Gah, 3 weeks without a strip.

I got on a gaming kick after the 360 arrived, and I kinda lost track of everything. After Dead Rising there was Saint's Row, and this past week has seen Lego Star Wars 2 thoroughly one-hundred-percented. In other words, I've been lazy.

I've got a couple days off here, so I'm gonna be working on that last strip for you. Should be up monday without a problem. The good news is Stone Clouds has been large on my mind lately and I've got a lot of stuff set to be drawn.

More soon...

So they've suppossedly released a couple of "concept shots" showing the look of Megatron in the new Transformers movie. There's a page of shots here which also shows a number of his previous incarnations.

Frankly there's only two pictures of Megatron on the page, and they're the first two. I've never liked any of his suppossed redesigns. Galvatron wasn't terrible, at least in animation, but I'll still take the original animated one over any of the others any day of the week. I understand Beast Wars was a decent show, I've heard that many times, and I've seen enough to believe it. But good writing does not change the fact that the character looks like crap.

I wouldn't have been thrilled with him turning into a tank instead of a gun, but I would have understood it for the sake of holding some small grip on realism. Wait, screw that. This is a film about giant robots from another planet turning into cars. Realism left the building 20 years ago, gimme my damned shrinking robots already.

I'm really hoping this is all a smokescreen, and a year from now when the movie comes out, we're gonna find out they were just kidding. But um, I ain't gonna hold my breath on that one.

One more strip left, then I start with the sketchwork.

Steve is gonna be putting together a new site for Stone Clouds. During the hiatus it'll be set up to let you page through the sketches as they go up. It'll also be a little lighter overall, since the bulky black borders here are doing the pencil stuff no favors.

Played through Dead Rising last week. I didn't have a huge problem with the save system, unlike a lot of people. Frankly the game is pretty damned short, and it's ridiculously easy to level up. Once you've gotten a few levels it gets a lot easier to make your way through the mall. Once you've maxed out it becomes almost boring. The problem I have with the game is that it's filled with wasted opportunities. Most of the mall is just a series of fun looking but ultimatly empty shops you run past while trying to beat the deadlines. A lot of which are so close together it becomes an irritation. And yes, part of the problem is with the AI. As dumb as you've heard it is, it's worse. Seriously, these people are idiots. I would have much rather they take the less realistic "mission based" approach. That thrice-damned Otis and his evil radio could have been used SO much better. Have him locate missions on the radio, and let you go to the place to trigger them when it's convenient. Have timed missions, or temporary missions, but don't layer everything into one frantic mess. And there's not really that many missions to begin with. Something I would have really liked to have seen is abilities gained by completing missions, rather than just by body count. It would have been more of an incentive to go after the survivors and such. Much as I hate mini-games in rpg's I have to say this would have been an appropriate game for them.

This is not to say there isn't a lot of stuff in the game, there IS. But so much of it doesn't become practical until you've spent many hours levelling up. And by then it's mostly just a novelty. The game is certainly fun, and I got my share of fun out of it, but I really wish the timeline were less linear.

And as for survivor mode, between the "no-save/15 hour" aspect and continuously getting killed by the freak with the RC cars in the first area, no thanks. Great weapon for a no second chances scenario, a series of exploding cars that don't let your body stop moving before the next one hits you. Reminded me of the lava pits in the original Sonic.

So the game is worthwhile, but I'm hoping they make some drastic improvements to the sequel.