There was a drawing for a Metroid Hunters Crystal Thing at the press event yesterday, and Robert actually won it.  Behold:



I will talk about the game itself later, but I just found this object impressive.  It's three dimensional, tiny bubbles like "voxels" (remember those?) describe the entire image.  These objects (along with their black case/purple velvet interior) were given to the developers when they completed First Hunt for the DS launch.  So owning it makes me feel a little like a fraud, but then I gaze into its tranquil depths and the world (with all its troubles) disappears.

(CW)TB

I didn’t really mention it when I tried out SWG a few months ago. After they completely changed the game I thought I should take a look and see if they changed it to something I’d like. Within the first 10 minutes I had met Han Solo and Chewy and I was shooting down Tie fighters from the Goddamned Millenium Falcon. Listen guys, I know it’s a fucking Star Wars game. I don’t need to be best friends with Luke Skywalker before I’m level 2. It’s a huge universe and shoving me into encounters with my “favorite heroes from the films” just feels manipulative.

I can read an entire comic book without really looking at the art. This is a process that horrifies Gabriel - imagine his eyes growing wider as, with each swift turn of the page, his craft is obliterated. By contrast, my cohort holds strong opinions on the topic of visual stimuli. I imagine this is part of the reason we're able to maintain our chaste union: like the gods of old, we keep to our dominions.

In much the same way that Monday was an explosion of Oblivion related info, expect tomorrow to be rife with Hunters stuff - there's an event over at Nintendo focused on it.  Every time I've seen it, it's been a completely different game.  I don't really know what to think about it.

(CW)TB

I just wanted to give you east coasters a heads up. The Front will be playing a show March 4th out in Manhattan. The details are posted on his site.

I didn't want to get all, you know, nineteen-eighties Michael Jackson bad on him, but what option did I have?  Had I brought my totally boss zipper jacket, this potent maneuver might well have seared him - left marks across him like a grill.  I haven't really left anything out, he called me to come in and get the copies of Black I paid for and then wouldn't give them to me. If not for the Cinnabon across the way, the entire expedition would have been a failure.

Imagine me pacing through a dark command center. The walls are covered in giant video screens scrolling though volumes of text and data. The sunken room is filled with row after row of computer terminals, each one occupied by a young man in a wrinkled white dress shirt with thick black glasses. My hands are clasped behind my back as I stalk the aisles. The only sounds are the soft hum of electronics, the gentle thrum of the air purification system and the rapid clicking of computer keyboards.

You need to understand that when you "fuck with these," you are - in effect - fucking with a vast network of information gathering nodes.  That crow shit in Fellowship comes nowhere near.  Even Bothans, whose natural talent for espionage is well regarded, admit that my capacity for knowledge acquisition is somewhat intimidating.

Let's begin with Leighton, codename Double L:

"I'm sure you've already recieved countless e-mails regarding this, and if
you have feel free to dispose of this. I've been a huge Mega Man fan since I
first played #2 on my Nintendo somewhere in the pre-historic era. The
CLOSEST there ever was to being a Mega Man 9 was a game called Mega Man and
Bass, in which you can play as either Mega Man or Bass, but this game did
NOT follow the regular "Mega Man" story line, at least not too closely. Alot
of people dispute that this is the missing 9, but that is simply not the
case. See " http://www.mmhp.net/GameHints/RnF.html#Plot ". I hope this sheds
even more light on your recondite situation. : )"

Well, Leighton, its not that it sheds light on my situation so much as it plunges my cohort deep into impenetrable darkness.  We'll let Agent Shmidt deliver the Omega Strike:

"Although i'm sure various Megaman fans have
e-mailed you, their sniveling nerdy noses wrinkling at the thought of
their blue-bomber hero, to support your attrocious lies. . .they fail
to recall the game "Rockman and Forte"; which is often dubbed "Megaman
9". Although unreleased in America and not officially called the 9th
game by the cartridge itself, it was clearly numbered as such while in
production (confirmed by Capcom in Nintendo Power, March issue, 1998).
This would clearly make it evident that Tycho was indeed right in
calling you a "junkslut"...you junkslut...

Auf Wiedersehen,
Matthias von Shmidt II"

There.  Don't you feel better?  No, I can imagine you wouldn't.

(CW)TB

HAHA I was right you fucker! The X does not stand for 10. I've got about a dozen emails from gamers telling me the real deal on the X. There were only eight Megamans, uh…Megamen there were only eight games before X. The X denotes a branching of the Megaman universe. Who’s the junkslut now? I propose that you sir are the junkslut.

Penny Arcade joins the ranks of today's earnest, diary style comics with this authentic offering. Well, mostly authentic. The conversation is accurate, but I'll admit that I took some time after the fact coming up with junkslut.

Holy shit, check this out:

Thank you to everyone who wrote me yesterday to help with my DLP TV situation. The problem appears to be fixed now. I upgraded to component cables, I set the input for the PS2 as “game” in the TV’s menu and I turned off the digital noise reduction. All of this combined seems to have solved the lag issue I was having. I really appreciate all the help guys.

Grandia III's combat system, which we lauded in an earlier post, has remained engaging - would that some dark use of the GameShark could transplant it into other entries in the genre. But the plodding, insulting, maddening story has only gotten more inane as we have trudged through it. We have to savage it just to emerge from the experience with some intact portion of ourselves.

So I’ve been looking for a while and I finally got a new television a few weeks ago. I did some research and I ended up choosing a 50” Samsung DLP HDTV. Apparently I did not do enough research though.

I almost forgot. I’m six hours into Grandia III and it’s incredible. The best turn based combat I’ve ever seen in an RPG. I guess all the reviews say the game goes down hill after an awesome start. I’ll let you know on Monday if that ends up being true. So far I’m loving it.