New ROM comic today. And take a look at the donation bar. Haven't reached a goal for this month yet but overall donation counter hit $50 which means you guys are gonna get part one of Josiah's Sprite Comic Guide. Considering how many questions I get asked about how to make sprite comics I think you guys will find the guide pretty useful. Anyway, I'll get it done sometime over the next few weeks.

So, still working on finals. Nearly done with my art project, which is good. I've been working on it for like two weeks. I'm getting callous on my finger from smearing all that charcoal though. Anyway, for the most part I'm really happy with the project (which is good). Not totally sold on the face though. I tried doing it a bit differently than how I normally do faces and it didn't quite end up like I thought it would. Still, it's not bad, just not what I was going for. Anyway, I'll put up a picture when I'm done.

Well, back to work. See you friday.

Josiah

Hi all. As usual, friday's bonus comic is up (and has been since friday) and there's a new ROM too. Also, friday is Pebble Version's 3rd anniversary. I'll be doing my usual thing and talking about the comic and all that. Probably won't have time to do anything fancy though, too much school work.

Speaking of school work, it's going to be keeping me pretty busy through monday. I did take a little time to play Guild Wars over the weekend since there were double loot drops in the elite missions. The elite missions were also accessable to just about everyone. While it's nice to give more people a chance to access them, some players are just total morons. Which can make forming a party a pain in the ass. See, first off you have to find enough people to make a full party before you start the mission. As any experienced (and many not so experienced) players know, filling a large party can take a while simetimes. Healers especially can take a while to fine. Some people however don't seem to get this. They'll join a party then, if the part isn't full within about two minutes they'll drop. Aside from being extremely annoying, this behavior doesn't help the droppers out much either. What're they gonna do? Join another party, wait for a couple minutes, and drop again? They're never gonna get to do the mission that way. But, as annoying as that is, it's nothing compared to the people who drop during the mission. Elite missions are 'elite' for a reason. They're really hard and it's quite common for people to die from time to time, that's what revival skills are for. Some people, however, will drop the mission as soon as one or two people die. I mean come on, if a few people die it's not a big deal. They can be revived. If most of the party is dead that's one thing, although it's still really bad MMO manners to drop mid mission. And it gets worse. Once one person drops some other guy will decide that he doesn't want to be in a party that's short a member and drop as well (even though some of the best parties I've been a part of have been short a member or two). And once that second guy drops more and more guys start dropping until you're missing half your party and pretty much screwed. It's so freaking annoying. People have no manners these days, especially online.

Well, I have to get back to work. See you wednesday.

Josiah

The new voters' bonus comic is up and all you have to do to see it is click on the Top Web Comics banner or button and confirm your vote. There's a new ROM too. Speaking of which, jumping kicks like that look really cool in comics and on TV don't they? If you ever feel like doing something like that in real life though be careful, unless you really know what you're doing there's a good chance you'll hurt yourself a lot more than whatever you're kicking. And, even if you do know enough martial arts to keep your balance and get the landing right after hitting your target, it's really easy for someone with quick hands to grab your leg and flip you on your back.

Guess what next friday is. Give up? It's Pebble Version's 3 year anniversary! More on that next week.

So, one more week of classes to go (plus a couple more day of tests) till my all too short break before fall semester. As usual, that means I got lots of homework and projects and stuff to do. Although this time isn't as bad as some of my past semesters, it's still busy as stressful, as usual. I'll talk more another time.

Josiah

The new ROM is up.

So, August huh? Gee time sure flies sometimes... I've got finals coming up in the not too distant future and that's certainly keeping me busy. But I still got a couple weeks till break and the fall semester starts in just over a month. Sigh... Speaking of August, Pebble Version's three year anniversary is coming up on the 11th...

So, heard about E3 yet? In short, it's being completely redone for 2007 and is turning into more of a small convention than an expo (complete with a name change). Although they haven't finished planning things out, the direction they're going in a sort of invitation only thing where companys give small demostrations of their games to media and big store buyers. On the one hand, it'll make things a heck of a lot easier for the gaming press and will save game companies a small fortune on staff, accomadations, displays, and the like. On the other hand, it's sorta the end of an era. Yeah it was kinda over the top and yeah too many people who shouldn't have been there managed to sneak in but still... Although it was totally insane, it had a certain something to it as well. The energy, the excitement... Without those generating the same media buzz could be pretty difficult. When it comes down to it, it's too early to say if this'll be a good thing or bad thing for the game industry. It'll take a year or two to be sure. Either way, I'm certainly gonna miss the old E3 and I'm really glad I got to go the last couple of times.

A tip for any DDR fans out there, Gamestop is selling Red Octane Ignition version 3 pads for only $60. That's a great price for what is probably the best foam pad out there. I just got one to replace my old Ignition version 2, which was beginning to wear out after two years of fairly heavy use. The response and accuracy are spot on and now that it has a USB connection built in (along with PS and Xbox) I can play Stepmania without bothering with an adapter. Anyway, it's an awesome pad and it's really cheap at Gamestop (well, really cheap for that type of pad).

Josiah

New ROM today. And, naturally, friday's bonus comic is up for everyone who votes.

Well, the three day weekend was nice. Would have been even nicer if I didn't have so much Japanese homework that I had to do but it is getting kinda close to finals so I guess that type of stuff is unavoidable. I spent some time on Guild Wars too. The new job classes for Nightfall (Dervish and Paragon) are certainly going to be interesting additions to the game. Unfortunately, you were pretty limited to the builds you could use during the preview (unless you had tons of spare faction points to unlock stuff) so it was a little hard to get a good feel for them. Especially if you were just playing around in the random PVP areas like I was. The prebuilt builds just weren't made for random four man teams. Especially when the random arenas were stuffed full with people trying out said new builds. Still, it was fun.

Well, that's it for now. See you wednesday.

Josiah

Just in case you don't remember by now (or you're new) since it's friday there's a new bonus comic for everyone who votes for Pebble Version on Top Web Comics and a new ROM comic. Speaking of ROM, the cast page is currently being updated. It's not done yet (as in, I don't have time right now to put in all the new info Shauni sent me but the first three or so entries as done) but since my entry has been updated I figured I might as well comment on that. Keep in mind, these are just comments. Shauni is the one writing the comic and it's only loosely based on the RP and even less so on real life, so Shauni is perfectly free to play around with the characters, within reason of course. I have no problem with the changes she made, these are just my observations. Anyway, seems my character doesn't know karate anymore. I guess that's cause she's trying to make martial arts Jeff's thing. 'Lacks focus' huh? Actually I'm pretty focused in real life. I can be a bit lazy at times but if something needs to be done I do it. That's an interesting quote... Who is Bagpuss anyway? Yu-Gi-Oh regional champion huh? Gee, I wish. I have won a couple tournaments before (and placed highly in a couple others) but never a regional. Actually, I've never competed in a regional, they always seem to get scheduled on days that I can't go.

I get friday off from school this week since the campus is closed for an in service day. However, that means I won't be able to work on the 3D model I'm doing for my game design project. And it's not like I don't have other things to work on. I got this whole life sized self portrait project that needs a ton of work plus I've got around 12 pages of Japanese homework (plus a take home test) that needs to be done by monday. Not that I'm going to spend all my time working, not with a special preview of Guild Wars Nightfall going on...

I ended up with a copy of Nintendogs a few days ago. Not exactly top on my list of DS games to get but I've always been kinda curious about it and a guy from school was selling his copy for really cheap so I figured what the heck. It's certainly interesting. The AI is good and it's fun in short spurts, which is basically how it's meant to be played. Not sure how long it'll hold my interest but, it's not like I'm gonna get a real dog any time soon. More on the game after I've spent more time on it.

Josiah

New ROM today.

I feel like talking about random stuff today. So, here goes. It's raining, pretty hard too. About time really, it's been threatening for the last week or two. Too bad it's only raining at night. I can't wait till friday, it'll be nice to have a day off from school even if I do have a bunch of stuff to work on. I've been trying to advance my characters a lot in Guild Wars Factions lately (something that I've been neglecting a bit due to a combination of school, other games, and time spent trying to sell off my collection of weapon upgrades in GW instead of actually advancing in the game. Well, I got slowed down a bit by a buggy graphics driver and the fact that I'm trying to finish some other games, but it shouldn't take me too much longer to reach the end at this rate. I've also started playing Pokémon Ruby again. Since Diamond and Pearl are supposed to allow pokémon transfers from the GBA games (at least that's what Nintendo Power says) I figured this would be a good time to finish up my Pokédex. I did it in Red and Gold, I can do it again. I just got distracted by other games last time, and annoyed that I couldn't import my collection from Gold. It shouldn't take that long, I don't need that many more...

So, why do bad guys in movies and stuff always play the pipe organ? I mean sure, villians need hobbies too, but why the pipe organ. What's wrong with a villian or plays the trombone or maybe the accordian? I should have a villian that plays the accordian in one of my stories, that'd be amusing...

Josiah

Friday's voters' bonus comic has been up since, well friday, in case you haven't seen it yet. Also, if you want to vote for Pebble Version in the DrShnaps Sprite Comic Awards you can do that here. Also, there's a new ROM.

I'm watching a really weird Japanese movie right now. It's one of those low budget 'guy in rubber suit' movies that seem to never really go out of style over there. It's not a style I watch much of but my dad likes to watch weird movies every once in a while and gave me the DVD once he finished it. Anyway, the movie is called The Calamari Wrestler. It's about this giant squid that's really the reincarnation of a former rising star of Japanese pro wrestling who has came back to claim the championship that he didn't get a chance at the first time. Certianly weird although, after watching Kinikuman (aka Ultimate Muscle), an amusing wrestling anime involving aliens, monsters, and animals (just to name a few of the more normal things), I'm rather used to strange wrestling matches.

Well, I'll see you wednesday.

Josiah

As usual, there's a new voter's bonus comic and a new ROM today. Also, I stumbled across this completely by accident but it turns out that Pebble Version was nominated for the Best Videogame Storyline Comic in DrSchnaps Sprite Comic Awards. If you want to vote in the awards you can do so here. There's lots of other good comics nominated for other catagories too.

And that's all I have to say today. I picked up Phantom, the newest Sword of Truth book monday. It's one of my favorite series and I've been waiting for this book for quite a while. However, I didn't have time to start reading it until yesterday. It's really good so far so I'm just gonna go read some more. Later!

