If something gets in your way, turn.

Posted by Bob on April 07, 2006: Hey bitches, I'm back and I bring a new comic! Oklahoma was fun, but I'm home now. Don't worry. So, the comic. Once again, I can't remember which one it is, so I need to go look at it and then write my post. I tend to finish the comic ahead of time, so when it comes time to write my posts I forget what the hell it is that I drew. Okay. I probably should have thrown a "Later" dialogue square thing in panel seven, but I didn't think of it until now. So if you think there should be one too, then just pretend there is. If not, forget this whole damned thing. I like how Storm Shadow-esque Bob looks in this one. I should have him like that all the time for no reason whatsoever.

Maybe it's for the best I only write comics once in a while.

Oh, I plan on inking next week's comic differently. I got a new program for comic making called Manga Studio, and that means next week's comic will be digitally inked, provided it doesn't look horrendous halfway through. I doubt it though, cause I've inked a couple things with it so far and it just rocks shit hot. I'm looking forward to Steve sending me the next comic.

Onto the links. Apparently, Canada is a giant fucking fight club. Just insane. So Fenris, just how much ass have you kicked?

Here's a fantastic IGN Top ten: the top ten gore effects from games. Resident Evil 4's chainsaw death is on there, and I gotta say, it certainly deserves it. I terminator'ed my way through the game with an Action Replay, but I still let the chainsaw guy get me cause I wanted to see what happened. Holy shit is it insane. Jax's arm tear fatality from MKII is in there as well. That one is good, but my personal favorite is still from MK4, (I think.) I want to say it's Quan Chi's, in which he tears off your leg and then beats you to death with it. Just awesome.

Haha, the new Tomb Raider game coming out? Yeah, the Xbox version doesn't have an intro movie. Fantastic. Oh, speaking of Xboxen, I finally picked up a 360. I ended up getting Burnout, and later on Rumble Roses. So far so good, I'd say. The system setup itself is hot. You can turn on and off the console with the controller. How fucking fantastic is that? I have two wireless controllers, but it's funny, I still find myself flipping the controller once in a while to better position the phantom cable. Habit after doing it after all these years, I suppose. But yeah, once the really good games start coming out, it's gonna be pretty bad ass. I downloaded the demo for Ghost Recon, and I must say it's pretty damn awesome. And I never liked any of those Tom Clancy games. Provided the single player offline game is pretty good, I may end up picking it up somewhere down the line.

Here's a neat countdown of the top 20 strangest gadgets and accessories. There actually are some neat things on there, like the human head shaped knife block. But then you find something like the head bath thing and wonder what the hell someone was thinking. People will buy anything!

How about another countdown? The top ten viral videos. I had seen them all before except for Leeroy Jenkins, which was pretty good. I don't think anyone can argue with which is number one.

I'm really beginning to like 2spare.com more and more. Here's the top 87 bad predictions about the future. I'm such a sucker for countdowns!

Jason, the gauntlet has been thrown down!

And finally, probably the best for last, Star Jones gets hit in the face with a football. You don't have to thank me, it's just what I do. Back in a week, gang.

Posted by Steve on April 07, 2006: With Bob back from action, I'm free to revert to my mini-newsposts. Today wraps the small "Bob's vacation" arc. Better Off Dead references abound in the last two comics. Well, there's 3, but that's still a lot compared to how many we normally have.

True to my word, I picked MLB 2K6 the other day. I'll try to give some quick impressions, but keep in mind this is all based off of about a game and a half. Opinions can and probably will change.

I really like the new pitching system. The old systems they've used always made it too easy to put the ball right where you wanted it, which made it too easy to pitch with a scrub and put up Clemens like numbers. The system they use now makes things a bit more variable, which is good.

The Inside Edge thing is pretty neat. You buy scouting reports on hitters and pitchers with edge points (or something like that). I'm not sure how they determine how many you have to spend, as I just played a quick exhibition, but in the quick game I played I had enough points to buy the reports on the starting pitcher, the 3 and 4 hitters, and a reliever. If you buy the scouting report on a hitter, your catcher actually calls the at bat, giving you targets and calling pitches. (you can shake him off and throw what you want if you like.) In a really odd way, you almost find yourself looking forward to facing the heart of the order, just to see the catcher call it. This is such a cool way to pitch that you wish they just did it for every batter as a standard.

The Swing Stick thing, on the other hand, I'm not sure I care for. I used it for the whole game, and hit a blast with Thome, but I still wasn't really comfortable with it. In fairness though, I only used it for a game. I'll give it more of a chance, but I have a hunch I'll wind up reverting back to the old one button swing system. (UPDATE: Played 2 more games. It's actually not bad when you get the hang of it.)

The animations still seem a bit off. A lot of times the players look stiff and unnatural. Some of the windups (Freddy Garcia's in particular) look really bad. I'm afraid I forgot to note how the batting stances looked. More on that next time I suppose. (UPDATE: Yeah, the animations are definitely bad.)

The new momentum system they finally added (they listened!) has been getting some abuse on some sites, but it didn't seem that bad. It takes a bit to get going in the other direction, sometimes too long, but I'm not sure it's a game killer. The only place it really seemed bad was with the catcher. I threw a wild pitch, and A.J. moved like he had a boulder chained to him. (UPDATE: Actually, it probably is that bad. Everyone seems sluggish. Maybe it's me, but sometimes I had a real hard time telling what player I was controlling, especially with hits to the outfield gaps. Infielders seem to make a delayed start to the ball, like they're not paying attention. Again, it's still a few games in, but so far it really seems like they went overboard on the momentum, and now instead of having no momentum, there's far far too much of it. Be careful what you wish for, I guess.)

Honestly, I think a lot of the problems people have with it can probably be fixed once someone sits down and bangs out a good set of sliders. It's not perfect (I'm afraid to check out franchise mode, where some horrible game killing bug usually lives) but I'll keep playing. Again, this is all based on one game though. I could easily come back next week telling you how horrible it is, so please don't run out and buy it based on this post. I'll play some more and report back next week. (UPDATE: Actually, I might hang on to this to see if someone can cook up a good slider set, but I don't think this one's gonna make the cut. Even if sliders fix some of the issues, I'm not sure it'd necessarily be fun to play. Oh, and word on the franchise is that some of the old roster issues are back.)

One more note. The Show continues to impress. The other day I was playing the computer. It had bases loaded, one out, pitcher up. No problem. Keep the ball low, get him to roll into a double play, and let's get out of here, right? Wrong. Mother fucker dropped a squeeze on me. I was stunned. I've played enough of this one now to give it my blessing for a purchase. It's got it's fielding quirks, but you eventually learn how to deal with them, and it does too many things right for that to be a game killer.

Damn. Two big newsposts in a row. I should talk about baseball more often. See you next week.