***Pokemon Crap***

This is a reminder for those of you in the Arcadia Battle Academy. We are an official Pokemon league now. Starting at our next meeting on January 8th we should all be earning points towards our first gym badges. In order to do that though you'll need to register with Go-Pokemon.com. You can find a thread with the information in our forum here. Post your POP ID once you have it and Joe will add you to the league roster. We've got a great batch of regulars and it's been awesome to watch the decks evolve from the basic starter pack into some really interesting stuff. We still have plenty of room for more people though. If you're interested in joining the league just grab a starter deck and come down to the Comic Stop on January 8th between 6 and 8pm. We've still got plenty of beginners so don't feel like you need to be a pro. We're even happy to walk you through a couple games if you've never played before and don't know the rules. I've gotten a lot of mail from people telling me they used to play the Pokemon TCg a long time ago but eventually got tired of it. I think it's worth mentioning that WOTC who originally published the game no longer makes it. Back in 2003 the rights shifted over the the Pokemon Company and they now manage the game themselves. They are really doing some great work and I think breathing new life into the game. If you haven't seen it in years I think it's worth checking out the new expansions. Like I said, grab a starter deck and come join us some night. We'll be happy to show you the game and if you get hooked like the rest of us all the better.

In related news I will be attending cities tomorrow in Mill Creek. This is one of many city wide tournaments held in Washington and it will be my first real sanctioned tournament. Those of you in the Battle Academy know what a pain in the ass the Gallade/Gardevoir combo has been. It's a very popular deck and I expect to see it tomorrow more than once. In trying to decide how to beat a deck that uses your own support cards against you to set up incredibly fast I went through about twenty different deck ideas. Finally last week I hit on something that seems to work. I thought if the deck is using my support cards against me, what if I don't use any support cards? Can a deck built entirely around a simple Pokemon line and carefully chosen trainers even work? It's done extremely well against Kiko's Gallade/Gardevoir deck and I'm hoping it performs just as well tomorrow. I'll let you know how I do on Monday.

***End Pokemon Crap***

-Gabe out

We were discussing the (almost nonexistent) Duke Nukem teaser that hit recently, and really, truly coming to understand that there are many gamers who probably have no idea what we're even talking about. Even if they were able to track down a copy somewhere online, it's unlikely that they'd be able to play it without nausea, similar to what people experienced with the recent Marathon port.  It's unfortunate, because the utterly unprecedented levels of interactivity, the crisp resomolutions, the real-world environments and the creative equipment vivisected the genre.

We're only a few missions into the Unreal Tournament III campaign, not tremendously far, but far enough to have heard a speech from series regular Malcolm that plunged beyond parody and irony into some bizarre b-boy timewarp.

Did you know that the Penny Arcade store now features a new "Accomplice"? If so, did you know that the accomplice is none other than Internet subculture phenomenons Mega 64? If so did you know that the last day to purchase anything from our store using standard shipping and receive it by Christmas is tomorrow? If so, did you know that the last day to order things from our store using rush shipping and get them by Christmas is the 19th? Did you also know that Tycho was supposed to make this post because I'm busy working on strips for a game that I can't tell you we're making strips for yet? Did you know that instead of making this post he's eating Nachos? Did you know that I hate him?

-Gabe out

***STAR WARS NERD CRAP!***

I've been meaning to mention Karen's new book in the Republic Commando series for a while but I wanted to wait until I finished it. I'm a ridiculously slow reader so I didn't actually wrap it up until a few weeks ago. If you're reading the series "True Colors" is out in stores and it's great. If you're not reading the series you should start at the beginning. Karen is essentially covering the Clone Wars like a real war correspondent would. Seeing as that was her previous job it makes sense. She's looking at the war and asking the questions a real journalist would ask. "Why do we all of a sudden have a clone army? Don't they take ten years to grow?" "How are we paying for this?" "Why doesn't anyone ever see veterans or wounded clone troopers returning home?" She is cutting through the Galactic/imperial propaganda and showing the war from the point of view of the soldiers. Star Wars fiction tends to be about Jedi. All the movies are about Jedi and almost all of the books tend to revolve around Jedi and their lives. Republic Commando is refreshing because it's not about Jedi. It's about soldiers fighting a war that the government will never let them win.

The newest book also happens to introduce my new favorite Star Wars characters. Gaib and the Tk-0 droid are data bounty hunters. Essentially hackers for hire.  So fucking awesome.

