In the hunt

28 February 06 | 00:59 | Posted by:

Mother 3 media continues to emit from Nintendo in a pitiful trickle, and my fascination with the game and its heart-poundingly obsessive fanbase continues unabated. I've been a little too busy over the past week to spend much time SMAAAASHing foes to death with a baseball bat, but rest assured this is but a temporary state of affairs.

Anyway, it looks like...


...Mother 3 won't be breaking the mold with its battle system. And I'm going to be really disappointed if I can't dig up fossils or Gyroids from that little starburst patch in the first screenshot. Well then.

I guess while I'm here at Nintendo headquarters to look at Metroid Prime: Hunters, I could maybe ask someone about the likelihood of the Mother 3 seeing an English release. But where the's fun in that?

P.S., if you're interested in my random babble about Hunters I'm making use of my work blog for the task.

category: games | forums | fifteen comments | §

Gamespite #1

27 February 06 | 10:19 | Posted by:

Gamespite.net: Hating videogames so you don't have to.

P.S., real Super Princess Peach review here.

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category: gamespite | forums | eight comments | §

Corduroy

26 February 06 | 00:16 | Posted by:

New site artwork and color scheme. In case you somehow missed it. Special thanks to The Girlfriend for the hott photography.

Edit: Pft, I think everyone missed the point. My girlfriend is a photographer, not a model. That's some other chick in the photos. Twiggy legs are a dime a dozen, but good photography is much harder to come by. No matter; while you were complimenting the appearance of someone I barely know, we had a good chuckle at your expense. (LOL @ ALL)

category: blog | forums | 33 comments | §

10 CLS - 20 PRINT "HELLO FREAKS" - 30 END

25 February 06 | 13:10 | Posted by:

So, it looks like Google has finally indexed the recently-posted interior pages of my site in revolting depth. I take this to be the case because all of a sudden the referring search strings have very little to do with the name of the site and much more with fascinating topics like "legolas mpreg" and "akane tendo hentai." Welcome to my website, Internet. Please choke on your own vomit and die.

Although I guess it is a little heartwarming to know that someone out there actually still cares about Ranma 1/2 enough to want to see its characters naked. Thanks for keeping the torch alive, you creepy pedophile.

category: blog | forums | nine comments | §

Perfect Machine of Snipe, Part V

24 February 06 | 12:28 | Posted by:

Apparently Golgo-13 makes his long-overdue (?) return to the U.S. this week in the form of a Viz-published graphic novel called "Supergun." Given the nature of the series, there's a 50% chance that the title refers to "Little Duke" and not some sort of ultimate weapon.

Anyway, the point is: Time for another installment of Perfect Machine of Snipe.

The fourth and final volume of Leed's 80s-era run of Golgo-13 graphics novels was called "The Ivory Connection." It manages all at once to include one of the most enjoyable G13 stories I've read... and also the most completely repulsive. It's a pretty well-known fact that Takao Saito's name on the cover is more a stamp of approval than actual authorial involvement; Duke Togo's adventures are mass-produced by a studio of young men carefully trained to mimic Saito's artwork, and nowhere is that more obvious than in The Ivory Connection. The first half of the book, an eponymous globetrotting story, features a restrained art style with crisp, controlled linework and fairly elegant figures. But the second story, "Scandal! The Unpaid Reward," has a look as lurid as its title, with thicker inking and cruder anatomy. Also a lot more smirking.

Plus it's really completely unpleasant.

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category: manga | forums | 24 comments | §

Oh mother, it's eating at my soul

21 February 06 | 12:21 | Posted by:

I have to admit that, despite myself, I'm really looking forward to Mother 3. Earthbound 2. Whatever you want to call it. Each new bit of info that the villainous Shigesato Itoi doles out to his eager fans is somehow terribly enticing... and I don't even particularly care for the previous games. Maybe it's the willful simplicity of the visuals -- you can hardly call this the cutting edge of graphics:


...but despite the flat appearance, there's a lot going on in this screen. The satisfied smirk on the wine-drinking ghost's face (despite the fact that the wine has clearly passed straight through its spectral guts) is the sort of tiny detail that seems likely to put Mother 3 in its own class.

