A more in depth look at Amy

With Amy what we really want to do is create the ultimate girlfriend, someone who'll make the readers almost wish she was real, after all, hot girls that know their games aren't exactly easy to come across. Rather than just spit out another Lilah, that is to say any girl that also likes video games, we're trying to make her sexually aware and suggestive- but in a cool gaming way.

RPG-TV: New Character

We're going to mix up the character relationships a little with a new character, Amy, who will date Seth. Old school readers might notice a similarity to an old old character... Curious?

Back when we ran a survey to gather some feedback to improve the comic a couple things you guys kept asking for was more female characters and continuing story lines. Not ones to ignore our readers this is exactly what you'll be getting.

Gears of War Ink

A friend of mine from University got this Gears of War Tattoo a while ago so I thought I'd share with the group. What do you think? Anyone else got gaming ink done?

New features coming to RPG-TV.com

For those that read our Webcomic regularly (and according to our latest figures thats some forty thousand of you) you might be pleased to know we're implementing a couple of new features.

First up is a site skinner that will let you change the pattern/texture around the website so for those that fancy something a bit livlier than the current grey lines you're free to mix things up a little.

Secondly is a comment ticker on the right hand side next to the news posts so you can see new comments being added to archived comics. This means you can comment on an old comic and readers will know to check back and see what you had to say.

What do you think? Got any more suggestions? If so lay 'em on me in the comments below and they may make it into the next round of site improvments.

Another Mortal Kombat movie? Won't somebody think of the children!

As if the Resident Evil series and Uwe Boll's efforts wern't enough the brains in tinsel town think it's about time they try their luck at another Mortal Kombat movie. I am inclined to disagree.

"mink says the project isn't so much a sequel as it is a “re-envisioning(if that is a word) of the Mortal Kombat franchise from top to bottom. Todays audience is a savvy involved group so the film must be A plus plus in every area in order to capture the magic of the first film. It is taking the entire concept to the next level across the board in every area visual design, story, cast, FX, photography and most importantly the fighting scenes. The original Mortal Kombat game was born a child of many visual loves by the creators at midway so this latest version borrows heavily from that pioneering spirit and must be thought out and executed at the highest level in order for it succeed in today's market place. This is no overnight task.''

And yet I suspect the movie will end up looking rather like it was an overnight task, and heres why. Mortal Kombat is a game that looked outstanding, that is to say, it looked outstanding back when it was first released. The appeal of the original titles has long since been drowned in a sea of medicore visuals and archaic gameplay mechanics to the point where only the avid MK veterans even give a shit about the franchise. I don't believe I'm incorrect in that statement?

Mortal Kombat is a relic of the nineties, and like most relics of the nineties, it doesn't look too pretty in the cold harsh light of modern times. At least Transformers had a collosal budget and some big names attached to it. More than can be said for "mink's" take on this old arcade brawler.

You know what grinds my gears?

The lack of a button lock for the PSP's music playing functionality. I'll be swanning around London with my PSP in my pocket playing whatever happens to tickle my fancy and some moose cock bumps into me, WHAM he's knocked my PSP, the L button was depressed and my song is reset to the begining. After 4 consecutive instances of this event I am litteraly ready to smash somebodys skull using a rolled up LondonLite (free paper) and then kick a bin over. Thats right! Bin kickery has become involved!

And thats what grinds my gears.


EDIT: Okay I found the button lock, I can't believe I never knew the power switch doubles as a button lock. Sweet.

Zero Punctuation reviews COD4... Uses actual Cod fish as graphical joke.

Watch and enjoy the latest animated rant by Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw as he takes COD4 to task for being a bunch of American willy waving. Good times.

The tortoise and the hare (or Sony and Microsoft)

EA have stated that they expect the PS3 to outsell the 360 in 2008. How can this be? The PS3 has had the slowest launch in history as far as onlookers are concerned with a starting retail price placing the console out of the budget of everyday gamers and high calibre exclusive games being few and far between. Meanwhile the 360 has massively grown it's install base, brought online gaming to the masses and enjoyed numerous award winning exclusives including Halo 3, Bioshock and Mass Effect.

