Last week Nintendo was kind enough to release two (2) screen shots for a few of its big titles this summer. These are some of the most highly anticipated games ever and we don't know a damn thing about them. Meanwhile every game that falls out of the X-Box's ass gets at least 50 shots and a two page "hands on impressions" write up. Why Nintendo? I understand that you don't want to flood the market with screen shots, that you want to keep some surprise but there has got to be some middle ground here. I want desperately to know more about Mario Sunshine. The little bits I hear about deforming levels and giant blobs of paint intrigue the hell out of me. I want to see more of the outer space shit is Star Fox Adventures. Show me some screens of Metroid that are actually interesting to look at. Give me the scoop on Eternal Darkness, I gotta know why that dude in the trailer is such a wack-job. What are you doing Nintendo? You've got me chomping at the fucking bit here…oh wait…I see. Well played Nintendo…Well played indeed.

Nintendo is making it real hard to be a Nintendo fan right now.

I wanted to step up to the plate and give you some of my own thoughts regarding State of Emergency. As many of you know I'm a big fan of old school gaming. Some of my favorite games of the past were games like Streets of rage, Double Dragon and Final Fight. Old school brawlers have a special place in my heart. I think that is why I loved and continue to love Zombie Revenge so much. I mean that is a game that takes all the best stuff about a side scrolling brawler and "kicks it up a notch". When I first saw SOE at E3 last year I thought I was in for more of the same. After playing the game I can see that is not the case. SOE is like a brawler without the stuff that makes a brawler good and a mission based adventure game without the stuff that makes one of those good. You get lots of great weapons and plenty of people to beat up. However there is very little progression. Mission after mission has you running around in the same mall doing basically the same thing. Or China town which, lets face it is pretty much just the mall with pagodas. I mean I like shooting people with shotguns as much as the next guy but it's just more fun to do in a game like zombie revenge where you are progressing through different environments. When you play zombie revenge you'll be all like "ooh I'm in the sewer", "ooh now I'm on a fucking train", "ooh fuck ya now I'm in a goddmaned haunted house." Whereas with SOE you'll be all like "ooh I'm still in the mall, why won't Jesus just take me back home and end my suffering." So maybe SOE wasn't trying to be a brawler. Maybe they were trying to strike out and form their own genre. Well more power to them in that case. The problem is their genre is really boring.

I don't know if there'd be any interest in this, but it can't hurt to mention it. I've zipped up the course Gabe and I goof around with in SimGolf, and it could be a lot worse. Hole 9 is a travesty, please don't judge us by the ninth hole.

Hotly anticipated - by Batjew - State Of Emergency has arrived, and it's largely irrelevant. Like some mini-game run amok, creeping to the edge of the platter until the entire disc is overcome, SoE takes (arguably) the worst parts of GTA3 - the running around and shooting - and stretches out that Dentyne-esque five minutes of flavor into this epic cord of mediocrity. I guess it's sort of controversial - I guess - but it wants it so bad that I'm loathe to grant it. Here's something to keep you occupied while you aren't buying it.

To be honest, this conversation actually took place in the car on the way back from SpokVegas. Other than that, everything else in the comic is factual, provided you don't count the room or our representations in it.

The story you are about to read is true.

Around the time we signed, sealed, and delivered the Lameboy Advance strip, we mentioned a site called Portable Monopoly. A place to discuss the relative satisfaction of consumers with Nintendo's (in many respects) excellent machine, it also focused on devising a true, elegant, and replicable solution to the problems of glare and visibility. Taking their most recent updates into account, they have engineered a kit - soon available for thirty-five dollars U.S. - that will allow GBA owners to perfect their handhelds. Today's comic fast-forwards to a dark future, where people who couldn't be trusted to transform Optimus Prime from a semi into a robot are suddenly skewering their palms on soldering irons. As for our representation of the Big N: truth be told, though we probably aren't supposed to say, we've been to Nintendo, and it's not all that bad. Everyone we met was really nice, except for the (like) twenty guys that came in to gangbang us at Super Smash Brothers. We hate those guys. But everybody else was fine. I don't know if you downloaded that Star Trek: Bridge Commander demo or not. It's hard to know what to make of it, and I've played through it a couple times. It's exactly what you think it is. I mean, you're the Captain of this massive thing, and you look all around and talk to people. There were zero surprises for me in the demo, none at all, which begs the question: is it because there's nothing here, or because they did absolutely everything right? It's like I imagined the way the interface would work, and it just does that. I already knew how. Obviously, not everybody wants to sit in a chair, even if it's a Space chair, and there are plenty of keys to let you manage everything manually, but I have a feeling that the more naval pace of the combat might not appeal to those fond of the experiences Totally Games is widely known for. I wish I had more than what's available in the demo to go on, as it's made me very curious.

This Valentine's Day, we wanted to tell a few special people in the gaming industry how we really feel. For the record, that is indeed my raw scrawl present in the amorous missive to 2015 - they're practically Goddamn hieroglyphics, seriously, and I'd like to thank the advent of Personal Computers for my atrophied penmanship. I've said all I'm going to say about Medal - you hope - but having had the chance to while away a Saturday with Gabe playing a game where you run a Golf Course, for Chrissakes, I found myself surprised at how much fun I was having. A good game is simply a good game, a concept we've already discussed - but allow me to be surprised at how good.

I have tried on countless occasions over the past few days to talk to Tycho about his decision to accept Canada in trade for his book. I have explained to him that this person who e-mailed him probably does not have the authority to give Canada away. I have also tried to tell him that even if this person did have that kind of authority Canada is not such a hot deal. I mean he had people offering him Virtual boys and Classic arcade machines and he chooses a frozen wasteland where the people talk funny and smell like bacon. I’m not saying he’s an idiot I’m just saying that he is the stupidest person that has ever lived, or will ever live in the history of the entire universe.

Today’s comic strip makes heavy use of Fonts from Blambot fonts. I don’t give nearly as much credit to these guys as I should. Many of the bad ass fonts you see at Penny Arcade come from this very talented group of guys.

Also as many of you know I tend to hang out in the forum a lot. I have been talking for a long time about new forum software. Well it is finally happening. Our Web mistress extraordinaire Emma, is hard at work on our new forum right this minute. You will now be required to register in order to post on the forum, but I think this will cut down a lot on trolls and nonsense posts. We also plan to have a special forum accessible only to members of Club PA. So that should be fun.

Confidential to Tycho- You’re a cockjockey and I am sick of your cockjockery.

-Gabe out

Royal Cartographer Braum Meakes has finalized this new map of our proud nation, I'd appreciate it if you'd just toss the out of date ones.

I'm fitting to drop the mad links, yo. And I'm fairly sure none of these links goes to anything terrifying.

I can't tell you how many people ask me - on a daily basis - what exactly the "Fruit Fucker" featured in this strip does. The device is fairly straightforward, one might say, in its operation. I do hope we have resolved your curiosity with regards to this marvelous device, in addition to revealing how the Lithtech Engine came to be the black foundation of so much human misery. Well, don't mention it. We're just revealers, that's all. We love to reveal.