8/24/02

Yep, the weekly comic is on hold, too.  I've got too much to deal with right now, and until I've become adjusted to my new work schedule and classes, I need to lighten my load and concentrate on what matters most to me.

It seems like The Gameroom Blitz is what matters least to me right now.  I had a lot of fun with the near daily updates, but that's no longer possible given my current situation.  Moreover, I'm just discouraged.  It's tough to write about video games these days, because I hate the industry more with every breath I take.  If you're wondering why, just look at the results of GameFAQs' recent character polls.  I'm more convinced than ever after Scorpion vs. Pac-Man that most gamers are twelve year old idiots with no sense of history and no appreciation for quality game design.  If a game has blood or tits in it, they're just one "Huh, huh.  Huh huh huh" away from buying the damned thing.  I feel like my own opinion doesn't matter... my concerns have become irrelevant to an industry that spends too much time pandering and nowhere near enough actually making quality games.

It's also tough to keep drawing, because my artwork just seems to be getting worse.  The comic below looked so cool before I inked it... what the hell happened?  It's very frustrating to spend the entire night working on a drawing that could have been done by a more accomplished artist in an hour.  There's clearly something wrong with my technique, and I'm just as certain that an art class would help me address my shortcomings. 

I'm also pretty sure that I need some sleep, so I'll talk to you guys later.

8/21/02

I'm sorry it's been a while since I've posted.  Now's really not a good time for me to work on The Gameroom Blitz... I just started my fall classes and I'm dealing with both a new work schedule and a car that refuses to run.  Today, I'm completely exhausted because my Oldsmobile gave out on me five miles from my job, forcing me to close the gap on foot.  I didn't like the idea before, but the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that pulling the plug on the Olds line of cars was a smart move on GM's part.

All's calm on the on-line front, though.  The Gameroom Blitz seems to be getting more hits lately... the counter should be up to 30,000 by now, and if I advertise on the right sites I might be able to hit six figures by the end of next year.  I'm a little more confident about my artwork now (so what if Yerf won't accept my drawings?  There's at least one person I can think of who's willing to pay for them!), and I'm not so worried about what people think of the site's mascot.  Of course, I'm not letting Byron have allthe fun... I'm currently starring in an online survival challenge of my own, competing against Kobun Heat's Chris Kohler and over a dozen other contestants in a contest sponsored by Digital Press.

Sometimes I feel like Job, but his harsh trials eventually paid off in the end, and things will get better for me as well if I can just stick it out.  I just have to make sure not to swallow the poison, or my tounge, or this new set of Rush CDs I bought last weekend.

8/17/02

And with this update, Byron is out the door and on his way to the magical world of Eleven Will Die, where sword, sorcery, and, uh, squirrels rule.  Eleven's going to be on hiatus for a couple of weeks, so in the meantime, he'll cool his heels in Chris Farrington's other comic Macropod Madness.

This'll be healthy for both of us, I think.  Byron will get to spend some time with other talking animals, and I can stop pretending to have a bear for a son and indulge in a little adult entertainment.  To the nudie bar, Bud!

Uh, wait, that's too far.  I think I'll stay local and just listen to a house band that's performing at Edmore's most popular watering hole.  Be right back!

...

Wow... I reek of cigarette smoke and my head still hurts from the loud music.  But man, I'd do it again in an instant.  It's been a while since I've logged in some quality bar time...  I usually just buy cola or Shirley Temples when I'm there, but there's something very satisfying about the atmosphere.  The band, Invisible Lisa (which perfectly describes the ideal Simpsons episode), was pretty good, too... a little screechy and way too L-O-U-D, but it was fun listening to live interpretations of all my classic rock favorites.

Games?  Aw, fuck, do I have to talk about them AGAIN?  OK... uh, Sly Cooper's been getting rave reviews by all the lucky bastards who got their hands on demos at E3.  The rest of us are going to have to settle for renting Rocket: Robot on Wheels until Sucker Punch's second game is introduced to the public next month.  On the plus side, it'll give me a reason to dig out ye olde Nintendo 64, and even better, stomp on my crappy Joytech save pack when it fails to work for the sixteenth time.  Heh, Joytech... now there's an oxymoron for you.  Their products never brought me much joy, and they're not technological wonders, either.  I haven't seen anything new from them lately, though.  Maybe (hopefully) the CEO of that company was dragged out of his office, given a much deserved beating, and for that extra special ironic touch, finished off with a dip in his own pretty metallic red joystick paint.

