Gabriel and I have always positioned Killer Instinct up there with our favorite fighters, though our tastes in the genre have become so refined I don't know if its simple pleasures would still provide us succor.  If you were not a proponent, let me then explain that you could "buffer" a combo so large that you could literally walk away from the machine while it made your grisly design manifest.  Tons of fun, and made for the kind of Arcade Rivalry that has by now become shrouded in memory.  I presume the modern equivalent is to "get served" whilst a young man whirls on a piece of greasy cardboard. 

I don't really know, I heard that was a show they have now.

Moving on though, I genuinely cannot tolerate Perfect Dark Zero.  I still hope the thing sells like gangbusters, because it's doing some things that need Goddamn done, Co-Op over live in a full campaign specifically - in this regard it may yet serve my dark purpose.  I have played a couple missions in, however, and I am fairly certain that I'm just going to leave the rest on my plate.  This is one of the least tactile shooters in history.  Coming off of games like F.I.Z.Z.E.A.R., where every shot feels like a real "thing" in the environment - "that's how you know it's working" - I don't really feel anything when I engage these wooden, strangely articulated foes.  It may be that the multiplayer is the vector for whatever virulent brain flu makes a person rate it a 9.0 - I couldn't tell you.  But the days where I can sit in front of a screen, toiling over a game until it reluctantly gives up its candy center are over.

More space.

Sword of the Stars thinks, as Weird Worlds seems to, that space empire games could stand to be less mechanical and more actual fun.  It has the things you crave vis a vis stellar dominion, such as plump tech trees, constructible ships, virgin worlds, and starlanes between them, plus the kind of gregarious, Hollywood space combat we don't usually associate with the sometimes ponderous genre.  Kerberos - a new company made up of development veterans, boasting the core of the team that made Homeworld: Cataclysm -  have modeled each of the four races so that they actually move around the starmap in fundamentally different ways, which presses firmly my tabletop strategy button.  I thought it was a ways out, but I've just been corrected by a member of the team - it's only three months away, with a demo inside of the new year.

(CW)TB out.

the mark will show

Windows Vista will supposedly include Media Center functionality, so on that glorious day we'll be able to taste the purest, most succulent fruits of the 360.  Until then, people without dedicated Windows Media Center machines can only stream photos and music, which Brenna would say is "better than a sharp stick in the eye."

Except I've wasted hours trying to get it to work, and my machinations only led to an array of slightly different failure states.  Now the PC can see the 360.  Now it can't.  Now it can, but the 360 can't see it.  And so on. 

If you're having a similar problem, most people are suggesting that you need to have .NET Framework 1.1 installed, which is probably true but wasn't my issue.  They might also tell you to verify that the Universal Plug and Play service is active, or to make sure that the Windows Media Connect service is started, with all of its dependencies in tow.  This is also good advice, but it wasn't my problem either.

My problem was Internet Connection Sharing, or ICS.  I didn't install it myself, but that is how the Nintendo Wi-Fi USB Connector works its magic - it's essentially a dongle that hooks into a basic Microsoft networking service.  I thought I'd mention it, if there was anyone else having the same issue.

(CW)TB

It’s a bummer that our book won’t be out in time for Christmas. I know that lots of you were hoping to pick that up for someone this year. It will be out in January though and to help satisfy you in the meantime Dark Horse has decided to release a 24 page mini comic on December 7th. This is a full color preview of the actual book that you can go pick up at your local comic book shop or buy online. The best part is that it will only cost 25 cents. So you could wrap up the mini comic for someone as a way of saying “Your real gift is the PA book but Gabe and Tycho are fucking idiots so you won’t get it until January.”

I'm not sure we read the entire news story before coming up with today's comic offering, but this wouldn't be the first time we'd played rough with your Earth facts. 

One of the reasons I've been so dismissive of your blue-green sphere of late is that I have set my sights upon domination of the cosmos at large.  Some of your continents are shapely I suppose.  But there are rare minerals such as garbundum, desperately needed for the galactic war machine, that do not naturally occur anywhere on your orb. 

