Dipswitch Blog

Today’s comic is about nudity in video games.

Rockstar has accepted money from me in the past on about five occasions. I bought GTA III, Vice City, San Andreas, Bully Scholarship Edition, and Manhunt 2. Also, I bought GTA IV on release day. Solid gameplay being the reason for it, and the open world sandbox gaming of GTA, and the mindbending take on proper societal behavior a close second reason. But here, in the first downloadable add-on for GTA IV was a tag that said ‘Full Frontal Nudity’.

Being a former kid, I remember seeing ‘Brief Nudity’ on things like NYPD Blue, and thinking to myself…’Sweet!’. Then, it ends up being the puckered hairy cheeks of Dennis Franz.

So when Rockstar delivers ‘Full Frontal’, I’d figure it would be something unexpected. But this! THIS is insane! Let me say this: You get to see the whole shebangabang. Warts and all. Twigs and berries. Meat and two veg. Heavy D AND the Boys. Wee Willie and the Winkies. Frank and Beans. Loggins and Messina. You get the drift. A buffalo shot to drive you screaming into the hill country.

The cartoon had around three different punchlines, varying from downright dirty, to a pun, and finally the one you see today. The pun punchline was my favorite. “I’ve Lost my erection and Damned if I’ll ever have another.” Too precious.

Hope you guys enjoyed the comic, and happy birthday to John, one of my readers and friends from high school!

Alienmastermind

I KNOW ABOUT MALARIA.

Love,
Alienmastermind

But seriously, holy–I mean…shit…did, uh…did you read this? So, this is some crazy Lex Luthor stuff going on here. I mean, he wants to raise awareness, just tell people about malaria, or send everyone a Hotmail about it, or name the next iteration of Windows “Windows Malaria Edition”…Or, just donate a shitload of money to malaria research. But releasing clouds of mosquitos on people who like you?

I now know why Mr. Gates demanded a limo with bucket seats.

It’s to hold his very large balls.

Alienmastermind

Okay, today’s comic is about two things that were incongruous, and needed to be put into comics.

So, the wife and I were traveling home from our day job discussing the Matrix, because of the SModcast, ‘SMorpheus’,  we were listening to in the car. And suddenly, it occurred to me that if the tracer program were in suppository form rather than pill form, nobody would ever leave the Matrix. Then I laughed and laughed about the ‘rabbit hole’, and voila, a comic was born.

Also, two games are coming out that I’m psyched about. DC Universe Online and Champions Online .

But, as I’ve mentioned both here and over at CoG, I’m a married guy. That means most of my budgetary decisions are made by committee. Most of the time, I can buy whatever, but in terms of MMOs, it’s a hard sell for something that only I would be able to play…also, my computer? Not a fly ride, to be sure….it’s probably better described as ‘barebones’.  But because Champions is coming out for the XBOX 360, I’m probably going to be re-rolling Catalyst, my hero from the very first Champions game I ever played.

But, I’m still up in the air, and many of my friends are anti-MMO, because they’re console gamers, and my friendship with them is only strained when I start mentioning my old favorite games, and they just stare at me blankly.

I hope you enjoyed the comic, and the peek into my very normal life.

Alienmastermind

But I keed the ‘battle booties’. 

Look, I know that Tycho over at Penny Arcade thinks that the control scheme is fine, because it makes you ‘mindful’ of your surroundings. I agree that the indolent manner in which my on screen character responds to my commands builds tension. However, it’s the wrong kind of tension. See being mindful of my surroundings would be easier if the camera didn’t ride me like a freak without warning, and the controls do not alleviate this problem.  I don’t like the slow turning radius, and in single player, it’s even more contemptible as you point your weapon at your partner, she darts away like a hummingbird on crank. Moving fast and shooting doesn’t seem to be a problem for her, but you move like you’re wearing lead weights. 

“Oh no! Zombies!” I say, and then mosey on into a nearby building. “Quick, bar the windows!” then I meander over, and shove a bookcase.

“Cover me!” as I stroll into position and fire into the crowd of mutated freaks.

Hooray for danger!

I know this is just the demo, but if the game is chock-a-block full of enemies and they all have handheld weapons and apparently a measure of speed to go along with them, you begin the game outmatched.

Because of the controller.

And, that, is the kind of bullshit we accepted in the past because it was traditional for ’survival horror’ games to be controlled like hog shit. (See: Silent Hill, Resident Evil 1-4, Eternal Darkness, and Dino Crisis) But, this isn’t the PS2, or the PS1 even. This is supposed to be the ‘next generation’ of consoles, and we’re using a control scheme designed for the GameCube for crying out backwards. I have to respectfully disagree with the people who think this is perfectly fine. And my rebuttal would be two words: Dead Space.

Moody, dangerous, but didn’t control like buckets of oatmeal that left a sticky trail of syrup behind you. Isaac moves like a being with mass, and is still realistic. Sprinting and gunning doesn’t work, but moving like you’re aware of danger and shooting does in that game. What, Resident Evil is waiting for the year 3000 to improve its fluidity of control? We’ve seen what can be done, and sadly Capcom didn’t change much about the game.

All of this said, I get what they were trying to do. I just don’t like this particular choice, though it ain’t gonna stop me from buying RE5.

Alienmastermind

Oh boy! A new Final Fantasy game, and with it, a new inscrutible trailer!

Much like The Pretenders, I’m saying ‘Don’t Get Me Wrong’ here, I love me some Final Fantasy, but this trailer is chock full of insanity. Wall to wall kooky, and filled to the brim with wonderful, beautiful madness. The gameplay looks awesome, and the animations for the cutscenes is, of course, masterwork. But, this trailer is edited in such a way that you can get NO feeling of context. Especially since the dialogue scenes are so brief as to only give you a glimpse of syntax, and the rest are narrations of inexplicable action sequences.

All this happens in the trailer’s two minutes and thirty-six seconds, and leaves you feeling like Dan Rather.

Enjoy the comic, and this weekend, Coraline comes out…you’re a fool if you miss it.

Alienmastermind

The comic today? It’s about this.

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals rate Fable II the best videogame of last year. For graphics? No. For storytelling, perhaps? Again, my Socratic friend, no. No, PeTA thinks that Fable II is great because in a sideways kind of way it promotes veganism as a healthy lifestyle choice. Polar opposite to say, ‘Cooking Mama’ which promotes the ‘Holocaust on your Dinner Plate’.

This is muddy water, to be sure. As Fable II would then be seen to also ‘promote’:
- Child Abuse
- Chicken Punting /Torture (eating ‘em raw)
- Bigamy
- Homosexuality (not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it gives the conservative video game hating movement more bullets to fire at my hobby)

So, to Ingrid and her animal loving compadres, I ask nicely, ‘Please stay the fuck away from video games.’  Because, I don’t want red paint thrown at me because I play Zelda, which has Link riding around on a horse, and beating it to make it run faster. I don’t want to be tar and synthetic plastic feathered because I play Mario and he stomps the living shit out of turtles. And I don’t want to be a social pariah because I play Donkey Kong Country and slap my Diddy.

It’s when these well-meaning people decide to become politically active, and start telling other people how they should live that they begin to annoy me. It doesn’t seem like the things PeTA do are subtle, are ever nuanced, and are ever all that well thought out. 

On a lighter note, I believe that Col. Sanders playing Fable just to harangue the chickens is pretty damned funny. 

See you Wednesday!

Alienmastermind