Yesterday was Valentine’s Day. I did little piece of MWM! art for the holiday.

This design has become a bit of a mascot for the site and can be seen in several other places, not the least of which is the donation pic.

This design originally showed on Cecil’s coffee mug in strip #2. It was originally influenced by certain 8-bit video game enemies, such as Mario’s Bullet Bill. I modified the original concept and added zombie-green coloring. It’s official name as MWM!’s mascot is MonsterMug. MonsterMug will continue to make appearances in and out of the comic, especially in holiday pictures.
I began MonsterMug as a lark, something cool to have on Cecil’s cup, but it has taken on a life of its own. This makes me chuckle a bit because MWM! started as a bit of a lark and now has become a full-blow comic, almost 2 months running. Funny but cool.

See you around, BigJ.

I almost hate to admit this to the gaming public, but I am just now playing The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind and Oblivion for the first time. I am so behind the curve. Actually, it has more to do with my utter lack of free time and money than anything against the games. I am enjoying Morrowind greatly, and trying to tweak Oblivion so it won’t stutter so much.

My gaming group on Friday nights just completed a summer session of Legend of the Five Rings. I love the fuedal Japanese role-playing! Truly, the only world where a player playing in character cannot feel bad about a death in battle. Such a death is part and parcel of the Samurai’s life, and greatest thing to which he can aspire. Now we move onto a PnP version of the web game Urban Dead. That should be a blast. I am a big fan of the zombie apocalypse genre.

But, not to worry, these things are not delaying my comics at all. KU’s newest page will be up today, and more work continues on this month’s bonus work. In order to enjoy this work you will have to sign up for a membership on the forums. Membership is free and simple.

Ta-ta for now, BigJ

My current comic page for Kentou Underground has been slow going. However, I’m not that upset. I have learned a lot from this page, as it takes place entirely inside a vehicle. I’ve never tried drawing such a thing before and I’ve made mistakes; mistakes I’ve had to fix, evaluate, refix, and so on. I am finally past the pencilling, however, and will be moving onto ink tonight.

On a side note, I’ve been playing Dawn of War: Dark Crusade and enjoying it thoroughly. The single player campaign is very different depending on who you play, increasing its replay value. The scenarios may be the same, but how ou accomplish them changes from race to race. That’s what I like to see in multi-race RTS games.

I am looking forward to the new Neverwinter Nights. How can my fretime survive this onslaught? I have no idea.

The last week I have languished under the flu, destroying my current update schedule for Kentou Underground. This wekened will be update #4, it is inked, flat layered, and touched up. All that remains is the final color and it’ll be up.

On an unrealted note, why do two sequals to two of my favorite games have to be released so close to one another? I mean Neverwinter Nights 2 (warning, Flash), I have to get that, that’ s atotal no-brainer. Then why do they also taunt me (and my limited, very limited, okay, near-non-existant budget) with Team Fortress 2? Why? Dang you game developers. Dang yer hide to Hades. But before you go there, gimme my games!

I need to say this: The Modern World is killing my childhood loves. From Transformers going live-action ang GI Joe turning their toys into human-faced robots, it seems that the modern marketting system is conspiring to devour my youth one anime-mass-market–inspired concept at a time.

That leaves the video games I loved left to sully. Metal gear has survived the taint and made into a fantastic franchise. That goodness the Final Fantasy series is sacrosanct… or so I thought. Then I was reading the review at Gamspot.

What your character and your party do then is to a large extent determined by gambits. The gambit system is based on artificial intelligence commands that you set for each character (you can even set your own). Gambits consist of two options: a target and an action. For example, if you set a gambit for Balthier that starts with “Foe: party leader’s target” and ends with “attack,” then Balthier will attack any enemy that you have the leader attack.

I went pale and strained to hold in my hate. Let me explain: every FF game has some linear moments. However, those moments are broken by glorious random encounters that let you wallow in the turn-based goodness the way golden sunlight will part storm clouds to reveal azure sky to tired eyes. Those moments saved the game from constant tedium by allowing you the player to make decisions on your own before jumping back onto the story-line train tracks.

Now we just set up the game to play itself. I wan’t use the … tactile description proposed by Penny Arcade, but I will say this is a massive let-down and yet another blow to a cherished childhood franchise.

However, the game is getting some good reviews. One on Eurogamer even called it the best of the franchise. So, here is me giving FFXII one chance, ONE, to preserve my inner child.