Unless, of course, these are the bitmap equivalent of those composite "screenshots" that EA likes to assemble in Photoshop to promote its latest callow wares. Since the Mother series has been relegated to the "post-modern" corner of the medium by various chin-strokey journalist types, I wouldn't put it past Itoi to succumb to the base deceptions of his vile PoMo bedfellow, Hideo Kojima, and promote his new game with a carefully-orchestrated blitz of lies to put Metal Gear Solid 2's Raiden fake-out to shame.

The again, the six screens revealed so far indicate that there's something like four different protagonists, so any switcheroo gimmickry could hardly be said to be unexpected.


Eh, whatever. It's not like Nintendo's ever going to translate this. (He said, poking a stick into the fanboy nest with deliberate malice.)

category: games | forums | 23 comments | §

She can vote, but she can't drink

20 February 06 | 10:52 | Posted by:

So, Zelda turns twenty tomorrow. "Zelda who?" you might ask, because perhaps you know nothing of videogames and have just now stumbled upon this website by way of a freak accident. In that case, sorry! I promise we're generally good people here. We mean you no harm; please do not be frightened by our curious cult-like behavior and inpenetrable nerd jargon.

Everyone else: yes, that's right, twenty frickin' years since Zelda hit the geek scene with megaton force. And white boy rap. This is the kind of thing that makes a person feel old, the sort of realization that makes you imagine that you can feel your bone marrow ossifying, hardening, disintegrating into dust. When the game hit the U.S. a year after its Japanese debut -- nineteen years ago! -- I was already old enough to be in junior high, an unfortunate state of being in which many people reading this posting currently find themselves trapped. (And for you, a message of mixed hope from a future possibly much like your own: no, the world doesn't get kinder or easier once you escape, but take heart. Eventually you will no longer have to participate in the diabolical state-sponsored gulag program known as "P.E.")

We would stand around, my friends and I, in the brisk morning chill of a West Texas spring, waiting for the first bell to issue its command to cram our downtrodden selves into sterile classrooms and painful wooden desks, and pass the time by sharing our latest Zelda discoveries. The misery of each long school day was powerfully mitigated by the prospect of going home and exploring a heretofore unknown corner of Hyrule. The first to stumble upon some vital secret would be met with some disbelief by the rest of us; then as now, gamers loved to take bold liberties with truth, and certain people were known to fabricate implausible and unverifiable claims about our current favorite game. But eventually we would stumble upon a dead end and grudgingly put their suggestion to the test -- and lo and behold, going north five times while trapped in the Lost Hills really did work.

In an age before widespread Internet usage, years before GameFAQs, there was a real sense of connectedness that developed around games like Zelda, Zelda II, Metroid, Castlevania II. They were dense, daunting, compelling; it took the collective wisdom of J.T. Hutchinson junior high's sharpest minds and palest bodies to defeat their poorly-translated and sometimes deliberate obtuseness. And that's what I think of when I think of Zelda, I guess: a single-player game designed for collaboration. The Four Swords series is a full realization of the sometimes cooperative, sometimes competitive experience that the very first game represented for me and my friends: we'd share vital clues with one another, but we weren't above a little obfuscation to stay just a bit ahead. Our little crew slowly lost interest in Zelda and drifted away as the Second Quest inflicted its attrition upon our nerves. By the time I polished off Ganon for the second time, no one else cared -- they'd all moved along to Zelda II. Still, there's something to be said for moral victories.

