Well I am back from my vacation and it feels damn good to be home. I am desperately trying to get caught up on all the game news I missed and answer all the e-mail I have here.

The server for Mavav.org traces here:

I hope you won't be too angry, we have stopped the year-end countdown in favor of a new comic. I can just tell you where things would have gone. Third is Sega's brave foray into synaesthesia, Rez, and I am glad of the opportunity to say the word Synaesthesia again. Second was Splinter Cell, universally adored by our crew - keep an eye out in March for the first freely downloadable expansion. In our estimation, Metroid Prime takes the top spot for games in 2002. God only knows what alchemical formulae were leveraged to bring it about, but it is plain that mystical forces were involved.

We're proud to bring you the 53rd Annual We're Right Awards, now in progress.

Welcome back to Penny Arcade's 53rd Annual We're Right Awards, where the second day is just getting underway.

Than dryer sheets, I think. I've got a handful of them here and I'm just pressing them against my nose.

At least, that's what it looks like to me. Not that I'm complaining! I've been watching videos of Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles on IGN insider, but I noticed that EA linked to one somewhere else. Four player, action-oriented Final Fantasy. Delicious.

I would like to welcome everyone to the 53rd Annual We're Right Awards. Here's the first part of the Ceremony itself, let's talk a little bit about how this is going to go.

I finally got a hiptop, and I'll be honest with you: I've always fantasized about making a little update from somewhere when I'm completely messed up at some party. We'll, here I am, and it's pretty rad.

Or, as it was called by my role-playing group, "The Temple Of Elemental Boredom," is seeing new life thanks to Tim Cain and Troika Games, creators of the inventive Arcanum. The classic adventure is getting a few coats of paint, courtesy of the third edition ruleset and a turn-based battle engine (!!!!!!) - if you are a big dork about D&D like I am you'll want to read Gamespot's great new interview about it.

For some reason I though I had an extra week between now and Christmas. I was thinking about all the shit I have to get done before we go back to Spokane and I figured I had plenty of time. Everytime I thought about all the comics we would have to do for the week we will be out of town or finishing the Samus wallpaper I just planned on getting them done during this imaginary week I had before we left. I felt like I had plenty of time so I spent most of the day yesterday playing Guilty Gear XX. This game has a grip on me and I could not put it down. I recently learned however that Christmas is this week and we are in fact leaving on Sunday. With this new information I think that my time yesterday was probably ill spent.

Here's the Onion article about the PS5. Bon appetit!

We have made a comic. The comic is about The Sims Online. We considered doing a Two Towers comic, but I do not believe there will be a shortage of them. For my part, what's to say, really. It's fun to watch. The one word review is Yay.

My Dad always likes to call me whenever he sees some story on the news about video games. I usually try and watch it because I like to see how the main stream media twists our hobby into a perverted pastime for violent whack jobs. He called me tonight and told me I should switch to CBS because 60 minutes was doing a segment about games. When he called I was a few missions into Medal of Honor on the PS2 (I have been watching the Band of Brothers DVD's). I thought for a moment about watching old men talk about video games or continuing to struggle with the terrible controls of MOHF. I ended up flipping over to CBS just in time to hear them announce that they were at Acclaim Entertainment. I then watched the ancient correspondent from 60 minutes questioning Ben Fischbach from Acclaim about BMX XXX. It was like the whole thing was happening in slow motion. "So, (in BMX XXX) you look at Strippers?" the white haired news man asks. "Well you're looking at a woman dance on screen for a very short period of time." says the middle-aged hipster who thinks his company is still relevant. "You look at strippers." asserts the decrepit reporter from a bygone era. "Ya, you look at strippers." concedes the despicable huckster from Acclaim. I imagined all the old people sitting on their plastic covered couches at home, watching this exchange and shaking their heads in disgust as their antiquated views on videogames were reinforced. I watched on as Mr. Fishbach opened his mouth again and this little nugget fell out:

My head hurts so Goddamn bad. I'll be honest with you, it feels like my brain is the wrong size for this model head. I kept thinking about trepanning off and on the whole time I was at the midnight showing of Two Towers, not that the film wasn't enthralling or anything but I kept fantasizing about relieving the growing pressure in my skull. It's like four in the morning at this point and I'm trying to figure out if I need a Makita power drill, or if a simple Dremel would be up to the task.

Yes it's true that we played a shit ton of Halo last night. It was my first opportunity to check out the multi with that many people and it was damn cool. Before you go sending me mail about how glad you are that I like Halo now or whatever let me point out that I still think the single player game should have only been six hours. I don't blame the guys at Bungie for this though. I am sure someone at MS told them their kick ass six hour game had to be twenty hours long and with a deadline fast approaching all they could do was cut and paste the same levels over and over again and then make you play through the entire thing again backwards. I will agree with Tycho that last night's gaming made me a lot more interested in Halo 2 then I originally was.