Welcome to your Sunday read of the week's best in web comics. Make sure to click on the expand button in the bottom right to enlarge each comic.
Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich published Sept. 19.—Read more of Awkward Zombie
Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira published Sept. 24.—Read more of Nerf NOW!!
Penny Arcade by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik published Sept. 21.—Read more of Penny Arcade
Manly Guys Doing Manly Things by Kelly Turnbull published Sept. 19.—Read more of Manly Guys Doing Manly Things
Brawl In The Family by Matthew Taranto published Sept. 19.—Read more of Brawl In The Family
Virtual Shackles by Jeremy Vinar and Mike Fahmie published Sept. 23.—Read more of Virtual Shackles
Another Videogame Webcomic by Phil Chan and Joe Dunn published Sept. 24.—Read more of Another Videogame Webcomic
ActionTrip by Borislav Grabovic and Ure Paul published Sept. 19.—Read more of ActionTrip
Jade Empire, the Xbox-exclusive RPG BioWare released in 2005, is "a franchise that's near and dear to us," BioWare's founders said at Eurogamer Expo today. " It's a setting that we're really passionate about, and we still are."
But Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk don't have immediate plans to bring back the series. "We're just looking for the right way to deploy it," Muzyka said.
A Jade Empire sequel was rumored when it showed up in a developer's resume online earlier this year.
Eurogamer notes that Muzyka's status as lord high overseer of role-playing games for Electronic Arts means he's administering a back catalog with Jade Empire and other intellectual properties, complicating decisions on what to resurrect and when.
Jade Empire reviewed very well, with negative marks for features that you'd be unlikely to see in a current-generation role-playing game. It's available as an Xbox Live Original, playable on the Xbox 360.
BioWare Drs on Jade Empire Comeback [Eurogamer]
Extras, extras, see all about 'em! What else can we slap on to the 3DS, besides the second slide pad introduced two weeks ago? We've got 19 award-winning examples of industrial design, plus drsopa's winning concept, inside!
Leading off, dummysystem (3) goes for a 'Shop Contest callback and delivers a message to Nintendo. a.seivewright (1) just says the hell with portability. Fej (4) was self conscious about his 'Shop skills but I thought this was fantastic. Soren121 (15) went in the same direction and delivered a strong execution as well. GiantBoyDetective (5) said fuck it, we're going to eight slide pads. t3hVeG (16) said fuck it, we're adding everything.
TheBigCheese (17) resurrected a treasured Nintendo E3 joke. No, other than DJ Ravi Drums. lewis2112 (9) is just saying what's on everyone's mind. so is VanDyke (18). And Yarie (20).
Overall winners? Anyone who played X-Wing will have a lighter up in the air for PoweredByHentai (13), though the joke is a little specific. RandomNemesis (14) hit one very close to my sweet spot. Goufunaki (6) was a fan favorite and truly deserving. John Smith 1882 (7) would get it if we weren't a family publication. We aren't? Shit, I have no excuse. Kronicus (8) went old school and almost ran away with it.
But my final finalist is drsopa (2): simple concept, superb execution, subtle punchline, overall winnah. Congratulations, and congratulations to all who participated. We'll see you back here tomorrow.
a.seivewright
drsopa
dummysystem
Fej
GiantBoyDetective
Goufunaki22
John Smith 1882
Kronicus
lewis2112
modestlaw
pan1da7
PortgasAce
PoweredByHentai
RandomNemesis
soren121
t3hVeG
TheBigCheese_
VanDyke
vegaforce
Yarie
It's impossible to watch this and not think of Randy Parker, Ralphie's brother from A Christmas Story. C'mon guys! C'mon! Hey! That's not funny! Guys!
One Minecraft enthusiast's little brother just became acquainted with silverfish, the mob introduced with the 1.8 release. Attacking them, as you can see, is quite counterproductive as it just invites more to the scene. The whining really hits noogie/pinkbelly/purple-nurple class at around 1:30.
Randy, lay there like a slug! It's your only defense.
As of this writing, there are at least seven YouTube videos, all with more than 100,000 views, tracking pratfalls and slapstick glitches found in FIFA 12—the latest entry in the most acclaimed and respected sports video game series of the past three years. All of these come from regular users playing a demo version that released two weeks ago.
This had to have brought back some bad memories in Burnaby, British Columbia, where FIFA is made and where NBA Elite 11 was made. Elite released its demo version this time last year. That title was utterly derailed by an infamous glitch video that pulled maybe half of the views of this FIFA 12 compilation.
NBA Elite's blooper reel saw Andrew Bynum standing at midcourt in a T-pose. FIFA 12's has Lionel Messi hopping on one foot with a grotesquely twisted left leg, an egregious four-player dive sequence embarrassing even to Italians, and two guys who can't even get the kick off right.
