Category: Comics

I just took a shower, which, unfortunately, usually involves thinking about things, though these thoughts most commonly include questioning which hole is the smelliest.

Being a huge nerd, I couldn’t stop thinking about my last post and how pompous Alex Ward is. I don’t talk much shit on this blog, so allow me this brief reprieve from niceties. His analogies are hyperbole at its most extreme, because it’s absurd to compare non-interactive media to video games in that way.

The reason that you “beat” a game, as opposed to a book, is because you apply your skill and effort to passing the tasks set forth by the developers. You don’t “beat” a movie because there aren’t any options. Sure, if I could choose a path that leads to victory in Cannibal Holocaust, then I would most definitely say that I “beat” it. But that’s not what movies are.

Most apparent, under all of the bitching over semantics, is an artist’s frustrated insistence that no one “got” their message or grasped their story. While I did like Black a lot, the reason that everyone wants to skip the cutscenes is not, as Ward implies, because they do not like to be told a story during gameplay. The root of the game’s storytelling evil is the fact that it is conveyed through terrible, no-budget cinemas that any Larry, Moe or Curly could have filmed if they had expensive HD equipment and a 5×5 room with a hanging light.

He nailed it himself when he facetiously likened it to a Sega CD game. Sorry, Alex, but no one wants to read a message that’s scribbled in doo-doo, unless it foretells of the apocalypse or huge savings.

Alex Ward, creative director for Criterion, does not like the term “beat” in reference to finishing a game. That’s fine and all, because I solve games, mister. His rant cracked me up, though, and I’m going to have to rebuke his claim that it isn’t a viable term for all of life’s other ventures.

Anyhoo, Totilo talks about “beating” Black, inspiring a rant in which Alex Ward chastizes the use of the word “beat.” He asks if when you listen to a new CD, do you say you “beat” it? Or when you go to the library do you say you “beat the first floor” and “beat the second floor.” Or “beating” all the movies in the cineplex. He then talks about “beating” War and Peace, all three thousand pages.

In all of the internetter repostings about this, there sure is a lot of harsh talk about Black. I liked that game! I need to hurry up and go “beat” the toilet.

Alex Ward at DICE (Kotaku)
Original Video (MTV.com)

Yesterday I downloaded this Mac pixel art program called Pixen, because sprites are rad and I wanted to start making some for fun. My first effort can be seen in the entry below, but I decided to get some more practice in by recreating an enemy sprite from FFVI. I now have a lot more respect for these damn things, because it took forever! For reference, here is the original.

Enlarged / Normal

Back in the mid-80s, there was a bit of a “Gas Baby fever” taking hold in Japan. Naturally, this led to tons of merchandise, from toys to TV games and so on. One of the most controversial games was 1986’s Gas Baby no Daibouken (or Gas Baby’s Big Adventure), an 80+ hour role playing game that was released after the comic had only been around for a few months. This, of course, resulted in about 70 hours of made-up story that had no relevance to the original narrative.

Recently, some hard data has finally been surfacing in relation to this lost gem, the first of which is an image from the Gas Baby no Daibouken Super Plus Perfect Guide (Parufekuto Puresu, 1986) depicting the end boss, whose name roughly translates to “Bigger Charles,” and was never present in the entire run of the actual comic. Hopefully we’ll be able to dig up some more!

Sometimes I like to make pictures with pens, particularly of monsters. When man draws monster, he can put on music and not think about what he is doodling. There’s no anatomy to worry about, which is good since the only humans that I excel at depicting are black basketball superheroes. Below is the latest addition to my gruesome bestiary!

Click to enlarge!