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Gears of War: the sitcom?
Apparently we were so busy playing GOW yesterday -- playing co-op with all of you is great by the way -- we failed to notice Penny Arcade's latest comic. If you're absolutely sick of all the hyperbole surrounding this game (or if by some off chance you actually like the idea), you'll find the idea of turning Gears of War into a sitcom fairly amusing. It brings up an interesting point though. For those of you who've played the game (and were able to find it), how is it stacking up so far? Does it live up to the hype, or are you happy playing something completely different?
Readers pick best webcomic: killer DS FTW
Though not by the usual commanding margin, Penny Arcade was the favorite webcomic this week among Joystiq readers. Let's see, a plane crashes in this strip and the following one is all about the TV show LOST ... coincidence? When do we get to see a gaming parody of the Twilight Zone's "Nightmare at 20,000 feet," with a deranged Koopa (or fill in your own character here) ripping apart the wing.To those who voted for Penny Arcade: why not show your love by donating to Child's Play?Second place, and a long overdue win, goes to RPG-TV. Third place was subsidized by Dilbert. Thanks to everyone who voted, and be sure to let us know of any gaming comics you stumble upon this week!
Child's Play 2006 commences [update 1]
The fourth annual Child's Play charity event has now begun. The fundraising, toy donation event was started by Tycho and Gabe, the creators of Penny Arcade, in 2003 and has since raised almost $1.2 million in donations and more than 53,000 toys and games. Last year alone, Child's Play collected $605,000.All donations from the drive go towards sick kids in children's hospitals. Tycho has also expressed interest in expanding their support of H.O.P.E., the Hospital-based Online Pediatric Environment. Now is the time for everyone to give to charity. If you're the kind of person who wants something back, you can purchase a Child's Play t-shirt and all proceeds go towards the charity.See Also:Penny Arcade launches third annual Child's Play charityChilds Play 2 has been officially launched[Update 1: As one commenter pointed out, Tycho and Gabe dissuade people from giving away old toys & games due to health risks. Took out that suggestion.]
Readers pick best webcomic: Justice for Penny Arcade
We aren't sure if people really loved this comic strip, voted because of its clout, or mistakenly voted for this when trying (in vain) to get "none of the above" to work, but Penny Arcade took a commanding lead in this week's webcomic wrapup.Second place went to Ctrl+Alt+Del and third place is a virtual three-way tie, with Digital Unrest holding a meager lead (happy birthday, Chris). Thanks to everyone who voted, and be sure to let us know of any gaming webcomics you stumble upon this week!
PA disses Tiger's matchmaking skills
Today, Tycho at Penny Arcade briefly goes over the unnecessarily complicated matchmaking process in Tiger Woods 07. The steps include:"1. Consent To Be InvitedIn any other Goddamn Live game, you're done. In Tiger, one must then2. Endorse The Invitation3. Yield Wholly To The Concept Of Inviting4. Surrender To The Invitation Beam.And then, finally,5. Lift Your Voice In Supplication To Raoul Invitatio, 'He Who Maketh The Match'"Most of our readers probably know that EA maintains its own servers. This was required by them years ago before they would allow their games on Xbox Live. Why do they need their own servers? It makes it easier to spy on you of course. Personally, I don't deal with EA's matchmaking very often, as I don't really own any of their games -- and probably won't until Burnout 5, or possibly Army of Two. So, X360F asks you, is matchmaking in Tiger really that bad?
ESRB needs exposure, change
Next-Gen's Aaron Ruby editorializes that the ESRB needs major change, saying that the rating system has too many confusing options that are best suited to movies instead of games. (Is there a clear difference between "mild violence," "intense violence," and "violence?" Is it measured in volume?) The site follows up with Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley's response, saying that Next-Gen got part of it right -- the game industry needs to be proactive and speak for itself.Ruby and Smedley agree that the ESRB doesn't do enough to educate parents and non-gamers about games. We've seen the Penny Arcade ESRB campaign in PC Gamer and other enthusiast magazines, but we want to find ESRB ads in mainstream publications and on prime-time TV. As Smedley notes, the game industry needs to speak for itself if it doesn't want the Jack Thompsons to speak for it.Read - Opinion: Is the ESRB Broken?Read - COUNTERPOINT: ESRB Not the Problem
Gears of War gets Penny Arcadified
Gabe over at Penny Arcade whipped up this very nice sketch of Marcus from Gears of War yesterday. I guess we missed it somehow. Was something going on yesterday? Perhaps some of you might like to make it your new wallpaper (though I have opted for Halo Wars). I'd use it as my wallpaper, but white backgrounds hurt my sensitive little eyes. See a larger version after the break.
