Remember When You Wanted Your Own Ms. Pac-Man?
30709
When arcade games are in the recreation room, no coins are necessary.
692737
I've had a car of my own since I was about 22. I couldn't wait to get that first car. For years, I had been held hostage by my grandmother, Big Mama.
103810
Tycho:  We never sit down with the firm intention of making another Bioshock comic - indeed, we intend the opposite - but somehow Bioshock comics continue to be written.  One day, science will pierce these mysteries.  Until then, you'll simply have to endure more strips regarding interactive storytelling's electronic opus.  My recovery from this weekend's rigors would be quite accelerated if I were not up until two or more every night, which is to say morning, hacking and slashing my way through the new releases like some malarial jungle guide.  I put Bioshock to bed last night, and theoretically this should be cause for joy, but I suppose it's like finishing a pie.  There is a whiff of accomplishment, semisweet - but the pie is gone.  Without pause, I slapped the input stud on the video switcher before the final cinema faded to black.  Hurling the gamepad into a knitting basket, I dug deep into the faultlines of the couch, producing a wiimote/nunchuk pair.  I've now played enough of Metroid Prime 3 to know that they've washed the filth of Red Steel completely from the system.  For awhile, I was doing that thing we sometimes do, playing until "the next savepoint," which so frequently becomes "until the savepoint after that," only to meld seamlessly into "until I can no longer see."  They've been spinning the tumbler at Retro for awhile on this one, trying to define first person on Nintendo's weird little chimera, and they've drilled down with enough diligence to find it.  No doubt some measure of the enthusiasm directed toward the game is due to the fact that people are actually using their Wii again, but that shouldn't diminish what they've done.    People have seen Corruption for a couple years, now, builds that bubbled up at different press events, and it's been slightly different each time.  I think they've moved some of the interactions since I last played it - things that were mapped to the nunchuck's gyro before are now handled by the wiimote's pointing device, and I understand why.  Gestures are a very immersive, intuitive means of interaction, but when they fail (or when they fail to express us correctly) they are Goddamned infuriating.  In a case when your hand is actually "present" in the simulation - such as when your left hand is pulling, then twisting, then pushing forward - those motions need to be as authentic as possible.  They must have chosen the perfect translation of the pointing device over the more "correct" left hand interaction.  It creates situations where you are using a different hand than your character, but because the motion is really one to one it still feels pretty good.    That's the long way of saying what you could learn in five minutes, sitting in front of it.  This entire exercise has only stoked my ardor.  It is my intention to begin playing this game at ten, and continue doing so until light begins to creep under the curtains.
698615
These games aren't the best, nor are they the prettiest. &nbsp;Instead, these are the games I played with my friends - the games let us kick the ever-loving-crap out of each other in increasingly fascinating ways. &nbsp;These are the most original head-to-head sleeper hits on the Sony Playstation. Just some fun stuff you might've missed the first time around.
131207
Tycho:  Mario Hoops 3-on-3 is impressive in many ways, as I've suggested: certainly as a technical showcase, it's nice to have in your bag.  As a catalogue of Japanese aggression toward gamers, it's clear now that future generations will refer to these advanced cups as a deeply scandalous exhibit.  I have seen a Goddamn ninja weave a dark circle, disappear with a burst of leaves in some strictly Hattori Hanzo type shit, and then phase back into the physical plane to haunt our mortal hoops.
403771
Gabe: There is some really nice HD footage from PAX available over at gametrailers.com now. They have a pretty slick behind the scenes look at how the show comes together as well as an interview with Gaybe and Tykoh from Pennies Arcadez!
680883
Blog: Microsoft and Namco Bandai are launching a 'Pac-Man' game for the Xbox 360.
31441
"Come Out and Play Festival" to bring together out-of-the-box designers, techno-philosophers and utopian free spirits. Oh, and gamers too. Photos: Playing PacManhattan
475664
I played two seasons of Little League in Queens under a cigar-chomping manager named Morty Silver. My sole distinction was winning a trophy for Best Sport, which Morty gave me for crying the least after striking out. The only other thing I remember were the scoreboards at the better fields: They were all bulbs in the days before monster television ...
