I had a number of topics to write about, this having been a crazy week for news. For some reason, an extended discussion of the 360's "Zephyr" variant took root in my mind. Together with a mysterious "Spring Update," the features of which have been only dimly illuminated, these items represent Microsoft's newest campaign in the Console War.

300 is a movie about guys who look cool doing things that are awesome, and as such it's hard not to like it. It leverages swank technology in the service of its cinematic mission. Also, there is a portion of the film given over to a creature, equal parts goat and man, who plays a flute inside of a golden tent. So it's the sort of movie that really has something for everyone.

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.

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.

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.  

We were hungry, and that usually affects the strip, but the Girl Scout in the comic is a real person who probably has her troop or squad or whatever set up for life.  The other girls should probably just go home - I think Jenny's got them covered this year.

Denis Dyack is still smarting over previews of Too Human written last year regarding a demo he admits was bad, and in EGM's most recent podcast he takes an opportunity to interrogate one of the men responsible. He spends the second hour of the podcast making a series of completely unsourced and unverifiable claims about his product, which - after having been browbeaten for the first hour - his gentle hosts are understandably reluctant to analyze.

So last week I posted the new artwork I did for our game. I colored that one myself but I also passed the inks over to Imaginary Friends Studios. They’ve done tons of work for comics and games but we actually met them because of their work on UFS. At the same time we were crating the Penny Arcade UFS deck they were doing all the artwork for the Soul Calibur deck. Tycho actually posted an incredible piece of fan art they sent us at the time.

If you should see us on a bench - and you may, from time to time - you might buckle in for some heartwarming antics. At least, as heartwarming as you are likely to get from two psychopaths.

Kiko’s photos of our ping pong match against Sucker Punch are now up on his Flickr page. Once again I need to say thanks to everyone over there for the games and the pizza. Penny Arcade’s “Team Inferno” got completely destroyed by the Sucker Punch “Rockets” but we still had an awesome time.

It went up late yesterday so some of you might have missed it. I made a new wallpaper based on the Penny Arcade game we’re working on. Next week we’ll be releasing a trailer for the game. It sort of introduces the world and shows off some in game action.

We are but men! We are but men.

Tycho is down at GDC today to give some interviews about the Penny Arcade game. I’m not exactly sure what his schedule is like or who he’s talking to. According to Gamespot he’ll be joining them on their “on the spot” show in about 40 minutes (March 8th 4pm PST). He should be sharing some new information about our game, “On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness”.

Today's comic is based on a story we saw at Kotaku, but when I went over there to verify the link the story had been removed altogether. For those of you playing along at home, what that means is that Kotaku

I don’t know if you’ve been over to the official WOW site recently but they just announced a new feature called the Armory and I’m here to tell you it’s fucking brilliant.

I have two bits of PAX related news to share with you. First up everyone needs to know that early bird registration for the event will end this month. You have until March 31st to get your 3 day pass for the low low price of just $40.