The entire Marvel/EA thing seems sort of vile and incestuous and nonsensical. I guess I don't really think of EA as some kind of Big Ideas company, the ones I would shuffle up to for concepts that would resonate like Marvel's own icons. That might be unfair, but I'm basing the assertion on their library itself. It's not to say that they don't publish some good games, everybody owns a game from EA. They did acquire Big Ideas companies like Westwood, Origin, and Maxis, though they did eventually lobotomize the first two. But they didn't invent football, snowboarding, or modern war because they manifested those concepts in compelling ways. They didn't write the Lord of the Rings, for example, but their game metaphor of the events was almost completely inoffensive.

I said something that wasn't actually true in first post today, I just corrected it and I apologize. I knew that Starsiege: 2845 was a highly anticipated mod for both Tribes fans and enthusiasts of the classic franchise - but I didn't know it was actually Sierra sanctioned, that it was a mod for Tribes: Vengeance itself, or that they meant to include it with the actual game. Sorry about that, the whole thing is a good deal more awesome than I was aware of.

The Emerald City and Uber cons occur simultaneously, but since Ubercon is in New York and Emerald City con is down the street from me, we're going to New York. We'll still have a booth at Emerald City though, staffed by the incomparable Porkfry, and he'll have the shirts you could buy online if our store wasn't always broken. Sorry about all this, but we feel like we sort of let the eastern part of the nation down when we had to bow out of Otakon before.

Many people wrote into tell us about the Playstation 3 that recently appeared (and then disappeared) from eBay. We were like, Playstation 3? That old thing? Man, we're past that shit.

They're saying that there really wasn't the subscriber interest to support it, and while I find that sort of depressing it wouldn't surprise me in the least. The whole thing was really high concept, placed high demands on their technology, and had somewhat ethereal elements to it. I've heard Uru Live's functionality referred to as a sort of "chat room," which is a claim so ridiculous that I hardly know how to characterize it. My vocabulary is an arsenal, and I can't produce a comparable understatement.

I've been wondering when it would happen, and it looks like it just did. Trauma Studios - the guys behind the extraordinary Desert Combat mod for Battlefield 1942 - just got tapped to work on an official project. They deserve it.

And are, therefore, unable to see the reviewer's response to the thread created by the above post. Hopefully it won't displease anyone if I simply re-post it here, for the sake of balance.

There's a wonderful snack that's easy to make, the portable party they call the "cup-cake." But who knew that we lived in the long shadow cast by these treats?

World of Warcraft has matured a lot since I saw it two years ago at E3, and what I hear from the more loquacious testers is that even in its alpha state it has more content than they've ever seen in a (whatever acronym for Massively Multiplayer games the cool kids are using now). I'd like to believe that, because I'm one of the faithful, but Everquest has at least forty expansions out - one of which takes place entirely on the surface of a turnip, where players can do the the sorts of things a person on a turnip would do. I guess the turnip is evil? I don't really play EQ.

I am assuming that you all have been directed to the human beat box video. If not here you go. The guy is totally fucking awesome, no doubt about that. He takes a couple of his bits from a guy named Rahzel though. The “if your mother only knew” part is one example. I’m not saying that’s bad I’m just saying that if you liked what you heard you can find Rahzel all over iTunes.

The eighth and final page of our Rainbow Six comic is now online. Those of you who have been reading it a page a week might enjoy re-reading the entire thing from the beginning now.

That Call of Duty patch just hit - you can grab it here. I didn't see anything in the patch notes about Punkbuster support, that must be coming in a future thing.

Turn off the character voices in Silent Storm. Trust me.

There's a new Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow movie that focuses on the "hide and seek" gameplay they're going for in the multiplayer portion. In other news, Gabriel learns that he's not super spy. Apparently his imaginary beard was unable to save him.

Healthy sheen?

I would like to set the record straight. First of all my goatee, at least in real life is not patchy or “theoretical”. It’s quite the opposite in fact. I would call it lush, full and with a healthy sheen.