Josiah

New ROM today. And, if you've got some extra cash, Pebble Version only needs another $15 to reach the first donation goal this month. If the goal is reached then next month you guys get commentary on a bunch of old strips and the next chapter of ROM The Novel.

So, what is it with some kids these days? Gee it feels weird saying that, I'm only 21... But seriously, some kids (particularily young teenages from my experience) have got the worst attitudes and social skills (not all kids by any means, I've met lots of nice ones, but enough). Kinda odd considering that between MySpace (which I'm not particuarily fond of), IMs, and cell phones socializing seems to be the current fad. Anyway, for one thing there's the language. I know swearing a big part of the whole rap & 'gansta' style (a fad I'm really sick of) but come on, I've met a lot of people of all ages and none of them swear half as much (or even a tenth as much) as some thirteen year olds I've run into. Is there some contest to see who can fit the most swear words in a single sentence? Do they think it makes them sound tough or mature? In actuallity, it makes them sound immature and kinda dumb. The threats certainly don't help either. I mean come on, cussing out someone and saying how they should watch out because you know where they live? Nothing sounds stupider and more immature than that, especially when it's over some stupid unimportant matter (which it nearly always is) such as someone disagreeing with a post in a forum or beating them in a game. I mean, ok, if you're an international terrorist or a wanted serial murder that's one thing but the threat doesn't mean much coming from a whiny kid who doesn't take well to suggestions and/or criticism (especially when said threat is made on a forum or something like that when people hardly even know each others' real names, much less their home addresses). As most of you probably know, the internet only seems to make this problem worse. I've heard lots of people who refuse to play on-line games (particularily voice chat enabled ones) just because they got sick of listening to kids yelling out curses and racial slurs all the time. Some people like to take advantage of the fact that most people on the internet don't know who you are to say things that would likely earn them a broken nose (or at least a serious talking to) in real life. People like that need to realize that everyone will respect them a heck of a lot more if they'd actually act their age. Cussing and threatening people all the time just makes other people ignore and dislike you. Of course, parents could certainly help curb this problem as well by paying attention to what their kids say, teaching them which types of behavior are proper and which aren't, and imposing punishments for improper behavior (does anyone really wash their kids' mouthes out with soap like in those old TV shows, I bet that'd make a really big difference).

Well, that's enough ranting for today. See you friday!

Josiah

Top Web Comics was down for part of the weekend but it's working now in case you missed friday's bonus comic. New ROM today too. Hmm... I never did give Magna Carta a full review did I? Well, can't think of anything else to talk about so here goes.

A Korean game, brought over to the US by Atlus, Magna Carta is an epic RPG that has absolutely nothing to do with the real Magna Carta (an important historic document). Unfortunately, there were times when I thought that I game about the real Magna Carta would probably be more fun.
Graphics: This one is a mixed bag. The character designs are certainly interesting although a lot of their outfits border on ridiculous and more often than not the girls' chests are bigger than their heads. In game, the environments look pretty nice as do the main characters. However, the not so important characters look pretty bad, especially when they have to talk or do much of anything that requires animation. The monsters are very nicely done although they often look rather out of place in my opinion. There's also little potraits of characters that show up along with their dialogue boxes for the cutscenes that don't have voice overs. Unfortunately, the potraits are completely static, as are the characters. The majority of cutscenes merely freeze the screen and pop up some dialogue boxes. Pretty lame.
Sound: Music is nice, nothing really memorable though. The sound effects work although, in retrospect, don't always sound realistic. The voice overs... Well, normally I'm complain that not enough of the cutscenes have voice overs but considering how bad most of the voice actors are it's probably for the best. A handful are ok but over all the voice work is pretty bad. Heck, I could probably grab some random people off the street and do a better job. They probably should have kept the Korean voices.
Story: Two races, the humans and the Yason (who look like humans with weird ears) has been at war for pretty much as long as they can remember. Calintz, the main character, is the leader of the Tears of Blood, a human mercenary group that often works with the human army. In the aftermath of a failed operation, he comes across Reith, a mysterious girl who lost her memory. Soon Calintz and friends are traveling all across the land trying to help Reith recover her memory and also find The Light of Salvation which acts as a key to the ultimate power, the Magna Carta. Naturally, the Yason are after both Reith and the Light of Salvation. The story starts out midly interesting, goes almost nowhere for the first 18 hours of gameplay or so, then finally starts to get interesting and features some pretty decent plot twists towards the end. However, you're going to have to suffer through quite a lot of boredom before you get there.
Gameplay: Magna Carta tries to do something different with the traditional RPG system. It's a neat idea but fails miserably in execution. You gain EXP points and level up like normal. You also use money to buy better equipment for your characters. Standard stuff. In battle, you have a three man party. Both the player team and the enemy team have a leadership guage that determines which team gets to act next. The more your party members trust their leader the more often you get to move (you can increase trust by choosing the right dialogue in conversations of giving gifts, unfortunately, it always resets to the default level before long). Whichever team has more healthy characters also gets more actions and that poses a problem. If one or more of your characters is KO'd or paralyzed the enemy gets a huge advantage, making it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to recover from a bad situation. Of course, it goes that way for the enemies too but still... You can also move freely in battle, although your leadership guage doesn't charage while you're moving. Also, characters don't get individual turns, your part gets turns. So basicly, you're controlling one guy and the other two just stand there doing absolutely nothing until you decide to switch control to another character (which you usually won't). Also, enemy AI is absolutely pathetic. Basically, in pretty much every battle you move your strongest guy to the front to tank (since enemies are too stupid to walk around people and just attack the closest guy) and either have him attack or have one of your guys in the back blast the enemies with magic and maybe heal once in a while until the battle is over. Now, character don't just attack. They learn different fighting styles throughout the game (both in events and by challenging dojos). When you attack or cast a spell a ring appears and you have to correctly press a timed 3 button sequence. Screw it up and you fail your attack, lose your turn, go back to the weakest attack of your current style, and reset your trinity drive (a guage you charge with perfectly done attacks than can be used to deal extra damage from time to time). Fortunately, the sequences are pretty easy once you get the hang of it. For each style you start out with only one move and then have a chance of learning the next one each time your perfectly time all you button presses. Styles can have between 2 and 7 moves. In battle you progress through them until you hit the highest one (ie. turn one you use the first attack, turn two you use the second attack, turn three you use the final third attack which you'll keep using unless you screw up the button sequence). You can switch styles mid battle but unfortunately, you can't go back and use moves you've already passed in the sequence (highly annoying at times). Some styles also have counter or combo modes. Combo mode has you inputting a much longer and faster button combo to do a stronger super attack. However, using combo mode drastically reduces your defense and is often suicidal. In counter mode you wait for the enemy to attack then try to guess their button sequence. Get it right and you cancel their attack and do tons of damage. Get it wrong and you'll be taking lots of damage (and probably die). Problem is, it's often nearly impossible to tell what button sequence the enemy is using, making counter nearly useless aside from a handful fo situations where you pretty much have to use it. Then there's chi. Basically there's eight elements of chi and each attack is tied to a specific element. Each area in the game has different amounts of the various types of chi (for example the fire cave has lots of fire, a little lightning, and not much else) and you can modify this somewhat by finding the chi lanturns in the area. Each time you or the enemy attacks the corrosponding chi is depleted by a set amount. If an element of chi is used too much in one battle it's attacks will go weaker or it may run out entirely, leaving you unable to use any attacks of that element (a restriction that doesn't apply to enemies). While this sounds nice and strategic, it's really very annoying. Aside from that fact that enemies can cheat and attack without chi, most dungeons have a chi set that seems designed to prevent you from effectively using any fighting style (most styles use moves of two chi types and since you can't go back to previous moves if the one you're currently on runs out of chi, you're screwed). Also, on average the monsters in a dungeon are highly resistant to whatever chi types are readily available in that environment, which makes sense but leads to really annoying and boring battles (specially since there's very few different types of enemies in the game). Although you can use items to increase different chi types for a single battle, that gets expensive quickly and the all important elemental lanturns are usually buried too far into the dungeons to do much good. You may enjoy the battles for the first few hours but they'll quickly become a chore, especially since the game loves making you back track through areas you've already cleared multiple times.
As far as exploration goes, the game is highly linear and often won't even let you go the wrong way. And, aside from challenging dojos along the way to learn more fighting styles, there's virtually no sub-quests. As I said before, prepare to do a lot of backtracking and pointless fetch quests. Not to mention have to do dumb things just for the heck of it (like when all the character made a big deal about going into Calintz's private office to discuss important stuff for their upcoming mission so I have to go to his office just to hear them say that the volcano area I'm about to go to will probably be hot).
On a final note, although this isn't that important there's way too many boss battles where you kick the boss's ass in the fight only to see the characters freaking out about how they can't win the cutscene afterwards and then running away (you have to fight several bosses many many times).
Overall: Magna Carta wants to compete with Final Fantasy but it's got a long way to go. The story does get pretty good late in the game but it's not really worth slogging through the extremely boring battles, horrible voice acting, and incessent backtracking (not to mention the 18 hours or so where the story goes absolutely nowhere) to get there. So, despite a couple of high points, I really can't recommend Magna Carta where there are so many better games out there.

Josiah

New bonus comic today to get to voting. New ROM too.

Hmm, I honestly can't think of anything to say. Guess it's just one of those days. Well, have a good weekend everyone. I'll see you on monday.

Josiah

Well, there is a new ROM comic today and of course there's today's Pebble Version strip... So maybe 'nothing new' isn't quite the right phrase.

Anyway, nothing really new as far as I'm concerned. Things have pretty much calmed down and returned to normal here so I'm just going through my usual routine. School, homework, reading, games, internet, exercise, writing, that pretty much sums it up. I finally got the rest of the Symphony of Ages series. I read the first one over my last break and got hooked pretty quickly. If you like epic fantasy novels you should take a look. It follows Rhapsody, a young Namer (a type of singer with magical powers) and her unlikely companions the warrior Grunthor, and the assassin Achmed on their journies. Unfortunately, saying just about anything more about the plot would lead to spoilers but the story is really good so far and it has some pretty interesting plot twists. Between that and the new Sword of Truth book coming out soon, I'll definately have plenty of reading material for a while.

See you friday!

