You might recall my enthusiasm regarding this game, drawing parallels between it and what the early screens seemed to represent - a sort of modern day Archon. As it turns out, that's not far from the mark - I received a mail from the developer regarding my comparisons, assuring me that they were all big fans of that classic game. How is it different? Well, let's see.

I just got this from Fatrick who is setting up NWC 2003:

Since I got such a good response to my last video I decided to make another. While the last video had some cool combos a few of the hardcore SC players mentioned that someone could “air control” out of them pretty easy. For those of you who are not hard core SC players, air control is when you hold guard and mash a direction while in the air in order to roll out of the way of combos. It’s true that if you time it right you can get out of some of the combos from my last video. Anyway, this second video is all guaranteed hits. As far as I know there is no way to air control out of these.

But, um... I was sort of playing WarioWare when I was supposed to be doing my post. Each game is like three seconds, but when you play a few hundred of them every now and then it sort of builds up. It won't happen again, at least, not until the next time I do it.

After seeing Scott's iPod storyline, Gabe had to see one of these things for himself. He was very impressed with everything but the price, which quite naturally lead to a heated conversation with a person who doesn't exist in a place that is not real.

Wow thanks for all the mail about my little video. This was my first attempt so hopefully they will get better from here on. I do plan on making some videos of actual fights between Robert and I as well as some more combo vids. Thanks again for the great response. Oh, and since everyone is asking the song is Striptease by Hawksley Workman.

I have been bummed about the lack of combo videos being made available for Soul Calibur 2. Especially the lack of Talim videos as she is my character of choice and it’s always nice to see how other people play her. Anyway I decided to go ahead and make my own little video in the hopes that it might get some other people excited about doing the same thing. I am not the best Talim player ever so don’t expect to be blown away by my sick skills. Here it is though if you are interested. Maybe I’ll do some more if you guys like it.

Well, contest might be overstating it a bit.

If you join Club PA this month you will get a picture of Gabe and Tycho drawn by an artist from a videogame company that you know and love. Shhhh, it’s a secret.

I mentioned a while ago that we were considering working with a local game store to hold some tournaments. We had heard about a place in Redmond that did that sort of thing on a regular basis called Famcom. We went to check it out though and the place was a fucking pit. Let me paint you a picture.

One, Corey from If Then Else Online wanted to thank you all for breaking his server last time, and he wanted to say that he has some bandwidth now for you to soak up. This young man made a very good impression on us at The Emerald City Comic Con, as well as the SakuraCon, so, if you wouldn't mind...

When discussing the Xbox version of Return To Castle Wolfenstein, I suggested that there were people out there running servers who had no business hosting them on their anemic connections. A human being wrote in to say that people shouldn't have to run their own Xbox Live servers. That is a separate issue, but in my opinion, it is quite a valid point.

This Thursday, a savings project that began the day I was married will come to fruition as I go from Seattle to Rome, and then Munich. I said Let's Go To Japan, and she heard Europe, but if that is the extent of the difficulties inherent in our eternal union then that's probably okay.

I'm sure Pandora Tomorrow means something to somebody, but I don't actually want to know what it means, because then the game will be over. Like Rogue Spears and Raven Shields, I prefer to think of these terms as beyond meaning. Gabriel thought people might enjoy the individual panels at a larger scale, and he was correct, at least in my case: sample vicher versions of Sam without accessories, with helmet, with glasses, and with simian. |p> I was hoping to see some of the new Splinter Cell in the UbiSoft booth at this year's E3, as my well publicized affection for the original game compels me to imagine its successor. As everyone now knows, multiplayer has now been confirmed for the title, and though one gets the impression from the press release that it will be cooperative in nature, that's basically all we know. We were trying to figure out how voice support might work in a stealth game, and it seemed like it might be interesting if the volume of your speech was detectable by AI soldiers and whatnot, necessitating low voices. Ever since I started appending voice support to my games with programs like Battlefield Commander a few years ago, I've been wondering when voice would become a real part of games, actqally integrated with the simulation. Voice recognition - as in SOCOM, let's say, where you can issue commands to your squad - is certainly welcome, but I am talking about a level of immersion somewhat beyond simulating a keyboard.

Tron is something of a fetish for me, and though all gamers in my age category may not feel a tingling downstairs when they watch it, I think it is fair to say that affection for the film - with its themes of electronic theology and geek empowerment - has maintained with very little attenuation.

You know how when we killed Jesus, he asked God to forgive us because we just didn't know any better? You need to show that brand of divine benevolence to these animals who mar gaming with their ignorance, with their sloth, and with their ineptitude.