Penny Arcade responds to our "hideous editorial," misses the point [update 1]
PA's Tycho has responded to my rational gamers editorial calling it "hideous" and remarks, "It's fun to think about the author tippity-tappin' this one in while he eats light bulbs in the last car of the circus train." [Mmmm, light bulbs. BRB.] It seems the point was missed because I mixed too many different issues into one post. If I had instead posed the hypothetical as follows, I doubt many would have objected: Assume Nintendo is selling a white-colored Wii at a profit of X and the tangerine-colored Wii at a profit of X+Y. That is, the price (and hence, Nintendo's profit) on the tangerine Wii is greater than the price (and profit) on the white Wii. Which of the two devices would a rational consumer choose, all else equal? He'd choose the one with lower factored-in profit margin. That is, the lower-priced console. In the comments below, JB Cougar (and others) wrote: "I believe the black MacBook outsells the white one, and yet Apple charges a $200 (might even be $300) premium for it. They are the same system, save for the color." For that to be true, you're assuming inequal demand for the colors. "All else equal" means equal demand for different colors of the console. Hopefully, the elimination of mention of "Sony" or "Microsoft" from the thought experiment makes the point amply clear. So why make such an obvious statement? Isn't this like saying that consumers will buy the larger candy bar if the price and taste of all candy bars on the shelf are the same? Yes, but this question is a required first step before digging into the following question: if gamers are showing a preference for undiscounted hardware, then what else is at play here? What are people paying for, if not for hardware? That allows us to get into discussions on Nintendo's strategy (with mention of Reggie's favorite Blue Ocean Strategy book), the value of fun, the value of software exclusives, and the value of the "unique" control scheme. This was to have been a multi-part series of editorials dissecting the value attributed to the Wii versus its rivals. With hardware power out of the way entirely, the discussion would narrow to more meaningful topics. [Update 1: added quote from reader JB Cougar.]
Joystiq interviews Penny Arcade Adventures' Hothead Games
While at PAX, we also got to speak with Joel DeYoung and Steve Bocska of Hothead Games, the ex-Radical development team tasked with bringing Penny Arcade's dark vision to life, episodically, as Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness. We asked them about their team, the degree of cooperation with Penny Arcade, the growing episodic gaming space, and whether or not they'll use any of those fancy cartoonish graphics employed in Radical's Simpsons Road Rage title ... we hope they do.You can download the full interview here (.mov), or watch the video embedded after the break.
Joystiq interviews Penny Arcade's Gabe and Tycho
Just about this time a week ago, we were watching the final two Omeganauts do battle in Tetris ... actually, it was more of a slaughter, but we'll leave that up to the history books. Shortly after the show was over, we got a couple minutes with the duo behind Penny Arcade, PAX, Child's Play, and now Penny Arcade Adventures. Of course we took the opportunity to ask them about the game (they're not talking), the PS3 (they're not buying), and the amount of time it takes to get that good at Guitar Hero ("you gotta have priorities"). Indeed.Grab the admittedly large file from our servers below or embedded after the break. If you're still rocking the 56K, stay tuned for a transcribed version to be added to this post.Watch me:Penny Arcade Interview (.mov)
See PAX in the (sun starved) flesh
Ever wanted to see a huge gathering of gamers all packed into one convention hall? Have a yearning to witness a massive orgy of videogaming, tabletop gaming, and cosplay? No? Well, too bad, because that's exactly what you'll see in this video (WMV) of the Penny Arcade Expo, or PAX. If you look very carefully -- and quickly -- you might even catch a glimpse of our very own Chris Grant. Isn't that precious?[Via Major Nelson. Image from Penny Arcade.]
