With Goblet of Fire hitting on Friday, I guess we couldn't resist. I enjoyed the fifth book while I was reading it, at least, I thought I did, but I couldn't tell you a single thing that happened between the hard covers of my collector's edition with wand. The Sixth Book (or tome, or whatever) got me back on board.
When I still had a 360 waiting for me, I wasn't physically shaking with the anticipation of it. Now that it's not really a sure thing my thoughts are dominated by fantasies of its acquisition. The onrushing wall of 360 coverage is creating a kind of pressure against my skull.
We got an email from an employee at a "dedicated games retailer" that might intrigue you, regarding how 360s are being distributed. I'd imagine it's probably store by store, but here you go: they are going to the people who purchased the most accessories, as opposed to the people that got on there first. We've heard it from people going into stores as well, where the person behind the counter - in what I'm going to call an act of kindness, given the situation - suggests that they throw a couple peripherals on the pile to guarantee it. I'm not saying this is what happened to me, I'm just saying that it happens.
Well, whatever: they have to do for theirs, and with news of soft holiday profits in games I'd imagine they are trying to make their store emerge from the spreadsheet with numbers that will entice the Regional Manager. I have no doubt that waiting outside Best Buy will create - if this website is any indication - much needed character.
I've read Brian Crecente's Kotaku with increasing rage, and also the foul Gizmodo seeing first the box, then the secret agent style steel briefcase, and then the retail device placed next to the dev kit, which he also ostentatiously owns, a reflexive tightening of the hand into the fist, which we all know is itself a kind of weapon.
(CW)TB out.
Child’s Play this year is going incredibly well. To date we've raised just over $100,000. All kinds of companies are stepping up to help out Child’s Play this year. One of them, Smugmug.com has helped us out with Child’s Play in the past by hosting our CP photos. This year they are going above and beyond. Smugmug is offering to match match every cash and gift donation from a Smugmug customer with the same amount of cash themselves, up to $10,000. You can read all the details here on Don’s blog.
Something we started doing last year is our annual charity dinner and auction. This is a semi formal event held at the Meydenbauer Center (same building as PAX) in Bellevue Washington on Dec, 13th. Let me break the event down for you:
The evening begins at 6:30 pm, on the 4th Floor of the Meydenbauer Center (Rooms 405-406). You can mingle with friends, people from the industry and Tycho and I while you browse and bid on silent auction items. Feel free to take advantage of the hors d'oevres and wine during this period. Dinner and the live auction will commence at 7:30.
Attire: This is a “semi-formal” dinner so I don’t want to see any T-shirts or jeans. Last year people really got into it, I mean we as geeks just don’t get many opportunities to do this sort of thing. It was really odd to look around the room and see a lot of the same faces I saw at PAX, only instead of black T-shirts they were in suits and dresses.
Dinner Menu Choices: You have a few different choices this year so check out these options and drool:
- Turkey breast roulade with sage shallot sauce, roasted sweet potatoes and cranberry chutney
or
- Top sirloin steak with Merlot rosemary demi-glace and roasted forest mushrooms served with horseradish potatoes and fresh seasonal vegetables
or
- Grilled vegetable Napolean layered with Fontina Val d'Aosta cheese and fresh herbs served with sauce rouille, chive oil and crispy leeks
and
- Baby spinach salad with toasted pecans, brie slice, dried apricots, and raspberry vinaigrette
- Chocolate Royale Cake featuring rich coffee cake with mocha whipped cream and chocolate shavings
Fresh bread, coffee, tea, and wine are served with your meal.
That’s right, sage shallot sauce mother fuckers!
Auction: We’ve got some ridiculously cool stuff to bid on this year.
- Penny Arcade signed and numbered Xboxes and PS2s
- Cardboard Tube Samurai limited edition laser cels (a Proof and #11 from 750)
- A complete Penny Arcade wardrobe (38 shirts!)
- Brand new PSPs and XBOX 360s
- A gaming day with the Penny Arcade crew (for up to six people)
- A tour of the New Bungie Studios
- An appearance in a Penny Arcade comic strip.
