Today's strip was actually drawn on stage at PAX on Saturday. Just like last year I had a little fun once the comic was done. I promised everyone in the theatre I'd post the PAX edit once I got home so here it is.

This is the comic that we drew - well, that Gabe drew, from my flawless transcription - upon the storied stage at PAX 2007. I'm proud of him, actually - he braved the tabletop floor in search of a game, a Gabriel first. Let me also relate with some pride that he now keeps his cards in a sealed deckbox. When he begins playing with a fully sleeved deck, know this: tears will flow.

We still think about Eye of Judgment quite a bit - sometimes I will sit in silence and think about it, or think about it while I lay dormant in my charge casket. I think about placing cards carefully on its luxurious cloth mat, smirking as distant foes are gnawed by my lizard proxies. We are overjoyed (joymax!) that they stuck with the new concept, the card thing, as opposed to the brutally sardonic original.

Rhythm games aren't my forte, but I have a lot of inbuilt experience with meter which helps me fake it until I can build genuine skill. And, as rhythm elements have crept into the entire medium, Tycho stock has been in a boom phase. It's understandable, then, that while I soar and illuminate - and Gabriel sputters, bound to earth - tensions related to my prowess have begun to burn red-hot. That is, until they cool again. These things have a way of working themselves out in the fullness of time.

It's floating around now, out there on the Wub, and it calls to you. Or maybe it does, I don't actually know. In any case, it can be got from 3D Downloads, the Fileplanets, GamersHell, or WorthDownloading. Download it from mulltiple sites simultaneously for a naughty thrill. God only knows how this would run on my Vista rig at home, but it's a Vista rig, so you can probably guess.

With PAX coming up this weekend (!!!), we didn't really have time on Friday to invest in Virgil's Wikiscanner - that mystical oracle that takes a raw IP range and then excretes a list of that organization's Wikipedia edits. This is the pulsing, possibly Martian device that dished up last week's awesome Electronic Arts edits.

Alright - this should be the last Bioshock comic we do until the game is released on Tuesday. Monday's comic? Could be anything: immolations, loose arachnids, you name it. No doubt come Wednesday, the prior obsession will assert itself.

Ahh, merchandise! It's pounding on the door, trying to get in!

I don't know why I get my hopes up reading shit about "broken street dates" online, I'm perpetually disappointed by the results. I got a game on the actual ship date five years ago, and it's made me into some kind of Goddamned optimist. There are scattered reports that people have picked them up, and you may invest your time in this way if you are desperate, but I apologize for wasting your time.

With a couple days placed between this post and the release of the Bioshock demo, I feel far more comfortable discussing it. You know what I do, now: for example, you know that the Playable Intro as a storytelling mechanism has been refined to a ridiculous degree. You've felt the jolt of voyeurism, peering into human lives via found audio. And, perhaps most importantly, you know the dangers that plasmids pose to the young.

I watched this video myself on Friday, and then watched it again, and then watched it a third time when Khoo came in - providing commentary throughout, which I'm almost certain was unwelcome. I urge you not to watch the embedded, nasty version over at GameVideos, but to take advantage of their "Download" or "Watch Larger Version" options. This way, you can obsess as I have - pausing on each screen of the character generator or battle interface, drinking deep of their forbidden texts.

Mike Wieringo passed away yesterday. I have admired his work since I was a kid. I wish I could say I knew him but I honestly didn't. He didn't know me either but he still helped me out a while ago and I was extremely appreciative.

-Gabe out

"John Woo Presents: Stranglehold" is pretty great, much better than I thought at first. The demo presents a single level in Hong Kong, and not even a complete one, but once you've played through it you earn another level of difficulty and a new special manoeuvre. You can then complete it again for another ability and difficulty level. I played long enough to see this second technique, and did not finish it a third time, but presumably you could go on and on like that - hauling up its riches - until you revealed the deepest secrets of the universe.

I can really do without a lot of the corporate sniping that happens in this industry. Plus, as a licensed demagogue, they're horning in on my territory when they say ridiculous things or make baseless verbal assaults! I mean, I have mouths to feed. Seriously, I have more than one mouth.

After yesterday's brutal visit to the dentist, the intense pragmatism of the denture plate stands crisp and full in my mind. Brushing my teeth in the dishwasher each night strikes me as very modern, and I endorse it. Apparently those mouth criminals have decided what's best for my craw is to meter out the pain via a kind of agony payment plan.  The hygienist raised her hand at this suggestion, enthusiastically, apparently waiting for the "high five."  It was declined.