Thursday, September 28, 2006
#87 "A noble endeavor" news post...
Today’s comic is a genuine moment taken from our adventurous lives. Fascinating! How is everyone today? I hope this comic finds you well, I myself have been slightly hung over from last nights escapades down at Keele. T'was excellent thanks for asking. Myself and Payam spent a fair chunk of the evening playing the Time Crisis III machine in true pro fashion. To say we rocked at it would be a fair assessment. Then again I have been playing the same machine for two years so go figure.
It has come to my attention that a sizeable chunk of you guys are new readers who have been siphoned here courtesy of the good Steve Napierski of Dueling Analogs fame. This will be due to the guest strip we recently did over there which you can view here. I think it's fair to agree it's the greatest comic to ever invade the virtual net-tron? Regardless it's very unfortunate that so many of you guys were directed here at a time when our entire fucking archive was broken due to a server change but them's the breaks. Rest assured we usually run a much tighter ship here at the TV.
There has been some fantastic news recently from X06 and that is that guitar hero II will be coming to the 360 with what I can only hope is a wireless guitar. The images floating the net sure look nice. Imagine what Xbox Live can bring as far as game expansions are concerned. Let’s just hope we don’t end up buying half a game with near essential micro-payments to get a full track roster.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
#85 "Steal the sample" News post...
I’m sure many of you have played Far Cry in one of its shapes and forms. Until last week my self and James were Far Cry virgins however now I can safely see our cherries are well and truly popped. The multiplayer component is, in this comic-make-guy’s humble opinion, a joy to play. The depth of combat is such that anyone can jump in and stand a fighting chance against veteran players yet for the more experienced players there is always a challenge. I’m not quite sure how this works but I think it’s safe to say it involves magical pixies and the death of hundreds of mystical unicorns…You know…Karma type shit. See this is quite a reversal of my previous online FPS experiences which were mainly formed from playing online Halo 2. A game in which, if you’re not very good at it, you’re very dead very fast and very often. Not so fun for beginners. Another pleasant feature that is seriously understated in the game is the map editor. It’s incredibly diverse and simple to use and essentially extends the game's lifespan significantly, even for those not willing to use it. How you say? Because it’s possible to download other peoples home grown maps through Xbox Live. This is a great element and means the better home made maps get spread around from player to player virally!
Anyway the subject material for today’s comic is that capture the flag in FC is called Steal the sample… maybe a semen sample… who knows right?
I wrote something of a rantifesto on Monday regarding my decline in faith for Nintendo’s everyman console the Wii. While I have certainly calmed down since then I’m still not overjoyed especially given the recent news that no first party games in the first quarter of launch will feature more than 2 player support other than Wii Sports nd Mario Strikers. Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe the whole point of the Wii was to play together… but only if that means 2 people right Nintendo? Regardless I’ll still be getting my hands on one as soon as possible to see if the hype lives up to the E3 que of legend. Before I end the post has anyone got or played Starfox Command and can you recommend it to me? I’m torn between SF:C or Mario Hoops for my latest DS fix. Thanks!
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Gaming Tattoo Mario Style...
A good friend of mine has this sweet tattoo on his arm, for those of you that don't belong on this blog, it's a Question block from Nintendo's Mario series! Hit the link afterwards to see a pic that puts the tattoo in the context of his body and also that demonstrates him being a myspace whore.
A pic stolen from his myspace.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
# 84 "A special promotion" news post...
So who would have thought that making the Bomberman we all know and love into a 3D neo-futuristic affair would be severely detrimental to the gameplay? Certainly not the whole freaking gaming population Hudson! Let me assure you we all had VERY high hopes… “By the way Marge I was being sarcastic!”
Anyway I guess this week has been pretty big for all Nintendo fans, glued to their Internet’s like so many moths to a flame, waiting for the price/date combo, myself included I hasten to add! And surprise sur-freaking-prise, we Brits got well and truly shafted yet again with a £179 launch price. Now I’ve gone on record with friends etc stating that this price is horrendously high. I know it’s still the cheapest of all the next (and new!) Gen consoles and I also know that Nintendo is a company and not a charity. I’m also aware that from a business point of view why the fuck not sell it for £20 less than a core 360 when the demand for the Wii is obviously very high?!
All these arguments aside I’m just not sure I can physically go to a store counter, request a Wii and then reach for £180 knowing that I’m essentially buying a £45 GameCube but with zany controls. The Broadway processor is so old you can buy that shit for less than a tenner! The screenshots and video I’ve witnessed for Wii games all look like current generation releases anyway, and I find this more off putting now that I own a 360 and have come to expect and appreciate a certain degree of visual finesse from my games.
I know what you’re thinking, “But its not about the graphics anymore you whore it’s about the gameplay!” and I appreciate this. Don’t get me wrong I will still fork out for a Wii, I am THAT weak. The problem I have with this whole Wii will play together mantra Nintendo are spouting is that playing together means buying more Wiimotes and Wiichuks which have turned out to be disturbingly expensive. $40 for the mote and $20 for the chuck (for those who don’t read gaming news sites or my news post last week).
