook with you to school and draw the kids in your class. Or take one into meetings with you, the boss will think your taking notes. If you can just draw something everyday you will be surprised how much and how fast you improve. Just as a point of reference I dug out the very first piece of Gabeart I ever did. It’s Jin from Tekken and I did it four years ago. God this is embarrassing.

Oh and one thing they don’t show in Mark Kistlers drawing for kids videos is that the man smokes like a fucking chimney. I am serious. The first time I saw him I thought he was on fire.

-Gabe out