Josiah

I updated the Cast page a little and added Steven. Just in case you forgot (or are new), you can click on the Top Web Comics button or banner to vote for Pebble Version and see friday's bonus Pebble Version Blooper Reel comic. Old Blooper Reel comics can be found on the Extras page. You may also want to take a look at the donation guage below this news post. Got $10 so far this month. Remember, if the guage reaches $25 before the end of the month you get a chapter of ROM the Novel and commentary on a bunch of old Pebble Version strips. If the guage reaches $50 you also get five new Pebble Version strips a week for an entire month instead of the usual three. If the guage gets even higher, well you can read about that in the donation info below this post. Also, aside from the monthly bonuses, there's the special bonus that carries over from month to month. Only $10 more to go before the current goal is reached and you get part one of Josiah's Sprite Comic Guide where I talk about how to make a sprite comic. Plus donating helps pay my hosting fees, which is always a good thing.

No ROM today, not really sure why, I just never got the file from Shauni.

I still have that topic I've been wanting to write about since the middle of last week. It's a kinda serious topic and I will get to it eventually, once I'm in the right mood, and figure out how I want to word it. For now, on a completely different topic, Pirates of the Carribean Dead Man's Chest is a great movie. I'd say it's easily as good as the first. The actions was good, the story was decent, it was really funny, the effects were great, and, most importantly, Jack Sparrow is just a really well done character. If you liked the first movie you've got to go see this one. Can't wait for the third next summer.

Josiah

There's a new bonus comic up so vote, vote, vote! New ROM too.

Ah, I had a subject for today's news post picked out and everything but then I got caught up working on some stuff and now I'm running a little behind so it'll have to wait. Oh well, now that my parents are gone and my schedule is back to normal it shouldn't take me too long to get caught up with everything.

So, see you monday!

Josiah

New ROM today, as usual. Also, Pebble Version is off to a slightly slow start on Top Web Comics this month so please vote even if you've already seen this week's bonus comic.

So, as all my US readers no doubt know, yesterday was the 4th of July, aka Independence Day. For any of you from other countries, its a holiday celebrating the time when the US won its independence from Britian and usually involves parties and lots of fireworks. Anyway, I have a couple of things related to that I want to talk about but since I need to get some sleep before my Japanese class, I'll only talk about one of them tonight and save the other for friday.

For now, you get to hear how I spend my 4th of July. My parents were still visiting (they're leaving today) but they went off on their own all morning and about half the afternoon so I had the place to myself. Naturally I did all my usual stuff (exercise, web surfing, etc) and also decided to knuckle down and catch up on my Japanese homework which I'd been neglecting for the last few days. By far though I spent the most time playing Guild Wars. Since it was the last day of the Dragon Festival there was a special event every two hours. I did it four times (although I only wanted masks for three of my characters). Aside from getting nifty dragon masks there was a mini-game of sorts which had everyone running around trying to find Celestial Charges and take them to the appropriate NPC without getting killed by all the monsters running around. By my fourth attempt I was getting pretty good at it, at least when people weren't trying to steal my charges when I had to temporarily drop them to avoid the monsters (come on guys, there were plenty of others that no one had claimed). Assuming the players scored higher than the monsters in the fifteen minute time limit (which really wasn't all that hard) you were treated to a fireworks show and lots of free Festival Prizes that kept popping up throughout the level. A handful of people tried to run around and just grab whatever they saw but that usually didn't work to well so most people just picked a spot, camped it, and grabbed whatever dropped in their spot. In practice this tended to work pretty well. Everyone stayed in their spot so you didn't have to worry about people grabbing all the stuff before you could reach it and everyone ended up with a decent amount of loot. If it dropped in your area it was yours. This also got rid of most of the usual shouting matches over who stole whose drop. Unfortunately, you still had a handful of idiots who liked to run into other peoples' areas and swipe their prizes just to be annoying. And, since it wasn't a combat zone or anything, there really wasn't anything you could do about it besides yelling at them and being fast on your feet. I had a favorit spot that I got all to myself twice, which was nice. Once I split it with another person (which wasn't that bad) and once some guy decided to run in about halfway through and try to steal my stuff (along with some cursing and taunting me for being slow). Annoying, yeah, and I didn't get quite as much loot as I could have but for all his taunting he was the slow one and I ended up with around 80% of the drops. So, although he seemed to enjoy being a general pain, at least I was able to make sure it wasn't worth his while.
I also spent a good chunk of the festival playing the carnival games to get the level 1 lucky and unlucky titles (which involed winning lots of tickets and losing lots of games respectively). Those take a lot of time so the usual method is to just buy a whole bunch of tickets, let your character on one spot in the 9 rings game (one random ring wins big, adjects rings win small and all others lose each round), and go AFK for a while. However, if you do this you steadily lose tickets over time so it ends up costing a lot of money. On the other hand, when I took control myself and randomly moved from ring to ring I had both good and bad streaks but tended to end up ahead sooner or later.

I love fireworks so that evening my mom and I went to a show (one of the many in the area). Unfortunately, in AZ you're not allowed to buy small fireworks and sparklers like you can in many states. But the show we went to was pretty good and, even better, before the show there was a free concert by America. I'm a big fan of classic rock (aka oldies) and despite their age, the group could still sing and play really good so that was a lot of fun. Plus, since the show was at a casino (and since it's the first time I'm been at a casino since turning 21) I tried a few machines. In the end, I lost $3 ($1 on three seperate machines) but I managed to make a couple of those dollars last for a pretty long time. I could see maybe going there with a $20 some time and trying to last a long time and maybe come out ahead, just for the heck of it, but I'd have to have plenty of money to burn before I'd do something like that. When it comes down to it though, it's not all that different than an arcade. Casino games may not be as fancy as arcade games but they're both designed to take your money (and at a rather quick pace) and in a casino, unlike an arcade, you actually have a chance of leaving with more money that you started with.

Anyway, see you friday!

Josiah

It's a new month so don't forget to vote!

Well, as the title says, I don't have time to say much today. The combination of my parents visiting and the Dragon Festival in Guild Wars have put me a little behind on Pebble Version strips so I'll see you wednesday. Have a great 4th of July!

Josiah

A new voters bonus comic is up and so is a new ROM. Well, I get a few days off from school and I plan to spend the time doing some things with my parents who are visiting from CO and playing Guild Wars (gotta get Dragon Festival masks for my characters). Anyway, Neo Zanther, long time member of the Pebble Version forums, just got through basic training in the air force and asked if I'd post a bit he wrote about his experiences. Well, saves me the trouble of writing a full news post so here it is.

Ney A1C Zanther (not my real last name) here. I just got back from 6.5 weeks of Air Force Basic training. I had some good times and lots of not soo good times. Here's a breakdown of my experence.

I arrived at training at about 11:30 at night. Right away the yelling started and we begain to think why we were here. We proccessed in and after getting to our dorms we were talked to by one of our MTI's (Military Training Instructor). Didn't get to bed til 4:30. Woke up at about 11:30 same morning. That was the start of what is known as 0 week. For the rest of the week we learned how to make our bed correctly, fold/roll our clothing correctly, and learned how to march. We also got issused our fist set of clothing. Not a fun week I might add.

Then came 1st week and puch-ups. The week was maining a week of learning diffrent marches and facing movements and the fun term of Pushing Texas. We had to improve on our clothing to prefection. That was not fun but had to be done. Infact that weekend we did nothing but fold/roll our clothing (and pushed afew times for being too loud).

Then 2nd week. That week we had our first set of major inspections. I passed but afew areas I just bairly sqeeked by. We also started classes. We tried to prefect marching and started pariad practice for graduation.

3rd week started another major inspection. To my dismay I didn't pass one area due to my own stupid falt of closeing my drawer too fast and my clothing moved. More classes and drilling. We also got our dress clothing that day. We had to learn how to put that up too. Our lockers were now getting pretty full of clothing.

Then 4th week or Warrior Week. We went out from the main base and lived in tents, ate MRE's (Meals Ready to Eat) and learned about how to defend ourselfs in a battle. We did the Confindence Course and that was fun. I almost didn't make one part but I pushed myself and successeded. We also did FTX and that sucked. 1/2 mile low/high craw though sand that had rocks and then Hell's Half Mile that consisted of running and ducking for 1/2 mile. Then defending a base ontop of all that. Shoting M-16's was the high point of the week. I got 30 out of 50 points. We also did the gass chamber. Not a fun experence.

5th week was full of tests and classes. We also tested our physical selfs durring that week. Not too much to talk about for that week.

6th week we finally got to wear our Blues after wanting too for so long. After our first day with them we wanted to go back to our BDU's that we had been wearing before. The week consisted of final practices for drill and pariade and proccessing out. My parents showed up on Thurseday to see retreat and I spent afew hours with them. Friday was graduation and town pass with my parents. On Saturday my parents and I went to Sea World. I have to say that was one of the best days of my life. Sunday was base lift and we went bowling and taked some more. Then I had to say goodby to my parents. That wasn't easy as I won't be seeing them again til November. Now I'm here at Tec School for the next 27 weeks

I liked my MTI's for the most part. They were good people. Our main MTI had to leave our 6th week and miss us graduate. Noone was happy about that. Well I'm glad to be done with BMT and hope to have a good time in the Air Force.

Enjoy the weekend!

Josiah

New ROM up.

Well, everything in my new apartment has been sorted out, put in the proper place, hooked up, and all that. Now I can take a nice long break... Well, after I get through all this math homework anyway. Since the 4th of July is coming up soon I get thursday, friday, and tuesday off, but not monday... Whoever decided on that schedule must have been asleep or something. I mean, half the teachers are taking monday off anyway and I'd be surprised if more than a handful of students show up. Meanwhile, my parents are down here visiting. Conveniently (for them) they timed their visit to take place right after I moved into the new apartment so they didn't have to help carry anything. Oh well, they did help unpack everything.

I'll see you friday!

Josiah

As usual, there's a new ROM and this is a great time to vote and see friday's bonus comic.

Well, as you can tell, I have internet access, although I'm not exactly sure why. Hopefully it'll continue until they officially switch over my service. Anyway, a couple of friends and I spent a good chunk of sunday moving my stuff from my old apartment to my new apartment. Same complex, bigger apartment, annoying new carpet smell. Anyway, the move wen fairly smoothly, I don't have a lot of big heavy things. Wouldn't have been too bad if it weren't for the 111 degree temperaturs. Ugh... However, now that's all over and everything has been moved. Unpacking is another matter. Actually, it depends on your definition of unpacked. If unpacked means getting everything out of the boxes, then yeah, I'm pretty much unpacked. However, if unpacked means actually putting everything in its proper place, I've got a long way to go. At present, the majority of stuff is still strewn all over the floor. So much to do... Can't wait for midterm break...

