by Toku

Was happy to see Toku hasn’t forgotten Eyeless Max n’ friends. It’s been a while.

OK let’s see here, fire up robot radar and analyze: what happened in the past week?

The post-E3 review drew to a close with game critics choosing their nominees for the best games of E3, with Fallout 3, Spore, Little Big Planet and Gears of War 2 doing well. (I’m just going to shrug and forego judging the wisdom of choosing the ‘best’ unreleased games.)

Nintendo got aggressive and sued flashcart makers like R4 for enabling piracy. As CDM points out, this has a special impact on the homebrew music scene, which relies on flashcarts, and which contrasted with the Japanese release of the first commercial DS music title, Korg’s DS-10. And, inevitably, the DS-10 ROM was leaked, so various musicians downloaded it and loaded it onto their flashcarts and used it while waiting for their legal, Japanese import to arrive.

Comi-con just wrapped up, and I’m still sorting though what went down there, but a highlight seems to be some new Watchmen footage (cam of trailer). There was a Terminator: Salvation panel as well. Oh, and Method Man showed up to promote his comic! Yes, a Method Man comic.

Well…

I am sorry not to get a comic done this week…however, because of this there is going to be some crazy exciting stuff ready for you in the future. I have been drawing an average of 8 hours a day to make some nifty new stuff…and you will eventually see it.

So, the marathon didn’t scare me off Grand Theft Auto…in fact I’ve been on and off San Andreas again…not alot because of the aforementioned business, but for the odd hour here and there.

Will there be something awesome here next week?

You bet your sweet ass.

Well, the fine folks here at Angry Robot may well be insane. This week, and I can not remember who’s brilliant plan it was (not mine), we decided to play through all of the Grand Theft Auto Games as a lead up to the release of Grand Theft Auto IV. I don’t want to go into details because we will go into details about it later in the fashion of the Halo Marathon.

Clearly we are suckers for punishment.

Strangely enough, I am not sick of them. In fact, this has only reminded me of how much I love the games and has made me want to run home and play them… right now! I love San Andreas… I Love BMXing, I Love hanging with my homies (regardless of the fact that if I used that term out side of the digital-world I would have my skinny ass handed to me on a silver platter), I love Cruising the San Andreas countryside on a motorbike, I love flying planes and crashing trains…

I don’t like the dating mini-games… but whatever.

To those who believe that these games instill violence I scoff at you and highly recommend that you go back under your rock and rot and not buy the games for your kids instead of bitching about it and making your kids want to play it more by reminding them of it’s taboo. When I play the GTA (NAMBLA) games I come off more mellow than I could ever wish for. It’s like a cool beer after a long hot day… complete and utter satisfaction.

Don’t Harsh my mellow… or my Mane…

Well… this week I was feeling particularly cranky, so I decided to make Eyeless Max so very wrong in so many ways. Any problems with that? Well… shaddup…

So I unburied Crackdown this week in order to play it with D…

We discovered a few wonderful things you can do with co-op mode:

A) Car Surfing: Evidently wind plays no factor in the Crackdown world because while your partner drives you can easily surf atop a vehicle like you are wearing magnetic boots… You can also target the gas tanks of passing cars and, if your firearms skill in high enough, explode cars with a single shot. This is REALLY handy for dealing with cars full of gang members without having to get out and get shot up.

B) Orb Collecting: This isn’t really anymore useful in two player mode, but the extra set of eyes never hurts… you both collected your own orbs so they can’t be stolen from you, which is also pretty neat.

c) Random Road Races: Well, it doesn’t really help progress you in the game… in fact, if anything the pedestrians you will in no doubt slaughter on the way will only HURT your skill…. but it’s so damn FUN!!!

That’s not alot…
but I’m sure D has a few to add…
D?

Lousy little rat…. ruining television for an entire generation….

So, This week was an interesting week.

Last tuesday I bit down on an almond and chipped a tooth. Let me tell you the story: Five years ago the roots in one of my molars up and died. according to the dentist there was no real reason for it… it just did. I had to have a root canal and my tooth was filled. Two years ago I was eating a piece of black licorice and my root canal broke, taking with it a piece of the tooth behind it. So I had to have the old root canal filled and the newly damaged tooth filled. NOW I get to have ANOTHER root canal and two crowns put in.

