Paging Ms. Morissette.

Define Irony in five easy steps:

1. Create a post on Bioware's forum complaining that they've sold their soul to EA.
2. Get banned from the forum for this post by EA.
3. Discover that you are now unable to play your EA/Bioware PC games because of this ban.
4. Create new account to complain about this on the Bioware forum
5. Receive a comment from a Bioware moderator stating that this ban was handed out by EA and that there's nothing Bioware can do about it because they have, in effect, sold their soul to EA.

Delicious.


Much more in depth coverage can be found at the ever reliable Rock Paper Shotgun

Meta-shame

Super Call of Duty 7: Black ops. (Or simply “Blops” as it has been re-branded by the masses) lays down an intimidating number of meta-games beneath the standard variety of shoot-guys-in-the-face-to-victory game types. 

Layered like a violent and annually exploitable onion.

Blops meta-game list: (The kids love lists)

• The CoD-standard (and still oddly backwards feeling) character leveling. 
• The Perk levelling within the character leveling.
• The “kill 5/10/25/50 of those things that way” micro-achievement challenges. 
• The not-quite-gambling-honest Contracts system, 
• The selection of vitally important lurid paint-jobs that all sane players will purchase for their weapons ASAP, 
• The customisable Killstreak rewards that completely dominate the play-style of the truly hardcore 
• and probably a more that I’m forgetting right now.
• I would check myself but my girlfriend is watching Animal Rescue and I can't use the xbox.

But despite all that extra stuff to play around with, I find myself obsessed with the most basic and pointless of online meta-games...

Revenge.

I place the blame for this squarely on the Kill-cam. Watching your death through the eyes of your killer makes things so much more personal than a simple "You were fragged by player 1" and it usually provides an instant and undeniable moment of “This is what you did wrong and this is what he did right. Ps. Try sucking less”

But in the jittery adrenal haze of an online battle to the death(s), the undeniable is easily ignored.
(The following example is true. Names have been changed to protect the innocent. Apart from xXx_Weedfolife_xXx. That guy is a dick)

xXx_Weedfolife_xXx : Shitlord.

TEAM DEATHMATCH.

“Alright. Let’s do this. I’ve got my zebra-print machine gun and I’m ready for action. Hmm, is that a guy in that window?-”

Kill-cam! Press X to respawn.  xXx_Weedfolife_xXx just shot you in the face in a casual fashion.

“Sniping little douche. Try using a real gun next time. Your rifle didn’t even have animal print on it or anything. But at least I know where you’re hiding you little-”

Kill-cam! Press X to respawn and hunt down xXx_Weedfolife_xXx who was ready for you to come running up the stairs like an idiot.

“Oh come on! that claymore mine was at least 6 foot away from my face. Not that it matters as I have you now- What the shit? I emptied an entire clip into that dicklord and he just turned around and shot me once!”

Kill-cam! Press X to respawn and this time try placing a few bullets into xXx_Weedfolife_xXx instead of just in his general direction.

“Whatever. I just need to turn my controller sensitivity up ..or maybe down, and then you don’t stand a chance- wait, is that a grenade?”

Kill-cam! Press X to respawn. Maybe you should try and kill one of the other 11 players on the opposing team? xXx_Weedfolife_xXx is triple prestiged member of the illustrious [BOOB] Clan and is way out of your league. Perhaps you should seek out PinkiePop1996(1) as he’s playing split-screen with his cousin for the first time ever and has only just figured out how to look up and down.

“Haha. Look at that noob running out in the open with the pistol. Easy Kil-”

Kill-cam! Press X to respawn. Oh wow. xXx_Weedfolife_xXx got you with a napalm strike? I think that was probably accidental. Seriously guy, let it go.

“But he hasn’t seen me this time! He’s too busy sniping those losers on my team. Now is my chance.”

Kill-cam! Press X to respawn. Congratulations. You were PinkiePop1996(1)’s first ever kill. The poor kid missed you three times while trying to knife you in the back but he got there in the end. I’m so proud.

YOUR TEAM LOST.
You have lost the battle but not the war and some other random patronising pearls of wisdom delivered to you in a terrible terrible Russian accent.

“This game is dicktits. My team is dicktits and xXx_Weedfolife_xXx is dickest of tits.”

+216 exp
LEVEL UP.

GUITAR RIFF.
NEW SUPER BADASS AWESOME FUTURE GUN UNLOCKED.

Nothing says 60s Cold War-era conflict
 like a gun that didn't get a stable prototype until the 80s
painted bright orange.

“Ooh! Tiger-stripes and an extra point of damage! Fuck yes, let’s do this!”

Vorpal.

“One-on-one bullet hell. Like, a whole game based around Ikaruga’s boss fights. It’s wonderful.”

