Michael Jordan was the greatest basketball player of all time. Fact. He also hasn’t appeared in a basketball game in quite some time. So gamers should be enamored that 2K Sports isn’t taking his license lightly. With NBA 2K11, they have crafted not only a basketball game good enough to scare off the competition, but also a mode that forces gamers to recreate some of Jordan’s most memorable career moments. A fantastic gift for any basketball fan. The PS3 version also features optional Move support. (more…)
Title: The Splendid Magic of Penny Arcade (The 11½ Anniversary Edition)
Publisher: Del Rey, Ballantine Books
Commentary by: Mike Krahulik, Jerry Holkins, Chris Baker, Kristin Lindsay, Robert Khoo, Kiko Villaseñor
Review by: Bill Jones
For the video game fanatic, Penny Arcade’s Tycho and Gabe (or Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik) have been the go-to commentators for more than a decade. The duo started posting webcomics (or as they somewhat coldly refer to them as, jpegs) in 1998, at the same time satirizing and displaying their undying love for the gaming medium in often brilliant three-panel work that has become a standard for webcomic publishing. They’ve never shied away from any topic (or person), and while busy capturing the attention of gamers with their sense of humor, they’ve also managed to start a children’s charity and two gaming fan expos.
The Splendid Magic of Penny Arcade sees them working with the publisher of their webcomic collections, Del Rey, to produce a retrospective of the last 11½ years, or as anyone who slips off the dustcover will find it referred to, “nearly 12 years of bullshit.” (more…)
So one of the requests we had with our recent survey to readers was video content, specifically showing readers/viewers events we attend, so that someone who didn’t get a chance to attend PAX East might be able to glean some of the joy we had traveling out to Boston for the mega-community expo. Or at the very least, they’ll have a chance to see what it was like. So what better way to start our series of PAX East coverage than by offering unedited the press Q&A conducted by Penny Arcade creators Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik (Tycho and Gabe) Sunday, March 28, 2010, at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, Mass. It was a press-only event, so only a handful of people were actually in the room, but we had the chance to ask a few questions, hear the responses to more, and most importantly for our readers, record it all.
Tycho and Gabe start by talking about the inaugural PAX East, including a great story about someone dressed as the Left 4 Dead Witch. But the duo also strays to the differences between “lesbian” and “gay,” the fate of their video game series On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness and what it was like to reflect on nearly 12 years for their latest book, a retrospective. The audio has the tone of microphones in a huge auditorium, as we did not have a direct feed to the audio from their mics, but we tried to make sure all the questions and responses were clear. Just turn the volume up a bit, and enjoy!
Also, on a small personal note, we really enjoy what these guys do, from the comic, to the Child’s Play charity, to the community expos, to gaming. We think you should go give them a good rating on TIME’s “100 Poll.”
Title: Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Episode 2
Platform: XBLA (Also PC, PSN)
ESRB Rating: M
Publisher: Microsoft
Developer: Hothead Games
Rating:
Review by: Bill Jones
The first episode in the Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness series was an all-around hit. The gameplay wasn’t anything players hadn’t seen before – a fairly standard turn-based, three-character, real-time role-playing game – but it was about as solid as it gets in its simplified form. And let’s face it – very few people are likely playing Penny Arcade Adventures for the gameplay itself. (more…)
Penny Arcade announced this week it is accepting applications for its annual scholarship for the 2009-10 academic year. The $10,000 scholarship is to be awarded to a “qualifying applicant intending to make a positive impact in the game industry.”
Interested parties must inclue a two-age essay, two letters of recommendation and academic transcripts. Submissions must be received by June 15.
Musical acts for Penny Arcade Expo 2009 to be held Sept. 4 through Sept. 6 in Seattle were announced yesterday. Freezepop, Jonathan Coulton, MC Frontalot, Anamanaguchi, Paul and Storm, and Metroid Metal are scheduled to play the event. Metroid Metal will also offer a new studio “best of” album exclusive to PAX, according to the release.
Pre-registration for the event closes Aug. 15 if it doesn’t sell out first. More than 60,000 people are expected to attend the event, which is said to have more than 60 exhibitors.
Making comics is pretty easy if you ask me (not really), but making a comic-cookie? That’s a whole new ball game.
Penny Arcade has been doing an annual dickerdoodles contest. I think the idea is self-explanatory, but I took it in a different direction last year and created a pastry in the likeness of a different kind of dick – one Jack Thompson. I used the Penny Arcade comic as inspiration.
I thought I’d share the photos with our readers. To the right is me with the finished product, and below is a “making of” strip. The video-game hating fear-monger was made from sugar cookie and then decorative frosting. The hardest part was cutting out the shape, finding that when I baked it the shape didn’t hold, and then cutting again. (more…)
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Platform: XBLA (Also PC, PSN)
Making comics is pretty easy if you ask me (not really), but making a comic-cookie? That’s a whole new ball game.