Believe me when I say that I could go on like this for hours, but an abiding affection for you has stayed my hand.  I don't know if space as a setting was outré for a while,  blasted out France taking the fore, or what, but there are quite a few developers taking on classic gaming themes in that revered expanse.  

Weird Worlds: Return To Infinite Space is the sequel to an older game from Digital Eel, who also brought us the scrumptious Dr. Blob's Organism and Plasmaworm.  Weird Worlds is, and I hope they will not find this summation offensive, a highly streamlined version of the 4x Space Empire type game.  The "Action RPG" concept puts stats, advancement, combat, in a wind tunnel and produces a high sucrose version of those concepts.  Imagine what would happen if you approached a stodgy old patriarch in the vein of Master of Orion, with the same unsparing eye, and wielding the same dangerous instruments.  You'd focus on the thrill of discovering new planets, new worlds, upgrading your ship, only enough trade to maintain the pace, and interstellar combat.  Well, that's Weird Worlds.  It's also designed so that you can actually wrap up a game of it in a single human lifespan.  Of course, these liberties are anathema to the steadfast genre proponent - but delicious, freewheeling fun is something that you don't usually get from that genre. 

This paragraph was originally going to chastize them for not having a version of the game available for download, where many people who might want such a thing might pluck it without hesitation.  They have done so, so no abuse is necessary.  They have made a demo available as well, if you like.  I warn you:  don't engage in combat of any kind until you have a pimped out ship with whirling space rims and underglow.  Unless you have a deep curiosity about what it would be like to burn alive and then die in the cold places between stars.

There are actually tons more space games, but I'll cover them later as I've already inconvenienced readers with my tardiness.  I will admit to you that instead of the word "abuse" in the last paragraph, I had initially wanted to use the word harangue, and that I thought for a very long time how I would imply that I might serve them lemon harangue, which didn't really go anywhere.

(CW)TB out.

how much more can i take

I have a quick Child’s Play update for you as well. We just broke the $185,000 Mark. We are on track to completely destroy our old records. We’ve added a bunch of new hospitals to the list as well bring our grand total to 19. Check the CP site for more info about the new hospitals as well as some new sponsors. You guys are really doing an amazing job. Thanks to everyone who has donated or put up a sign in their school or even just told a friend about CP.

Sorry for the late comic strip today. We are still trying to work some of the bugs out of our new backend.

Even if there weren't an organism who relied absolutely on me every moment of its existence, I still don't know if I'd be playing WoW - and it's not just because some notes on the new patch drove me away.  I feel terrible about it, because the guilds that are rocking Dark Iron are filled with exactly the sort of people I'd hate to let down.  When the expansion hits, hopefully there'll be a progression beyond sixty that doesn't almost necessarily involve multi-hour raids of escalating size.  I know that's where the game goes, and I'm simply in no hurry to bring my character to a point where I no longer really enjoy it.  I've been trying to figure out why I roll new characters every time I get into that mid forties/fifties range, a condition I have come to refer to as Altoholism.  I guess that's why.

Are you enjoying your three-sixties, those of you who obtained them?  Are those of you opposed to the machine on some grave matter enjoying the stories about hardware failures and overheating?  Oh, precious Internet.  You are just as I left you.

My mind has been seized by a single thought, whenever I am allowed to have one uninterrupted:  I know precisely which game should be brought to Xbox Live Arcade, preferably for both Xboxen, to a place where it could actually get the kind of respect it deserves.

Of course, I speak of Moonbase Commander. 

There's a demo available, if you never played it - the publisher simply wasn't serious about projecting the message that Moonbase Commander was one of the most refined exercises in pure strategic amusement ever, and my own meager efforts to force the game upon you were more than likely swallowed by the din of your Web.  A game where each of four players tries to build (and destroy) robotic networks, it was a pet project that after years of iterative gameplay testing saw a retail version.

The main site for the game isn't even up anymore, God only knows that dark hole they've stuffed it in.  Well, stuff no more.  The game is done.  In fact, it's not only done, it's perfect.  I think that it could become legendary with Live pricing and matchmaking prowess, the sort of thing that would really expand the sort of experiences people believe Arcade delivers.  