8/15/02

A quick equation:  three dollar Dreamcast game, minus two dollar Blockbuster rebate, equals one very happy Jess.  I wish it would have been something a little more exciting than basketball, but for a buck, I would have bought just about anything for the Dreamcast.  Well, maybe not that awful Card Captors game where all you do is spin the girl around on her phallic broom, taking pictures of her butt while she flies to the next completely uninteractive battle.

After the redesign is finished and people can actually read the comics and profiles, I'm going to start promoting The Gameroom Blitz.  Not only will you see this site advertised elsewhere, you'll also get the chance to buy GRB merchandise.  Byron t-shirts are, of course, a given, but I'd also like to have clothes with fun, relevant slogans... the kind of stuff gamers would want to wear.  Someone had a doozy of a quote on Toastyfrog's Forum 'o Terror (which is now Nobody In Particular's Forum 'o Terror, since the editor has disavowed any knowledge of its existance) which I think would work really well on a T-shirt.  On the front, it would calmly suggest, "Seriously, Acclaim...", and on the back, the shirt would scream, "STOP SUCKING!!!".

If you guys know of a place where I could get these shirts made that isn't called CafePress, please let me know.  That's the only site I can think of that offers the service free of charge to anyone who needs it, but I've heard their products fall apart faster than a cheap bra on (or a crappy show starring) Anna Nicole Smith.

8/14/02

I'm going to try a little something new on The Gameroom Blitz.  I talked to Fark's Drew Curtis about how I could draw more readers to the site, and he offered a lot of helpful advice and suggestions.  He thought I'd be better off if I made the updates available at the top of the page, claiming that the average reader would stay a lot longer if they could quickly find the new content.  It's a great idea... but to make it work I'd have to completely redesign the page, and I'm kind of attached to the current design.

I'll offer a compromise, though.  I've added two buttons at the top of the index that link directly to the updates, and in case anyone's interested, the comic at the end of the page.  If you've seen the banner a million times and just want to read the new content on the site, the buttons will get you there in an instant.

Look at the time!  I've got to be at the courthouse in another hour... I'm going to change my name to "Acclaim Sucks Donkey".

8/13/02

I remember when I was a little kid, watching The Jetsons... George would come home, complaining that he was dead tired after all the buttons he pressed that day.  I'd say to myself,  "That's just dumb.  Nobody's ever gonna have a job where they press buttons all day, and if they did, they sure wouldn't complain about it!"

Twenty years later, I'm doing IT work at a local college.  Today, I had to take a room full of computers off the network, change their names, and return them to the network.  Twice.  I'm dead tired, and it's largely because I've been pressing buttons all day.  Suddenly, The Jetsons' view of the future doesn't seem so silly anymore.

8/12/02

I made good on the promise to write a Mega Man X4 review, but it's probably not what you expected... it's part of a themed set including smaller reviews of two other games.  Oh yeah, coverage of the Pinobee sequel is finally on the Game Boy Advance page, too... even if you hated the first one, you might want to check it out.  It might not have been such a mistake for Artoon to split from Sega after all, although we won't know this for sure until Blinx: The Time Sweeper comes out.

And now for an uncharacteristically sappy moment.  You're probably sick and tired of the brutally hot weather, and frankly, I am too.  Just try to remember that summer's given us a lot of great moments along with the bad ones.  That magic is almost over, so cherish what little is left of the season.  Splash around in the pool, throw some burgers on the grill, or just spend some time on the porch swing with your partner or best friend.  Better yet, squeeze it all into one day.  You'll be glad you've got those memories later when winter hits and you're complaining just as bitterly about the chill in the air and the ice on your windshield.  I already regret missing out on the fireflies...

8/10/02

Look, kids, your weekly comic is ready!  I hope you enjoy it... and please, don't hide it in the garage or trade it for a Toaster Strudel this time.

I had plans to review Mega Man X4 and Hudson's sequel to Pinobee (which is much better, yet far less publicized, than the first) today, but it's going to have to wait for Monday... it took forever to finish that comic!  On a related note, Rogue's Gallery is going to be a lot later than I'd previously planned.  The way things are going, I doubt it'll be finished and online this year. 

I'm sure the weekly comics will hold everyone over until Rogue's Gallery debuts.  Oh yeah, that reminds me!  Remember earlier this year when I mentioned that Byron would be a guest star in someone else's comic?  Well, that moment has almost arrived.  I'll give him the proper sendoff next week in a slightly longer edition of Nature of the Beast.  After this, The Gameroom Blitz will be mascot free, and you'll only be able to see Byron in Chris Farrington's comic for as long as he's able to compete.  Once he's voted out of Eleven Will Die by Chris' secret panel of judges, he'll come back.  I suspect that he'll be eliminated quickly, so enjoy the brief Byronlessness while it lasts.