Josiah

There's a new bonus comic so go vote. New ROM too.

So, do you believe in luck? You know, luck with dice, cards, coins, and all that other random stuff. I can't really seem to make up my mind. I mean, when it comes down to it, luck technically shouldn't exist. If you look at it logically, you can reduce all that stuff to a mess of statistics. Coins land on heads 50% of the time, dice roll 6 1/6th of the time, etc, etc... So, when it comes down to it, everything should fall into those odds, more or less. Sure there are bound to be occasional exceptions but, judging by the odds, things shouldn't deviate too far from the base. Seems pretty simple when you look at it like that. Problem is, I've seen too many people consistently defy those odds. There are some people out there who just seem to have a knack for always getting the perfect dice roll or always drawing the right card at the right moment. I suppose you could assume that some of them are cheating although I know plenty of those people well enough to know that's not the case. Plus you also have people (like me in some games) who tend to defy the odds against their favor. You know, the ones who only roll ones and can go through nearly an entire deck without ever seeing the card they need. Luck can be really annoying, especially for something that shouldn't exist. It's too bad things don't work like an RPG. Then luck would just be based on a statistic and you could increase it by leveling up or drinking a luck potion or something...

Well, have a good weekend. I'm going to be moving into a new apartment over the weekend and I'm not quite sure what my internet access will be like for a couple of days so monday's update might be late or maybe even skipped entirely depending on how things go.

See you next week!

Josiah

Now that's Shauni's back ROM is updating again so check out the new comic.

Like I said in my last post, I've keeping up with the news more lately. One thing that really bugs me about the news is all the stuff they put in about celebrities. I mean it's bad enough normally when I have to hear all about who went on vacation and who is going on a diet but it's way worse when they have kids. Then you've got to hear about what they thought of the birth, and why they chose whatever name, and what everyone and their sister thinks of their parenting skills, etc, etc, etc. I mean seriously, does anyone really care? If the parents were just some random non famous people no one aside from their family and friends would care. And the news guys make such a big deal over everything too. Some famous person trips while carrying their baby and suddenly all news places start this big debate about if they're bad parents or not. So they had an accident, it happens. Once again, if it was some random person's kid absolutely no one would give it a second thought. Do people actually enjoy reading and hearing about all this stuff? There's so many better hobbies out there. What's so special about actors anyway? Yeah they can act (well, some of them anyway). I got favorite actors just like everyone else but I just watch their movies and that's that. I have no real interest in finding out every little detail of their person lives. Also, I couldn't care less what they think about politics or anything else. Despite what a lot of actors seem to think, knowing how to act does not make you an expert on politics or the world situation.

Ok, enough ranting for now. I've got to get ready for my big portfolio presentation for class. See you friday!

Josiah

Hi all. Shauni's back from vacation so she's got a new news post up on the ROM page. She says that new comics will resume on wednesday. In PV news, Top Web Comics was updating on and off over the weekend but it's working now so go and vote if you haven't seen the new bonus comic yet.

So, I've been following the news more than I used to, thanks mostly to my custom google news page. I suppose that's both a good thing and a bad thing. Good because it's always good to be informed. Bad because a lot of the 'news' is either complete junk (if I see one more story about some movie star who had a baby...), depressing, or really annoying (some people are just so stupid). Anyway, one thing run into a lot lately is people complaining about lack of racial and/or gender eqaulity in one place or another. Now, to start out, let me state that I'm all for racial and gender equality. However, what I don't like is when some people misinterpret equality to either try and get a free ride or just to cause trouble.
For example, let's say I'm heading up something, like maybe a college. Ok, so I'm running a college and I want to ensure complete racial and gender eqaulity at my college. Now, a lot of people would say that to achieve this goal, I would have to ensure that at least x amount of the staff and students were people of specific genders and races. There would probably be some set of percentages based on population or studies or something like that. And if my college didn't meet those requirements I'd be accused of not fostering an environment of equality. However, that is not what true equality is. For things to be truely equal I would completely ignore race and gender and evaluate all prospective students and staff based entirely on their credentials.
That's what true equality is, when things like race and gender are ignored and people who are applying for a position are evaluated soley on the skills and qualifications. Trying to cause trouble by accusing some place of not having enough of x type of person is ridiculous. If you can prove that place is specifically excluding people because of their race or gender that's one thing. But more than likely that place just didn't get enough qualified applicants from whaever race or gender. It's equally stupid to force colleges to fill quotas of minority students. Students should be evaluated equally based on their grades, test scores, and the like. Extra consideration and/or financial incentives should not be given to minority students just because of their race, religion, or whatever. If those students meet the requirements and earn those things then that's great! Like I said, I'll all for equality. But giving special treatment to certain people just to please some whiny activists is not true eqaulity and we'll never have true equality until people stop trying to exploit the dream of equality for their own agendas.

Josiah

EDIT: The bonus comic is now up so please vote!

Top Web Comics is down at the moment so the new bonus comic is delayed until whenever it's back up. In the meantime, you can take a look the last of Opal's ROM fillers. Now, I really should have done this review a long time ago but here it is.

Kingdom Hearts 2 is the latest entry in Square-Enix's surprisingly awesome Final Fantasy meets Disney series.
Graphics: Hands down, KH2 is one of the best looking games on the PS2. The characters and environments are beautiful and look like they came right out of the respective movies. And just wait till you see how many enemies they get onscreen in some of the battles... Truth be told, it would be hard for this game to look any better.
Sound: No complaints here. Aside from the collection of remixed classic Disney tunes (and a couple of Final Fantasy ones) there's some catchy original music including an excellent new theme song. Sound effects are perfect and the voice acting is as good as it gets, especially since most of the characters are voiced by the actors from the movies.
Story: KH2 picks up a year after KH Chain of Memories, the GBA follow up to the first KH. KH2 jumps right into the plot, which is even deeper than in the first two games, and although there are some flashbacks and the like, if you haven't played the first two games you'll probably be kinda lost. And, since both KH and KHCOM are excellent games, you've really got no reason not to play them first. I don't want to give away too much but KH2 continues the adventures of Sora, Donald, and Goofy as they search for King Mickey and their friends while fighting the Heartless. The plot also deals with a boy named Roxas, who seems to have some sort of connection to Sora and the keyblade, and a new threat from creatures known as Nobodies. Really, really, good story.
Gameplay: Anyone who played the first KH will feel right at home here. KH is an action RPG so you level up and get new skills and equipment like in a RPG but run, jump, and swing your weapon around in real time. It's fast paced and lots of fun. There have been a few changes since the first KH, and all of them for the better. The camera is better than before, your MP regenerates over time, Sora's special moves work a bit more automatically (unfortunately, some of my favorites didn't make a return), the triangle button is now used for a variety of special situation specific moves that change depending on what you're fighting and can be really useful, and finally Sora's got a collection of transformations with involve him merging with one or more party memebers to temporarily gain new skills and a whole lot of power. All this, along with some awesome new enemy and boss designs, make the combat even more fun and intense than before. However, the difficulty has been tweaked a bit since the first KH so I recommend playing on Proud (hard) mode unless you want the game to be a total cake walk. Plus, that makes it easier to get the secret ending movie. Like before, you travel between various Disney (and a few original) worlds where you'll meet up with Disney characters and help them save their worlds from the heartless and nobodies. About half the worlds are from the first KH but they've changed considerably since your last visit and are just as much fun as the new worlds. Once again, don't want to spoil the surpises (if you haven't heard about them already) but some of the new worlds are really unexpected and really cool. On another positive note, although the gummy ship is still your main method of travel between worlds, it's been completely overhauled and the levels are a blast to play (very reminiscent of an old school rail shooter) with lots of hidden stuff to find. The main story itself will take you at least 40-50 hours to complete assuming you don't rush or skip worlds. And if you want to go through the optional stuff and complete the journal, it's gonna take another 20-40.
Overall: Kingdom Hearts was an awesome game to begin with and Kingdom Hearts 2 improves upon it in just about every way imaginable. If you're a fan of the series you're gonna love it. If you haven't played the other games you'll probably still love it (especially if you like Final Fantasy and/or Disney) but you really should pick up Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories first if you want to follow the story.

Josiah

New ROM filler today.

So... What to talk about... I beat that Guild Wars mission I mentioned last week. Didn't get the best rank on it but, considering that out of the 16 players (two teams of 8) 9 were henchmen, I thought we did pretty well. Now, normally I'm not one to talk badly about the henchmen in Guild Wars. Of course, they can't compete against a good team of human players but they're better than quite a lot of the groups you end up in. At least henchmen do what they're supposed to (more or less), don't spam the chat channel, and don't run around aggroing every enemy in sight. Of course, henchmen suck at pulling, splitting up, and anything fancy but if you know how to use them you can get through just about any part of the game (aside from PVP and end game content) with them. Unfortunately, the ones in Factions don't seem to be quite up to snuff. Well, at least Sister Tai doesn't. And that sucks since she's often the only healing henchman you're able to use (or at best one of two, and since you usually want both...). So what's so bad about her? Well, I don't know why but she seems a lot dumber than all the other healing hechmen. Occassionally, she has a tendency to just run out into the middle of the enemies and get killed. But that doesn't happen too often. The problem is that she doesn't do a very good job healing. Maybe it's just because a lot of the time she's the only healer in an eight man party (at least until you clear the third mission). If so, I guess I can forgive her for not healing me enough in the middle of battle, although that still sucks. It's what she does (er, I mean doesn't do) between battles ths the problem. Such as standing around and letting me slowly die of poison or standing there doing absolutely nothing when she could be reviving me... Fun, fun, fun... Oh well, at least I'm making some progress in Factions.

Seems like every time I turn around there's something else I need to do lately. Fortunately, most of it isn't stuff that has to be done at once, or even really soon for that matter. So, although I'm keeping busy, I can afford to take some time every day to play some games or read or watch anime or something like that, which is good. If I work too much without doing something fun I kinda zone out which ends up hurting my work in the long run. What I really need is a solid week or two without school to get through my slowly shrinking 'to do' list. Not like there's much chance of that happening. My breaks are so short that pretty much all that time is taken up with visiting family, friends, and the like.

And...That's it for now. See you friday.

Josiah

New ROM filler today. And don't forget to vote.

