After listening to the album Illinois, I had the feeling that there should, perhaps, be some kind of licensing requirement for instrument ownership.  Playing God of War II gave us a similar feeling. This isn't entirely fair, and I'm aware of that, but the power of the game on an artistic and technical level constitutes a challenge to an entire industry.  

Part of it is probably the sheer scale of the events you are taking part in. Kratos is literally pruning the Greek pantheon as he prowls from game to game. Deactivating them omnipresent warheads or averting global conflict should motivate, and deeply, but God of War's brutality has a spiritual dimension that the stock metanarrative which runs through so many games doesn't have. You aren't fighting with your best blood in order to simply retain the status quo. Every time you swing a sword, you are shifting an epoch.

Even solving a simple puzzle in God of War II is a savage affair that affirms your apostate rage! Everything is united: This was all true in God of War, and now the thematic stakes are even higher. New gameplay twists and inhumane finishing animations reaffirm that this is a franchise without peer.

One of the attack vectors against Sony is that they moved slowly and this caused them to lose many exclusives. Even at the dizzy height of my rage against them, I never found this line of reasoning especially compelling. Even hearing that Metal Gear might go to a Microsoft system - and it's not as though there's no precedent - doesn't especially shock me. To be honest, I would be happy if this game appeared on less than one platform. But for the longtime gaming enthusiast, what Sony can deliver as a first party has the power to compel - and this was before they started siphoning the cream of independent game development. Think seriously about the franchises and teams they represent, and then ask yourself how Nintendo is considered the king of in-house development.

You're in for a shock going back to the old system, graphically I mean, but I am pleased to announce that this shock is of a short duration. I felt my stomach roil for a period of (I believe) five minutes, after which epic feats of art direction and animation began to assert themselves. Eventually, it just looks like your screen is dirty.

When Final Fantasy XII was released, we were told that the Playstation 2's swan song had arrived, and then when Rogue Galaxy dropped, we were told again that we were sending this draped hero to eternity on a smouldering pyre. Now God of War II is available at retail, and we are being offered the same narrative. I wonder if it will be any more true this time.

(CW)TB out.

you can't hide secrets from the future

So we released the very first trailer for our game last week. Everyone seems to dig the 2D intro and I think most of us can agree that the 3D stuff still has a ways to go. Originally we were just going to drop the 2D flash trailer. It’s a nice intro to the world. We see the “Startling Developments Detective Agency” and we get a feel for how Gabe and Tycho fit into the story. Tycho the learned world traveler reading at his desk with his Tommy gun resting in his lap. Gabe… punching something. We were worried though that people might think this was going to be a 2D game if that’s all they saw. So we decided at the last minute to attach some of the 3D work we’ve got. It’s extremely early and it’s missing some effects like cell shading and a few others.In retrospect we probably should have held of showing it but we were excited and we jumped the gun a bit. We still have a lot of work to do in order to really define the look of the game. If nothing else, the clockwork fruit fucker at the end seems to have struck the right note with most of you so I’m glad we included him in the trailer. Since he seems to be such a hit I thought I’d share the original concept art I did for him. This is an example of what I send over to Hot Head.

I got a lot of mail asking if I actually drew the 2D part which makes me super happy, since I didn’t. There’s a lot of 2D animation in the game but I’m not actually drawing it. I’m storyboarding the entire thing and I’m providing lots of character drawings but I’m not actually drawing the animated scenes myself. That’s being handled by a flash studio and I really think they did a great job with Gabe and Tycho. They’re not super hard to draw or anything but in order to make them look exactly like I draw them it’s actually a pretty complicated job. Here’s a style guide I created for the animators to help them with their Gabe drawing.

It’s sort of crazy how many little details go into making each character look “right”.

We’ve created a new forum for you all to discuss the game. I’ll also be in there whenever I can, answering questions and providing updates. In fact there is a special Q&A with me today so hit this trhead if you want to join in. I thought I’d run down some of the information we’ve released so far in case you missed it.

-The game will allow you to create your own custom penny arcade character. This character will join a party with Gabe and Tycho. So you play with PA characters instead of as them.

-The game is a RPG/Adventure. We’ve got no random battles but beyond that the cobat takes inspiration from classic RPG's.

-There is no voice acting in the game. I’m not sure we could ever find voices that everyone would like and so we chose to go with text bubbles and character portraits instead.

I can also tell you that the game will sell for under twenty bucks. We’re not making Final Fantasy XIII here. We’re making a funny and fun to play game that fans of the comic should really enjoy. It’s our goal to make something that even people who don’t read PA can pick up and have fun with as well but the fact is, not everyone can appreciate a masturbating robot.

-Gabe out

Our ping pong match against Microsoft Casual Games did not go so well. We won two of our seven rounds but in the end it wasn’t enough. So our trail of tears through the video game industry continues. Our next match is against Amaze I believe. I had a line about how they will be amazed at the beating they receive but it seems premature now.

You can see some of Kiko’s awesome pictures from our MS battle here. Honestly it was another great night and we met a bunch of cool people. Even though we haven’t won a match yet the social aspect of these events has been a huge success. We’ve heard rumblings that the developers we play may start playing each other as well which is exciting. We may be able to spawn a Seattle developers Ping Pong league.

-Gabe out