*** END OF STAR WARS NERD CRAP***

Two things:  first, I forgot to mention one of the game's coolest features.  When you wreck another person, their camera snaps a shot of them.  And it's exactly the shot you would expect!  The best ones I saw were from a guy who had a friend over, which showed him clearly frustrated and his cohort cackling with joy.  It really added a lot to a game I was already really enjoying.

Also, in a radical reversal - like you might see in a wrestling match - the Playstation 3 version is clearly the better of the two.  Clearly.  People can talk about the contrast of the comparative images all night, if they would like, slight texture differences and so forth.  Both look excellent.  The 360 version quite simply doesn't have it in the performance department.  It runs, and well, but once you've played it on the PS3 you start to notice performance dips and lost frames that used to just fade into the background.  Also, this is the rare case where the 360's consistent UI is actually a hindrance to a cohesive experience:  PS3 owners pull up an entirely in-game menu to select friends to play with.  360 owners get the same experience up until the end, when you leave the game UI altogether while this huge blade thing sweeps in and obscures the game.  Typically, joining and invites occur outside the actual game experience.  It's only jarring here because the distinction between single player and multiplayer is so liquid.  Still, I thought it was interesting, particularly if that becomes a trend. 

(CW)TB
 

It started with the rumor that a patch was en route for Rock Band on the PS3, one that would accomplish the unthinkable: support for its rival's guitar controller. We've been using Guitar Hero controllers on the 360 version for awhile, completely out of necessity, and if that path had been barred to us we might not have been able to play at all.

After Gods & Heroes was scrapped, developer Perpetual Entertainment was sued by their PR company. People are being sued all the time, and we should know, but in this case they were being sued for really interesting things: namely, a kind of "bounty" on initial sales based on their tireless promotion of the title. Is that common in these arrangements? I don't think most people consider that role especially powerful, but companies don't write in clauses like that for no reason. The articles you see on news sites are written by people you know, but the content, timing, and (if they can swing it) tone of those articles is typically part of a fairly scientific structure cooked up by PR. They contextualize the demos in their entirety, negotiate access, and stud their speech with tactical phrases they hope will find their way into the final piece.

As the official cheerleader for Child's Play, it is my absolute pleasure to submit the following:  in addition to the 600,000 dollars already in place through the lists, independent events, and direct donations, last night's gala hauled in just over $225,000. 

During an unbelievable Bungie auction - a USNC issue ordnance bag that contained literally every piece of Halo 3 merchandise ever created - Frankie O'Connor approached the stage to sweeten the deal, offering the high bidder the coveted Recon Armor in addition.  Valve approached the stage during their own item, appending the coveted Weighted Companion Cube and a tour of the office.  These things happened dynamically, part of no official plan.  And the throng responded - fiscally.  Offers to bid on my pants were politely declined.

The first three years that Child's Play was in operation, I was constantly surprised at the immense volume of the community's generosity.  I must say that now, four years on, I am no longer surprised.  That you can generate million dollars in just a couple months - on an annual basis - is now, to me, quite ordinary.  You are incredible, and changing the world is easy for you.  I should have understood that from the start.

(CW)TB
 

Between the two of us, my cohort and I amount to a single semi-functional entity. Like deep-sea worms and thermophilic bacteria, we provide each other with... I'm not sure exactly. Maybe it's not like worms.  I don't know. 

If you would like to increase the size of your JPEG, click here.

(CW)TB

Page Two of "In The Service Of The Queen" will be available shortly, as he's taking the process very seriously. Writing ridiculous poems used to be something I did with much more frequency, though it still happens occasionally.  I did, at one point, seize the entire site to host a comic musical about TRON. The urge just rears up sometimes, swiping at the air with its claws, and I must feed it tender, rhyming couplets to bed it back down.

This is just a reminder that Tuesday's Pokemon meeting has been moved up to Monday the 10th, because of the Child's Play dinner. We're still meeting same time as usual at the Comic stop we're just doing it a day early.

-Gabe out

Readers warned us that if we tarried much longer, we'd have gone an entire year without a Twisp and Catsby comic. In the face of this terrifying revelation, there was little we could do but begin a two-part Twisp and Catsby storybook detailing a secret diplomatic mission. We always meant to make a full book of this story, and I guess we could still do that if people really liked it. The first print we did was essentially a single page of it - but, as you will see - there are more pages.  A high-resolution version of the strip can be found here.

Well I called it. The Hoddie is sold out. We'll get more in stock as soon as possible but probably not in time for Christmas. Glad you liked it.

-Gabe out