I'm not sure what EA based their predictions on, however as a consumer I'm starting to look at the PS3 and 360 a little differently than I did say 4 months ago. The PS3 price has dropped a couple of times and is now bundled with a number of quality titles including Drakes Fortune and Ratchet and Clank. On top of this Blu-Ray is looking stronger and stronger each week as the fortune of Toshiba and HD-DVD dwindles. This, I don't believe, is enough for Sony to pull up alongside Microsoft in this 3 man horse race, at least not yet.

What's really got me tempted to change teams is Microsoft's shoddy attempt at quality control. Almost everyone I know who has a 360 (and thats a lot) has experienced technical problems with it. A little while ago some guy came forward claiming to be a technician or something for Microsoft and basically detailed the reasons for the high 360 failure rate. I believe him. As far as I'm concerned Microsoft has shown gamers no respect at all by producing and continuing to produce a faulty console, mine has already red ringed once and within weeks of getting it back I'm seeing the red lights flash up occasionally, like a warning that the damn things on it's last legs already.

It's not just the bricking issue though is it, lets be honest here. The 360 is a pretty damn unreliable beast. Sometimes I'll call up the guide menu and then press B to send it away and it'll stay there, frozen for upwards of 2 minutes while the machine, like Vista, sits and has a think. Owning a 360 has tried my patience and while I love the console and it's games, one day, and one day soon it's going to push me too far and I will send it back to Microsoft with a polite note that reads "Fuck you, I'm buying a PS3... See what you've reduced me too!?"

Conflict: Denied Ops = Captain Blands Monotonous Adventures

Yesterday I downloaded and played the demo for a game I'd never heard of called Conflict: Denied Ops, a first person shooter for the XBox 360, although it may well get excreted onto other consoles as well. The opening "cinematic" was the first of many indicators that this game was clearly made with all the care and precision of an autistic ice sculptor with no hands and black and decker drills attached to the end of his stumps. The character models were abysmal and the overall graphical feel just fell completely flat, it's neither bad enough to feel stylized nor good enough to be labeled realistic.

After watching the opening cinematic in which some scenery gets a good destroying courtesy of a graphics and physics engine that can only be described as "budget" I found myself playing as one of two characters who fall just shy of "so lame that it's cool" and end up being just tiresomely lame. The controls were acceptable but I'm loathe to use such a positive comment, note well that I'm not saying the controls were good, just that moving my character didn't make me feel like a drunk coma patient walking through nipple high water.

Within 60 seconds I found flammable barrels and gas canisters arbitrarily placed around the level by some level designer who clearly still had "L" plates attached to his Dev kit. Oh yeah; these barrels had flammable stickers on them! As if we didn't already know at this point that a red barrel in a generic FPS will explode/catch fire when shot. Anyway so I walked around and shot a few goons noticing how unbearably weak the sound effects were in the process, honestly I've reloaded spud guns that sound more impressive than these things.

I can see why Eidos and Pivotal Games have decided to brand this as a "casual first person shooter", anyone who's played a similar game before will instantly label this as the most underwhelming experience of 2008, meanwhile anyone who's never played a FPS before is likely to stay away from this monstrosity because the box art isn't exactly appealing to the kindly old grandmas that are picking up "Princess Peach Window Shopping 3" or "Wheelchair duck feeding" on the Wii.

If there is a God this game will sell no more than 10 copies and those will be to the family of the developers, just like when a shit band plays a gig and only the bands girlfriends turn out to watch.

Subway warms my heart

I make no secret of my almost obsessive attitude towards Subway and their particular sandwich's. A foot long Italian BMT is just what I need for a lunch time pick me up or indeed as a pick me up between Italian BMT's! I just got back from town and devoured such a sandwhich but while I was there I saw a man feeding his baby a Subway! It warmed my heart to see the little tyke clench a single piece of destroyed lettuce and struggle to put it in her mouth. Obviously she couldn't clench the whole sub her hands were about as big as a POG but I could tell she wanted to eat the whole thing. Bravo.

RPG-TV animated short...

I wanted to get this up here just because it's nice to have a little video content once in a while...