Of course, I couldn't say all of that in 1UP's Zelda anniversary tribute, because that would cause the site to drift into the dreaded no-man's-land known as New Games Journalism. Nevertheless, it remains one of the biggest reasons The Legend of Zelda is one of the greatest games ever created. Sorry if you weren't there for it -- you really missed out.

category: games | forums | 26 comments | §

Hippies are the new quail

15 February 06 | 09:09 | Posted by:

category: blog | forums | 31 comments | §

Amphibian orbital cannon

14 February 06 | 10:48 | Posted by:

I said I wouldn't draw another comic strip until I've finished the text for Issue Six. And I meant it! This isn't a real comic strip, see. It's something stupid I doodled on the bus home last night, based on a completely ridiculous dream I had the night before. So then what, you might ask, is the difference between this and an actual comic strip? It's a fair question; everything I do is stupid, ridiculous or sloppy. But this has no watercolor wash.


In other news, this is brilliant. Cruel and highly illegal, but brilliant.

category: comic | forums | 23 comments | §

The evil forces of the Wondercons

13 February 06 | 10:30 | Posted by:

Since you're probably not one for futile endeavors, I doubt you click through to the Zine page very often to check on its progress. So you probably didn't notice that I added about 3,000 words to the tally this weekend. Unfortunately, it's looking like 15,000 isn't going to cover it -- I still have a lot of ground to cover, and I don't think a mere 3,500 additional words is going to do the trick. Especially since at least a third of what I've written so far is sidebars and footnotes. I guess we'll see.

Anyway, I'm not allowing myself to post any more comic strips here until I'm done with the Zine text. Those of you who are eagerly awaiting the magazine you paid for long ago are undoubtedly happy about this because it means you'll be getting what's rightly yours fairly soon; meanwhile, everyone else is undoubtedly happy about this because it means you're spared the agony of reading more of my amateurish comics. Really, it's hard to think of a situation that more completely embodies the concept of "win-win."

In tangentially-related news, I attended Wondercon this weekend. As I'm not really a fan of mainstream comic books per se (besides small press/manga graphic novels, all I read is X-Factor -- and that's only out of a tenacious, nostalgic loyalty for Peter David's previous run on the title) I felt a little out of sorts. But I do feel it was an appropriately-named convention, as I frequently found myself wondering many things. Like:

• Is an original paste-up of an '80s-era Alpha Flight interior page really worth $1500?
• Is Mark Texiera actually impressed when you bring him a porn magazine and ask for a sketch based on one of the pictures, or was that dude just making an ass of himself?
• What drives a fairly attractive young woman to dress up as Lara Croft and wander amongst hundreds of lonely boys whose idea of how to relate to women has largely been shaped by comic books? Desperation? A violent need for attention? Suicidal impulses?
• Why was that little kid wearing Steve Purcell's name tag? Is the creator of Sam & Max really a child genius, or did he simply become eternally ageless in the explosion that destroyed the Moon all those years ago?
• Have you never heard of soap, buddy? Phew.
• Where's Scott Pilgrim 3, anyway?

Out-of-sorts as I may have felt, it was still worth the effort, since I bought an absolutely amazing poster.


Also, I discovered that if you're wearing a press badge, people will give you free stuff... even if you tell them not to. I wish I were more unscrupulous so I could really take advantage of this amazing cosmic power confered upon me by lucking into a cool job.

category: blog | forums | twelve comments | §

Misanthrope Prime

11 February 06 | 12:56 | Posted by:

category: games | forums | seven comments | §

From the Archives, Pt. 2

10 February 06 | 10:50 | Posted by:

Hello and welcome to my horribly failed experiment new comic! Remorseful apologies after the cut.

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category: comic | forums | eleven comments | §

The dawning of a new era of cliches

09 February 06 | 12:42 | Posted by:

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category: blog | forums | 30 comments | §

McPunchington

07 February 06 | 10:27 | Posted by:

OK, responses to that last entry got pretty weird. Let's see if I can scroll it off the page with a string empty, vapid entries. Business as usual, in other words.

I finally finished up Firefly over the weekend, along with Serenity. Yeah, that means I didn't do my nerd duty and see it in the theatre, but somehow I suspect that my $10 wasn't the make-or-break point for getting a sequel greenlighted. Anyway, I'd rather see a well-crafted series like this end on a good note with a fair degree of closure than be stretched beyond the limits of what its premise and production staff can support. See: X-Files. Besides making me say "Waaaash" while making sad faces, Serenity did a pretty good job of cleaning house without overstaying its welcome. So in honor of this fine series I'm going to strive to be more like Capt. Reynolds from now on (i.e. get a bad haircut and find any little excuse to punch anyone who annoys me).