Blogphotopodcasting: Fanboy style
Major Nelson's latest podcast consists of a panel at the Penny Arcade Expo with an unwieldy title and one familiar participant. "Blogphotopodcasting: New Media in the Game Industry" features none other than Xbox360Fanboy's (and Joystiq's) Christopher Grant as a dulcet voice of reason.
The final Omegathon challenge was ... [update 1]
Tetris! But not just any version of Tetris. They chose the illegal, unauthorized Tengen version, the only NES variant with 2 player support. The winning Omeganaut, LeRoy, bested his challenger in a best out of three before claiming his prize: a tricked-out Scion. PAX loyalists may recognize LeRoy from last year's competition where he lost by a single point in Combat. How does that saying go? Try, try again ...As promised, we'll deliver a Joystiq t-shirt to the first person who accurately guessed the challenge's secret identity. So, the prize goes to Protoster who wrote "I'll go with tetris" as comment 13. Congrats LeRoy, congrats Protoster. We're going home, as usual, empty handed (swag bag excluded, of course).[Note: I wrote this post live from the event, but it was apparently stuck in post-limbo. We'll be running some additional content from PAX throughout the week, including videos, interviews, and giveaways.][Update: Clarified inclusion of Tengen's Tetris; corrected last year's final challenge. Thanks, existonfile & Covarr.]
Pics from PAX
John Porcaro from GamerScoreBlog posted a bunch of pics from the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle. John praises PAX as a "show for gamers rather than media or industry insiders." He's right, letting a bunch of media and industry types into your event is the surest way to screw it up (see E3).
PAX: IGN goes all Kano in Monday's comic
While creating Monday's Penny Arcade strip live (in front of a studio audience), a member of that very audience made an observation. Fans had decided that a particular style of hand that Mike draws consistently appears cupped as if holding a human heart. After acknowledging that he had just drawn that very hand on an IGN employee in the comic's second panel, Mike adroitly added a still beating human heart to it. So, what might otherwise appear to be an inscrutable non sequitur in Monday's finished product was really part of a unique interaction between fans and creators. The more you know ...Want the full funny? Hit up Tycho's script after the break. We know we're not the professional yucksters here, but we were under the impression that IGN reviewers didn't realize there were numbers less than 6.8. Just saying.
Nintendo's PAX booth tour
Just like Microsoft, Nintendo was a tad cramped in the PAX exhibition hall -- their full setup could've squeezed into a small corner of their Wii extravaganza at E3. But they're making the best of things with an all DS all the time booth, and quite a few new games on display such as Yoshi's Island 2 and Final Fantasy III. We can't deny we're a bit disappointed by the Wii's absence, and the resulting lines would've been fun to see as well, but it's not hard to see why Nintendo opted to keep their little mysterious console off the floor. Of course, with no plans by Nintendo to show the Wii at the Tokyo Games Show, we're starting to wonder if it'll show up in "public" at all before its still-undefined launch, but we suppose we'll see it when we see it.
Microsoft's PAX booth tour
Yeah, we're kicking it here with our Joystiq pals in beautiful Redmond, Washington for a weekend of rubbing shoulders with the game-nerd elite. PAX's 17,000+ attendees this year are bursting the Meydenbauer Center at the seams, which means exhibitors like Microsoft can't quite have their usual sprawl of a booth. Luckily, they're moving the show -- which is now the biggest games show in North America thanks to the demise of E3 -- to downtown Seattle at the Washington State Convention Center next year, so hopefully the claustrophobic among us will be able to manage a step through a booth in '07. Keep reading for pics of the setup, and start saving your pennies for next year's extravaganza.
