Rolled into EB yesterday for one of those Pelican system selectors, the one you could comfortably live inside of, and situated myself in line behind four young men dressed from head to daemonic cloven hoof in black. I mentally flipped through the recent releases, seeking a series venerated enough to warrant this sort of adolescent congestion.

When I saw one of them proudly brandish a black San Andreas bandana, it suddenly became clear.

Like Halo, Grand Theft Auto's foul-mouthed, amoral sagas have an appeal inside and outside of our core community. Repelling alien invaders has always had a universal, indeed, a nearly patriotic quality, but purely terrestrial concerns magnified to epic volume are not without their cinematic power. The games submerge the player in content of various kinds and challenge them to come out of the experience with the game they're interested in the most. Speaking from personal experience, my interest in the actual missions wanes almost immediately. That's absolutely been the case with San Andreas. I still find the camera, controls, and combat of the console versions to fall short of the series' promise - a promise manifested most surely in their impeccable knack for creating cities which feel real. That the series has been able to succeed almost purely on the personality of its presentation for as long as it has is a either a credit to its manufacture or an indictment of our collective intellect, and you're welcome to believe whichever one you want to.

I won't deny that the game has a real shine to it when you start playing, that shine carried me almost entirely through the first two. I wish I weren't saying this, I wish I was just giving it a 9.9 and clicking okay on the upload script. No-one would disagree. There are many ways to play the game, and as I've suggested the personality it projects positively gleams. The voice work is excellent, and some of the best writing in games today can be heard on the many remarkable radio stations. With friends over, it's almost like a performance art. But I don't particularly enjoy playing it, as a game you understand. I fully expect to be in the minority on this.

You might recall that the Fruit Fucker ultimately escaped from his island prison, a fact revealed in our crossover with Elf Only Inn. Things might not have worked out with Megan, but it would appear that he eventually found a stable peer group in Los Santos. Gabe also worked up a wallpaper real quick for today's strip, if you're interested.

(CW)TB out.

no phone

I'm still getting tons of mail this morning from people asking for a wallpaper of today's comic strip. Well I actually made one last night assuming you would want one. Maybe you guys are just missing the link to it at the bottom of Tycho's post above. So here you go:

I agree with everything Tycho said about the GTA series. I ended up playing San Andreas the same way I played Vice City. I just drive around, listen to the radio and crash into shit. I got tired of the missions in the first hour but exploring the city is still fun. It's just a bummer to think that in order to open up more of the world I'll need to go back to doing the missions.

Someone asked me how the new 3D King of Fighters game was. Imagine if the giant trash heap from Fraggle Rock took a shit in your Playstation. That's what Maximum Impact is like. Garbage shit.

-Gabe out

Just another quick note to let you know that the Child's Play site has been updated again. Now you can see a list of companies that have made contributions as well as an overall progress bar. As of yesterday I think we had raised a little over $33,000 already. You guys are off to an awesome start I'd say.

-Gabe out

The Minibosses have a new Live CD up, the proceeds of which go directly to their new studio album. Their show at PAX was practically a spiritual communion, a fact to which any attendee could attest.

(CW)TB

So PayPal is running a promotion today that might be of interest to people who want to donate to Child’s Play. For today and today only (Oct. 28, 2004) PayPal isn’t charging any transaction fees. If you were planning on donating via PayPal anyway, this might be a good day to do it.

Also Amazon is running a special promotion that might be cool for Child's Play. When you buy two games you get a third game free. Here is all the info. You just need to make sure that you purchase the games from Amazon or Toys R Us.

-Gabe out