8/9/02

Well, that's more than enough Mega Man X4 for the day.  I'm sure I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, but Sigma is an asshole.  The kind of overpowered asshole with three different forms, each cheaper and more obnoxious than the last.  The kind of asshole that makes you snap mentally... then snap Mega Man X CDs in half.  Honestly, the game's already difficult enough to give the average player (me) an aneurysm.  There was absolutely no reason to make matters worse by turning the last boss into a three course meal of frustration.  Have Sigma die after the second form, put a checkpoint between the second and third forms; just do something that gives the player a fighting chance.  Sigma's holding all the cards, and it just ain't fair... I should know, because I've screamed the words "that ain't fair" at my monitor repeatedly for the past hour.

I need to watch that copy of Kiki's Delivery Service I just picked up.  I'm sure it'll help me relax, although the fact that Blockbuster was so desperate to get rid of it is in itself a little aggravating.  I can't come to grips with the fact that Yu-Gi-Oh and Klasky-Csupo's poorly drawn schlock are many times more popular than this work of art, which Blockbuster pushed out the door for a few bucks.

8/8/02

We've got our Hojo working now!  Some changes have been made to Advance Theory thanks to the suggestion of a helpful reader, who had a lot of trouble finding the game I was talking about in yesterday's update.  From now on, fresh reviews in the Game Boy Advance section will be posted on top of the page in addition to being added to the list.  Thanks for the advice, Hojo!

I've been locked in a fiery debate about US/Middle East relations on another forum.  I personally think we should wean ourselves from foriegn oil and use biodesiel (a fuel manufactured with corn oil), and they don't have a problem with that.  However, they weren't fond of my assertion that every country in the Middle East except Israel is our enemy, even if some of them, like Saudi Arabia, like to pretend otherwise.  Now I'm not saying we should nuke everyone in the area, but the truth is, none of these countries like us.  There's no reason for us to be there, and there's no reason we should support anyone eager to stick a knife in our backs, even if it's to our (short term) benefit.

The most obvious solution to the problem, and the only one that's going to keep the terrorists from attacking, is to create our own fuel source.  That source exists, and it could be right next to your house.  Look at that gorgeous field of corn!  It's our ticket to independence from the Middle East.  Wouldn't you love to read the paper every morning and NOT have to see headlines about Scumbag Hussein or the Ayatollah Assahola, or some bastard who tried to sneak aboard an airplane with razor blades in his shoes?  It could happen.  Wouldn't it be great if there were more jobs for Americans, and if farmers could make the money they deserve rather than just barely getting by, if at all?  It could happen!  Wouldn't you be amazed if all this could be accomplished with a fuel you could pour straight into an actual car, rather than a concept vehicle you'll never actually see on the road?  It could happen!  It HAS happened!!!  Biodesiel already exists, and can even be produced at home if you aced your chemistry class.  It SHOULD be thriving, but people refuse to see the variety of benefits this most patriotic of fuels has to offer.  We'll learn to adapt eventually, though.  The gas companies had better accept this and start tapping this market now, because twenty years and one world war from now, their current tap's gonna run awfully dry.

So, uh, where was I again?  Oh yeah, self-righteous liberals attacking my geopolitical views.  Even though I still believe that we're asking for trouble dealing with any of the Muslim nations in the Middle East, I kept my mind just open enough to skim through a book about Islam (hey, I didn't say I left it wide open).  The book "Unveiling Islam" seemed promising, so I spent a little time reading that.  It was certainly informative, even offering quotes from the Koran, but also noticably biased against the religion... so much so that even gullible me started to get suspicious.  So I flip to the front of the book and notice that all the praise on the sleeve was coming from Christian universities.  I read a bit of the prologue and everything came together... the book's "insiders' view of Islam" came from two former Muslims who were converted to Christianity and who obviously had a grudge against the religion they abandoned.  These guys aren't really doing themselves any favors by writing this book... sure, it accomplishes their goal of making Islam seem frightening and barbaric, but it also perpetuates the stereotype that Christians are pushy and manipulative.

Oh yeah, I guess I better throw in some obligatory gaming crud to keep this post relevant.  My friend Brian showed me his collection of Visual Pinball games, and it looked really exciting... I wasn't that interested in Visual Pinball before, but I sure am now!  However, it also demonstrated why nobody bothered to bring Baby Pac-Man home... it would just as quickly have been thrown out with the other disposable, crap-filled baby products.  Take a short pinball playfield barren enough to leave you gasping for water and staple it to an inferior, infuriatingly hard Pac-Man game that very clearly WASN'T designed by Namco, and you've got a blunder so legendarily stupid a waiter would have to serve it with a new Coke.  My other friend Jeremy likes to refer to software created just for the greed of it as "cynical cash-ins".  If "cynical" is the best way to describe these games, Diogenes himself probably designed this one.