I’m sure I’m not alone in this. But whenever I’m attempting to describe a game I’m enthusiastic about to a friend that hasn’t seen/heard/played said game, I instinctivally go for the most banal five-second elevator pitch description and then spend the rest of the conversation laying down a series of awkward “Well... No. Not quite like that” disclaimers.

Vorpal doesn’t need any of your disclaimers. It swamps them with a hypnotic flurry of red/black-on-white geometric projectiles. And just as you’ve had time to comprehend and adjust to the hyper-dimensional swarm, the pattern shifts. Adapt or die.


Microsoft usually treats The XBLA Indie section like a shameful and hideously mutated step-child. But games like Vorpal really do make the occasional trip to the Indie dungeon worthwhile. Just don’t stare directly at the piles of massage “games” ...for that path leads to madness.

Vorpal is available now on the XBLA indie marketplace for 80 Microsoft points.

[Insert Terrible Joystick Based Joke Here]

I have an almost finished report on last months Vs Fighting 2010 tournament that will be with you all very soon...

But before I get to that, it's probably worth mentioning my performance at last years VsF.
I lost both of my Street Fighter 3: third strike matches (No surprise. I entered on a whim and I've never played it that seriously) but fared much better in Super Street Fighter 2:HDR. Winning three games before getting knocked out by the guy that went on to win the whole thing.

Overall, not too bad for my first ever tournament. And I would've been perfectly satisfied with that result if it wasn't for the fact that two of my four losses were entirely because I accidentally pressed the pause button on my ancient ps2 fightpad during the match, which instantly (and understandably) means that the player has to forfeit the round.

This was not going to happen again.
If I was going to lose, it would be because the guy I fought was better than me.
I had to man up and learn to play on a real controller.

So for most of this year I have been rolling around in the filthy world of custom joysticks, ultimately leading to the construction of this tiny little beast/beauty:

Based around a cheap little Hori ps3 fighting stick (portable!) which I gutted in a brutal fashion. I then swapped out the internals for arcade quality Seimitsu parts, replaced the ps3 PCB with pad-hacked circuit boards from PS1 and Xbox 360 joypads and garnished the whole thing with some half naked anime girl artwork. (Because anything else would be just plain wrong) So now, armed with a handful of PS1 adaptors, I'm ready for fighting on pretty much any modern video game system. No more busted-ass fight pads for me.

(Many thanks to the Tech Talk guys over on the Shoryuken forums and the folks at gremlinsolutions.co.uk without whom  none of this would've been possible for an electronics n00b like myself)



Now nothing could stop me. OR COULD IT? dot dot dot

Stay tuned for part one of my report, which will be slightly more interesting than this post. Honest.

Illustrated guide to video games part 3: Deus Ex

My latest videogame/drawing based thing for B4HD.com just went live.
you can see it right here

Score Tissue: parts 11-24

This is the final set of Score Tissue comics that I scribbled for Hi-score.co.uk. Read on in amazement as I take bold steps into the realm of video games based diary comics!

This could be the most heavily read comic I've ever drawn (which does make me wish it wasn't such a last minute rush job) thanks to a timely re-tweet by the official Capcom twitter account. I do like Hadokenening dudes though.

After how much attention the previous strip got, I decided to go all out with the art on this one. The fact that ODST was easily my favourite game of last year didn't exactly hurt my desire to "do it right" either.

I had a nasty man-flu during the week of this strip and this is all that I could manage. I'm less bitter about Super Street Fighter IV now... mainly because Capcom would've probably charged $100 for 10 characters worth of DLC if their pricing on the SFIV costume packs is anything to go by.

Japan scares me sometimes. And the reaction to the Love Plus games is especially scary. The anti-piracy measure in the new version is genius though... If the game detects that you're using a flash cart instead of a purchased copy of the game, none of the girls will ever fall in love with you. You will be friend-zoned forever and ever. Even after the 30 hours of courtship cut-scenes you just sat through. Crushing!

Some games are a lot of fun but just aren't very good (the Earth Defence Force and Just Cause games spring to mind)  but some games are clearly high quality, but just aren't as much fun as they should be.(Glares at Final Fantasy XIII) Brutal Legend wasn't fun enough for me in the end.

Let's imagine this horror movie version of Bobby Kotick stalking the halls with a chainsaw during the Infinity Ward meltdown. Good luck ever sleeping again.

It's alright. I don't expect you to understand the true horror of this comic unless you are a toy robot dork like me.

I do love Marvel and DC comics, but they don't always make it easy for fans like me. My absolute favourite recent run of comics is Marvel's Incredible Hercules (RIP). It's witty and intelligently written, beautifully drawn and brings up some genuinely interesting points about the modern super heroes replacing the Gods of myth and legend for a large percentage of modern society. It also features the best math battle you will ever see.

