Just wanted to let you know that sign-ups for the beta close down tomorrow - Saturday, at 10:00am. 

I can imagine that the urge to now rubberneck the HOMMV beta might be pretty intense for some people.  If you do end up getting it, I recommend that you convince a friend to jump in as well, and try the "Duel" gametype specifically.  This mode can be played without a lot of hassle, probably because the UI for starting games has a good deal fewer variables.  You'll see after a round or two that there's some really reat work being done on the game, fans of turn-based on the PC usually don't get this kind of splendor. 

My fingers are crossed in order to hasten positive outcomes.

(CW)TB

It was so far out of the statistical deviation that I wanted to bring it to your attention.

(CW)TB

We received the following from a young man who we will call "Mr. Smith." 

(CW)TB

Hey guys,

I interviewed for a guerilla marketing business in San Francisco that targeted web forums.

I was told that if I accepted the job, I was to have at LEAST 50 identities on as many forums as I could muster (they wanted 100 eventually), with a goal of 5 posts an hour.  The posts had to be well thought out, and the idea was that I was to establish multiple identities with a history on the forums, so that when the timing was right a well written but subtly placed marketing post could be finessed in.  And regular visitors would recognize the post as coming from a long time poster.

They had 12 people working there full time, and were hiring 10 more.  You do the math.  No wait, I'll do it for you:  that's 880 posts a day (if minimum was met).  However he said the better ones could do around 8 or 10 an hour.  And they had different "verticals" so there was the sports guy, and the games guy, the hentai, excuse me I mean anime guy, etc.

But the most critical point was this: develop and integrate the identity.  No random "HEY EB GAMES IS AWESOME BUY THIS" stuff.

Kinda spooky.

Didn't take the job.  It was a fucking mill.

I have often made mention of the fact that I did not attend college.  While this is true, I do hold a certification of sorts - albeit in an unorthodox field. 

The Heroes of Might and Magic V beta that I brought up at every available opportunity is, upon examination, almost completely unworkable.  There is more to say about it, but that needs to get top billing:  the software they released for people to test is pretty much a train wreck.  Perseverance can get you through the mind-bending player matching interface and into the meat of the game, a realm not entirely without merit, but getting all the way through a match practically requires an auspicious celestial event.   Which I guess fits the setting.

I've been pounding on beta code for more than a decade now, so I didn't enter into this expecting to get retail quality without paying for it.  You might recall that the Anarchy Online beta actually destroyed my partition, so I cross myself when I install this shit.  What I'm saying is that it's difficult to find the game we're being asked to test in there.  You can see for yourself, if you want.  The beta is now open to all.      

The community (which refers to itself as "The HoMMunity")  has, from the state of the beta, mobilized to ask that the product be delayed.  This is on virtually the same day that I read universally glowing previews from Eurogamer, GameSpot, GameSpy, and 1up.  I'd love to make a snarky comment about this, but I'm honestly just confused by the disparity. 

I've played betas that were released for sale virtually unchanged; I've played betas that saw radical improvements in only a couple weeks.   You should have seen some of the games that launched with the 360, just twenty or so days before launch.  It would amaze you.  I don't know what Nival's internal process is, if they are a house that delivers the "long bomb" in the "fourth quarter," or whatever.  But I do know that faith in Heroes of Might and Magic was dealt a blow by an undercooked fourth installment, and that a lot is riding on this revived setting for stalwart fans who have endured much.

Can such a petition even work?  We don't have enough information about the project internally to know.  There have been two very recent instances of Ubi delaying a title to make it a better product:  Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, a game which was supposed to materialize in the launch window of the 360, was pushed back for just this reason.  In the intervening period, it's become something that demands to be taken seriously.  Announced just yesterday was a push for Splinter Cell, a game I was looking at to really inaugurate the generation - that won't see light until September.  HoMM is meant for another type of gamer altogether, though - and I doubt they have the same sales projections for a knight riding a pony that they do for their special forces and their superspies. 

(CW)TB out.

sewn in his skin a little microchip

I got a lot of mail about the recent WOW cyber sex comic we did. Essentially asking me how much truth there was to it. I’m sad to say its pretty much 100% accurate.

We ordered pizza today for lunch, to celebrate...  Wednesday Day, and it occurred to me that some wings might not go amiss.  Look at the box they came in:

Tycho and I agree when it comes to the new Black demo. We both think it’s pretty boring. It’s not a bad demo, it’s just nothing special either. I’ll say that after playing the demo I can’t imagine any reason to purchase the final game. However in order to get the demo I had to pre-order the game. Those tricky bastards.

The post at EBWorld, included verbatim in the strip, was so relentlessly on message that  we concocted a paranoid theory that isn't really that paranoid or theoretical. 

After seeing the many exquisite videos of Black - the "Matrix Trailer" in particular - there wasn't a lot of hand-wringing associated with our pre-order.  Further induced by a playable demo given out for such orders, we returned to our Batcave equivalent to dig in and congratulate ourselves on our no doubt excellent purchase. 

