I need to warn you that the next three strips - of which this is the first - are incredibly weird. We wanted to do a couple comics about going to New York, where we are at this very moment, and the chemicals in our brains were aligned in such a way that this was the result. I'm not apologizing, just... warning.
For NIS America's "Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero?" recently, and they just put it up on their site. I found this game incredibly difficult. Funny! But incredibly difficult.
We suggested after an afternoon with the beta that Killzone 2 was a game owners of the PlayStation 3 could clutch to their chests like a babe and love without reservation. As a wholly owned studio, the Guerilla Games charter is concise: create a world-class shooter native to (and definitive of) the PlayStation 3. They were given the tools, and the time, and three years into the life of the system the only surprise would be if they hadn't delivered something noteworthy.
I just wanted to post another reminder that we'll be attending the New York Comic Con this week. If you live over on that side of the country you should come by and say hello. We'll be doing some panels while we're there. One will be our standard Q&A style event and the other will be a little more interesting. I've mentioned before that Tycho and I like to go to schools and teach kids how to draw cartoons. Well we're actually going to try and do that as a panel in New York. I'll be teaching the kids how to draw some simple cartoon characters while Tycho talks to them about writing jokes and telling stories. The few times we've done this locally it's been a real hit and I'm excited to try it out at the show.
You may not be aware that both Fisher Price and Nintendo are colluding with Muslim terrorists to ensnare the young, which might make it difficult to understand today's comic. You may not think that unintelligible samples or scarves are an effective weapon for global jihad, but that just means you're a part of the problem, Mohammed.
The new MacBook Pro is incredible, that's what I hear from Gabriel at any rate, with the exception that it shuts itself off during ordinary use due to its infernal Goddamned heat. The laptop is perfectly capable of managing said heat, but for what I assume are aesthetic reasons they don't allow the internal fans to spin at the necessary speeds. Allowing a computer to fail for reasons of beauty is noble, I suppose. In its way.
I made no secret of my love for Defense Grid, and I'm overjoyed that we've got it up. This version has all the updates, and is integrated with Greenhouse for achievements and leaderboards - by which I mean Triumphs and Standings. It's been out for a while now, so getting a read on it shouldn't be tough - the (Windows only) demo is a great place to start as always. I loved the voice acting, production values, pretty much everything about it. I'm not in the habit of begging developers for early copies of a game, but I did so this time and felt no shame in it.
This strip represents the culmination of Further Songs Of Sorcelation, but if you seek greater closure on the imaginary film itself, that is something I can provide.
I crave these things.
We stopped by Gameworks on Sunday night before heading over to the Video Games Live concert. We had heard that they had a Street Fighter 4 machine and we all wanted to check it out. They did have the machine and when I saw it I was instantly transported back to my youth. The arcade culture that surrounds a new machine like this was in full effect and it was something I hadn't witnessed since I was a kid playing fighting games like Virtua fighter and Killer Instinct. Chairs had been scrounged up and placed around the cabinet. There was a steady stream of people going up against one guy who had been running the machine for a while. It was like watching people being fed into a chipper shredder. He dismantled each new player without ever giving up a single win as long as I watched. I snapped this picture because I thought it was so awesome.
I don't know how much longer we can lash you with this scourge and still retain our alignment. I would expect a reprieve shortly.
We'll be heading out to New York Comic Con in just a few weeks. It's been years since we were over on that side of the country and our first time at this particular show. We'll be sharing a booth there with Scott Kurtz which should be a lot of fun. We'll have tons of shirts,posters and books. You have to give us money for that stuff but as always I'll be doing sketches for free.
Making something that is bad on purpose - and not bad inadvertently, which is my usual process - is a whole-body thrill. It goes hard against every natural instinct to write this way. It has the delicious and irresistible texture of sin.
TwistedPixel's The Maw was the PAX 10 Audience Choice winner at this year's convention, and it just hit Xbox Live Arcade for purchase. If you stopped by the booth and liked what you saw, I'm sure they'd love it if you queued up the demo.