All that said… I actually take care of my teeth because every single nightmare I’ve had over the last 5 years involve losing teeth.

The past weekend was also interesting. Nadine and I went to Ad Astra, the book convention. I was honoured to share a beer with a number of authors I hold great respect for and even presented the chance to draw many of them in comic form in an upcoming, top secret project.

So… I’ve taken a week break from Eyeless Max in order to horrify our readers with a drawn representation of my naked body. Not even steel wool will be able to scrub that one out of your brain.

D and I have been going Halo nuts. D has been even analyzing past matches to find our weak points. So let me sum up what we’ve been doing in our matches:

We are sub-par Halo players. We are far from the best on the net, but we aren’t terrible… no random blind shooting in the hope of hitting things. We have been mysteriously winning most of our matches, however. How? well… Any combination of D, Rugatu, Leto, Nadine, Duiker, (and a few others that I’ve most likely forgotten) go online as a team and talk to each other rapidly. We’ve found that we actually fare pretty well against people who would normally have us dead to rights by just sticking together, covering each others asses, and holing up when things are tight…

Some recommendations…
a) Bubble shields are your friends: Plug up small entrances with ‘em… prevent your enemies from making long distance kills by forcing them to come to you.

b) Keep your distance: Guru players love instant kills with shotguns, hammers, and beatdowns… they wait around corners and don’t move so they don’t show up on the radar, so tread carefully and remember… your battle rifle is an amazing tool for taking them down without getting close… Aim for the head…

c) Go in twos. This way you can cover entrances easier, bump off weakened enemies who just pegged your pal, and move with relative safety.

d) Go for the bigguns: Learn the maps on your own and where the heavy hitting weapons are. If enemies learn that all you use is a rocket launcher they’ll think of you as a threat and find a way to kill you… but if you use it randomly and sparingly enough you can really throw people off balance. Show them you have the power but not the ego to abuse it. keep them guessing…

e) Jayne’s favorite toy: Grenades! that’s right…. they’re everywhere… when in doubt… toss a grenade. They keep your enemy mobile and prevents campers, they flush out corners and corridors, they cause you enemies attention to briefly go elsewhere… they are a fantastic tool. And it’s a great surprise for the asshole hiding in the dark with a Grav Hammer.

f) Finally: Talk… give your pals a running commentary of where you are and what you see. Information is the key… use it.

That’s it kids…. have a good one

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Check this site out. It lets you create your own comics. So far I’ve only tried the character creator, but it’s extremely easy to use. I had Burpin’ Moses there in a couple minutes. Look out, Eyeless Max and other people saddled with the now-useless ability to draw! And congrats to Ba and pals for building a pretty incredible site and getting nominated for a SXSW Web Award.

UPDATE: OK, so it’s one of those in-beta, need-invite things. If you’re interested in taking a look, send me a message and your email via the contact form.

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He went, he saw stuff, he talked about other stuff.

I kinda stopped paying attention to him a while back but thought I’d check if he was doing anything cool lately.

This is more of a round-up of the year’s big games and bright achievements but I do so like to hear his opinions and witty phrases.

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Remember Dark Castle? I sure do. Well, you can play it in OS X now. Awesome.

Superheroes in Real Life, aka comic book fans whose membrane between real and make-believe shriveled up in a jaw-dropping way. Awesome. (via Z)

And via Penny Arcade:

Awesome doesn’t really do it justice.

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Damn you, Mass Effect. Damn you for everything you arte going to do to me. For all those hours you are going to steal from my life, for making me listen to your droning Codex for hours in fascination…

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I was told that Assassin’s Creed was repetitive and so I started the game with a lot of scepticism. I also hate hype and tend to hate things with hype.

However…

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So I sit here charged with the heavy task of reviewing the new Halo comic title. Like many, I waited for the midnight release of Halo 3 so that Nadine, D and I could run home like a gaggle of ADD kids on crack and play it through hopped up cola till the wee hours of the morning. Through the wonder of XBOX live, we played the co-op campaign, swearing like sailors while Flood pods rained down on us.

It was wonderful…

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