Prince of Persia 2 is a good game in spite of the fact that the developer tried to ruin it. It's like they did their best to burn the entire thing to the ground, but enough of the foundation remains that it's still recognizable. What that means is that the fundamentals of the first game are so good they can withstand being covered in layers of disgusting music, hack writing and monotonous combat.

The Prince is back, apparently from rehab. He is beset on all sides by improbably garbed temptresses. The good news is that game we liked is in there, but it's underneath a bunch of crap I ordinarily wouldn't touch without gloves.

We went to the EB over at the Northgate mall today and signed a bunch more WOW strategy guides. The manager told us that the last batch of autographed books they had sold out in a couple of hours. So we signed another big stack, just head over there if you want one.

The thing I don't understand about that "Ten Super Evil Games" list that's going around - outside of the obvious, of course - is the glaring omissions any modicum of research would have revealed. There is no mention, even in passing, of "The Sodomizer" for the PS2. And yet again, parents' groups have overlooked the Wifebeater series, neglecting to mention Wifebeater III altogether. Also absent with no purpose or explanation are Violencing and Kill For No Reason.

I had a lot of people mail me and ask if we'd do an online auction to coincide with our dinner/auction. Well I've gone ahead and done just that. 100% of the proceeds from the following auctions will go directly to Child's Play.

The toy drive this weekend at Toys R Us ended up being quite an adventure. We arrived at about 12:00 but it turns out we were walking right into a trap.

Gabe has no idea what he's missing with his adherence to the Light Side, as anyone who went dark in the original Kotor is aware. I was not prepared for Bioware to allow some of the things I did, or at any rate caused to be done, and I hope with intensity that Obsidian will indulge us to the same degree in our depravities.

Just one last reminder to come see us this Saturday November 27th at the Toys R Us in Bellevue.

Independent developers of Utah, rejoice.

We did not actually surf a hairy wave of hobo spiders. For reasons unknown to us, though presumably they have something to do with promoting Pocket Kingdoms (which I will now link), we were sent a couple N-Gage game "decks" as part of some strange self-flagellation ritual they have going at Nokia.

The prints are finally going through, and they look the way we want them to. We have a special run of three available for the dinner/auction , but we snapped a shot of how it looks if you'd like to see it.

Things just keep getting worse for the Phantom. What they need to do is release their keyboard/mousing surface device and cut their losses. At this point I think they could sell that thing by itself and be far more successful then they ever would be with their goofy console.

I wanted to finish the game before I spoke about it again, and I completed it last night. I'll talk about it later today, if you want.

I got this email this morning:

I really like this comic. I've maybe admitted it five or six times in our entire oeuvre, but Gabe's art in this one is excellent and my writing isn't idiotic or offensive. Also, it was an opportunity to do a Thanksgiving strip, even if it is Thanksgiving refracted through the lens of madness. Other holidays have ways of obscuring their food offerings, with gods and whatnot, and I just find the focus on birds themselves refreshing.

Gabe just had a great idea - if you're one of the people that "adopted early" and picked up a DS, why don't you go ahead and bring that son of a bitch to Toys 'r' Us on Saturday. You probably have the same problem we do, you think it might be kind of a cool device, but you don't have a bunch of people to dig in and really try out that wireless functionality. We'll rock the Hunters for a while, see how it goes.