I don't know anything about GameDreamz or their magical sources, who may or may not be hamlet of loquacious munchkins. It's quite possible that they're just repeating what they heard, and aren't a bunch of fucking liars after all - I'm just sensitive about my Shenmue, I suppose. I'm not sure why, as it is a game where you must literally get a job, and learn not to spend all your money of toys and videogames. It produces a genuinely profound mental state, with its rows of ironies which hum like subterranean machinery.

A long while ago, almost a year to the day in fact, I discussed what a danger I felt The Sims Online could become given geeky predilections for romantic drama. As it turns out, strange things do happen there - and my original assessment, submitting to you that perhaps a boy and a girl would meet and like each other, turns out to have been on the tame side.

Page three of our Rainbow Six comic is now live. I like it a lot, but I am probably biased.

In other Showdown news the Cardboard Showdown site has been updated. The new Kara Model looks totally awesome and the new weapons are perfect. As usual these guys have blown me away with their ability to take the PA universe into the third dimension.

When I think back on my life as a gamer, there are a few video games that really stand out as having solidified my love of games. One of the big ones was Samurai Showdown 2. This was back when arcades were filthy, smoke filled pits, rather than the family friendly pizza/mini golf joints they are today. Tycho and I would hang out at the Electron Palace playing SS2 whenever we could. After seven years of waiting for a new Samurai Showdown game, SNK has finally delivered. Samurai Spirits 0 is the latest game in the series and all the early reviews I’ve read seem to say this game feels like Samurai Showdown 2. I’ll admit I wasn’t crazy about SS3 or 4 so to hear that they have gone back to their roots makes me as happy as can be.

Two things:

I know an important battle is being waged in this space, so I won't take up a lot of time. I know know that the closure of Black Isle hit a lot of us hard, and I simply wanted to verbalize the fact.

Okay Squidi you linked to the site about copyrights so let’s use it. Let me say though that this is nuts. We are talking about someone using a heavily modified version of your highly derivative sprite art as a forum avatar. This is not something that would ever make it to a court. For the sake of argument though let’s say it did. This is from the web site you linked to pal. These are the questions that would need to be addressed in court to determine if the artwork was covered under fair use.

Squidi had this to say regarding my post:

I don't generally comment on stuff that's going on in the forum but this is just crazy. For those of you not brave enough to venture into the forum let me give you the scoop on the latest drama.

You have probably heard about killography, the new word coined by the National Institute on Media and the Family to describe our depraved entertainments. Yes, Spell Checker, that is now a word. We do not dispute that it is a lot of fun - perhaps even stuponfucious - to invent new words to describe the events in our world. We also think there are perfectly acceptable words that exist already, whole books full of words, some of which are capable of describing gratuitous violence. The trouble is, they just don't pack the propaganda punch cultural watchdogs crave.

We have outgrown the tiny garage that we are currently keeping the toys in. Thankfully Amaze Entertainment has offered to donate some much needed warehouse space. So a big thank you to the folks at Amaze for helping us out on this.

So I think today’s comic strip is my new favorite Penny Arcade. It replaces my old favorite which was this one.

Season's Greetings from Penny Arcade!

We were just on the local news! Check it out here.

I actually worked for Gamespy for about a year. This was a while ago but every once in a while you can still see some of my artwork on the site. It’s true that I think the company is sort of floundering right now, but while I was there I met some really cool people. One of my Gamespy friends was another artist I worked with. A very talented guy named Paul Searles. After getting laid off from Gamespy around the same time I did, he went on to start his own computer company. He’s been hard at work for a while now and he just mailed me to let me know that they are unveiling their new case with a huge ad in the next edition of PC Gamer. He gave me a little sneak peak and I wanted to share it with you guys.