- Tour of the new Penny Arcade office.
- Pet Murloc for World of Warcraft (was available only at BlizzCon)
- Original PA comic strip art.
- PAX banners (the much sought after and occasionally stolen banners from the Penny Arcade Expo)
- And much more!
Just like last year, the items will be divided into two groups. Some will be available via a silent auction while others will be in the live auction. The silent auction will run from 6:30 to 7:30. Live auction will run from 7:30 to 9:30 and will be emceed by Tycho and I. All bids are binding. Please bring form of payment to the event (cash, check, credit card) as all bids are to be settled that evening.
Tickets: Tickets are $100.00 per person. Now $25 of that actually goes to pay for your dinner and the rest of it goes directly to Child’s Play. That means that $75 is tax deductible. A portion of all auction bids are also tax deductible. I know it’s not a cheap ticket but I can tell you having been there last year, this is an incredible night and it’s all going to the kids.
If you’re in the area or near the area I really hope you will come out. Like I said this is a night you honestly won’t forget.
-Gabe out
Something I keep forgetting to mention is the multiplayer portion of Metroid Prime Pinball. After the game came out, we almost immediately ended up at Blizzcon, so I had quite a lot of uninterrupted time on flights there and back to play it.
I love the regular game; that's not what this post is about.
The user interface they "designed" to get you into the multiplayer portion is a Goddamn abberation. Typically, when one wants to play a multiplayer game, everyone selects multiplayer. That's not weird. In Metroid Prime Pinball, if everyone who owns the cartridge selects multiplayer, what they will be doing is setting themselves up - all of them, simultaneously - as servers, so no other human being will ever appear on any of their screens. If I may inject my own experienceinto the narratives, the participants may sit in this fashion for a very long time.
Let's say that you do figure it out, and that one person sets up a server and up to seven other people connect. There is a message on the server's screen that says "Press Start To Practice," which seems like a good idea when you've got seven combatants lining up. Don't press it. If you do, it breaks off everyone's download. Indeed, there's no indication on any of the other screens when their download of the client is finished - that's only on the host as well. Dismal.
Now you know how it works.
Once you understand that one person if the server and everyone else is using DS Download Play from the main menu, you can get right into the meat of it - a custom table that isn't used anywhere else in the game. Gameplay wise, they call it a "race" to a 100,000 points. There are a few special features to this board, chief among them being:
The Magnetic Center Target is a progressive thousand point bonus each time you hit it during a single ball. It's a central feature in most strategies, but it can be countered pretty handily with judicious use of the
Metroid Targets, classic pinball feature-type targets spread about that can generate pesky metroids on every opponent's screen. I initially downplayed the value of them. It's true that they can kill a ball, but it's rare. Their main use is to block straighforward access to that center target, where bonuses can get out of hand pretty quick.
The Special also bears mentioning, as it can be a spoiler in heated games. If you're able to flip the ball around the board one way and then completely around the other, the Special Target lowers and can kick you a quick thirty k.
I'm not really neutral on the subject of pinball. I think of it as a kind of Heritage Genre whose unique mechanics still provide a lot of excitement. But the combination of the private, skill based table experience with the frenzied, public score attack is pretty addictive if you can get a few people together.
(CW)TB
I used to be a big fan of the Wizbits cartoon series when I was younger. I went through a phase a few years ago where I was buying up old cells and model sheets from the show off of eBay. I hadn’t looked at that stuff in years but all the action going on over at the ELotH:TES wiki got me excited. I pulled out some old boxes from storage and found a bunch of original Wizbits artwork.
I went ahead and uploaded one of the character sheets I had to the Wizbits section of the wiki. I have a bunch more good stuff here. As soon as I have some time I’ll try and get it scanned.
People always come up to me at cons and tell me my stuff reminds them of the old Wizbits cartoon. Now that I really look at it I see what they mean. Obviously I was pretty inspired by the show. I mean, those characters look like something I’d have drawn.
-Gabe out