I'm also a little bit tempted to go back and watch Titan A.E. again, since Firefly's main creators -- Joss Whedon and Ben Edlund -- were responsible for that little abomination. If nothing else, it would be a good example of what Whedon and Edlund create under Fox's strict yoke versus what they create when given more creative latitude. That is, abysmal sci-fi that no one watches versus pretty good sci-fi that no one watches. At least they're consistent.

category: blog | forums | sixteen comments | §

The mystery deepens (Webcomix, Part -6)

06 February 06 | 10:52 | Posted by:

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category: comic | forums | 30 comments | §

Safety in lethargy

05 February 06 | 15:00 | Posted by:

Given recent world events, I've gotta say I'm glad I had the foresight to include Jesus and Buddha in this comic but not Mohammed. Well, for a certain value of foresight. The one that means "being too lazy to draw a fifth character in a single comic."

Also, I've finally relaunched some form of regular classic coverage of a sort at work in shape of Retronauts, a bi-weekly column. Those who care about such things could best consider it the mid-season replacement for Crucial Classics, a well-intentioned series that never really went anywhere... probably because it was too much like a watered-down version of The Essential 50. Retronauts has no such ambitions; it's basically an anything-goes opportunity for me to write about old games I've been playing recently. Which in turn is an excuse for me to play old games, which I might not have otherwise. Anyway, the first installment (Lemmings) is a little clumsy since it's a heavily-rewritten transition from Crucial Classics to the new series, but it should limber up within a few updates.

Now if only the powers-that-be hadn't killed the Classics section to make room for Xbox 360, we'd really be in business.

category: blog | forums | seven comments | §

Falling action

03 February 06 | 08:43 | Posted by:

Hello, my dear little Insert Credit-lings. I fear you have been deceived by your vile master and pornographer, the nefarious Mr. Sheffield -- there are few if any pre-1UP game writings reinstated at this website as yet. Currently only the comics and movie sections are anything resembling "complete;" everything else is either non-existent or in dire need of formatting.

Plus, Lara Croft is repulsive. My interest in Tomb Raider stems entirely from my love of pushing boxes and pumping alligators full of lead until they give their final desperate thrash.

But lest your visit be entirely in vain, allow me warm your heart by mentioning that Atlus is bringing over Yggdra Union for GBA. Since as an IC reader you loved the Riviera, rumor has it you'll love the Yggrda too.

In site news, I have completed work on my New Games Journalist buttons! (By request.) I'll upload pictures to my Flickr account. Just as soon as I take pictures and sign up with Flickr. Also, I'd feel sort of stupid trying to sell people a single button (the postage would cost more than the button) so if you have any suggestions on other button-able images that might make for a good set, let me know.

Finally, for those who are curious about the Toasty Frog Adventures mentioned in yesterday's comic, I compiled some basic information about them last night. I'm still digging up more details, but I'll update as it becomes available.

Edit: Oh man, Penny Arcade used the exact same "outsourced to Korea" gag today. Time to eat my own skull in despair.

category: blog | forums | 23 comments | §

Retcon (Webcomix, Part -5)

02 February 06 | 10:52 | Posted by:

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category: comic | forums | sixteen comments | §

Nth degree

01 February 06 | 10:52 | Posted by:

It has come to my attention recently that Namco has trademarked the name "Ultimate Ninja." While some speculate this was actually an action by the Bandai side of the company and involves appeasing the Narutards, I have higher hopes:


It's a perfect fit. Heck, issue 10 was the obligatory 1980s-era "heroes trapped in a video game" story. And who cares about poseurs like Sephiroth when you could play as John Doe, the original white-haired sword-slinger? Did Sephiroth ever fight an emotionally crippled adult masquerading as Galactus? I think not.

category: games | forums | thirteen comments | §