Now, let's be real. As ridiculous as all that is, FIFA was never remotely in danger of the same fate as NBA Elite. FIFA is the dominant product in its class, the top-selling sports game globally, and holds a vast reservoir of trust with gamers and critics alike. IGN just rated the game a 9.5. Some people might have had a miserable week when management asked what the hell this video was all about, but that title's still going to kick ass galore.
Still, for FIFA or any other game, demo versions of a sports title are one of the worst cattle calls in video gaming. There's no place to go but down, especially in games with a free-flowing, continually contested objective (hockey, soccer, basketball) where anything can happen. That's why we see this sort of thing around this time of year. A game that's largely driven by set pieces (American football, baseball) or restricted player areas (tennis) has an easier time managing the action, with fewer variables.
It also doesn't help that sports video games, and their demos, are judged by an outside standard other genres don't face: They're attempting to simulate something normal people encounter every day, whether in person at a stadium or on their television set. There's also an enormous sample size of prior experience informing the public's opinion of what looks credible and what doesn't. Space marines chainsawing aliens is a different story. Demos of other games may be evaluated for the fairness and balance of their gameplay or the responsiveness of their controls and animations, but the "this kind of thing never happens" complaint, which sports games battle constantly, is largely irrelevant unless their gameplay is really broken.
And yet, against this stacked deck, publishers still must run out an incomplete version of their game, oftentimes one that is a month older than the code shipping on the disc in a couple of weeks. While demonstration versions are expected now for nearly every genre, none get the kind of advance scrutiny that the sports titles do. Enthusiast sites routinely post detailed impressions of sports game demos. The evaluation is very gameplay-driven, very focused on refinements or fixes made to the previous version, less so on new features, as usually the demo is simply a match from the basic play-now mode. In console gaming, the most common analogue I can find in other genres is when a first-person shooter is in its multiplayer beta. PC games generally have more robust beta releases that give a bigger picture of the game, of course.
To not release a demo version would be worse than releasing anything but an obviously broken one. It would be seized upon as a statement of zero confidence in one's own product, and with multimillion-dollar licenses riding on the outcome, it's almost suicidal.
It's not to say demos have no usefulness. Even if, at best, they deliver an underwhelmed reaction or heavily nitpicked feedback, they can function as a kind of short-term beta period, especially given sports' publishers' tendency to release a game and then patch its problems. Indeed, NBA Live 10, the predecessor of NBA Elite 11, returned solid review scores, and was helped further by a patch one month later that developers said drew on feedback and telemetry from the game's demo. Funny enough, invited FPS multiplayer betas, ostensibly meant to balance and troubleshoot a work in progress, are often slagged for being glorified demos with a velvet rope out front; a sports title's demo, advertised and acknowledged as such, is likewise slagged for being a beta on-the-cheap.
Play a sports demo and ask yourself if you had fun with it, big picture. On the finer points, take it with a grain of salt, because you are not getting everything. It may seem like sports demos should be more representative of the final product than a shooter that offers maybe one chapter out of its campaign mode, or a tutorial from an action RPG. They aren't. They're outdated by almost a month, and they're also not in a controlled environment like a single level of scripted encounters.
It also makes sense that, in a title downloaded by the millions and played millions more times, all with unique outcomes, even a small percentage of errors encountered by a small percentage of those with the wherewithal to capture them will seem quite large in whole numbers and YouTube views. Especially as comment culture fixates on the negative almost to the exclusion of the positive.
That doesn't excuse an error or a defect, but these things don't vanish into the ether, either. Someone's assigned to the problem, assuming it hasn't been corrected in the revisions between the demo's release and the final gold master copy. People will drive themselves crazy trying to replicate it. Any visual information is scoured and reported. I've seen this, in my own home. I got a pre-alpha demonstration of NBA 2K12 a month ago, and when a glitch appeared—a warping player who blocked a shot, nothing egregious—we paused and replayed it a few times, and the producer tapped out a message on his BlackBerry and sent it.
"I know how to fix that," he said.
He wasn't happy to see it, but he was glad he did. So was I.
Intrepid videographer HazardHeresy noticed that when leggy survivor Xian struggles to her feet in Dead Island, you can get a glimpse of her landing strip. No, really, she's going commando. Fast forward that video past the stupid-long preamble to 1:53 and you'll see what he's talking about—helpfully zoomed in close-up.
