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• How Deep Are You Into Fandom?

  Being an introvert, mildly clausterphobic and mostly useless, I do not participate in conventions very often. But every year I schlep down to Otakon in Baltimore and enjoy myself with many good friends, only half of which are imaginary. I eat sushi, I indulge in anime and manga and I talk to Peter Beagle, the bestest author in the whole wide world (for the non-book snobs among us, he wrote The Last Unicorn). E3 is more of a press-related event now, but during its heydey it could definitely be considered the king of gamers' conventions. E for All and Penny Arcade's PAX are even more accessible than E3 ever was, bringing nerd culture to the west coast for a couple of intense weekends. Conventions are truly unique experiences: they bring together food, friends and gobs of people who share similar interests. Conventions stir up emotions you'll never experience elsewhere and they usually stir up unique diseases as well. I remember at E3 2006 I caught a horrific case of laryngitis, an affliction I've never dealt with before. It was a lot of fun because I was working a part-time retail job at the time and my voice horrified customers and I got sent home. Read More... Posted Aug 05 2008, 03:29 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: penny arcade, e3, fans, e for all, otakon, pax, conventions, fandom

• Penny Arcade Sums Up E3

  Penny Arcade is pretty good at expressing its game-related displeasure without resorting to millions of words. Abracadabra: Gabe and Tycho have done it once again, summing up this year's impotent E3 in a manner that made me laugh out loud in a very quiet library (it's air-conditioned in here, unlike my apartment). Applause all around. How are you doing with this year's E3, anyway? I can't say I've met too many people who are thrilled with what's being offered; the Chosen Ones for the Big Three are mostly going up on stage to talk about sales and statistics. Big titles? Shocking drama? Aside from the news about Square-Enix jumping from the deck of the S.S. Sony Exclusive, 2008's E3 has been a lullaby. On the other hand, we knew E3 had become the bloated whore of a digital Babylon by the time it finally deflated in 2006. E3 is no longer about glitz and thumping music and booth babes in spaghetti-strap Ubisoft tops. It is supposed to be about statistics and numbers and other dry matters. Just because Nintendo didn't reveal anything particularly interesting this year doesn't mean we'll be waiting another year for something worthwhile; there's no reason for companies to save their big announcements for E3 anymore. It'll take some getting used to, but eventually we'll all be comfortable with that fact. Read More... Posted Jul 16 2008, 10:00 AM by Nadia Oxford with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: nintendo, penny arcade, webcomics, e3, reggie fils aime, gabe, tycho, statistics

• Yahtzee and the Webcomics Plague

  Yahtzee, possibly the only game reviewer capable of out-talking a five-year-old with a new Poekmon game, recently made clear his feelings about gaming webcomics. To give you the five-cent summary, Yahtzee believes that video game webcomics are the putrid nesting grounds of wannabes and hacks. What do you think, class? Personally, while I have no love for the webcomic that served as the primary target for Mr Yahtzee's rant (Ctrl+Alt+Del), I bear little ill will to webcomics in general. There's a popular opinion going around this here Internets stating that only kings and God should be allowed to produce creative work because humanity is generally not very good at anything. I don't think that's the case. Read More... Posted Jul 03 2008, 10:35 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: penny arcade, yahtzee, zero punctuation, webcomics, art, rant, writing, creativity, ctrl+alt+del, internet

• Webcomic Watch: Eegra

  Videogame-themed webcomics are a mixed (and dizzyingly numerous) bunch; for every Penny Arcade, there're a few hundred semi-comedic fan-fictions stapled together from sprite sheets and MS Paint doodles. It's always a relief to find something with some genuine craft put into it. The relatively new Eegra's got craft in spades — artist Patrick Alexander deploys an impressive range of visual styles — but it's also got a glorious mix of old-timey wordplay and visual grotesquerie. Read More... Posted May 23 2008, 01:00 PM by Peter Smith with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: pac-man, peter smith, penny arcade, mario, patrick alexander, soul calibur, webcomics, eegra

• Brainy Gamer Asks the Ever-Present Question: Can’t We All Just Get Along?

  While admitting this risks damaging my “cred”, I do not game that much online. Indeed, my experience with online multi-player is limited to only a handful of games like Mario Kart DS (which I quickly abandoned due to rather egregious cheating) and a very brief stint in World of Warcraft (once I got to more populated areas of the game, my aging G4 PowerBook just couldn’t keep up. I got lucky.) That said, like so many others, I’ve played a lot of Halo 3 online. In general, the random people I’ve played with have been alright; not offensive but not people I’ll become bosom buddies with. Playing online is like hanging out with any group of strangers: it’s civil and awkward. On heavily populated nights though, when Microsoft’s servers strain under the weight of hundreds of thousands of players, that’s when you get a taste of the horrific behavior that keep many people from playing online at all. Racist, moronic, misogynistic rambling from a multitude of pubescent men with no sense of irony, humor, or decorum. No description, no recording can do it justice, you have to experience this sort of dumb hostility yourself to truly understand it. Though you don’t have to play online to witness it at work in the community. Just look at the Kotaku comments section during last year’s Resident Evil 5 debacle. Angela from Lesbian Gamers and Michael from Brainy Gamer have written up an essay that succinctly states the problem and elegantly asks what’s to be done about it if discourse on games is going to grow. Read More... Posted May 14 2008, 11:00 AM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, lesbian gamers, penny arcade, world of warcraft, level up, brainy gamer, mario kart, halo 3, ngai croal