I picked up the new Skylanders: Trap Team last week because I have kids and so I can say I’m getting it for them. We played a bit of the last one Swap Force but it didn’t really stick. I have to say so far at least Trap Team is a lot more fun. The main hook this time is that you can capture monsters from the game inside these little traps. The act of capturing a monster is really well executed. The new portal has a slot for the trap and a built in speaker. When you capture one of the guys the sound from the television fades out as the sound from the portal comes in. Then a little light in the portal starts flashing along with the chatter from your newly captured monster. It’s super well done and I tried to grab a video of it here with my son Noah.

There are a little over two weeks left until the deadline for our Halloween Costume Contest. This year it's open to all of Penny Arcade, be it Gabe and Tycho themselves, or perhaps Gabbie and Tyche, maybe Div, a fierce Annarchy, or a fabulous Jim Darkmagic; their old roommate Jim, Hanna, Kevin the food court gangsta - the world is your oyster. Or comic. Or however that goes. Winners will score some awesome Penny Arcade gear and all of the costumes will be posted in an album on the site for everyone to admire!

We've been getting back into streaming stuff, or Twitching, or simply twitching while we stream because of the black flakes and other impurities drifting in our house-made toilet liquor. There is an archive of these spasms (presumably for law enforcement use) and if you poke around the one for Alien: Isolation you might hear some of the lines in podcast can.

It's been a long time coming and I apologize, but Silverside will finally start running here on PA, Oct. 21st. You'll get new pages every Tuesday and Thursday for the duration of the story. It's been a hard project for me to draw but it's finally time to put it out. Here's a look at the work I've been doing on it.

is a very long title. Eventually, it may find a tasteful truncation; "Pistis" has a weird tang. But while we're still launching the thing, it's more important that you know exactly what it is.

Well, he didn't have a van. That part isn't true. But yes, he did invite a bunch of dudes from Gabe's soccer practice over to feast on cards and hang out in his garage, which is admittedly a fully functional arcade. I'm not super sure I would be like, "Hey son, yes please, go to that man's house who has a job I don't entirely understand and who has shelves full of toys to lure children to his skin farm" but I would probably save a ton of money on boosters if I did. What I am trying to say is that parenting is hard.

I've had a few people mention that they like it when I post the books I’m reading. I’ve finished a few good ones recently that I thought I’d share.

It’s always a bummer to wake up and find out you inadvertently lifted a joke from some other source. In this case I’m being told that today’s gag also appeared in a recent Big Bang Theory. I have to admit to only seeing the episodes that had my friend Wil in them. I’m not sure exactly what their version of the joke is but I can tell you the origin of ours.

He's still plugging away! We have told him, in the manner of an intervention, that what he's doing is hurting himself and those around him. He ain't havin' it. It has a metered, liturgical quality that is apparently providing him with some vital trace mineral. So he's shooting assholes in space for their lunch money while I am doing almost precisely the opposite.

Okay I’m just gonna come out and say it. I really like Destiny.

I refer, of course, to the contest Gabriel posted about earlier - hit up that page for info, choose your frame, and then enter a comic for a chance to win a ticket to any PAX. Not a bad deal. We have received several hundred replies so far, here is a grab bag from the available frames:

I don't know how you're supposed to "review" Super Smash Brothers for the 3DS. It may be impossible. Or unnecessary. I don't know which. We made a comic about the genuinely bizarre ecosystem they've rendered here, a brutal place where sentients are reduced to mere calories.

It's October (holy crap, it's October!) which means Kiko is well into Pumpkin Spice Latte season, and it also means Halloween fast approaches! Last year Mike had a costume contest for Eyrewood themed submissions and they were all amazing. We decided this year it would be cool to open it up to all of Penny Arcade, so dig out that Cardboard Tube, start crafting that Automata mask - we're having a PA Costume contest! Send photos of your Penny Arcade costume and we'll pick our favorites, send out some prizes and post a gallery on the site.

I've seen a lot of people ask for the first panel from today's comic minus Tycho's stupid words. So here you go:

I spent last night playing Shadow of Mordor and I’m really digging it. I have to call out the tutorial as being especially well done. Any game like this has to teach you how to swing a sword and stuff but this one puts a great spin on it. You “learn” to sword fight by teaching your son how to fight. Talion is talking to his son while they spar about the importance of countering an attack and all the while you are the one learning these mechanics. Then when it comes time to teach you how to sneak around the game asks you to sneak up on your wife and give her a kiss. It’s such a clever beautiful little moment that I could not help but smile. In so many games the tutorial is just wasted space but here it’s used not only to teach you about the mechanics, but to teach you about Talion.

We were at Cold Stone Creamery, a realm of some reknown in our clan, and after an extended discussion of Tinder every one of the glossy lures on their walls inherited an erotic context. I don't entirely know how a "Tinder for Cakes" would work exactly, but I don't care, it doesn't matter, and not having it is what's holding back our evolution as a species.