661003
Gabe: I just have some random stuff to share here.Pokemon League night is next Tuesday at the Comic Stop. Matches start at six pm, but you can show up a little early if you'd like to trade cards. As always new players are welcome, just bring a starter deck. It's also a good idea to register at Go-Pokemon.com and bring your POP ID. A reader wrote in today to tell me that he was doing the New York Times crossword puzzle for January 30th and noticed this clue for 12 down:  "Tycho's pal in the webcomic 'Penny Arcade' (4 letters)." That's totally awesome. I'm sure the Force Unleashed will be fine. The time period around the original trilogy is just getting so crowded. Now Vader has a secret apprentice? I mean, it makes sense canonically to me. The Emperor had Mara Jade out there doing his dirty work. It's not unreasonable to think Vader had a similar arrangement. Also the very nature of Sith rule makes covering your ass a necessity. The hook for the game is fine and I don't mind the 3rd person action stuff. There are a few games I'd much rather see them make though. The fact that they have not made a sequel to Republic Commando is fucking criminal. That's not a joke either. I mean that someone over there should be put in jail for the rest of their life. RepCom was an incredible squad based shooter, and unlike most games in that genre it was packed with awesome characters. This games deserves a next gen sequel. The other game that needs a next gen installment is Tie Fighter. Seriously that game came out in 1994 and it's one of the best space shooters ever. And for fucks sake stop setting things during the movies. There's nearly sixty years worth of incredible content (minus the dark nest series) extending out past Return of the Jedi. You don't have to keep trying to cram stories into the same 20 year period. They're milking so much content out of that period that eventually we'll be playing a game as Luke where the goal is to repair vaporators on the south ridge. Hurry up you've only got 'till mid day!Rez is available on Xbox Live now. It's one of the best games ever made.   The most popular piece of clothing we've ever made, AKA The Black Mantle is back in stock. It's joined by its polar opposite, the Luminous Vestments. I have a feeling both will be sold out before I finish typing this.   -Gabe out
708845
Pac Man will be reborn on Microsoft  Corp.'s Xbox Live online service on Wednesday as a final  tribute for designer Toru Iwatani, who is retiring from the $30  billion games industry he helped ignite.
509258
Tycho:  When we were working on our first serious comic project, a comic about angels in high-school that would probably have made us wealthy beyond mortal imaginings, we got into our first real fight about religion.  Shaking with rage, he essentially threw me out of his house.  He called me up a few hours later to play Duke, but still.  We never talked about the comic again.  We try never to discuss anything of substance if we can help it, though we do allow an annual fracas as a gift to one another.  Oh, and here's a Gabe tip:  never end the Lord's Prayer with "Psyche."  Never.
411004
Gabe: The Crash of the Titans demo just landed on Xbox LIVE. I just finished it and I was really impressed. It's a beautiful platformer with some really slick animation and character design. It also does a great job of capturing the feel of the old Crash games. It ends a little abruptly but it definitely sold me on the game.-Gabe out
654794
Fans of classic computer games won't give up their habit without a fight. Some even faithfully remake their favorite games. The legality of the new versions remains murky, but some game creators are awed by the players' dedication. By Jacob Ogles.
253040
Scott Brown brings geeky back with his five Nerd Year's resolutions. Standing while playing Wii, anyone?
719172
Tycho:   The foe revealed, Armadeaddon is now almost complete.  Monday will see the promised epilogue, so at this point you have very nearly survived the ordeal.  We have endeavored these past weeks to reward the true "enthusiast," that man or woman who, brow heavy, has faced such cruel abuse at our hand for the last seven years.  It is apparently our policy to honor such dedication one every decade.    Since it was announced a couple days ago, the revelation that MS would be actively courting the hardcore boardgame player is something I've thought about almost constantly.  It may be that you weren't aware there was such a thing as a hardcore player of boardgames if your last experience with the context was playing Sorry! with your sister when you were eight.  Things have progressed.   There's a million experiences in this space I could use to lure you in, but one company in particular - Days of Wonder has already decided to make electronic variants of their tabletop crack, so they occupy a twilight space between the worlds.  I hope they see an opportunity to take their (already completed!) games over to the 360, or that Microsoft offers them a locked case containing an unspecified amount of untraceable U.S. Currency, because I'd love to see this prescient move by MS turn into a new era.   Days of Wonder makes a game called Shadows Over Camelot that could quickly become a dangerous obsession, obscuring biological realities with a single-minded focus on grails.  Well, grail I guess.  There's just the one.    But it's a completely cooperative boardgame, so every player is working toward the same goals - fighting back invasions, questing, all of it.  Except there might be a traitor in the group, determined by a hidden draw, who tries to derail the effort.  He's not always there, but the potentiality of that nefarious force can create unbelievable social tension.    The gaming table's fixed coordinate in space is its asset and its obstacle - managing space and time is actually the primary challenge of any gaming group, as opposed to banishing necromancers, though that also ranks up there.  Boardgames are so rich in design that, when one of these gets dropped in front of them on Live, I think many gamers will be shocked at their sophistication.    My thumbs hurt.  (CW)TB out.
392058
What do women want? Apparently, the answer is video games about beauty treatments.