The story in the new Splinter Cell is of the International Intrigue variety, and by the time events have reached their culmination, every serpentine bend of the quintuple cross has been revealed. It's very much a genre, with its own peculiar texture, and Conviction scrupulously charts a more personal course through those events - but there's still plenty of New World Order Shadow Conspiracy boogita-boogita to go around.

Splinter Cell: Conviction has virtues, and we may even get around to discussing them, but "incessant guard dialogue" is not among them. These people never shut their Goddamned mouths. Ever. Until you shoot them. The new game's emphasis on brutal murder has been decried in some corners, but players will appreciate the ability shut four of these douchebags up simultaneously.

I'm happy to announce that the application for the 2010 Penny Arcade Scholarship is now online. Every year we here at PA give away $10,000 to a student that we think will have a positive impact on the game industry. You can get all the details as well as check out some previous winners on the new PA Scholarship site.

I don't think I'll ever get back to Final Fantasy, now. Typically when I crush a game between my molars, making it a vessel for my rage, I eventually come to believe I have not served you to the utmost. It becomes something akin to exposure therapy, where placing myself close proximity to the hated thing results in a kind of psychological inoculation. Shortly thereafter, I tend to identify with my tormentor, "discovering" or manufacturing a series of "hidden virtues" which were previously "unvisible."

I've been asked before why we haven't "weighed in" on the Infinity Ward/Activision lawsuit, and the main reason (I would say) is that it is exceedingly difficult to tell what is true.

It's likely situated at a point somewhere below your comment threshold, but there is a kind of holy war occurring in Star Wars canon.

Many of you approached me during PAX East to thank me for the D&D news posts I make. As a DM I know how hard it can be to find inspiration some times. As long as I'm running a game I'll keep posting the crazy stuff I throw at my players. In fact, here is the latest experiment I ran on them.

One deficit an electronic reader has over printed media, and this is only a factor if you've been in the air as much as we have lately, is that there are portions of the flight where you can't read. Your "book," as it were, now belongs in the same criminal class of devices which includes laptops and missile transponders. The other deficit, I suppose, is that when the device runs out of power your "book" ceases to exist. It retains the gaudy and absurd physicality so common with objects, but all the purpose has leaked out.  The unbook you have left becomes a lady of impenetrable chastity.

So You might remember a while back we talked about our disastrous appearance on the Jordan Jesse Go Show. It was a real clusterfuck of misunderstandings, misguided expectations and just bad chemistry. I think I could probably get along with Jordan alone but the addition of Jesse was toxic. Personally I think the obvious contention makes for a pretty funny show. Jesse is not proud of it though which is not surprising. He kicks off the podcast with a disclaimer warning new listeners that this particular show is not indicative of the rest of their work. You can listen to it here and decide for yourself if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

We just opened it up for the west coast PAX, which we call PAX Prime internally, because we think it evokes a gigantic robot.  Maybe we'll change it at some point!  Maybe robots will recede from fashion, and we'll have to hitch our wagon to some new destructive force.  I should emphasize that the last two shows sold out before they even opened, so if you would like to attend PAX, this might be something you want to square away. 

Kate Beaton is, among other things, an organism - and she's good at it. That is to say, she's good at being. She's got a ton of autonomous processes that regulate her operation, and this leaves the higher order functions free to pursue her noble endeavors.

I am taking the day off to recover from PAX East and the book tour. So far I've played a lot of Lego Star Wars with my son and worked on my D&D campaign. It's been a good day.

There was a point after PAX East had come to a close and the second leg of our book tour was underway that we began to understand we had fucked up.

We spent a substantial amount of time discussing GameCrush this week, trying to discern exactly what was going on there, and I'm not certain we managed to pierce the shell.   

The content itself is imprecise - the greatest danger Gabriel's characters are likely to face is literally drowning in their platinum wealth - but it is entirely true that during PAX East, when a DVD of The Dungeon Masters went missing for a panel, my cohort did create a new panel on the spot and then operate said panel for its duration.  To the extent that one man can be proud of another man without shaming the other, I am incredibly proud of him. 

We had a problem with viruses at the last PAX - specifically, they were multiplying inside people's bodies - something this comic attempts to rectify. Whatever. Listen: have you heard about EA's new devilry?!?