Penny Arcade

Even with a planet-a-day Kotor habit and now God Damned Mario Golf there in the Cube, the production of marbled, USDA choice comics is our chief concern.  You could say this strip was co-written by Suzanne Vega, which is even sort of true.

Part of the reason Samurai Spirits Zero has such a hold on us is because the Samurai Shodown series contains the first games we ever played versus.  It would be fair and indeed quite accurate to say that Penny Arcade owes a great deal to the Shodowns Samurai sometimes find themselves embroiled in.  Penny Arcade also owes a great deal to Captain Immy’s Pointless Audio, Broccoli Beef, and Kool-Aid, though explaining the particulars of those associations doesn’t interest me - let alone you. 

As regards Mario Golf, please don’t be without this game.  I had my doubts, even considering the pedigree, because I felt that modern Golf gaming had reached a new level that I wasn’t ready to return from.  I don’t know if you’ve played Tiger Woods or seen the demo of Links they had at E3, but you use the analog stick to swing the club.  Just that element - pantomiming the virtual action - adds so much to the experience and strategy of the game that I wasn’t sure I’d ever want to be without it.  There’s nothing like that in Mario Golf, but it’s so elegant in all respects, so visually appealing, and so fucking fun the entire time to you play it I’m going to let it slide.  Gabe gets his Internet back tomorrow I believe, and where I have an interest in Golf he has more akin to a full-blown mania.  I’ll let him take you into the nitty and perhaps even the gritty.   

Aside from that, which is irresistible, I’m bullish on RPG at the moment.  At the San Diego Comic Con, Atari had a booth showing a playable version of The Temple Of Elemental Evil that put a fishhook through each cornea and pulled both eyes out of my face.  I’m enjoying Kotor on the Xbox, but what it’s made me do is pine for a new golden age of role-playing on the PC.  I had to stop myself from going over to the Atari booth on every break I took, just to right click on something and see the most amazing radial menu bloom from a player character.  I’m waiting for Etherlords II, which we’ll see in about a week, and I downloaded that demo of Lionheart to see how Fallout’s SPECIAL game mechanics would work in a fantasy setting.  I don’t really know how to feel about it, and I’d appreciate hearing your opinions on the game - I’ve just reactivated my e-mail after a long hiatus.  It’s too early to say anything conclusive about it, at any rate.  If I’d just jumped on the site here and talked about Knights of the Old Republic in the first hour of play I’d have some pretty nasty things to say about it, too.

We’re supposed to go to Microsoft today and check out Counter Strike and Crimson Skies, the latter of which I have spoken of in this very space with much passion, if not brevity.  I hope the guys we’re supposed to meet still work there.

(CW)TB out.

just don’t ask me what it was

Tender Penny Arcade reader Sean McDonald writes:

I haven’t picked up my copy from EB yet, but the description Nintendo has on their website says “Control your swing in a manual mode for experts and a partially automated mode for novices”—so manual mode does *not* use the Analogue control?

Yeah.  That fucked me up, too.

Manual Mode does not use the Analogue control.  They use the term Manual Mode to differentiate it from the Automatic, basically.  There is a stroke you can use to get pretty good results most of the time, as long as you’ve aimed properly.  It takes some of the guesswork out of simple, easy shots.  You hit A to start your swing, hit it again to determine shot power, and then it handles the last bit that determines accuracy.  Your shots still have to be good, well aimed and such, so it’s not like you’re turning the game over to the machine while you eat some Hot Wings or something. 

Manual Mode, as they define it, goes like this:  You hit A, then you hit B instead to determine shot power.  As the shot bar is coming back, you can hit AA (Topspin), AB (Super Topspin), BB (Backspin), or BA (Super…  You get the idea).    It looks sort of boring as I type it out here, but in practice it’s a pretty useful suite of tools you can use to perfect shots.

(CW)TB

I did not mention with sufficient vigor the thorough rocking necrowombiCon attendees faced at the hands of not one, but two bands.

The Tenant opened up, the delicious Tenant, and I was able to secure MP3  files from their MP3 dot com site.  Good songs, but I heard things at the actual show that made my hair stand on end.  I’ll let you know when they have more stuff. 

The second band that played I’ve mentioned a couple times before, and that is because it one of my favorite bands.  How it came to be that The Darkest Of the Hillside Thickets were able to play at a Penny Arcade Thing is too joyous to contemplate.  They played my favorite songs even, unstoppable ditties like Burrow Your Way To My Heart, Innsmouth Look, The Math Song, and 20 Minutes Of Oxygen.  I hardly knew how to react.  Then, the Goddamned lead singer played roleplaying games with us the whole next day, unleashing his new game Spaceship Zero that is out on Green Ronin.  There may be someone who deserves this sort of finery, but it is certainly not me.

Also, MC Frontalot was in town after his Songfight Live thing, and he assures me that he would rock any microphone we provided for him, so maybe next year?  I mean, shit damn.  Get The Minibosses in there and I hardly know what I’d do with myself.  Caper?

(CW)TB

My man Jason from eToychest saw that I had mentioned Temple of Elemental Evil and Lionheart - in the same paragraph, even - and made me aware of the articles they’ve done on both games.  Here’s a review of Lionheart, for example, which is very nice!  But Tim Cain comes out with some interesting answers in his Temple interview, yes he does.  Very interesting indeed.

(CW)TB

I just wanted to make sure everybody knew about it, because it’s only the most ambitious mod ever released.

(CW)TB

Aside from the inability to pause the game and queue up commands, absolutely every e-mail I’ve received about Lionheart - referring to either the demo or the full version -  has been saturated with high praise.  I’ve even heard on boards that this demo was stuck together with gum glue and tape, and doesn’t represent shit as far as the final is concerned.  So I have uninstalled it and made the decision to wait for the retail.

Being this reasonable is causing me immense discomfort.

(CW)TB

I got a lot of mail from people requesting I scan and post the pictures I got from Stephen Silver and Stan Sakai. They are actually being shipped back up from SDCC and should be here in a few days. Once I have them both I’ll scan them for you guys.

I also wanted to post links to a few more of the amazing artists I met down there.

Adam works at Blizzard and has decided recently to try his had at making a web comic. I highly suggest you check it out. This guy just destroys me with his talent. He’s got a couple how to guides available that will make you vomit.

I picked up Keith’s sketchbook at the show and spent an entire night in my hotel room drooling and copying drawings right out of it in an effort to understand his process. During the sketchbook party I attended he drew me some Star Wars characters that I will soon have framed on my wall.

I met Allen at the same Sketchbook party and we talked about web comics and the comic book industry in general for about four fucking hours. I have one of the drawings he gave me on my desktop at work and above it I wrote “LINE” and “SHAPE”. When I’m struggling with a picture now I can look at his work and it will remind of the things I need to concentrate on.

-Gabe out