Plus, you know, Moonbase Commander.

(CW)TB out.

frontalot's destitute

I have a few moments here while the prince slumbers, so I resolved some of the atrocious spelling in that first entry.  I would blame it on the amount of sleep I had, but I haven't really had any. 

Preoccupation with my heir has caused me to neglect my annual cheerleading for Child's Play, not that it appears to have affected the "take."  I must say that the meaning of it has really shifted for me in the last couple days, a shift in magnification I would say.  Where I might have seen a young man or woman who might be served by the toys and games of our heritage under frightening circumstances, I now see the parents one level above for whom any improvement in that child's stay would constitute a profound blessing.  

We've added new hospitals to the Child's Play page, so if you haven't given yet please take a look and see if we've been able to set up shop somewhere close to you.  I'll let you know what I picked up for Seattle Children's on Monday.

(CW)TB

Gabriel may have oversold my abilities, somewhat.  I'm exceedingly grateful that he was able to deliver yet another comic strip, and I'm grateful to you as well for your patience while I have been welcoming my unbelievably beautiful baby son.

I.

Craven sham that it is, typically the vile consortium of formula manufacturers and department store child photographers  has already chosen the Baby of the Year by September, leaving their despicable agents to go on evil vacations or whatever it is they do.  But there are times when a spoiler baby, or spiele-katzen, crops up 'round November or so, and a deep fracture forks up their trained facade.

Elliot Jacob Holkins is just such a baby.

II.

The doctor loosens his white coat.  Is he too hot?  He seems uncomfortable.

As seen on television, a row of X-Rays are held up to an illuminated wall with a series of clips.  He removes what I think might be a Bic Ultratip from his pocket and begins to tap different parts of each, in a poignant way, hand shaking slightly so that each tap actually ends up being two or three distinct sounds.  Tap tip tap. 

Tap tip.

"You can see here, where the dendrites are joined," he says, in his bullshit doctor language. 

I don't really see anything, I tell him.

"Your son, " he says, hesitant, "is a Snugglebug."

I sit down in a chair, which I assume is his own chair, and he sits in the chair that I probably should have sat in if I gave a fuck about the medical hierarchy. 

I ask him what it means. 

"It means that he is the cutest, the wutest little Snugglebug in the whole wide world," he recites, robotic, a white-clad bipedal dictionary.

Are there treatments?  I mean, is there some kind of, I dont know, cream?

"No," he says, piercing my heart.   "You will need to cuddle him daily."

He is quiet for a moment.

"Indeed, you may even need to huggle him."

III. 

He tells me that his own son, Gabriel, was born on "nine, nine, ninety-nine," the anniversary of the Dreamcast launch.  He stands before me on "eleven, twenty-two, two-thousand five," which he admits doesn't have the same ring, but he fairly exerts himself pounding home the significance. 

It's the launch day of the 360. 

I dimly recall that there is such a thing as a "three sixty," and that it is a thing which can be launched.  So I'm told.

"I know you don't believe in a higher power, or whatever.  But God damn, man," he spits, exasperated.  "Come on."

IV.

I am not trying to jostle for primacy over the birth act, the utter valor of which is indelible - I'm fairly certain the credit is going to the right people.  There is, however, a parallel experience that I never hear much about, something amazing and profound about the helplessness, the desperation of events which are perhaps a million long miles beyond your control.  I just want to find other fathers and, looking at them across the aisles in the grocery store, hold my right fist aloft.  I am with you.

Let me suggest that the hilarious episode of Three's Company which depicts a human birth is not sufficient to prepare a man for the genuine article.  I can tell you that Brenna managed this shit like some kind of fucking Amazon warrior priestess.  I told her that she probably just had indigestion, even when she was shuddering over a holiday display at Fred Meyer.  So it's good that somebody had their shit together.

They handed him to me, eventually.  Not first, now - that's not done.  The psychological weight of him nearly shattered my legs.  This must have been how Ultra Magnus felt, I thought, when Optimus Prime gave him the Matrix of Leadership.