I got a DS Lite yesterday. So, instead of doing a game review (which will come later in the week) I'll talk about the DS Lite. Now, I'm normally not the type of guy who goes out and buys redesigned game systems when I already have the original. In fact, before this the only system redesign I bought was the GBA SP because after using my counsin's it was really hard to go back to my non-backlit original GBA (plus there was a really good sale). And, although the DS Lite is cool, I would have been perfectly happy sticking with my old DS. But, I ended up getting my mom hooked on Brain Age last time she came down to visit and since then she's been wanting to get a DS. So I figured I'd get a Lite for myself and give my mom a good deal on my old DS.
Anyway, about the DS Lite... Compared to the normal DS, the Lite is a bit thinner, a lot shinier, and with the shiny white case, has a bit of an iPod look going on. Ok, so it looks cooler but that's hardly worth $130, especially if you already have a regular DS. Next up, the microphone has been moved so it's now in the center of the system right between the two screens. That's a more convenient position when you have to blow into the mic for some games plus you don't have to worry about covering it up with your finer. The power button has been moved to the side of the system and it's now a slider instead of a button. Although I only accidently hit the power button on my old DS once, the Lite pretty much removes any chance of that happening. The Lite also has a nifty little dummy cartridge that fits in the GBA game slot so dust doesn't get in it if you don't have a GBA game in there. However, because of the reduced size of the system, GBA games no longer slide all the way into the system but stick out a little. Next change is the stylus, the slot for it is in a different place, which doesn't really matter much, but it's also a bit thicker which makes it easier to hold. Nowhere near as nice as my Mario Kart stylus from E3 last year though.
The real big draw with the DS Lite is the screens. They're a lot clearer and sharper and the colors are much brighter (maybe a touch too bright for the atmosphere in some games (Castlevania never looked so bright and sunny). Simply put, the screen looks great. It's not earthshattering but it's a very nice improvement especially combined with...the improved backlight. On the old DS the backlight only had two settings, on and off. On the DS Lite you can turn it off or choose from three different brightness levels. Even the middle setting is way bright than the regular DS and it combos very nicely with the improved screens. Finally, despite the nicer screens and increased brightness, the battery life is supposedly a lot better (I say supposedly because I just got mine so I haven't had time to test the battery life yet).
Overall, the Lite is a great redesign, especially the screen. If you don't have a DS yet I'd certainly go for the Lite over the regular (unless you're looking to save money). And hey, with all the great games out, you really should have a DS. If you've already got a DS, it's hard to say if the Lite is worth the upgrade, the screen is really nice but if you're happy with the regular DS you may as well save your money, unless you can get a good price for your old one or something like that. Oh yeah, if you do get one, you may want to check out Best Buy. They've got a coupon on their web site that you can print out and take to the store to get a free copy of Brain Age with the purchase of a DS Lite. That's what I did.

See you wednesday!

Josiah

It's friday so new bonus comic, new ROM filler, and all that type of stuff.

Well, thursday was one of those days that started out really well and then had a couple of things go wrong that basically screwed the whole day up. Don't really feel like going into details but as a consequence, the review I was going to do has been pushed back to monday. Fortunately, next week is looking pretty good since I'll be pretty much finished with my portfolio and related projects. That'll be nice... Maybe I'll take some time to go to the movies or something.

I just want to go to sleep right now. Have a good weekend.

Josiah

New ROM filler by Opal today. Since today's filler is a wolf version of me (nicely done by Opal) I might as well responed to Opal's comments on it. I do like blue and wear it quite a lot (mainly cause I like jeans and jean shirts), although my favorite color is bright orange. As for the Ace of Spades, no special significance there. See, I used a Gaia avatar creation program to make a sprite of my ROM RP character (who looks pretty much just like me) and, since we use cards to summon monsters in ROM and the program had a playing card item I gave that to my character and that card just happened to be the Ace of Spades.

Ever have one of those times where you have a bunch of stuff to say and then just when you're about to say it your mind goes blank? That's what I feel like right now. I blame it on my portfolio assignment.

So, I was playing Guild Wars Factions. Haven't had a ton of time for it lately (plus most of the time I have been playing has been spent selling stuff to other players instead of advancing my newest character) so I'm only at the third mission. My friend David, who is ahead of me in GW Factions (although nowhere near as far as me in GW Prophecies) has been telling me how hard that mission is. Not that I can really comment on that. See, my first attempt I got in a pretty decent party and then as soon as the mission started my internet connection started lagging really really badly (which hardly ever happens) so I was pretty much a deadweight until about halfway through when we got killed. The lag continued for my next couple of attempts so I gave up for the day. Tried again yesterday. Spent half an hour assembling a good party only for my internet connection to die just as the mission started. After that my internet started working fine but I couldn't find a party to join, although I did make a rather impressive attempt with a whole bunch of henchmen and only two other real people besides myself (one of whom dropped half way through). Don't you love it when stuff doesn't work?

Josiah

If you haven't seen friday's bonus comic (or even if you have) this is a great time to go vote since it's a new month and all. Also, although Shauni is on vacation there's a new ROM filler comic by Opal.

Not a whole lot going on with me. Finished Magna Carta (finally), made melon bread again, been working on a big school project, not much else. For any older readers out there, you may want to check out War Footing, a book by Frank Gaffney all about the 'War on Terror'. It goes into details about the enemies' motives, what America is doing right, and what it's doing wrong. It's very well researched and makes for an interesting read.

Well, that's about all I have to say. Expect reviews of Kingdom Hearts II and Magna Carta soon. I probably won't be buying any new games or movies any time soon since I'm trying to save up for the PS3, Wii, and all the great games coming out in the fall and winter. Although considering how much that's gonna cost I'd probably have to win the lottery to get enough cash (kinda hard since I don't buy lottery tickets). Anyway, see you wednesday.

Josiah

It's friday and you probably know what that means, new bonus comic! And, since it's a new month, Pebble Version needs lots of votes. New ROM as well plus some important news from Shauni.

Today's review, New Super Mario Brothers, the very nostalgic DS platformer.
Story: Does Mario really need a plot? Well, not much of one anyway. Bowser Jr. nabs Princess Peach and it's up to Mario (or Luigi if you hold down L and R while loading your game) to go and save her.
Graphics: Although it's a 2D game, Mario and most of the enemies are 3D. Both the 3D models and the sprites look good although it probably would have looked even better in full 2D.
Sound: The sound effects are classic Mario, from the sound of Mario's fireballs bouncing to the sound pipes make when you go through them, anyone who has played one of the old 2D Mario games will recognize them all. The music is a mix of classic old tunes and nice new tunes (although few of them seem as catchy as the old ones). There's also a handful of the usual voice quotes (Mario shouting 'yippee' and the like).
Gameplay: Oh course, this is the reason you're playing. NSMB plays a lot like the original Super Mario Brothers. 8 worlds, each divided into levels. However, like in Mario World, there's a world map you can move around and in a nod to Mario 3 there's several types of mushroom houses you can visit to try your luck at winning some 1-Ups and power ups. In each level you'll run and jump your way from the start to the flagpole at the end while bopping enemies, collecting coins, and looking for the occasional secret exit. Mario has all his standard 2D moves, running, jumping, ducking, and sliding. He's also got the butt stomp and the wall jump (you can slid down walls and jump off them) from Mario 64. For power ups you got the old standbys: Super Mushroom (makes Mario large so he can break blocks), Fire Flower (let's Mario shoot fireballs), and Starman (grants temporary invincibility to enemies). There's also a handful of new ones. The Mega Mushroom makes Mario grow to the size of the screen and makes him pretty much invincible, allowing him to charge through just about anything (blocks, pipes, enemies, etc), Mini Mushrooms shrink him to tiny allowing Mario to fit in small pipes and passages and jump further, finally the blue turtle shell let's Mario slid around in a turtle shell and break bricks. Like Super Mario World, you can store one extra powerup off screen for later use. Aside from clearing the levels and finding the secret exits each level also has three star coins to collect which can then be spent to unlock blocked paths on the map. Oh, if you're wondering about the second screen, it's used for a simple map, score, and the like.
Overall: Essentially the game is classic 2D Mario, which is a very good thing. It's lots of fun and a great nostalgia kick. Unfortunately, many of the levels seem to lack the creativity of the old games, and the lack of Yoshis and any sort of flight powerup is disapointing. In addition, the bosses are too easy and some of the hiding places for the secret stuff are kinda ridiculous. Still, those are all minor complaints, NSMB is a great platformer and certainly worth adding to your collection.

Josiah

There's a new ROM, although you probably were expecting that. In other site new, I went through the Links and Link Exchange page, removed dead links, and updated some others for sites that had moved.

Well, it wasn't the most fun four day weekend but I did get a lot done. Just one big project left for a while and I still have about a week and a half left to finish it. And, um, that's about it for now. Look for a game review on friday.

Josiah

New ROM today, and don't forget about friday's bonus comic.

Anyway, the title pretty much sums up most of my weekend so far and that's probably how the next couple days will go as well (four day weekend cause of Memorial Day). Saw X-Men 3. I thought it was pretty good although some of the stuff that happened really caught me off guard. Also, keep in mind that I haven't read the comics so I can't really comment on how close (or from what I've heard not close) the two are. Other than that I've been spending most of my time working on various projects. Although I did spend yesterday evening hanging out with some friends from anime club. We spent most of the time watching various anime (big surprise there).

Hmm... It's pretty bad when I see gas selling for $2.96 a ghalleon and the first thing I think is 'hey, that's really cheap!'. Sigh... I remember back whe gas was only $1.60. Gee, that makes me sound really old doesn't it?

Well, see you wednesday.

Josiah

Hmm... Don't you hate it when you've got a problem and all the suggestions you get are useless because you don't have x or can't do y or something like that? Anyway, vote to take a look at the new bonus comic and also go see the new ROM.

Well, I've got a four day weekend coming up thanks to Memorial Day. Nice! Unfortunately, it looks like I'll be spending most of that time working instead of relaxing (got two big projects to do plus some work for my dad). Still, if I can use the time to get all that finished (or at least get a lot of progress done) I can't really complain since that will give me more free time in the long run. Right now though, I need to go. I'm gonna see X-Men 3 with some friends tomorrow (my school bought a bunch of tickets and was selling them to students for really cheap) so I need to get some stuff done before then.

Enjoy the weekend!

Josiah

New ROM today, although you probably assumed that. Also, if you missed monday's post, Pebble Version has gotten more bandwidth and disk space so you shouldn't have to worry about the site running out of like it did last month. However, all this comes at a price. More specifically, Pebble Version needs to make an average of about $3-4 a month to pay its bills. If you want to know how to donate you can find everything you need to know in the donation info below this post. Remember, every month the donation guage reaches at least $25 you get a chapter of ROM The Novel and commentary on a bunch of old strips. If it hits $50 then you get five new PV strips a week for an entire month. If it gets even hirer, well read the donation info for more on that.

