I played Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 at the San Diego Comic-Con what seems like a hundred years ago, and though the roster was a profoundly truncated version of the retail selection, it was very much like what you're playing now: lickety-split full contact puppetry, with shit flying all around. Maybe you're responsible for the shit, maybe not. Maybe the shit happens even if no controllers are touched - I'll test this today. Or maybe you just moved your hands according to the ancient ways, what our people once called a somatic component, and some measure of their magic is made manifest unconsciously.

Losing in a game that takes a long time to play feels bad; and losing in a wargame (which has a tactical component, even if dice are the final arbiter) feels worse. These things are compounded until the defeat becomes a barbed crown of shame, a crown which stands upon each brow differently.

If you want to get a three day pass for PAX East you had better move quick. We only have 1000 of them left. Head over to the PAX site and grab yours today before they are gone!

Pulling Gawker sites off my bar felt momentous, but the relief was incredible. Once I realized that I didn't have to look at them, even if I have done so for years, the habit was broken absolutely.  If I am curious what they have said on any of their sites, I type them in manually. That's right.

In many ways, I just buy the industrial design in Killzone. I buy that actual ISA weapons and dropships might look this way, and I can see a kind of mechanical genetics at play: this lead to this, pragmatism with the occasional muted flourish. I wont lie, I've reloaded just to see the weapon. The Helghast, on the other hand - British Space Nazis (?) that make up Killzone's opposing force - have an industrial design that is all kinds of brooding Skynet nonsense. There's a certain PR factor to be taken into account; a floating, red-eyed arachnoid is definitely situated in Scarytown. But in the middle of all this functional stuff, thoughtful stuff, it verges on hokum. It's like the Helghast have internalized the villainy, they think of themselves as villains, and they surround themselves with little shrines to their own evil.

Just a quick heads up: The last day to order your PAX East tickets and have them mailed to you before the show is Feb. 17th. After that you will need to pick them up at PAX. Also, if you need to change your address for any reason you can mail CGlickstein@reedexpo.com.

Tycho and I finished Dead Space 2 last week and I was really impressed with the game. Overall I didn’t feel like it was as scary as the first one but that changed this weekend. Our dryer stopped venting correctly and it fell on me to determine the problem. This meant exploring the crawl space below our house, something I had never had to do before. I removed the panel, slid into this dark space full of pipes and cables with my flashlight and immediately regretted the eight hours of survival horror I had just completed.

As one of Gabriel's fully actual dreams, this bizarre pastiche was weird enough to record. But now I want to use this character again, to re-enter the Time Files of Bono Trask, even though the workings of his device would almost certainly preclude it. Then I remembered that it was a strip about time travel, a genre where grievous narrative sins are expected and even encouraged. I've already generated no less than three distinct scenarios to shape the inevitable return. I've included exclamation points, to indicate my joy in their construction:

We are running a special sale on our heartris and life t-shirts for valentines day. They are now $14 each!

We've got the first episode of our Ping-Pong match against Screenlife, who you may know better as "The People Who Make Scene It."

Bulletstormin'.

One of the most important essays I’ve ever read is by Philip K Dick, entitled “How To Build A Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later.” In it, he describes his idea that people can experience reality in such different ways that they lack a common language and therefore can’t relate to one another. He’s talking about schizophrenia, but he’s really talking (as is his way) about all people, everywhere.

I think this has really gone too far. We have people on both sides of this ridiculous argument making death threats and worse. Kara was certainly upset to see someone mention on Twitter last night that it would be funny to come to my house and murder my wife and children. I know there are people who see themselves as being on our side that have made equally disgusting comments in the other direction. I want to make it very clear that I do not approve of this kind of bullshit.

To this day, any conversational lull between Kiko and I invariably turns to Chromehounds.

We’re working on fleshing out PATV so it isn’t just shows about Penny Arcade. Ledo and Ix is one such show. The third episode went up on Monday and you can see it here.

We've got Dead Space 2 more or less in the bag, now, practically sewn up, and it's just... solid. It's more of a compliment than it sounds. They've created a very "firm" universe, studded with meaty bolts and secured by cascades of regularly spaced hermetic seals. It has intimacy and scale; along with breakneck pace, from which no neck is safe. Eventually we had to start running, altogether, just as we did years ago in games like Alone in the Dark or Resident Evil. Obviously, this would have been before the latter game became about mowing down fifty zombies at a time with a man-portable minigun.