Lately Pie and I have been having a sizeable ant problem at the house which is a big inspiration for today's comic. I'm guessing the food supply out in the wilderness that is our backyard cannot sustain them because they seem to be on a feverish march to find any little morsel possible. Even when we keep the kitchen immaculately clean, they still seem to be on patrol waiting for us to let down our guard. I'd swear we could drop a few grains of sugar and have thousands of ants here in a matter of minutes.

Who needs the illusion of fantasy when you can look like a zombie in trunks?

Carbine Studios recently unveiled their foray into the MMO genre with WildStar during Gamescom. After checking out the impressive trailer and seeing some of the rather beautiful screenshots, it certainly has piqued my interest. With this, Blade and Soul and Guild Wars 2, NCSoft seems to be poised to give Blizzard quite the run for its money in the next 2 years. All the aforementioned games have interesting elements to them, but NCSoft has also been responsible for Barbie and Ken's Dress-Up Playhouse Online, so who knows what could happen.

Speaking of WoW, Pie and I haven't really been playing a lot of it recently which has been a bit jarring considering its one of our few outlets for social interaction. The sad thing is that being away from it for a couple weeks has made me feel less enthusiastic to play it at all. Even after spending a ton of time and energy to change factions and level new characters, I just have no desire to log into a game that culminates in Fireland dailies. It wouldn't be so bad if I had more free time to raid with our guild, but that sadly hasn't been the case. The inevitable question that surfaces in this situation then becomes, "Why exactly am I paying Blizzard for the privilege to do virtual chores?"

I've thought about starting some new alts, but I've already leveled 3 characters since Cata dropped and I'm already bored of questing. We could run dungeons, but since we are on at odd hours it means we would have to PUG it most of the time. With as much great content as WoW has, the amazing environments and lore, the balance and refinement I would think it would be a lot more enticing then it has been. It just seems to be missing a certain something for me lately and I can't seem to put my finger on it. I think it has to do with the pacing being too slow and me being more in an action oriented mood lately.

This week's comic is based on NIntendo's new Kirby game for the Nintendo DS, Kirby Mass Attack! A wizard zaps Kirby and he is split into many small versions of himself. You start out as only one Kirby, but as you consume food, you gain more. The goal of the game is to reach the end of each stage, meanwhile having a certain number of Kirbys. Along the way, you will encounter obstacles and enemies that can only be overcome by increasing your numbers. I think the game looks rather cool! XD It's interesting how Nintendo has been experimenting so much with the Kirby Franchise. It's great seeing a company coming up with fun new ideas. XD

Bear recently beat the game Catherine and I gotta say that I'm rather pleased with it. It feels like such a creative original game; a nice breath of fresh air. I haven't played much of it myself and I don't think I'm as good at it as Bear, but I'm confident that I can do pretty decent; I think my biggest problem is that I get stressed when playing and my hands start sweating. >.<

Bear beat the game twice and got the two best endings. It's kinda surprising to find that the ending where you cheat on Vincent's girlfriend is far cooler than the one where you try to be faithful, though in being faithful, you learn something about the waitress Erica that makes the interactions among her, Vince, and his friends a little more fun and interesting on the second play through. I'm really happy with the game and I'm excited to see what the development team has planned for the future!

Playing Catherine with Bear really makes me want to go back and finish playing Persona 4 and get further in Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne. XD

Another week, another shirt unveiling! This shirt is a not so much gaming related as it is dino related, since Pie seems to have an incurable love for T-Rexes. It really is good for me that she is attracted to big animals! Anyway, we thought that everyone could relate to this common, hopefully amusing, shirt design and so we intend on making two versions available, one for us local Americans and one for...well, pretty much the rest of the world lol! So once again Pie and I are proud to introduce:

Gas Prices based on Jurassic Parking Lot

What we want to do is have both the gas and petrol versions available in both colors. We will be working out the details with our printers, but chances are likely that the petrol shirts will be a limited run since we will likely keep stock on the Gas Prices version for cons and such. Of course, we shall see how demand is over time and play it by ear.

Now that the two primary shirt designs are completed, Pie and I just need to work with the printers to make sure we get them the files in a print-friendly format and have them produce our first proofs. We still have a little bit to go, but we are inching closer and closer every day and it is very exciting!

Have a good week all and we'll see you back here on Friday!