Well, it's been over a week since E3 and my schedule is finally starting to get back to normal. Classes aren't bad, although my schedule went from absolutely perfect to slightly annoying thanks to one of my classes getting canceled at the last minue (forcing me to find a replacement). Math is boring, but I was expecting that. Japanese is interesting but a lot of work, ditto with my game project. My portfolio class is a lot of work as well although, if I do a good job, I can get out early in the semester. I'm also retaking figure drawing since it was one of the few things that fit my time slot and would give me the credits I needed after my other class was canceled (we're allowed to retake certain classes multiple times and still get credits). Didn't really want to take it again but I could certainly stand to get a lot better I have a different teacher this time (who I like a lot better than the old one).

Haven't had a ton of free time (although that'll hopefully be improving soon) but I did finish Kingdom Hearts 2 (awesome game, expect a review soon). Also been playing a bit of Guild Wars Factions, Magna Carta (yeah still), and New Super Mario Brothers.

When I was back home I picked up a DVD burner on clearance, something I've been wanting for a long time, and started downloading some anime I've been wanting to see that hasn't been liscensed for a US release yet (which means it's ok to download). However, I haven't really gotten a chance to watch any yet. See, I mostly watch TV when I'm doing homework or working on Pebble Version. Problem is that requires my computer (which I only have one of here in AZ) so I can't watch it then (although now that I'm getting caught up on stuff I may have some time soon). I could convert the stuff to MPEG files and make DVDs I could play in my DVD player but converting the files ties up my computer for quite a while and I can't fit very many episodes on a single layer DVD (unless I want to kill the quality). I wish dual layer disks weren't so expensive...

Anyway, one thing I have been watching is Dai-guard (I bought that one). It's a giant robot anime. Basically, Dia-guard is a giant robot that was built to fight heterodynes (giant monsters from another dimension). However, when more heterodynes failed to show up, Dai-guard was given to 21st Century Security Corp PR Division as a marketing gimik. However, when the heterodynes suddenly reappear years later it's up to the PR Divisions pilots to fight them off. To quote the show's catch phrase they're 'office workers saving the world'. Or at least trying. As hard as it is to fight giant monsters, the young pilots often have more trouble trying to get through all the red tape that gets thrown in their way. The company isn't happy about how much money the collateral damage from Dai-guard's battles are costing them and the military isn't happy that they're being shown up by a bunch of civilians. It's certainly stuff you don't see in your average mech anime and it's probably a much more realistic take on how things would be. The show it pretty good although it's not particularily amazing. Still, the box set is a bargain price (even more so if you catch it on sale) so it's certainly worth a look.

Josiah

There was a new bonus comic friday for everyone who votes if you haven't seen it yet (or even if you have) and there's a new ROM. Also in Pebble Version news, you may have noticed that the site went down for a day or two at the end of March and April. You may have also the past news post where I announced that Pebble Version had officially outgrown its current hosting plan. Well, good news bad news time again. Good news is that I got a hosting upgrade so PV now has more bandwidth and more disk space, which was also getting tight. Bad news is that it costs more money. It's still pretty cheap but it's going to cost me $2-3 a month for the hosting (plus the usual $15 or so a year for domain stuff) to keep Pebble Version running. But donating is quick, easy, and brings lots of cool bonus content such as commentary on old strips and extra updates (take a look below this news post to find out more). Now back to E3...

So, today I'll be talking briefly about some of the games that really stuck out to me at E3. Remember, being only one person (and one without a press badge for that matter) I couldn't check out anywhere near everything and I don't have time to talk about everything I saw anyway so sorry if I missed something you wanted to know about. Games will be divided by system. FYI: The Gamecube didn't have much of a showing this year so, although there are still some good games coming up for it, I didn't get to play them at E3 so no news there. Also, since I don't own an Xbox or 360 and have very little interest in most of the games for them, no info there either.

Playstation 2

Final Fantasy XII: The english release is nearing and it looks like FFXII is just about ready for it's American debut. Can't say much more about the gameplay, beyond my previous comments about the demo, but I did get a chance to hear some of the english voice acting and it sounds top notch (not that I'd expect anything else after games like FFX and Kingdom Hearts).

Final Fantasy VII Dirge of Cerberus: Vincent from FFVII stars in his own game which is part RPG, part action game, part third person shooter. The story looks interesting (it takes place a year after Advent Children) and the FMV's are plain amazing. The controlls weren't very easy to pick up but hopefully you'll get used to them after playing for an hour or two.

Dragonball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 2: This plays a lot like the last Tenkaichi (a DBZ fighter that finally offered full on 3D battles instead of the first three Budokai's pseudo 3D) with a few nice additions such as more special moves and the ability to transform mid battle. Looks promising so far.

Playstation 3

Warhawk: This game was what really sold me on the PS3's controller. It's a futuristic jet combat type game which has you flying around and shooting down the usual collection of other jets, towers, and big flying fortress things. Here's the neat part, you steer the plane entirely by tilting the PS3's controller, the plane mimic's the angle of the controller so tilting it back points the nose up, tilting to the side turns, etc. It took some getting used to (I kept reaching for the analog sticks out of habit) but it was a blast to play.

Heavenly Blade: This the best looking PS3 games I played. It's an action filled hack and slash type of game that reminded me a bit of God of War (but without all the blood). The combat was fun and the graphics were beautiful.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Ok, it wasn't playable but the trailer was mind blowing. You really should go find a download and take a look for yourself.

Final Fantasy XIII: Once again, not playable but amazing to look out. Another must see trailer.

Sonic: This is on the 360 too. Sonic plays just like in all the other 3D Sonic games (although the controlls seem a bit loose). Shadow wasn't playable at E3 although a movie of him driving a truck with guns didn't inspire confidence. There's also a new guy, Silver the Hedgehog, who uses psychic powers to fight and move around. He played a lot different than Sonic but grabbing boxes, rocks, and even enemy missiles with his psychic powers then hurling them at enemies was rather fun.

PSP

Metal Gear Solid Tactical Ops: Now this looks interesting. It's a direct sequel to MGS3 and continues the story of Jack (Big Boss), effectively bridging the gap between MGS3 and the original Metal Gear. Another reason I really have to get a PSP soon.

Nintendo DS

Final Fantasy III: The only FF that never got a US release, gets a complete 3D remake for its DS release. Graphics are pretty impressive for a 3D DS game and hey, it's Final Fantasy.

Star Fox DS: I know lots of people have been waiting for a new Star Fox game (although I never got too into it). I didn't get to play the demo for too long but it seemed pretty much like classic Star Fox, if you could get used to using the touch screen to steer your ship.

Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass: This DS Zelda (complete with Windwaker style graphics) looks promising but I only got to play the rather quirky multiplayer competition mode so I can't say much.

Pokémon Ranger: This is a strange one. You play a pokémon ranger who has to go around doing various tasks. Fortunately you have your trust 'styler' wand which you can use to temporarily tame pokémon to help you out. You battle by drawing circles around the attacking pokémon to weaken them but they don't just stand there, they'll move, fight back, and try to break your circles. You can use your captured pokémon to add special powers to your styler to help out. You can also use your pokémon to solve puzzles (like having torchic burn up a stack of hay) but you're limited to five pokémon at a time. The graphics are nice (hope them keep them for Diamond/Pearl) and the gameplay is certainly interesting. Hard to say how long it'll stay entertaining though.

Pokémon Mysterious Dungeon Blue: (Note, there's a Red version too but it's for the GBA) If you've played any other Mysterious Dungeon games, such as Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon, this plays a lot like that. All the pokémon talk in this game. You control a pokémon (chosen by your answers to a personality test at the start of the game) and it's partner (who you get to pick from a list) and go off exploring randomly generated dungeons in a psuedo turn based RPG to help pokémon that are in trouble. Looks to be a lot less frustrating than Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon 2 although I've never been much of a fan of random dungeon games in general.

Castlevania Potrait of Ruin: You get two characters in this one and can switch at will or have them both on the screen at once. Plus you get to leave the castle behind and explore enchanted paintings. I can't wait!

Spectrobes: Excavate fossiles with the touch screen then revive them, raise them, train them, and fight along side them in real time battles to repel alien monsters. A little reminiscent of pokémon but the unique features and real time battle system make it worth a look.

Nintendo Wii

Wii Sports: This was a collection of tech demo type games so I don't know if they'll actually be released or not but they were fun to play and really showed off how the controller worked.

Wario Ware: It's Wario Ware with the Wii controller, it's a blast! Enough said.

Mario Galaxy: Mario explores space. Looks like a lot of fun but the line was too long for me to get near it.

Zelda Twilight Princess Wii Version: Once again, looks great but the line was ridiculous.

Metroid Prime 3: Same thing with the line. Looks quite a lot like 1 and 2.

Super Smash Brothers Brawl: Unfortunately, this wasn't playable but there was a trailer. Metaknight is confirmed as a new character and so are Pitt (from Kid Icarus), Zero Suit Samus, Wario, and, get this, Solid Snake. Looks awesome!

Josiah

New voters' bonus comic, new ROM, as usual. Also, new addition to the link exchange. It's Ten Mortal Gods, an online graphic novel based on the print novel of the same name. There aren't many pages up yet but it's pretty interesting so far so go take a look.

Well, today I was planning to talk about some of my favorite games from E3. Unfortunately, it'll have to be delayed until sunday. See, I had a pretty busy day and was taking a little time off to play Kingdom Hearts II (which I didn't get a chance to finish before my vacation). Anyway, I'm playing Proud difficulty but still trying to complete everything in the journal. Nearly there too, just two things let before I take on the final boss. So I was working on the tournaments and had just unlocked the last one. I had some other things I wanted to work on but I figured "Hey, I can give it a try. The Hades Cup in KH1 wasn't that bad, this won't take more than fourty minutes or so." Um, yeah... An hour and a half later (or was it two hours, kinda lost track) I ran out of time on round 37 (out of 50). Lousy beat the clock section... Looks like I need to gain a few more levels and tweak my strategy a bit. Anyway, the end result of all that was that I don't really have time to write about all those games. Soooo, yeah, I'll do it sunday. I'll have a lot more time free time next week anyway.

