So I decided to bring back gabeart. For right now I’m using Blogger.com but eventually I should be able to get it integrated into PA.

I’ve got some sketches up there now and a video tutorial explaining how I did the light bloom effect you saw in my Gears of War fan art.

I had about a dozen people tell me that today’s comic strip reminded them of a song by Great Big Sea called “The Mermaid”. I wasn’t familiar with them so I pulled it up on Napster this morning and it’s a fantastic song. If you have some time I highly recommend queuing up a bunch of their tracks, everything I’ve heard so far this morning is awesome.

-Gabe out

Welcome to the show notes for Downloadable Content 9/20/2006, "In Breach Of Warranty." The episode is available for direct download at this link, or feel free to subscribe to our iTunes compatible feed here. We have not settled on a schedule, rather, we've just begun leaving the recorder on every time we write. It's different: people can actually just walk in, and without their knowledge they've become a part of the "show." It may become more standardized as we refine our process, but I know better than to make promises on this score. I hope you enjoy it, it's been gone a lot longer than we intended. This helpful guide should help you get the most out of it.

0:01 - I'm talking about Bluetooth pairing, here. Gabe couldn't understand why it was awesome.

2:24 - "Tender" is what I call Brenna in unguarded moments. I don't know why.

2:34 - Believe it or not, and I would understand if you didn't, there are even more shameful stories than this.

3:54 - Rumpole of The Bailey is one of my favorite shows.

4:43 - Apparently, you can play as the Master Hand in Super Smash Brothers? Huh.

6:09 - The "Document" Robert refers to here is the Working Document (a kind of linear walkthrough) for On The Rain Slick Precipice Of Darkness.

8:18 - There's a demo of Sonic the Hedgehog on Live, if you want. We liked it eventually. At first, we didn't quite understand the "rhythm" of it. You'll know what I mean when you play it.

10:10 - "Tell 'em why you mad" is a quote from The Madd Rapper. He has an album of his own I guess, but we never listened to it. The quote is specifically from a song on Biggie's Life After Death album entitled "Kick In The Door."

11:18 - Culdcept Saga was shown again at TGS, and they keep releasing the videos on the US version of Marketplace, so I'm looking forward to playing a stateside release. I've talked about it before. It's the "Magic: The Gathering" meets "Monopoly" game, the sort of ultraniche thing thing you'd never expect to see on that platform.

11:46 - Bioware has a DS group now. Exquisite!

13:09 - The show Gabe was talking about is right here - it was IGN Weekly's 25th episode. It has Splinter Cell: Double Agent footage I've never seen anywhere else, but there's also this strange sort of... I guess "plot"(?) running through it. I don't keep up with the show, so I don't know if this sort of thing happens a lot.

14:44 - I start quoting House of Pain here for some reason. It's the song "I'm A Swing It," from their album Same As It Ever Was. Yes, they continued to make albums after "Jump Around."

15:28 - After TGS, I think it's pretty clear that they plan to release something this year. I don't think their online offering will actually be in place at launch, not in its entirety. It doesn't really mean anything long term - the Xbox launched with nothing on that score, and built up the industry standard service. I'm just saying.

16:14 - Here's those screenshots of "Colors" screenshots I was talking about. I think you will agree: odd.

25:46 - The comic I'm talking about in this part can be found here. It is from the year ninety-nine, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

(CW)TB

When I started reading articles about Senator Brownback's bill - the one that would require that the ESRB play through games in their entirety - I expected to agree with it in principle, but take issue with its execution. The shrill phase of the site, where I would don armor and ride under the aegis of the true gamer no matter how mild the incentive, now rests in the reliquary with Xbox Controller Jokes and Jabs At User Friendly. I had chosen a singularly poor moment to become reasonable. Upon further examination, the Senator's plan (which I think may be rightly called a machination) is the sort of thing one might forge in the fires of Mount Doom.

GamePolitics has more robust information than you might have seen projected in snark-studded editorials. The idea that the ESRB must "play through" all games is not the problem - the problem is that

1. "Playing through" games would not have discovered the content that got us into this mess.

Hot Coffee is one thing. That's low-fi erotica secreted away somewhere, dormant on the platter. But Oblivion is actually the better test, because it presents several cases that make the playthrough "thing" unworkable. Oblivion was re-rated based on a nude patch, i.e., user created content. There was some other rationale based on violence, but the ESRB was in an impossible position politically, needed to move, and Bethesda took the fall. But no playthrough is going to detect questionable content based on mods you have not installed. Oblivion also features in-house downloadable content, made by people who are not perverts - official enhancements and powerful horse clothes that can alter the experience. What's more, Oblivion is a vast, vast game - one that I'm sure some are still playing. This isn't a two-hour film or an album by controversial hip-hop firebrand Ice T. It's a dynamic experience based on player input - you might as well hire a cartographer to map the paths of electrons around a nucleus.

There's no turn-key solution to this problem, and I think most people agree it is a problem. At first I thought our noble Senator was simply being naive. I can be forgiven for that, most of the mainstream "sins" we decry are due more to a paucity of experience with the medium as opposed to authentically nefarious intent. He's not naive, though, because

2. "Playing through" games isn't really what the bill is about.

That part is powerful, yes, but it's prestidigitation. Let me tell you that Gabriel will be angry at me for using that word. I hope you aren't - but yes, the notion of them playing games or not playing them is sleight of hand. The bill is actually designed to seize editorial control from the electronic gaming industry. They create their own terms for describing game content - we might call such a thing a ratings system - and then they gin up their own body to discipline this rambunctious industry that has been at the root of so much controversy. Indeed, one can almost imagine the American flag gently billowing.

(CW)TB out.

you grip her love like a driver's license