More hot Kotick action.

This was a bit of a rushed strip as I was packing for the trip while drawing it. True story though.

Another true story. Unfortunately.

My girlfriend (who cameos in this strip) got utterly addicted to Borderlands for a good four or five months. I dread to think what the sequel will do to her.

Because Square-Enix make the Final Fantasy games and those games frequently feature chracter with large swords and more belts than is traditional! Get it? I am a comedy genius.

At this point, Christmas 2009 was rushing towards me like a large truck. So I took an extended break from Score Tissue until the new year. Only to find on my return that Hi Score was on it's way out, due to the brains behind the site moving on to bigger and better things.


One of those bigger and better things was Resolution magazine's newly launched retro gaming site: B4HD.com, home of my new fortnightly thing: The Illustrated Guide to Retro Video Games.

Part 1 can be found here
and Part 2 is right here.

I'll probably post the occasional round-up of my most recent pieces for other websites onto this blog every now and then. So look forward to that, you lucky lucky people.

Score Tissue: parts 1-10

For six months last year I threw together a weekly videogame webcomic for the fine folks over at Hi-Score.co.uk. As that site is (sadly) no more, I'm going to re-host those strips here with a few additional notes.

Due to my *ahem* busy schedule, a lot of these early strips were written a couple of weeks before they went up, so obviously I wanted to avoid the usual webcomic tactic of trawling Joystiq that morning for the joke of the day as the strip would've been out of date before it went online.

Was this strip responsible for (the hopefully awesome) Sonic 4? I'd like to think so.

I have seen some mashing silliness on Soul Calibur over the years.

This strip guest stars my Girlfriends dog, Chester.

I love the traditional November gaming splurge, as it usually means that I have millions of cheap games to choose from by my birthday in late January.

I sneakily replaced the silhouettes of Noble Team with the characters from Team Fortress 2. I think I was too subtle for my own good.

Okay, so we're getting Sonic 4. Still waiting on that Star Wars movie and B&B machine though guys.

I still haven't bought Guitar Hero: Van Halen. And considering how much I like throwing myself at impossibly complex guitar wankery on the guitar hero games, that should speak volumes as to how dire the rest of the track list is.

This isn't getting any better. Games I still think of as "Next Gen" are having their tenth anniversary. Stupid ageing process.

This was so damn fun to draw.

I'm not sure if i should be proud or ashamed of "This months rent-boy".

The look of dread that enters my brothers eyes whenever anyone else asks him to fix their RROD leads me to believe that this comic is closer to the truth than I intended.

The next 20 strips will be uploaded tomorrow!

A (Bat)Man Chooses, A Slave Obeys!

Even with a concept as imaginative and wonderful as that found in the Bioshock games, it should come as no surprise to anyone that the goddamn Batman thought of it first:





As The Geekosystem helpfully put it while comparing Bioshock to the plot of the the "Deep Freeze" episode of the pitch-perfect 90s Batman animated series:


To recap:


Underwater city
Art Deco architecture
Villain with Randian motivations
Brainwashed citizenry
Automaton guards; extreme violence against said guards
Promised technological salvation that goes wrong


As much as I love Bioshock
(More than is strictly healthy, just for the record)
I will always feel like there's something missing from now on.

A certain Batman-shaped something.

A much more in-depth summary of the similarities can be found over at The GeekoSystem

Hakan't Believe It.

While discussing the slightly odd new characters for Street Fighter 4,
I pointed out that Capcom had simply returned to their tried and true SF2 method of simply going with almost racist stereotypes (or if that fails, just rip off the nearest SNK design *cough*C. Viper/Iori*cough*)

This method even applied to many of the returning characters chosen for Super Street Fighter IV.
(Tea drinking english gentlemen, Native Amricans with feathers in their hair, Japanese high school ninja/karate girls and so on)
But when I heard rumours of the final new character to be revealed, I dismissed many of them without a second thought.

"A comedy mustachioed Arabian character who's obsessed with oil? Surely you jest, sir!"



Oh, Capcom.


There will be some non-street fighter updates coming soon, I Promise.
Especially once I've played more FFXIII and Bioshock 2.

STOP THE PRESS GENTLEMEN.

Prepare yourself for the most important news of 2010:

Dudley from Street Fighter 3 will be in Super Street Fighter IV.
Suddenly, I'm ready forgive Capcom for releasing this game as a stand-alone game instead of releasing it as a nice handy DLC pack for the game that I ate instant noodles for a week (Oh god, the noodles.) to afford just last year.

Time to practice ...with dignity.

And by "dignity", I mean "furiously slapping my meat claws onto my poor cheap arcade stick"


A more reasoned and in-depth analysis of SSFIV will be flung your way soon. 
Promise.