Have a good weekend!

Josiah

The new ROM comic is up, as usual.

Ok, today I'll be talking a bit about the various game systems based on what I saw at E3. Friday I'll wrap things up by talking about some of my favorite games from the show.

Playstation 2: By now everyone knows all about the Playstation 2 itself, afterall it's been the most popular gaming console for years. Despite the coming of the PS3, Sony isn't going to be dropping the PS2 any time soon. And with lots of high quality games like Final Fantasy XII, God of War 2, and Okami coming out later this year, the PS2 has lots of life left in it. So even if you can't afford a new system this holiday season there will be plenty to keep you busy.

Gamecube: Although there's still some good games coming out, Nintendo seems to have all but forgotten about the Gamecube in favor of the upcoming Wii. Although the upcoming lineup isn't nearly as strong as the PS2's there's still a handful of nice looking titles such as the new Kirby game to look forward to.

Xbox: To be honest, I didn't really see much of anything for the original Xbox, not that I spent a ton of time searching. Still, Microsoft has pretty much abandoned the Xbox since the 360 came out so there isn't much to look forward to here.

PC: The PC isn't going to change much, at least not till Windows Vista comes out next year. The games are more or less what you'd expect. FPS, strategy, and lots of MMOs. Nothing really new here, although that's not neccessarily a bad thing.

Gameboy Advance: Not a whole lot coming up for the good old GBA. It's slowly being phased out in favor of the DS. Still, there's a handful of decent looking new releases coming up if you don't want to upgrade.

PSP: No big news here although the PSP is finally starting to get a respectable game library and with things like Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops in the works it'll just keep getting better. If you haven't been able to justify the purchase yet, you'll be able to soon.

Nintendo DS: Wow... The DS already has tons of excellent games available and even more are coming in the near future. Mario, Kirby, Star Fox, Donkey Kong, Pokémon, and that's just Nintendo's stuff. There's plenty of other things coming out as well such as Megaman ZX, Harvest Moon, Spectrobes, Lunar Knights, and much much more. If you don't have a DS get one now.

Playstation 3: Sony had lots of big news at E3. First off they showed the new PS3 controller which, unsurprisingly looks almost identical to the old PS2 controller. But there are a few key differences. First off, it's wireless. Second there's no rumble anymore. Sony says it would interfere with the new feature I'm about to talk about but more likely they dropped it to avoid more lawsuits (a company 'stole' the patent for rumble from under Sony's nose and has been suing them repeatedly for quite some time). However, the new controller does have a tile sensor. Although comparisons to Nintendo's Wii controller are sure to crop up, the PS3 controller is quite different. Waving the controller around doesn't do anything. Instead, you can tilt it six ways to controll things on screen (pitch, tilt, and yaw). I only saw one game on the show floor that really took advantage of the tilt sensor. It's called Warhawk, a futuristic jet combat game. In it, you steer your fighter entirely by tilting the controller with the plane mimiking your actions. Kinda hard to describe but it worked really well and was lots of fun to play. It really sold me on the controller. Meanwhile some other games such as Heavenly Blade proved that the PS3's graphical claims were more than idle boasts. And some of the games that are in production... Incredible! It can also play PS1 and PS2 games (although it is not compatible with old controllers or memory cards so you may want to hang on to that PS2 anyway). Unfortunately, Sony's shooting themself in the foot with the pricing scheme. $500 for the base model (which was pretty much expected) isn't that bad but it's missing a lot of features like integrated wifi and full HD support. Those are included in the $600 version, which also has a bigger hard drive. Seems like a pretty stupid move after all the criticism Microsoft recieved for the 360 launch. Guess we'll just have to wait till Nov 17th to see how many people are willing to pay the price.

Nintendo Wii: Although the details haven't been announced, it's going to be cheaper than the PS3 and 360 and launch this fall. Aside from an amazing line up of games (including a Wii version of Zelda Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime 3, new Mario and Wario Ware titles, and a new Smash Brothers game) and the ability to download and play many classic NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, and Turbo Graphix games for a fee (not to mention full Gamecube compatibility for games, controllers, and memory cards), there's the Wii's unique controller. It's got a full motion sensor and several optional attachments. The controller is very sensitive, really easy to pick up, and works perfectly. Even simple tech demos like Wii Tennis and Baseball were a blast to play while swinging the controller like the real thing while things like percision shooting require much more finesse. And then there's the real games. The Wii is currently top on my list. The controller is a dream to play with and the game list couldn't get much better. This is the system to watch for.

Josiah

Ah, mid May and it's already over 100 degrees. Gotta love that Phoenix weather! Or not... Anyway, the new ROM is up and this is also the perfect time to vote and check out friday's bonus comic. As promised, I'll be talking about my E3 trip this week. Today will be about the trip and show while wednesday and likely friday as well will be about the games and systems I saw there.

Ok, so my trip started last monday. Wanting to avoid what happened last year (where I missed the entire last day because of my plane ticket), my friend David and I decided to drive this year. Also, since we got the Super Pass this year instead of just the Expo Pass, we were able to get into all the pre show sessions on tuesday. So David and I left right after we got out of school monday afternoon. Despite my offer to split the driving, David wanted to drive most of the time so we spent around 6 1/2 hours chatting in the car while I played Castlevania on my GBA. Being used to long car rides, I planned ahead and was prepared with google maps and a hotel reservation for monday night (since our E3 hotel reservation didn't start until tuesday). We got in kinda late, went to sleep, and were up bright and early to find our new hotel and drop off our bags before heading to the LA Convention Center.

Tuesday: Unfortunately, although the E3 preshow stuff started on tuesday, the E3 bus service didn't start until wednesday. Fortunately we did have a car, unfortunately that also meant we had to pay for parking... Looks like not a whole lot of people come to the tuesday sessions. After last year, it was weird seeing the building so quiet. Not that I'm complaining, it sure beat waiting in line for an hour to get my badge holder (which I had to do last year). It also provided a nice oppertunity to watch this Gears of War drawing being made. Anyway, since the expo floor wasn't open, tuesday was all about the sessions (there were keynotes too but those were held off site and only let certain people in). There were three going in every given time slot so you had to pick and choose. Unfortuately, it turned out that my choice for the first slot wasn't about what I'd thought it was and ended up being kinda boring. Fortunately, the rest of the day went much better. I got to see Will Wright discuss Spore, hear some top industry professionals discuss the changes the new game consoles will have on game design, and got some great tips on pitching game designs to publishers. Very interesting... After all the sessions were finished David and I headed back to the hotel to find that the rest of the students from our school had arrived a few years ago but had been stuck at the hotel and missed the sessions. Glad I drove.

Wednesday: Now this is what I was waiting for! Got up early, caught the first bus, and, after getting stuck in traffic for a while, made it to the convention center. Ah, there's the crowds. Despite E3's efforts to reduce attendence, there were around 60,000 people there this year. Dissapointingly, the main expo floors opened late that day for everyone without an exibitor or early media badge so I checked out some others areas such as Kentia Hall (the third, smallest, and least impressive show floor) which wasn't all that interesting except for Red Octane's booth were I got to play Guitar Hero II. I also took a very brief look in Midway's room (not a big fan of their games) and browsed the game art exhibit where they had this neat Kirby painting. Finally the main expo halls opened. Like last year, there were lots of fancy booths, signs, lights, and the like. My first stop was Square-Enix's booth. I missed their show last year because you had to go early and get tickets first thing if you wanted in. This time I got my ticket. Had some time to kill before the show so I wondered around a bit and checked out Sega's booth. Square's presentation took place in a closed theater and unfortunately photos weren't allowed. It started out pretty predictable. Final Fantasy XII, FFVII Dirge of Cerberus, FFVII Crisis Core, FFVII Before Crisis, etc. There was also a very brief mention of their Nintendo Wii launch title (Dragon Quest Swords). The real surprise was Final Fantasy XIII (yes, XIII!!!) for the PS3. You can probably find the trailer on-line know but it involved a girl with a gunblade style weapon fighting off lots of soldiers on a train in a very sci-fi style setting. Most of the trailer was CG movies but there was some gameplay footage as well. The graphics were amazing. Looks like they're going with a more action based battle system too. Fortunately, they've got a great team working on it. There will be two other FFXIII game as well (although the relation is unclear). FF Versus XIII is also PS3. No gameplay for that one but it showed a guy with a whole lot of floating weapons going up against an entire army. Then there's Angito XIII, a cellphone game that they didn't say a whole lot about. After the show I was able to get a picture of this action figure of the girl from FFXIII. Also, despite some controversy, there were still lots of booth babes at the show. Did I get a picture of the FFXI ones last year too? I didn't get my picture with any booth babes this year, although it was kinda fun seeing my family's reaction to last year's pic. Anyway, there was a session that afternoon showcasing Gears of War, Red Steel, and Metal Gear Solid 4. I went mainly for the last one (and the fact that Kojima was there). The new trailer was pretty amazing and hinted at some pretty interesting plot twists. After that I skimmed the rest of the show floor so I'd have an idea of what to spend more time on the following days. Naturally, Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo had some of the biggest booths. Since the line wasn't too long I spent some time playing with the PS3 and it's new tilt sensing controller (more on that another day). They had everything on the show floor, which kept the lines pretty small. I stayed until the floor closed, got stuck in traffic again on the bus back to the hotel, then joined up with some friends to get some dinner at the City Walk.

Thursday: Going off my previous observations, I decided to hit Nintendo's booth first thing and hopefully get a decent spot in the line to play the Wii (formally the Revolution) since, unlike Sony, Nintendo didn't have any in the open part of their area. Despite my best attempts to get there as early as possible the line was still really really long (worse than last year's line for Zelda Twilight Princess). Fortunately, it moved quicker than I thought it would be it still took my over 2 1/2 hours to get in the Wii area (good thing I had my Gameboy and DS). Fortunately, it was pretty big and there was lots to do and see inside. Although there were even more lines to play the games. Because of the lines I decided to pass on playing Mario, Zelda, and Metriod but I did try lots of other games (once again more on that another day) and get some pictures of the controller. The Wii stuff took up most of my day but I did have some time to listen to a great piano player playing game music at Brady's booth. He even played some things blindfolded. I also caught a bit of Activision's skateboarding show. Also spent a while at Namco's booth collecting Pacman figures. Once the floor closed it was back through traffic, to the hotel, and then to City Walk for food.