8/7/02

The last update would have made more sense if I'd mentioned that I went to a buffet...

There's a new review in the Game Boy Advance section.  You might want to be careful, though... it won't go down smoothly if you're still a fan of Treasure.  I'm starting to agree with Jeremy that the company's running out of gas.  I'm grateful for all the fantastic games they've made in the past, but it seems like we've been waiting longer and longer for them... and disappointments like Alien Soldier and Mischief Makers don't make the wait any easier to endure.

It might be time for this prodigal son to come back home to Konami.  I think they'd be a lot better off there... that way, Konami could take advantage of Treasure's programming experience and convince them not to make all those weird, self-indulgent games nobody likes.  In my opinion, Treasure does its best work when it puts down the bong and concentrates on making already great genres even better.  Their three best games, Gunstar Heroes, Guardian Heroes, and Radiant Silvergun prove this.  They'd probably make a lot more of these and a lot fewer Light Crusaders and Stretch Panics if they had the benefit of Konami's guidance.

8/5/02

I went to a pretty good Chinese/Japanese/Americanese place over the weekend while hunting for games.  Overall, I was pretty satisfied with the experience, thanks largely to the enormous amount of sushi they had available.  However, I've got a gripe about the fortune cookie they served (y'know, with the bill, immediately after realizing that I'd polished off over half of their most expensive menu items).  Why is it that whenever I go to a Chinese restaurant, I always get a fortune like this...

When I'm looking forward to getting one like this?

Oh well... maybe someday, I'll get lucky and Mel Brooks will be there to serve the meal himself!  Hey, we've all got our dreams.

I suppose I tapped the well of luck dry after finding Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for ten dollars at a pawn shop about thirty miles from my hometown.  Jeremy was convinced I'd have a tough time tracking the game down, and there is some truth to that... I couldn't dig up a copy at the sister store in Greenville, or any of its competitors.  In fact, there was only one of them in the store's huge collection of Playstation games, but one's just enough for me!

Just before I'd left, I looked through their library of PC games, and came up with a real winner... a surprisingly good translation of Mega Man X4.  Seems that Capcom couldn't afford to ignore the PC market any longer, and released this game themselves rather than selling the license to Hi-Tech Expressions.  For this we should all be thankful, because it's a tremendous improvement over previous PC versions of Mega Man, going so far as to borrow code directly from the Playstation game. 

Another big surprise is that X4 is excellent... probably the best game in the series.  I often catch myself popping in the disc and blasting my way to the next boss, even though Mega Man X is my least favorite of the Mega Man series.  Count on a review of this game in another week.

8/3/02

Sometimes you feel like an update, sometimes you don't.  Sorry, guys, but I'm taking the weekend off... a friend wanted me to help him design a game, and I've been putting it off for way too long.  I'll be back on Monday.

8/2/02

New comic, folks.  It's worth mentioning that I didn't actually see The Country Bears.  If I never got around to watching Scooby-Doo, I'm sure as heck not going to see a film based on a Disney ride...  especially one with a band that's been described by critics as an ursine Lynyrd Skynyrd.  If I had a choice between being mauled by a bear and listening to him sing a few verses from Mr. Saturday Night Special, I'd break out the cell phone and reserve a bed at the nearest hospital.

Anyway, here's the plan for the weekly comic.  I'm going to alternate between Zoo Logic and the tentatively titled Nature of the Beast (if the name's been taken, I'll change it to something else).  The gaming commentary in Zoo Logic should help keep the site on topic, and Nature of the Beast lets me poke fun at everything else while developing the personality of Byron, the site's mascot.  I thought about making Beast a dramatic series, detailing Byron's life from beginning to end, but I don't think my readers are ready for such a comic.  Many of them hate furries with a passion and can barely tolerate Byron as it is.  To be honest, I don't think I'm ready for it, either, so I'll just keep drawing fun, silly comics until I'm confident enough about the quality of my artwork to begin working on something with more substance.

8/1/02

"Hello, Konami Customer Service?"
"Yes, how may we help you?"
"Well, I picked up this Laser Scope for the NES a few months back, and it's missing an eyepiece.  I was wondering if you stocked replacements?  Oh.  Uh, yes, I'll hold while you and the rest of the customer service department have a good, long laugh at my expense."