MikeJoeSoft: Only 90's kids will...okay not doing that.

Pokemon Red: Part 5 El Pokemon Rojo

MikeJoeSoft Episode 5

Holy crap fan art!

JustPlainJim at deviantart brought the characters of Eclipse Nightfire and Gammie to life!

MikeJoeSoft episode 2: Old Hags

Web Comic Wednesday: Crtl+Alt+Del

Oh Ctrl+Alt+Del comics, what a rocky relationship we've had. When I started reading you, I thought you were great. Your characters were funny, your jokes were funny, Chef Brian was funny, it was just an all around funny thing.

Then something happened. I don't know what it was. Maybe I grew up a bit, maybe my tastes changed. More than likely, however, you stopped making jokes and started your string of “serious” plots right out of a junior high notebook.

But you know what, Ctrl+Alt+Del? You've gotten better. No, I still don't like you as much as I did when I was 15, and I doubt I ever will, but you've ditched your overcomplicated cast of characters and your only semi-competent grasp of creative drama, and gone back to making jokes. Is it only a matter of time before you decided to “expand” the characteristics of players 1-4? Probably. But for now, you've reached the lofty goal of “there are worse time wasters you could do.”

Okay, I've rambled on about this enough. Ctrl+Alt+Del is a webcomic by Tim Buckly, and at its start was about a pair of gaming roommates (lamp shading their own “originality” from time to time) as they talk about video games and the turns the industry is taking. Okay, so this sounds like dollar-store Penny Arcade...and it was...but then things get a little hairy.

Ethan, the standard “crazy but apparently considered “lovable” in universe” character becomes smitten with a girl named Lilah, who is, for reasons utterly beyond me, smitten in return. This is where the drama switch gets pulled. If you follow the web comic world in the slightest, you know what happens. They get married, Lilah gets pregnant, and completely out of nowhere a miscarriage ensues. Because drama.

There are other characters, such as the relatively straight-man archetype Lucas, the sentient and sapient x-box he created named Zeke and their mysterious and rarely-seen third roommate Scott, but at the end of the day, the story mainly falls down to Ethan who, to be honest, isn't terribly interesting. He's random, kookie and operates under what can only be defined as 'insane troll logic', and while that amused me to no end at 15, I just find him annoying now. Lilah and Ethan don't have terribly much personality either, they're mostly just foils to Ethan.

The Good

When the comic decides to make jokes, it can be at least passable. Your time is still better spent reading Penny Arcade, but they're not all that bad.

The best thing to ever happen to this comic was the decision to completely lose its “main cast”, and just goes to using the Players (a group of characters named Player 1, 2, 3 and 4) for commentary, or using actual game characters to lampoon the flaws in the work itself. Again, they're decent.

The Bad

I've heard a lot of rumors about Tim Buckly, but until I get verifiable reports telling me they're true, I'm not spreading them here. Besides, we're here to talk about the comic itself.

First off, the lack of effort. Buckly has made videos showing how he makes Ctrt+Alt+Del, and they are maddening. He as a set of angry eyes, a set of lazy eyes, a set of hopeful eyes, and he just clicks and drags them over to the blank face for that scene. Wow. Just wow. The same goes for every facial feature and plenty of the background.

Second, as I none-too-subtly stated above, the drama isn't really well integrated into the story, or all that well thought out. It seems that Buckly will just decide that there's been too much fun for too long and pull the drama lever, throwing in the most horrible thing he can think of completely out of left field.

The Verdict

I've said it already. The recent ones are okay, but seriously, just go read Penny Arcade. It's a better use of your time.

www.cad-comic.com

MikeJoeSoft Episode 1: Old Hags

Nintendo vs. X-Box vs. Sony

There are a few terms attributed to video game culture that leave a bad taste in my mouth. First and foremost is just the word “gamer”. In a world where more and more people play video games, I find it hard to believe that we need a specialized term for that. Of course, “hardcore” gamers are a thing, but so are “casual” and “mid level” ones. Moreover, I feel like its just overused by media and especially marketing establishments. This leads me into today's topic: Console Wars.

Console Wars is another term I'm pretty sure was conceived in a board room with a long table surrounded by soulless marketing experts. Creating rivalry is a great way to promote a product, and cultivate followers so fanatically loyal that there would be cults telling them to tone it down. However, I don't think the term is that legitimate. After all people are probably going to systems not based on the specs or features, but on the games that will be available.

That said, I do have a preference for consoles and games. Starting with the worst of the bunch (in my opinion) we have the X-Box One. Yes, yes, insert your “beating a dead horse” joke here.

