I've had Animal Crossing for about three days now and it's still pretty interesting. I made a raid on Kara's town two days ago and returned home with my pockets full of her precious oranges. I sold some of them and planted the rest. It turns out it takes a long ass time for an orange tree to grow. Soon though I will be harvesting them and I'll have more bells then I know what to do with. It's hard to get used to a game in which time passes normally. One day in Animal Crossing is one day in real life. I have to wait an entire day for the town store to get restocked with new items. If I don't play all day and then go in late at night I run the risk of missing out on certain things that only take place during the day. Town's people scold me for visiting them late at night after not seeing them for an entire day. It's really not a game for everyone, if fact I'm not sure it's even a game for me. I keep playing it though. I mean what If I don't play one day and that was the day when they got the cool golf clubs at the town store. I don't want to miss out on something like that. Also I have my newly planted orange grove to tend to. God only knows what kinds of exotic and valuable sea shells are washing up on the shores of my beach right now while I sit here and type this post. This can't be healthy.

UK Developer Bitmap Brothers will always have a special place in my heart for having made the Amiga such a great machine to own. I was elated when I saw they were planning to re-release the classic Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe for the Gameboy Advance, but when I saw screenshots for Gods on the handheld, I had to grudgingly admit that there may be a benevolent force that works the knobs and buttons of reality. I was about to say that now, all that's required is versions of Magic Pockets and The Chaos Engine, and I'd be set. I guess I'm set, then.

Though it's tangential to this particular strip, you can be certain that Ikaruga deserves every kindness we invest in it. It is glorious, and the most reverent requiem a Dreamcast enthusiast could hope for. I was originally unsure about the fact that the game foregoes the weapon upgrades most consider intrinsic to the genre, but the fact of the matter is that one simply does not have time to fuck around with that sort of crap. It will be quite difficult enough to manage your polarity through thick waves of enemy fire, without also flitting about for weapon upgrades. Also, and I was not aware of this initially, you actually absorb shots of your own color, ultimately unleashing them in a swarm of deadly homing lasons. This makes veritably every enemy shot a potential power-up, so, shooter enthusiasts: rejoice! I neglected to mention that the game features cooperative play, and you can only imagine my exultation. It's actually more of a pain then it's worth in some cases, but it's still much better than going to the dentist. The ships can bump into each other, and having two players makes it nearly impossible to rack up proper combos using Ikaruga's freaky combo system, but what are you gonna do. The game is also hard as hell, even on the easiest mode, which is the way it should be. We've theorized what the hardest mode must be like, and we think maybe you just get cancer and die.

I think Ikaruga is Japanese for "Mind Fuck". For those of you unfamiliar with the concept behind the game I will cover it briefly for you here. Ikaruga is a top down shooter in which all the enemies you will fight are divided into two groups, black or white. Your ship also has two sides to it, black and white and you can flip between these sides at anytime. When your ship is black you can absorb black shots which charge your mega shot meter, you deal more damage against white enemies and white shots will fuck your shit up. The same is true for your ship when it is in white mode only backwards. Get it? Good. The screen is almost always full of enemy fire of both colors and only through skillful use of your own ships alignment will you be able to navigate through them safely. There is also a pretty cool combo system. Destroy 3 enemies of the same color in rapid succession and that kicks off a combo. Continue destroying groups of three enemies of the same color to keep your combo going. You can chain together pretty large combos in this manner and rack up some serious points. While Ikaruga doesn't have multiple weapon upgrades its innovative use of this black and white system more than makes up for it. The level of strategy required to pass some of these levels is light-years beyond your average shooter.

Because I love you so desperately, I have scanned a bit of the Dynasty Tactics manual for you reading pleasure. Now, understand that this is one column of four printed in the manual, and this isn't even all of them. These diagrams should make the case for this game with more eloquence than I could manage myself.

I love Kristopher Straub, I really do. Long after I thought parodies of Apple's Switch Ads might have worn out their welcome, he goes and makes the best one.

I mean, what the damnity damn hell!

This is not the site to go to if you want to be sad all day.

I'd like to thank everyone who set me straight on this - I've learned something today. Just because someone has kind of a frenchy accent does not automatically make them French. Or Canadian. As it turns out, they might also be from Belgium, or some other country where they talk like that.

That we scared away the Xbox owners.

In this third and final chapter, Henry Jenkins leads a rag-tag band of medevial craftsmen against the the cruel Lord Jambon, who has yoked humanity with an insidious new kind of yoke. Don't miss the second chapter, where Captain Jenkins travels to a smoky, complex future ruled by the despotic Ham Kings, or the gripping first chapter, which literally grips you because it's printed on a large clamp.

After playing the game - something I do not recommend you do - we started picturing Blade on a blind date. I can't say that it is logically connected to our thoughts on the title itself. However, we do recommend that you hear Blade's voice in your mind as you read it. Thank you.

By conservative estimates, about half of the readership has completed our survey - so I'm satisfied that our sample is pretty good. Then again, I thought that we had a pretty good snapshot on Wednesday, too, and since then we've added three percent more girls. Now, I don't know a whole lot about girls. Maybe they only surf the web on Thursdays and Fridays. Just in case, I'm going to leave it up for another day.

The Lawyer of Doom transcribed the first half of his interview with Henry Jenkins, Director of Comparative Media Studies at MIT. What does a person like that do? Well, more and more, he represents us, our passtime, and our interests to national media outlets. Give him a listen.

It'll be running until Friday, and I just want to give it top billing: Even now, our magical survey craves your input. People have asked why I haven't posted the results, or if I'm going to - I have every intention of doing so. It's pretty interesting. I'm going to wait until we have all the data to show it off.

Can be found here - if you have a moment, we would really appreciate your input.