Still trying out different panel sizes and layouts and such. Man, why is it always the non-video game ones that take forever for me to finish?
END OF LINE
~A.H.
Still trying out different panel sizes and layouts and such. Man, why is it always the non-video game ones that take forever for me to finish?
END OF LINE
~A.H.
Mr. Newell,
How would you define a video game that is glitchy, impossible-to-play garbage, where defeat is always due to unreasonable demands and outright cheating on the part of the computer? A game crafted by people without any confidence or respect in their work, and no concern for the enjoyment of their audience. Games that don’t care when their own rules fall apart at the expense of the player, and are rushed out the door when they could still use a few more months in the oven. A game utterly contemptuous of standards of quality, and for the poor souls who might purchase it.
The popular term is “shovelware”. I call it “Left 4 Dead 2“.
I played Prince of Persia (2008) today. It’s going pretty good, up until it remembers it’s a modern day Prince of Persia game, so not even 10% of the way through the game starts throwing in blind jumps. Blind jumps in a video game are unacceptable. –>UNACCEPTABLE<–. They show an appalling lack of creativity and technical skill. They are an admission of inadequacy from the developer.
In the last ten years, I have been introduced to my favourite television show, one of my favourite video games, and my favourite person. I have changed, and I have not. I have improved as an artist and a writer, and have even managed to be a smidgen less immature(just a smidgen). And as recently as this month, for the first time I saw my characters come to life, thanks to “Crispy” of Deviant Dead. Thanks to the interwebtron, I have been exposed to a colourful gallery of scalawags. These things have greatly improved the quality of my life, and my world-view. For this I am grateful.
On the other hand, I went through a teenage depression so severe I had to exile myself to recover, and to avoid taking it out on the people I care about. In doing this, I lost many opportunities to get closer to certain people I will never see again. I have contributed a few things, but I am left with many regrets.
I”ll consider the last decade a draw. What I have to look forward to in 2010:
END OF DECADE
~A.H.
by Alex Hill
Left 4 Dead 2 may be the most toxic experience you can get from a video game. It is unfit for human consumption, without a doubt the worst example of this medium in the last ten years. It has the most game-killing glitches, and the worst design-choices born from innate contempt for its audience. Worse than anything I’ve ever seen. Worse than Hotel Mario. Worse than “Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties”. Worse than that root canal I had where the freezing wore off halfway, and the television in the same room featured Kelly and Regis interviewing Larry the Cable Guy.
I’m not entirely convinced it deserves a rating, because that would suggest merit. One could say that a game this addicting must surely have something redeeming. Heroin is addictive too. I guess this game is better than being addicted to heroin, but I’m really reaching here.
But, you know, it’s a lot gorier now. Because that’s what’s important.
Tomorrow, I will observe the first anniversary of the day I sat down and actually watched an episode of Azumanga Daioh. I mentioned it in passing on my blog, unaware that an entire series of articles would follow. I examined and celebrated the show and its characters, and those posts marked my progress of thought from the first to the last episode. From this, I came to an astonishing conclusion: I have never enjoyed television more.
If I am overly defensive about my opinions, even when it isn’t called for, I apologize. It stems from a lifetime of being discarded as a source of rational contribution over the most non-significant crap, from the smallest of people. I have been shunned for having the tiniest discretion of opinion. God forbid I not fall in line with 100% of every single popular belief. People are disturbingly ready and willing to throw people away at the slightest provocation. If you think you are friends with someone, online or In Real Life, even if you have been this way for many years, and they eliminate your alliance because you don’t like Beyonce as much as them, or because they worship a different god than you, or vote a different way, they were never your friend. They never DESERVED to be your friend. Good riddance.
Two saturdays ago my computer decided it didn’t want to let me log on anymore. Can’t get the internet on it either. I hate that blasted contraption, and I think the feeling is mutual. I’m writing this is on my father’s machine, which is a temporary solution. I’ve found some sort of uneasy truce with mine where I can probably still use Photoshop and my Wacom, but I have no way of posting stuff online from there. This could not have come at a worse time.
So, if all 2.5* of you have been wondering why I’ve been so silent lately, and why I’m most likely going to keep up radio silence for an indeterminate amount of time, there you go. If it were up to me, you’d have had a comic lampooning that shitty PS3 commercial days ago.
I’ll see what I can do for now though. Even if I have to draw it on paper, like they did in the time of dinosaurs, I’ll figure something out. Anything to avoid getting some fresh air and exercise.
*-(For the purposes of this article, one of my friends has been severed in half by a tragic sarcasm-factory accident. The workers said they were going to call an ambulance, but I don’t think they were being serious…)
END OF LINE
~A.H.
What have I been up to lately? Well, the lack of updates this time can’t be blamed on my usual combination of laziness and complete inability to draw anything the way I want it to look, forcing me to settle with a comic strip that looks like ass because after re-drawing it over and over I just get too fed up to get into the polishing stages.
Remember the Futurama episode with the “Stupid Fingers”? It’s like that for me, but with Photoshop.
Anyway, I HAVE been making comics. Just not Half-Masked. Rather, a (quite ugly even by my standards) 3 page dealie for a contest at deviantart.com. It introduces a few character concepts of mine in an interactive zombie-apocalypse community event something-or-other.
I might have a new Half-Masked up this Saturday, but either way if you’re that starved for something from me(Hah! HAHAHAHAHA!!), you can start from the cover. The logical progression from that point would be pages one, two and then three. Be warned. I may have made the Zombocalypse a slight more cuddly than you might be used to.
END OF LINE
~A.H.
by Alex Hill
It was a dark and stormy night...
Halo 3: ODST is the Halo game I’ve been waiting for. It is the first real progression from the original “Combat Evolved”, in presentation and execution. Halo 2 was an abomination, and the third entry did not add to the formula so much as attempt to bring the core concept back to tolerable levels. Even then it lacked something. A sense of exploration and thought, time to wander and room to wonder. ODST does away with much of what has maligned this series, the most shockingly overrated of video games. It’s the first in the series that may actually warrant the praise it will undoubtedly receive.
The term “Rape” refers to any sexual act which is not consentual and most likely quite aggressive.
Having established that, if you willingly go into a place called “The Rape Tunnel“, you’re hoping for something to happen. Let’s not kid ourselves here. At that point, can it really be called rape anymore?
Few hoaxes inspire this much introspective thought…
END OF LINE
~A.H.