I put a couple hours into Castlevania: Lament of Backtracking the other day. I got bored with it and figured I’d never play it again. I decided that it deserved more than that though so I went back to it on Saturday and really invested some time it. Unfortunately it didn’t change my opinion of the game any. It’s just okay. It’s not a bad game but it’s also not great. Any other month I could see myself really getting into it. The problem is that it came out at the same time as Crimson Skies, which is a fucking great game. When I look at the next couple of weeks and see games like Final Fantasy XI, Top Spin, Call of Duty and Gladius I just can’t imagine investing anymore time in Castlevania for a long time. I decided what I would do is stick it on the shelf and wait for next summer when game releases are few and far between. Then I’ll crack out Castlevania and I’ll probably really enjoy it. Like an old lady canning vegetables for those lean winter months, I’m packing away games now during harvest season in the hopes that they will nourish me through the long dry summer.

Not every man of the Belmont clan is constructed for proper vampire combat, as today's strip reveals. PS2's been busted, so I haven't had a chance to play this new one. I heard it was alright.

Page three of our Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon comic is available. Things really kick into gear on this page with some cool action. I had a decision to make about how I would treat the Green Destiny. In the movies it’s essentially just a kick ass sword. In the comics it’s a magical kick ass sword that spouts green fire and creates spinning vortexes of doom. I decided it would be more fun to use the Green Destiny from the comics. If you liked our CTHD comic, I highly recommend picking up the mini series done by Andy Seto.

By now some of you should have received the shirts and hoodies and stuff that you ordered from the PA store. We would love to get some pictures of people decked out in their PA gear. If you have the ability to snap a picture of yourself could you do so and send it to Brad? Thanks you guys are swell.

PA reader Glaximus recently had the opportunity to attend a PR presentation for the Phantom console in Florida. He was kind enough to write up his thoughts on the event for us. Here is a little clip from the article:

You can see our friend Robert there in today's strip, at least, I think he's still our friend. Of course, you also see Gabe. But when is that anything to celebrate?

If you went out and downloaded Objectdock like Tycho told you to then you might be interested in this. It’s a fancy little PA icon I made especially for Objectodock. This is my first attempt at making an icon and this particular one is version 2.1. It was fun though and I’ll probably do some more soon.

I Picked up Crimson Skies and Castlevania today. It’s too early to say what I think of Castlevania, but CS is a fucking hoot. It sports some of the best multiplayer since MechAssault. Anyway, I’ll be online late tonight playing Wild Chicken if anyone is interested.

It's been a long time coming, but here it is - the Outside The Inbox compilation. Brad got the whole thing together, that's Brad of Brad Sucks, Strip Creator, In4mador and Lowpass fames. I'm astounded by some of the songs on there, specifically add's Do You Measure Up, 15-16 Puzzle's Erik, Someone Wants To Date You, Justin Bacon's My Parent's Are Gone For The Weekend, and of course Brad's own Look And Feel Years Younger. If it was not already clear, every song is titled after Spam and many songs deal explicitly with the subject. In some cases, quite explicitly.

Gabe received quite a bit of mail saying that it was perfectly normal - even natural - for a young man to desire an Apple Cinema Display. That's fine. Buy actually purchasing an Apple, that's beyond the pale. God only knows what's beyond the pale, hues presumably, but it's commonly understood that you should avoid that region if possible.

We are both extremely fond of Jak II, and though we might try to associate a number with our enjoyment there is no number in all of imagination to describe it. To look at it, the urban hub (for example) dense with vehicles, activity, and raw polygons, it gives one the impression that Naughty Dog has discovered some secret processor in the machine - hidden, perhaps, under one of the other ones. I can run around from hell to breakfast, over diverse zones stealing hoverbikes and flying across towns, and I never see a loading screen while I look at amazing graphics and have fun braving their innovations in the tried and true platform style of gameplay. Like all platform games, it skirts the credible with its ridiculous, useless machines and convenient dangers.

Ubisoft has posted page 2 of our Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon comic. It’s sort of funny that I spent all morning thinking about how close I came to giving up drawing comics and focusing on traditional art.Now drawing comics is what I do for a living and I'm lucky enough to work with characters like the ones in Crouching Tiger. I’m really proud of the work we did on this comic so go check it out and let me know what you think.

Comixpedia has posted their interview with us in which we answer questions posed by the community. Thankfully we don’t come off as the huge assholes that we really are.

If you have a store (like a comic book shop or game store or whatever) and you would like to sell Penny Arcade merchandise in it, please fire off a mail to Brad. All our shirts are baked fresh daily and we don’t use any pesticides on our posters.

Today’s comic strip hits very close to home. I’ve become increasingly interested in Apple products over the last few months and the recent release of itunes has only fueled the fire. As an artist I feel like I am letting the other artists down by not working on a Mac. I look at their products and I begin to salivate, as if I’d been hungry all my life but until that moment I never understood what food was. I tell myself that I would be more creative if I used a Mac. That it’s graceful lines would somehow awake in me a level of artistry that had been sitting dormant all these long years.

Over the years we've been doing the site, my own policy towards Apple products has morphed somewhat. I worked service at a school district for about five years, which gave me some appreciation for the way they do things - these days, I accept without malice the idea that people own and use their products for a variety of purposes. Their grip on Gabe has been a very different phenomenon. As a person who creates visual art, their aesthetics, elegance, and seductive lifestyle that simmers just out of sight has finally worn him smooth. Before iTunes, I think he had decided that while he would still use a PC, he couldn't survive without Apple's graven idol of a monitor. Now he's listening to their subversive radio stations and buying AAC encoded music files albums at a time.