I hope this topic gets a few of you all riled up on the forums because its certainly an interesting debate. I’m sure the Wii will be very fun and in that respect represents a good value proposition but from a technical stand point I’m simply not convinced it’s worth £179… especially without the DVD playback that was once promised… that’s right, I’m still bitter about that too.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Videogames Live concert...
Myself and James will be attending Videogames Live in London on November 25th aand I couldn't be more excited! check out the videos below to see what I'm talking about! In a nutshell its simply an awesome concert of videogame themes played by a huge orchestra with fantastic game visualisations in the background complete with lazers and crazy lighting! Hell theres even an entire segment devoted to Tron! Other included game music includes
- Final Fantasy series
- Space invaders
- Halo
- Ghouls N' Ghosts
- Mario
- Sonic the hedgehog
- Metal Gear Solid (W00t! Awesome music)
- And too many more to list!
Trailer for the concert.
Metal Gear Performance (amateur recording)
Monday, September 11, 2006
#82 "Awkward" News post...
I’ve been thinking about the whole PS3 European delay debacle and the conspiracy theorist in me has come up with something. My theory is that Sony never intended for the European launch to take place on November of this year and the whole claim was merely a ruse.
"The previously announced PlayStation 3 shipment forecast of 6 million units globally within the fiscal year ending 2007 is not changed, suggesting that Sony wasn't expecting to sell any units in the PAL territories." -UK tech site Pocket Lint
There’s my basis for believing this but then I looked at motivation for the deception and actually figured it’s pretty feasible. Let’s assume that SCEE consider Europe the hardest territory to launch successfully in, perhaps due to high 360 sales or high PS2 sales that they do not wish to truncate. By announcing a November launch they forced Microsoft into playing their hand early, IE revealing emergence day to be in November. When Sony launch in 2007 they now no longer have to worry about going head to head with the highly anticipated Gears of War.
It’s just a crazy theory but I found it interesting anyways.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
# 81 "An extension" news post...
Just for the less observant among you “the Janitor is representing the Sega Dreamcast, look at the logo on his outfit!” See it’s a clever commentary that Sony will botch everything up and still sell a fuck-tonne of machines yet the Dreamcast was a great console and failed. Top drawer, top drawer. Right now that’s over we can all remove our monocles and top hats. So it seems like Gabe over at Penny Arcade (you might have heard of them) is Looooving Enchanted Arms right now. On the strength of his protestations I’m actually quite tempted to try it myself… it does look purdy!
Anyway I bought Street Fighter II on XBL the other day and it seems plenty of you Internet dwellers are happy to hand my ass to me via a seriously crushing defeat. I will practice oh yes! One day you will be mine!
You’ll also find me and James skulking around the rooftops in the “Far Cry Predator Instincts” demo that’s available on XBL Marketplace so if you fancy taking us on you know what to do. If you want me to add you to my XBL friends list just drop your gamer tag in a comment below or in the forums, same goes for James. Cheers gang!
Monday, September 04, 2006
New band takes inspiration from Zelda etc
A new band called The Super Elfonso Brothers or simply "Elfonso" are the latest unheard of nerdcore band to find inspiration in videogames. The two real life cousins Rory and Alex have a split EP out with The SkullKid and an album on the way. I already invested in a copy of the EP and despite some love 'em or hate 'em vocals I find that I love 'em 90% of the time. The notable songs I've heard include...
MasterQuest - A song about The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time with lyrics like "My best friend's a ball of light, she's got my back when we get into a fight but she can't comfort me, a boy who never went through puberty"
The elementalist - A song for anyone who's played a MMORPG
Trail of Ribbon - My personal favourite. Finaly; a song about Sega Saturn Cult hit "Nights into Dreams"
Hit this link to download Masterquest from Megaupload and get a taste of the dynamic duo
XBL market place points translated to £££
This post is as much for my own reference as it is for you guys. I wanted to know how much we're spending on XBL content so I've unveiled the smoke and mirrors that is the points system so you know exactly how much that online ready version of street fighter is costing you.
- 2100 points costs £16.99 from Play.com therefore one penny is equal to 1.235 gamer points
1P = 1.235 GP.
- So an XBL Arcade title at 800 GP is infact £6.48
- An XBL Arcade title at 400 GP is half at £3.24
- A theme or picture pack at 150 GP is £1.21
Sunday, September 03, 2006
#80 " We go live to a hick" news post...
Yuck, I’m ill right now, drawing up today’s comic has been an exercise in perseverance as I have sneezed over my monitor approximately twenty eight times. I hope you think the result is worth it. There isn’t really a great deal of news that I can think of, whether that’s due to a slow news week or my brain being mush right now I cannot discern. Oh, those of you that picked up copies of Saints Row over the weekend please comment either on my blog or in the forums and let me know what your experiences have been like so far. I’ll probably pick it up sometime next week, inevitably with James so we can form an RPG-TV crew and run tings in the Row! Remember, big tings are G’waning ya get me?!