As grateful as I am for this particular bit of research I don't think this rises to the level of scandal, certainly not "Hot Coffee," which involved actual sex-having fucking. This is an M-rated game. Know what else was M-rated? Grand Theft Auto: The Lost and Damned, and that featured full-frontal nudity. Male nudity, as in, actual wiener. So, no, even if the ESRB hall monitors missed this, it's not gonna get the game pulled.
About 10 days ago, Nexon, the publisher of MapleStory found three out of four marriages initiated in-game end in divorce. So MapleStory's next content update will include features that emphasize couples sticking together.
Ascension, the next big update, will include special quests for couples. "Shower your partner with devotion in new quests to renew your vows periodically, and MapleStory will shower you with gifts!" says the official announcement.
Game Politics reached out to Nexon and found that the new party quests have been balanced for more efficient leveling, another reason to stick with your betrothed. And Nexon also told Game Politics that it did plan changes to the wedding system—getting married costs $25, divorce runs less and is paid through in-game currency. Details on the wedding revamp will not be revealed until next week.
The Sept. 15 survey showed that, of 26,982 marriages performed in North America, 20,344 ended in divorce.
Nexon Adds Content to MapleStory for Troubled Virtual Couples [Game Politics]
The Houses of the British Parliament are known to have bars. One MP, the minister for culture in fact, wishes to put in a video game room. Ed Vaizey thinks it would do some good in educating his fellow MPs on the industry that he has forcefully supported in the past.
In an interview with Edge, Vaizey relates that he asked for permission to put a games console (unspecified) in his room at the culture department. "The powers that be were against it, because people coming for meetings would assume that I was spending every spare minute playing games! Yet I'm allowed a TV… I should have been more firm," he says.
But taking the suggestion from Edge, he thinks a gaming room would be useful to "put on display and show the best of British gaming. I would happily do that!" Considering that Parliament is said to have a shooting range—"although I've never found it"—he thinks a gaming room is reasonable.
Vaizey, as a Conservative MP, has taken to the floor to laud award-winning British games producers while lamenting "the complete lack of support from Government," and challenged one member's rather stupid assertion that rape is a gameplay component in video games. For gamers, he's been one of the good guys, in other words.
Ed Vaizey: My Favourite Game [Edge]
Maybe you were swamped at the office this week and couldn't check your favorite Gawker Media sites. Or maybe you're about to work a double and need one last distraction. Whatever the case, we've got you covered. Here are some of the best videos we watched during the week that was.
The best reaction to a car crash ever caught on video has been granted entry to the Valhalla of online video with this, its very own AutoTune treatment. View »
UC Berkeley scientists have developed a system to capture visual activity in human brains and reconstruct it as digital video clips. Eventually, this process will allow you to record and reconstruct your own dreams on a computer screen. View »
Just as the credits started to roll at the conclusion of Monday night's Comedy Central Roast of Charlie Sheen, Jackass Steve-O literally dove into Mike Tyson's fist, thereby breaking his nose. It's worth watching for William Shatner's reaction alone. View »
Last night on TBS's Conan, Mr. O'Brien touched on game reviewers' fears that the more mature, emotional storyline for Gears of War 3 might alienate hardcore gamers. View »
By now we've all heard about how weird it was for Rupert Grint and Emma Watson to make out on-screen in the last Harry Potter film. Now, see proof with your own two eyes. View »
Here's Part One of the C-Roll excerpts we'll be posting all week. Today, the infamous Lucy Lawless boob slip (from her national anthem at a 1997 NHL game in Anaheim), another boob slip, and sex above the SkyDome during a Red Sox-Jays game. View »
Modern Family's star Sofia Vergara stopped by the Late Show on Thursday. I suspect any conversation between David Letterman and Vergara would entertain, but this one took things to a supremely satisfying new level. View »
Automakers spend billions of dollars on television ads every year - more than film producers and pharmaceutical companies combined. Although we've already shown you the ten worst car commercials, we figured it was time to finally ask Jalopnik readers to sort through history's greatest ones. Here are the results. View »
This weekend NASA published an awesome time-lapse flyby of planet Earth taken from the International Space Station. It'll leave you stupefied. View »
FIFA 12 won't be out until later this month. Perhaps that will be enough time for EA to fix all of the game's wonderfully hilarious bugs, as seen in this video. View »
Tot Mom, meet Tit Mom. The 13th season of Dancing with the Stars premiered tonight, as did HLN grief pornographer Nancy Grace's "three-year-old twins" when she she gleefully took her milkshake all over the damn yard View »
It's a matter of personal preference, but I'm pretty sure no one on staff here likes the word "pussy." But we're going to use it in this instance, because on last night's episode of Jersey Shore it was used repeatedly. View »