Friday: With my three main goals (PS3, Nintendo Wii, and Square-Enix show) out of the way I spent the last day wondering around, trying out games, catching some shows, and collecting swag (free stuff). A couple highlites included NCSoft's big show, and more piano music. I left the show floor a little early at David'd request and we got to drive all the way back to AZ. Back home, I began the usual tasks of unpacking, catching up on stuff, and sorting out all my swag.

All in all it was a great show. I learned a lot, had fun, tried lots of interesting games, and got lots of free stuff. Check back wednesday and friday for more details about the PS3, Wii, and my favorite games from the show.

Josiah

Well, I'm in CA for E3. I have internet but it's a lousy connection so I probably won't be able to get on the forums much. Anyway, updates will continue but may be slightly early or late depending on how things go and I probably won't do any news posts. ROM should update normally too. Look for lots of E3 info next week once I get back to AZ.

Josiah

Well, I'm in CA for E3. I have internet but it's a lousy connection so I probably won't be able to get on the forums much. Anyway, updates will continue but may be slightly early or late depending on how things go and I probably won't do any news posts. ROM should update normally too. Look for lots of E3 info next week once I get back to AZ.

Josiah

To repeat something I seem to say nearly every week, there's a new ROM and this is also a good time to see friday's bonus comic if you haven't already.

Well, vacation is over, school is starting again for me (my school has a full summer semester), and I'm off to E3 for the next few days. I'll get some pictures and tell you all about it next week. In the mean time, I'll do my best to update the comic on wednesday and friday although no guarantees since I'm not sure what my internet access will be like.

Josiah

As usual, there's a new bonus comic for everyone who votes and a new ROM comic.

First of, a bit about Brain Age. It's for the Nintendo DS but it's not exactly a game. Brain Age is based on the reseach of a Japanese scientist. The premiss is that by doing a series of simple puzzle exercises every day it helps keep your brain sharp. When you first start Brain Age you'll run through a short into and be given a quick test which gives you your starting brain age score. From then on, every day you're supposed to run through the daily exercises which are made up of a collection of mini-games. You can do them in whatever order you want or even skip some if you feel like it. First up is Calculations x 20, a series of simple math problems you have to solve as fast as possible (you use the touch screen to write the answers). Next is Calculations x 100, the same thing except with 100 problems instead of 20. You're scored based on the time it takes to get through all the problems but there's a penalty for wrong answers. Next is High Low, which involves memorizing a collection of numbers that appear briefly on the screen and then put them in order of lowest to highest after they disapear. There's also Speed Reading, where you have to read a passage out loud as fast as you can (honesty is important here); Syllable Count which is obviously enough counting the syllables in a sentences; Head Count where you keep track of the number of people inside a house as new people come and go; Triangle Math which is a different twist on math problems, and one final game where you solve math problems verbally using the DS mike. Of course, you don't start out with all of these games, you have to unlock them by playing the game everyday (it takes several weeks to unlock everything). As an added incentive to keep playing, the game only records your scores for each game once per day.
Aside from training, you can also take the Brain Age test once a day. Aside from the first time, the Brain Age test consists of three randomly chosen games (which are different than the training games). Your Brain Age ranges from 20 years old (the best score) to 80 (the worst). As an added bonus, there's lots of Sudoku puzzles to keep you busy (these don't count towards your Brain Age or daily training).
Overall, I'm not entirely sure if it makes you smarter (although your scores definately improve over time) but Brain Age is a fun and fairly addicting way to spend the 15-20 minutes a day it takes you work through everything. Even better if you can get your friends or family to play (each cart supports four different players) and compare scores. Plus it's only $20 so it won't set you back much.

Well, I'll be back in AZ on sunday and leaving again the next day to go to E3. Monday's update won't be interrupted. I'll try my best to update while I'm gone but cause I'll be at a hotel no guarentees. Naturally, I'll take some pictures and tell you all about E3 when I get back.

Have a good weekend!

Josiah

The new ROM is up.

I really wish my break was longer. I'm having fun and all (and getting some work done) but I could really use more time, especially since I haven't had a long break for over two years.

Been playing Guild Wars Factions a little. It's a lot of fun and features plenty of improvements over the original GW, especially in the early parts of the game. The pacing is a million times better in Factions and the new professions are great. Look for more on Factions over the coming weeks.

Josiah

Well, Pebble Version has officially outgrown its current hosting plan. In some respects, that's a good thing since it means that the comic is getting more popular (unfortunately more popular doesn't seem to mean more donations). On the other hand, it means that I need to get some more bandwidth for the site soon so it doesn't have any more downtime like it did the end of the last couple of months. My host and I are working on it hopefully it won't happen again.

Anyway, since most of you probably didn't get a chance to see it yet, I'm leaving friday's comic up until wednesday. This would also be a good time to vote and check out friday's bonus comic (which you probably haven't gotten to see yet either).

So I finally got to watch Final Fantasy VII Advent Children. Of course, I could have just downloaded it off the net months ago like most of my friends did but I wanted to wait for a legal copy. Although FFVII isn't my favorite Final Fantasy (or even my second favorite for that matter), it's a great game and I've been really looking forward to this movie. The graphics are nothing short of amazing, it's definately some of the best CG ever made. Music is great too, especially since it's mostly remixes of tracks from the game. The story takes place two years after the end of FFVII and, without giving too much away, involves Cloud and friends fighting a mysterious trio who are preparing for what they call the Reunion. And when I say fighting I mean fighting, there's a ton of battles in the movie. I was pretty happy to see the inclusion of limit breaks although I had to wonder why none of the good guys really used materia (although the bad guys did) and why noone was carrying around some spare Elixers or something to heal themselves. Overall, the story is a little strange but it all makes sense if you pay close enough attention, certainly not bad for a 100 minute movie.
I've heard a lot of people complain about the English dub of the movie. Personally, I don't really have a problem with either the English or the Japanese voices. At least for the most part... There were a couple of English voices that I really couldn't stand but fortunately those characters had so few lines that it didn't really matter. I think both versions are pretty good.
Overall, FFVII AC makes for an entertaining follow up to a classic game although some people may have trouble following the story. If you've never played FFVII you should probably go and do it before watching AC if you want to do anything besides admire the pretty graphics since the story is tied pretty heavily into events that happened during the game (besides, it's a great game). If you did like FFVII, then you should definately check it out.

Josiah

New bonus comic for everyone who votes. New ROM. You all know the drill. As for today's strips, I figured it was about time the blck suit guys put in another appearance since we haven't seen them for a while.

Well, I'm officially on vacation, at least for a little while. I'm also still behind on Pebble Version strips thanks to the last few days of finals. So yeah, I gotta work on those. Hopefully I'll be caught up soon.

Josiah

New ROM today. And if you didn't see it on monday, there's a new essay on the Extras Page.

Well, I'll be taking my last final exam pretty soon and then it's off to CO for a short but much needed vacation. Unfortunately, I only get like a week and a half off before it's back to school. On the up side, I'll be spending most of the first week of the summer semester at E3!

Unfortunatly, one thing I won't have in CO or at E3 is my PS2 which means it's gonna be a while before I can finish Kingdom Hearts II. Kinda disapointing, especially since I'm so close to the end (just finishing up the tournaments and a few other things before heading for the final boss). Oh well, it'll give me an excuse to work on some computer and Gameboy games I've been meaning to play. Gee, I have so many games sitting around that I need to play... Maybe I'll have more time this coming semester. Or maybe I'll just have to wait till my 4th of July break and spend the entire time playing stuff. Oh, look for a review of Brain Age in the near future.

Anyway, I have to run. Got to study for my test. Later all!

Josiah

Remember that friday's bonus comic is up if you want to vote. Also, there is a new ROM today.

I'll be heading back home to CO wednesday after my last final. My break is pretty short but at least it's something. Pebble Version updates should continue as usual. Until then, I've got plenty of homework to keep my occupied.

You know what I hate? It's not doing as well as I should at something and not knowing why. For example, if I don't study and screw up a test I know what I did wrong. I can get on myself for slacking off and do better next time. Or if I lose to someone in a video game I could say something like 'wow, he's really good I should practice more so I can do that'. In cases like that I know what went wrong and what I can do to see that it doesn't happen again. But not knowing really gets on my nerves, especially if it's at something that I'm positive I should be successful at. If I don't know why I didn't suceede how can I prepare for my next attempt? For that matter, how do I even know that I need to prepare? Maybe I did everything fine and it was just a mistake or bad luck... That Japanese Speech contest was one example. I went up, I thought I did a good job presenting my speech, my teacher thought I did a good job, and I even had the hardest most complex speech in my catagory but I didn't win a prize (even though some people I was sure I'd done better than did). I had no idea what I'd done wrong and even my teacher wasn't sure why I hadn't won one of the prizes. And that really bugs me. Did I make some big mistake that my teacher and I didn't catch? Did the judges not like my subject? My outfit? Sigh... Oh well, I did learn a lot and improved my Japanese a bit so I'm glad I entered but not knowing why I didn't win is really annoying.
My attempts at finding a publisher for my books tends to lead to a similiar situation. Although I've been working on that for years so I'm used to it by now. Speaking of which, I've added a new essay to the extras page. It was the final project for one of my classes and deals with the process of getting something published and how I think it could be improved.

Well, that's all for today. See you wednesday.

Josiah

There's a new bonus comic for voters and a new ROM up.

I'm almost done with finals. Just three more tests, one paper to edit, and a whole lot of Japanese homework. Then there's my speech contest on sunday. Have I mentioned that before? I've been preparing for it for the last two or three months. I already wrote an original speech in Japanese, submitted it, memorized it, and on sunday I'm going to present it. Wish me luck.

There's only five episodes left before the end of Alias. I've been watching it for years and, although the last couple of seasons have gotten kinda out there plotwise (some of the twists are straight out of a soap opera), it's still pretty good, especially for an American show. But this begs the question, what am I going to watch when it's over? Well, I still have my DVDs, anime, and the occasional sitcoms and comedy shows on TV but you know what I mean. I need something to replace Alias with. Hmm... I've been watching Smallville on and off for a while. It's ok (I am a bit of a Superman fan) but the storylines often border on ridiculous or blatently rip off other stuff. I've heard good things about Lost and 24 but they don't look like the kind of shows you can just start watching in the middle. Maybe I can borrow a DVD set or something...

Well, back to homework. See you monday!

Josiah

Hello world (or at least whatever percentage of the world reads these news posts). New ROM today.

Well, finals are progressing fairly well although I still have plenty to do. Unfortunately, I won't be done un