PAX: Gabe and Tycho ascend the Q&A altar
The first Penny Arcade panel kicked off last night with ... an onstage proposal. Yeah, that old chestnut. It's alright, who doesn't love the heartfelt union of two of our peers on stage? Cynical, jaded, lonely jerks, that's who!So we didn't like that part, but then the evening's ringmasters took the stage to dive into their promised, and much ballyhooed, announcement ... which was, of course, leaked some hours earlier. Regardless, they announce their project, dubbed Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, to some degree of surprise, before beginning a long, often confusing, funny, and surprisingly intimate Q&A.Like the comic whose brand we've all assembled under, the questions run the gamut from the console fanboy Coke or Pepsi questions (they're going Wii60 by the way), the comic fanboy questions regarding Fruit Fucker Prime's unique feature set (he can only launch 100 out of 10,000 fruit fuckers, "it's a design flaw"), the lexiconnoisseur fanboy questions about what one would call those words, you know the ones, that sound the same in different languages but have different meanings (it's okay, Tycho didn't know it either), and just how much of an asshole Jack Thompson really is (a serious one).Seeing two regular looking dudes ("hey, they don't look like Gabe and Tycho!") field questions from throngs of loyal fans of a video gaming webcomic is a strange sort of experience; possibly a sign of video games increasing cultural potency, or of the End Times. Jury's still out on that one.
Join the PlayStation Mayhem
Sony has an RSS feed called the "PlayStation Mayhem." You can check it out by typing http://psp.us.playstation.com/rss into your PSP browser, or check it out on your PC by clicking here.What Sony says:"PlayStation Mayhem is your source on the streets for all that's poppin' in games, gadgets, style, new music, celebs, insider PlayStation dish and more. Join the Mayhem each week for exclusive and original interviews, crazy stunts and cool new stuff you won't get anywhere else."What the Mayhem says:"Yo yo yo dude... we be the PlayStation MAYhem. Mah man, PlayStation is THE SHIZNITZ. We ain't playin' cuz we too busy playin' our PSP."What PSP Fanboy says:"It's somewhat sad to see corporate white guys pretending to be 'cool' and 'hip'. I'm glad Sony's trying to use all the features of the system, but this is a bit too forced for my tastes. It's like Dell using FTW."[Comic via Penny Arcade]
Penny Arcade presents Penny Arcade Game starring Penny Arcade
The news is out, PA Panel and embargoes be damned! Penny Arcade are making a game! We know what your first reaction is:"Knowing Tycho's concupiscent relationship with italicized words of Brobdingnagian proportions, we can only assume it will be an impossibly difficult Scrabble variant tailored, like the finest Italian suit, for lexiconnoisseurs."You might be correct in such an assumption ... but you're not. "It must be a 'poke the doll' game where we play as our favorite erotic fruit juicing device and sweet, succulent fruit takes on the role of the pliable porn starlet."Wrong again. It will be, in fact, an episodic "comic adventure" known simply -- or, rather, not so simply -- as Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness. The installments will initially be available on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux platforms, "followed by a version for next-generation consoles." Robert Khoo, Director of Business Development for Penny Arcade, assured us these would be episodic as well, as opposed to a compilation of episodes. Khoo told us "it's an RPG in short" but will contain elements of adventure games befitting its "comic adventure" moniker. Knowing that adventure games, episodic content, and creative control are a publisher's kiss of death, Penny Arcade, like Telltale before them, will be distributing their game directly, bypassing retailers and online platforms like Steam and GameTap (for now). The game is being developed by Hothead Games, comprised of former employees of Radical Entertainment, makers of Simpson: Road Rage, Hulk: Ultimate Destruction (read: two licensed games that don't totally suck). Khoo was quick to dash any notion that this would, in fact, be a licensed game exactly. Both Tycho and Gabe have been hands-on every day with the developers working on everything from art and story to design. Khoo explained just how much hot and heavy greasy hand to game contact there's been: "We're doing everything we can to make sure it has our fingerprints all over it." Yeah, now that's hands-on.So when can you virtually copulate with big, long words, PA style? They're taking the Duke Nukem Forever "when it's done" route. We'll be sure to ask about the possibility of fruit copulation and Scrabble minigames. Shiny new press release embedded after the break.