Who says you can never relive the glory days? Who says you can't do it at age 85, in a parking lot, wearing a pair of jorts and a Michigan Wolverines windbreaker as you inhale the contents of a Keystone Light Michelob Ultra in just under ten seconds? View »
I spend hours each day sifting through videos of people doing insane stunts with cars. This video of a few Saudis darting in-and-out of traffic while firing assault rifles into the air tops them all. It's reckless. It's horrible. It's scary as hell. View »
You're you. You have your two hands and two feet and a camera. That's it. Can you climb up a freaking skyscraper without any protective gear, safety net, rope, and whatever else sane people use when they climb? View »
Meet Marc Martel, who—as you'll see—is essentially Freddie Mercury incarnate, and already a shoo-in to win the Queen Extravaganza contest because of this submission. View »
When Half-Minute Hero designer Kenichiro Takaki thought about what he wanted to see on the 3DS, he came up with Senran Kagura—for obvious reasons. There are ninjas. There are boobs. The end. View »
Earlier today, Taylor Armstrong spoke with Dr. Phil for a tear-filled hour of discussion about her late husband's suicide. While the entire show was hard to watch, perhaps the worst bit was listening to Taylor's play-by-play of her daughter learning of her father's death. View »
It's not unusual to have neighborly disputes over what goes down on the other side of the fence, but one San Diego neighborhood has noticed an increasing eyesore ever since a Google Street View car started parking down the street. View »
The Jane Lynch-hosted 63rd Primetime Emmys are history. But don't fret if you missed any of the action—we've got you covered! Here are all of the night's highlights and lowlights. View »
This young girl goalkeeper was woefully out of position when an opposing forward took a quality shot. In attempting to stop said shot, the young girl goalkeeper's forehead met the goalpost with authority. View »
Seriously, watch. It's out of this world. The Epomis beetle can beat the laws of nature and actually kill a frog that's much, much bigger than it. Even more, the Epomis beetle's larvae can do the same-with an almost 100% success rate. View »
The first time my friend showed me Sonic The Hedgehog on his Sega Genesis, he made me put the controller down so I could see how much more attitude Sonic had than my Mario. View »
Bristol Palin was riding the mechanical bull at a Hollywood bar when a rude drunk yelled, "Your mother's a whore!" Bristol marched up to the man, jutted out her new chin, an got into a heated confrontation. View »
Glee returned to our regular Tuesday night TV lineup last night, hurrah. But we're maybe more excited by what Sesame Street brings us: Glee, as performed by puppets. Perfection. View »
As music video premises go, they don't get more embarrassingly simple or effective than this. Take three attractive-ish Russian pop stars, put them in a car, and film what happens. View »
On The Daily Show, Jon Stewart mocked recent tax-related complaints of rich old men—Bill O'Reilly, for example—before spoofing those annoying Sarah McLachlan ASPCA ads. Will you be an angel for a helpless multi-millionaire? View »
MUDs and MUSHes, remember those? These were the first multiplayer online role-playing games, popular in the 1990s, largely text-based. In the case of a MUSH, playing involved writing thousands of words, a skill that's proven useful later in life for some enthusiasts.
One of them is Jim Butcher, mentioned (among other authors) today in The New York Times' books section. Butcher was a prolific contributor to Ambermush, a MUSH begun in 1992 that was based on The Chronicles of Amber series by Roger Zelazny. Today, Butcher is the best-selling author of "The Dresden Files," whose latest entry, "Ghost Story," debuted atop The New York Times' list of hardcover fiction best sellers. It's his third novel to do so.
Butcher credits the intense effort he put into Ambermush with developing his talent for writing. "I was writing 5,000 words a day, mushing," he told the New York Times. "We were all practicing storytelling every day."
Some of it was pretty bad, at the beginning, Butcher says, but it was a necessary process of writing a lot of stuff, figuring out what does not work, and focusing your attention on what does. Butcher isn't the only one from the community to find success as a writer. The Times also talked to Cam Banks, who is the creative director for the RPG-maker Margaret Weis Productions. Banks also is an author, publishing his first novel in 2007.
"If you don't write a good scene, if you don't paint the right picture, people don't come into your room," he said. "People would just mock you openly."
All of this made Ambermush, in the words of the Times, "like attending a writers' colony, but without the brie and posturing."
Banks somewhat laments what role-playing games have become as they've evolved from text into full 3D-graphics and real-time interactions. "You couldn't just jump into the avatar and be the magical flying fairy - you had to describe it," he said. "We've lost a lot of that visual meaning in our heads, because you just see it. There's no point in imagining it if it's already on the screen."
There's a much longer discussion at the link; it's a nice look back at one of the forerunners of MMOs, and the strong communities that built them.
A Game That Honed the Skills of Writers [The New York Times]