We all know the stellar reception that the console got on the day its features were announced, so I won't go into too much detail on what they were. If you don't already know, lets just say “ridiculous amounts of DRM BS” and leave it at that. I'm told that a lot of “really cool features” could have been introduced through this, and that X-Box just did a terrible job of marketing the plus sides, but here's the thing:

I neither want nor need to make video games and the playing thereof more complicated than it already is.

I know that change is inevitable, and evolution will always take hold sooner or later, but what X-Box seemed to have forgotten is that not all (in fact I'd go as far as to say “most”) people who play games aren't looking for the “definitive gaming experience” or an “all in one entertainment system”. Let me explain this in the simplest terms that I can:

We want to play games.

That's it. That is literally the starting and ending goal for most people who turn on a console. People got so offended by the concepts the X-Box One originally introduced because it seemed to further follow the path started by things like extreme DLC. The game itself seems to become secondary to the “gaming experience” and more importantly the revenue creative from it. 

So at this point it should come as a surprise to few when I say that if I bought a next-gen console it would almost certainly be the Wii-U. I used to sign up for the Nintendo hate in favor of the better graphics and more realistic, grittier games, but in recent years I've realized what's been keeping Nintendo afloat long after all its original competitors bit the dust: it understands why it exists.

Nintendo understands that games need to be fun. They seem to understand more than any of their competitors that the highest resolution graphics and most detail oriented sub-machines are meaningless if the player isn't enjoying what they're doing. They don't innovate new ways of keeping their consumers on a leash, or letting developers come out with half-finished products to be completed for an additional fee with DLC, they innovate new ways of having fun. That's what the Wii-mote was all about, and that's what the new touch-pad interface is for, unlike the Sony or X-Box motion sensing clones.

Now, Nintendo's weakness is that few developers seem to share this notion, and that for the most part just want to make the same kind of “successful” games that Sony and Microsoft produce. But its always worth it you find those few games that weren't about making a surefire investment, and make you lose track of time because you're enjoying yourself. So rock on Nintendo, and may I not doubt you again.

Oh, and PS4 will probably be okay. I guess.

Free MMO Madness: Lord of the Rings Online

Legally Enforced Game Rating

I am not a huge fan of government censorship. Wait, sorry, I seem to have misspelled “I absolutely loath government censorship”. There is no reason for a group of people to dictate what the rest of us can and cannot see. Censorship doesn't just mean putting a black bar over something offensive, or bleeping out a bad word here and there. Whenever there is talk of forcing mature-rated television shows to only play after 10 or 11pm, I consider that a form of censorship. It's tampering with the flow of information in an attempt to protect the sensibilities of the young. 

Daddy, what's this 4Chan thing?

And it is so stupid.

I bring this all up because legislation is being considered that would force video games to all carry ratings. Now you're probably thinking “wait, don't all video games have those already?” Yes, but the ratings are not mandatory, much like the ratings on movies. 

I know what you're thinking now as well. “Well if they're doing it anyway, why does it matter if it's made mandatory?” As much as I may sound like a diehard republican for saying this, it's because this regulation will hurt small businesses and independent developers. It's one thing to expect EA or Bethesda to get their games rated or face a $5,000 fine, but to expect a few people working on laptops to jump through all those hoops just so that mom and dad can understand that “Blood-massacre 9000” MIGHT not be the best game for little Timmy is simply unreasonable, and in this case potentially deadly to the small developers. 

I know it SAYS extreme gore, but is right for my child?

Secondly, there is no point. Zero. I believe that what a child consumes from the media has one and only one effective regulator: the parents. If a parent is going to bring their kid to an R-rated movie, or buy them Grand Theft Auto: The one with more Prostitutes, then they will do it regardless of regulations. I ask you this, if all these games already have ratings on them, then why is this even a problem? I'll tell you why with a story from a recent trip to GameStop.

Mistake #1: Going to GameStop

8-year old (at most): This is the one I wanted mom.

Mom (too busy on cell phone to really pay attention): Okay, sure.

Guy at the counter: Ma'am, I have to inform you that this game contains a lot of realistic violence, and adult themes of a sexual nature.

Mom: (still too busy on cell phone) Yeah, okay, fine.

Will literally cut my child's soul out? Look, just buy the game so I can stop listening to him.

Mom up there is the problem. You can't really blame the kid, we all would have done this if we thought we could get away with it. M-rated games to kids these days are like R-rated movies to us; you were awesome if you managed to get into one. 

My point is this, what would mandatory ratings change? Mom here, or an imaginary dad in the same situation, is still too busy on her cell phone to pay attention to what she's using as this week's distraction to raise her kid for her, and until we can somehow regulate that, we're just wasting our time. 

What it will change is that it will strangle the independent game makers and bump up the prices on everything else.