Picked up Phantasy Star Online 3 Wednesday, and it ain't bad. Humans seemed surprised when I claimed enthusiasm regarding the card-oriented gameplay shift, heresy of heresies, but by now it's probably clear that I could replace anything, everything in the world with a card that represents it and feel nothing but pleasure. Conceptually, yes, I do like the idea that the events of even the prior PSO games could be described by the card metaphor - that the structures and definitions retain meaning across a mechanical shift. As all this poetry here might imply, I was ready and waiting for a new interpretation of the game.

Yesterday I posted one of the concept drawings I did for our upcoming Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow comic book. I say “comic book” because this project is actually sixteen pages long. Anyway it seems a lot of you wanted a larger version of that drawing in the form of a wallpaper. So here you go:

I just can't get enough of those Infinium guys. It looks like the HardOCP thing has gone into Round Two, with HardOCP making some concessions which aren't really concessions and Infinium burning down an old folks' home. I mean, not burning one down. Now that the lawyers are out, perhaps it's best to be circumspect. One did burn down, though. Maybe they did it and maybe they didn't.

I didn’t see that Tycho had mentioned Far Cry. How embarrassing.

Well we made it back from Ubercon in one piece. I’d like to thank everyone who came out to see us over the weekend. Also a big thanks the Ubercon staff for putting on such a great event!

While we were gone, it looks like they put up the first page of our Far Cry comic.

We love this robot, invented in Las Vegas, so he's back to help us wrap up the Ubercon.

The first page of the Painkiller project is up over at the official site. I'm partial to this one, I've got to say - it's only four pages, but it's got a few really interesting moments.

Every time I leave my house, I do not presume that I will ever return there.

I was always really curious about this space sim, as it purportedly contained all genres. Never did get around to buying it, which makes me appreciate the demo they released today even more.

I’m sort of excited about the flight tomorrow. Normally the prospect of a six our plane ride would get me pretty anxious. However this time I have a secret weapon on my side to help battle my paranoia. Drugs! I was given a prescription for Ativan before a recent dentist appointment and I still have one of the two tablets given to me. I gotta say this I was blown away by how much the Ativan helped with my anxiety. It didn’t just help, it got rid of it entirely. In its place was a carefree feeling of contentment with just a hint of drowsiness. I sat there in the car while Kara drove me to the dentist marveling at my new found easy-going demeanor. I remember thinking to myself, “Wow, is this what normal humans feel like??E

You might remember that on Monday we said that Tim Roberts, CEO of Infinium Labs can’t have an orgasm unless he kills a dog. Well apparently Tim felt compelled to respond to our comic on the Infinium Labs?EForum. The thread has since been deleted but a quick thinking PA fan was smart enough to grab a screen shot of Tim’s post. Here it is in all its glory:

There's a couple things I neglected to mention.

It won't let me upload the strip in the civilized, normal person way, so let me just put a link directly to the file here and call it good.

On the strength of Uwe Boll's truly stupendous House Of The Dead movie, it's no surprise that he was entrusted with the rights to Fear Effect, Far Cry, Bloodrayne, and Dungeon Siege. Far Cry consciously emulates big-budget, Bruckheimer style action films, so somebody making a movie out of it doesn't startle. I don't hesitate for a moment when I say that a Fear Effect movie could be something striking indeed, a worthy candidate for conversion to animation specifically. In the right hands, even Bloodrayne - a game where a vampire dominatrix battles Nazi legions - I mean, I can conceive of a mental state where watching (or, indeed, creating) such a film would not result in injury. But Dungeon Siege? Put aside the fact that this director isn't capable of communicating with film - what, precisely, would this movie be about?