The Rock Band Network - a vector for gameplay authorship that recalibrates the rhythm title as a democratic platform - is imminent, if not available at this very moment. The idea behind it is fairly substantial, particularly on consoles, where as a rule user generated content is either impossible, thoroughly circumscribed, or considered a breach of the user agreement. There are exceptions, certainly. Well, maybe there are exception.

It falls to us to explain some pretty elemental shit on occasion, a task I relish. The version I gave my own son was (for lack of a better term) rendered at a substantially higher resolution.

It came out quite a while ago in Japan, and feels a little dated as a consequence, but this video expresses a few of the ideas that put it over the top.  

My twitter is going crazy with requests for a larger version of today's comic. How can I deny the twitterverse?

We had originally read that a new printing of Dante's Inferno was a "novelization," which implies that the game had been turned into a novel, which is untrue: the truth is actually much weirder. Tie-ins (particularly for Visceral Games, whose Dead Space could be considered a broad-spectrum new media template) would be utterly normal, dog-bites-man stuff, with a pH of seven exactly.

(I wanted to get this in front of you again, in case you were a recent convert to the game.  We've had a great response so far, but I want to make sure that all of Kiko's awesome shirts find a good home.) 

I'm pleased to announce that the PAX 2009 DVD set is now available and more importantly, it's fucking awesome. It is so awesome in fact that this will likely be the last PAX DVD we make. This 6 disk set encompasses the PAX experience so completely and so well that there is simply no reason to make any more. You should hit the sotre link for a more complete breakdown of what's on these disks, but here is a quick look:

I mentioned Monday that we are looking to hire a designer here at PA but I neglected to mention that you only have until Sunday the 17th to get your resume in. You can find all the details about the job right here. We are looking for someone with crazy design skills who doesn't mind working in a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

My cohort's education is always foremost in my mind, but in the past I've typically resorted to misdirections that (once discovered) set the project back substantially. This time - and I recognize that this is strange - I am actually taking his predilections into account. Before, I would have flopped a book like The Fifth Head of Cerberus onto his Intuos and said "eat this, dog." I'm taking a different tack now, a breadcrumb trail, so that his mind is starving at the end of each book, and into that ravenous mind I will continuously heap works of burning fire and terrible consequence.

The stars have aligned once again my friends. Penny Arcade is hiring and this time we need an artist! You can find the job listing and all the details right here. The basic idea is that we need another designer to work under Kiko. Check out the job listing and see if you have the necessary skills. You might also take a look at episode 3 of the PATV series to see if our office environment is the sort of place you'd like to work.

Bayonetta's shape - I almost hesitate to call this impossible contraption a "body" - is striking. I don't mean that as a euphemism for appealing. I mean that the ideas which inform it actually pound the mind, repeatedly, like a truncheon.

Tycho and I have been invited back to Xbox Live's 1 vs.100 .We'll be guests on tonight's live show. The show starts at 7:00pm Pacific time and you can get more details here.

I used to love looking in game magazines for those photos people used to send in, pictures of the screen itself or the player in front of the screen, showing off a newly minted high score in the way our primitive forebears might have displayed some horned carcass. Of course, such images may be altered now: it is a grotesque fact of the modern world that we literally cannot believe our eyes. We can retain the elegance and beauty of the old ritual, though, by verifying the truth of it via Achievements and Trophies.

I've gotten a lot of requests for a larger version of the first panel from today's comic. I'm glad you guys liked it so much but I can't take too much credit for it. I think I did a fair job of aping Joe Mad's style, but if you think it's a cool picture, then you should really check out his work.

It's only the first part, there are two total, but here you go.  We don't spend a lot of time cataloging how incredible Child's Play actually is - as I've said before, we take Santa Claus as the model.  Appear, improve lives, and retreat.  These episodes are a chance to celebrate it, though.  We hope you enjoy it.  

The Wii was either "innovative" or "gimmicky," depending on your perspective, an evergreen topic that still springs up now and again. There is a similar cleave between things that are Homage and things that are Derivative, though this one can get complicated quick. In such scenarios, it's nice to have a quick rule of thumb to sunder any lingering ambiguities.