We crushed Wanted: Weapons of Fate, which is just as quick as you've heard. The barb of its limited duration was deepened by the fact that - during this time - we found ourselves enjoying it quite a bit. Gabriel in particular enjoyed their cinematic moments, which are somewhere between a rail-shooter, a quicktime event, and a cutscene. For my part, I was surprised to find that the story execution wasn't a wash. They could have a franchise here, if they wanted to - though they might want to run some of their henchmen through some basic barrel recognition.

The podcast for today's strip, "The Law Of Unintended Consequences," is now available.  Of course, those of you who are subscribed to the feed itself might already be listening - in which case, I'll leave you to it.

Do you like things that are new? How about shirts? Why do I ask? No reason.

It seems as though the floodgates are beginning to creak open on inFamous, including (among other things) the revelation of "Karma Moments" - a tracked morality system with effects on player progression. It wasn't meant to be funny, but for some reason we found it very funny, because like many mechanisms of this kind your choices tend to come down to being an omnibenevolent supercherub or the Goddamned devil.

OnLive is pretty much the belle of the ball at GDC thus far, and its promise of rapture must be pure exhilaration to anyone who has never worked IT. I wouldn't describe it as a fight, per se - the knives remained sheathed - but I would say that Gabriel and I entered into what you might call a scale model of a fight. There was fury, but it was a very compact fury.

Porkfry is at the forefront of Pokemon husbandry, as has been well established - his "Living Pokedex" is a beacon to the field.  It wasn't until the last round of Pokemon releases that it was absorbed by our group generally, and for some of us, it penetrated those membranes which cradle our most crucial organs.  Very early on, I felt as though I glimpsed the overall shape of Pokemon play. I couldn't push through it. As fascinating as the endgame of Pokemon is - and fascinating, as a word, is barely sufficient - I couldn't build a roster myself because the grind on low-level Pokemon play is just too brutal. Gabe was able to manage it, but for him (and presumably others) playing Pokemon is something you do while you are doing something else - autonomic, not a conscious act but rather a function of the body.

I'm a little late on this, hopefully your anger will not endure.  Should you crave additional Maw, which would be completely understandable, the "Brute Force" and "River Redirect" Deleted Scenes are up on Greenhouse.

In the fourth comic of "Further Songs Of Sorcelation," we posit that bad-ass sorcelator Grimm Shado once banished the Witchaloks to the dark shadows of the Shadowdark. Shadowdark is a word that - like everything else in the series - we constructed expressly to be as awful as is humanly possible. Imagine my surprise when, upon opening "The Manual Of The Planes," I discovered that this is an actual place in the base setting. We decided that this was a punishable offense and, speaking gnarled words that haven't been heard for ten thousand years, unleashed our most powerful techniques.

Specifically, I'm referring to the podcasts we sometimes produce.  Our newest offering details the writing process for today's strip, "In Which Much Is Revealed."

I've really enjoyed getting back into the live shows. I did another yesterday and recorded it. Like I mentioned before, the best way to catch one of these is to follow my Twitter. I'll send the word out via a tweet a few minutes before starting a show. I'll be broadcasting most strips so look for those shows on Tuesday,Thursday and Friday. If you watch the show from yesterday you'll see that I will sometimes answer questions from the live chat. If you want to participate in that you'll need a Ustream account. Also I've had a lot of comments about my musical choices. Everything from "this music is the soundtrack to an abortion" to "Great music...if you're a queer!" so as you can see it really varies. Honestly some people do like it and have asked for my Pandora username so they can check out my station. So if you use Pandora you should be able to search for cwgabriel and see my station. I've been tuning it for a while now and if you like bands like the Weepies, The Postal Service and cats like James Taylor you should enjoy it. 

Whenever I read things like this I always feel as though I'm going a little crazy, but it's possible I am more sensitive to shit of this particular variety.

Over the entirety of my experience with it, Army of Two slowly transformed into a "Net Positive." It was unexpected, and slightly annoying, because when I'm seated on a coruscating throne of black rage, I don't want it melting down into molasses. Optimally, this is a black throne I can hurl edicts from, proclamations with the unyielding vigor of natural law - carried forth by hackling beasts, who are my will made flesh.

I've started using Ustream again to broadcast myself drawing the strip. It took me a while to gather the right combination of software for the mac to get the video and audio streaming correctly. It's working great now thanks to Camtwist, Audio Hijack Pro and Soundflowerbed. If you're interested in watching one of these live shows the best thing to do is follow me on Twitter. I should warn you that I don't actually Twitter all that much. You won't see updates when I make a sandwich or stub my toe. I do send out a Tweet before every live show though. I'll also be recording the occasional show like I did yesterday. 

Every now and then, in Blood on the Sand, 50 Cent or another member of "G-Unit" will make an offhand comment about the architecture.  I doubt very seriously that "strong characterization" was in the product's charter, but these occasional flashes of context made me wonder what kinds of exploration the man could actually sustain.

** UPDATE **

We are tittering with delight that PAX 10 audience favorite and authentically delicious The Maw can now be had for your Windows PC Computron.  Savor the scrumptious demo, and marvel that even greater delights may be had for only ten dollars.