In our inimitable fashion, we have described to you in the past how the software they show in May at E3 is magically transmuted into the demo gamers play seven, eight, or nine months later on a coverdisc.  It's a snapshot of the development cycle, tree rings or some shit, and there are sometimes very real differences between that demo and what percolates through the retail channel.  You can see some things, already.  There's an effect when the player reloads in the newest videos - your awareness of the gameworld is cropped down to the weapon itself - that here's no trace of here.  One wonders what phase of the project this sample represents, because I can absolutely do without the game they're showing me here.

After seeing much better realized play spaces in action packed/meticulously prepared footage, the level, the gunplay, and the arsenal on offer really isn't anything to get excited about.  I shot through walls and shit almost six years ago in Red Faction, so you're going to have to bring a little more than that.  Are they thinking that we'll forget?  I wonder if they have a level where you eat dots.  

It's already a marketing triumph, with thair "gun porn" imagery having taken deep root in the gamer psyche.  Based on this playable, they are simply raiding the tombs of the first person Genre Kings - wicker baskets hauled to the top of the shaft, brimming with dusty genre tropes. 

After a couple nights of trying to get the new Chaos Theory co-op maps working on the 360 via emulator, I think it's time to hang it up.  It crashes, reproducibly, at about sixty-five percent of the level load.  It would be one thing if I could then go on to play sixty-five percent of the level, but it actually hard locks the console, forcing me to leave the couch and physically manipulate it like mankind was forced to do in the olden days.  I've crafted a novel solution to the issue:  I am going to play the game on the original Xbox, where I am told compatibility is almost assured.  I  wish that I had arrived at this plan sooner. 

(CW)TB out.

and the night got deathly quiet

The new Book is still doing really well. It looks like we peaked at around 24 on the Amazon bestseller list. We were actually number one in humor there for a couple days as well. Anyway I wanted to remind you that we’ll be doing a book signing tomorrow night at the Comic Stop. Here are the details:

An open beta is typically a subset of the final product, but usually they will call a beta restricted to the multiplayer portion a "multiplayer test," as id Software did in times of legend.  The Heroes of Might and Magic V beta is restricted to the multiplayer mode, is what I'm saying.  Also, it utilizes Starforce copy protection.  Fileplanet only has an exclusive on the demo for three days, after which it will be available anywhere - I learned all this (and more) from the Beta FAQ on the official boards.  Sorta wish I'd known some of this stuff before.

(CW)TB

There's a link over at the main page, but that link only goes over here, to the exclusive Fileplanet promotion site.  I've purchased subscriptions for lesser titles, but I think Kiko has an account.   The official site says that the beta clocks in around 70 megs, which is true: but only if you multiply that number by ten.  Eleven, actually.

(CW)TB

I think that even if a 4x galactic empire game weren't to your taste, you could still enjoy this article by Brad Wardell (or one of his pen names).  Essentially it is him playing his own game, taking note of what the AI is doing, and while he makes his own moves to defeat it he is also taking into consideration what changes need to be made to improve the game as an opponent. 

You can read the journals in general if his article made you curious about GalCiv.  The one right before the current one about the mysterious process known as "profiling" was also a good read.

(CW)TB

NCSoft decided to give us as many keys as we had readers who wanted to try it, so if a Mad Maxy sorta Car Wars MMO is up your alley you might want to give it a looksee.  They do need an e-mail you can check to send out your key, but other than that the whole process is pretty straightforward. 

(CW)TB

I don't know how much I can actually say about the inspiration for this strip.  My guess would be very little.

The last Electronic Entertainment Expo foretold - as a wizened sage might - the rest of the year as far as the handhelds were concerned.  You could see that Burnout and Virtua Tennis were, by and large, the whole of the PSP offering.  I liked Gripshift, but I'm fairly certain that's not the majority view.  You could also see a DS line-up that would come to seize me with a secular penitence - the online functionality began to coalesce there on the showfloor with Animal Crossing and Kart, strange stuff like Phoenix Wright was like "Hey," and there was a little golf game called True Swing Golf - no more than a tech demo, it looked like - that if watered and weeded with diligence could become one of the four or five games you carry with you everywhere.

That's not going to happen anytime soon. 

I mean it.  I thought I was looking at the gutted infrastructure of the thing before, and that's pretty much the delivered product.  It is lackadaisical in execution, form, and function, as though no human hand had ever touched it, as though the code had spontaneously generated itself.  The swing mechanic feels alright, and had the follow-through elsewhere been more uniform they might have been right to place their faith in it - but there is almost nothing here.  The helpful indicators on-screen are so helpful that they virtually play the game for you.  Usually I would criticize that, but here is a case where not playing the game provides a kind of soothing relief. 

Four player golf off a single cartridge is nice, and the only thing I will laud without a vicious parenthetical attached somewhere.  I've never actually leered at a cartridge before True Swing Golf.  It may have seemed to an observer that I was merely displeased with the small square of grey plastic, but it was my secret hope that my rage could sear the label.

(CW)TB out.

make way for the s o v

We put CDs from a couple bands we like up on the store, right now that means Optimus Rhyme and MC Frontalot.  Probably be a few more up there eventually. 

(CW)TB