I'm kidding.

I very nearly buckled.  Not struck dumb, but struck, as a string might be struck, into sound:

It's me, I said.  I'm the one who sang to you.

Wired has a really nice article up about the Elemenstor Saga. I hate to break character and admit that this entire thing is a ruse, but I have to congratulate the contributors to the Wiki. You guys have really created some incredible stuff there. I am especially fond of the Wizbits theme song MP3.

Tycho had some business to take care of yesterday. Nothing bad I assure you, but it will keep him out of the office for a couple days. I was there working on page six of our Prince of Persia comic and eating imported Canadian candy bars (such is the life of a web comic creator) when I realized that it was a strip day. Fear immediately gripped my heart as it suddenly occurred to me that I would need to make the strip myself.

Tycho mentioned the concept of Gamer Cards earlier. The idea is that a sort of record is kept that lists all the games you play and the progress you’ve made in each. I’m not 100% sold on the idea myself but I have to admit its execution is pretty cool.

Spending all day with someone who has a radically different metabolism is a catalyst for conflict. Outside of the occasional Pocky or Hello Panda, I believe the last time I saw him eat something was a single square of Caramello. This would have been in '97.

Sorry about that.  We're still playing around with the update interface, and it recently got a significant new innovation:  The FCK Editor.  We've just had a bare entry field before, and I was apparently not yet ready for its awesome power.  Essentially, it can transform any field into a full word processor, with spell check, keyboard shortcuts, and the like.  I've been using EditPlus since we started the site, so not having to manually enter every piece of code is something I wasn't quite ready for.

<HTML> even creeps into my personal correspondence, these days.  And, at night, it haunts my dreams.

(CW)TB

Gabe never gets out exactly why he's running a petition around his neighborhood in the comic, but I've got space to do it here.  If I had to say, I'd put it like this:  Final Fantasy XII is an insult to a once proud franchise and to the people who have made it so.  I think that gets it across.

With the extended delays of the title, I had imagined that the rough trade they received at the hands of almost every person who saw it had sunk in and they had begun to realize the intense shame they'd bring upon themselves by continuing in this direction.  That's not what happened.  They're Final Goddamn Fantasy, they don't have to worry about larger industry trends toward approachability and away from turn or phase based combat.  They create trends, like a massive stellar body distorts local space. 

This isn't just slavish devotion to tradition - the fact of the matter is that the system they had works better.  It's more explicit regarding game events, and the player has greater control.  You don't have to take my word for it - Dragon Quest VIII is awesome, and includes the same demo I played.  There are two combat modes, the "Wait" mode being slightly less bad but not what you might call "good."  Give it a whirl, the whole thing is trash.  If for some reason you do enjoy it - and I've certainly done my best here to lower expectations - then rejoice.  You must be the person they're trying to appeal to.  It'll feel good for a while, until they determine that mass market annual "footy" titles are where it's at.  Then you and I can sit together in a cafe and talk about those good times.

I've had a chance to play a ton of 360 stuff on a "press" box, no steel case unfortunately, but the rest of it is the same.  I'll go into what I've seen either today or Monday, before the official launch in any case - but I do have one tip that will help you get set up with a minimum of fuss if you're already a Live subscriber and you're just upgrading your box.

The procedure for moving your existing Live account over to the 360 is more onerous if you have not "linked" your Gamertag to a Passport.  Yes, Microsoft Passport.  This is one of the ways in which they "get you."  It does enable some interesting online functionality, but the main reason I'd suggest it is that you'll just enter your passport account/password and be done with it.  The launch definitely has some high notes in it, but the sports/ports ratios do leave me a little cold. 

(CW)TB out.

I used to be a big fan of the Wizbits cartoon series when I was younger. I went through a phase a few years ago where I was buying up old cells and model sheets from the show off of eBay. I hadn’t looked at that stuff in years but all the action going on over at the ELotH:TES wiki got me excited. I pulled out some old boxes from storage and found a bunch of original Wizbits artwork.