When the Wii was first introduced we all assumed that it would bring the casual market into gaming, widening our audience and giving us more people to play with. If I had a nickle for every time I’ve heard, “They’ll buy a Wii and then upgrade to a 360 or PS3″ then I’d be a millionaire by now. The reality of the situation is that this just isn’t happening in any quantifiable degree.  The Wii hasn’t created new “gamers”, they’ve created a new breed of… something else.

Turn 10 Studios, on the other hand, has taken a game which was originally aimed squarely at the hardest of hardcore gamers and opened it up to everyone.  Instead of making casual party games accessible, they’ve made accessible hardcore games. Do you see the difference? It’s an important one and I hope every other developer out there is paying attention.

Another thing we should probably talk about is the, err, “controversy” surrounding this comic.  On Monday I tweeted, “LADIES! MS thinks the latest 360P may be “female unfriendly”. I need to know what you think! http://bit.ly/22pT15“

All the women who replied agreed, some more vocally than others, that it was not sexist in any way. In fact, I think I would argue that it is more “pro-woman” than anything else.  This shouldn’t come as a surprise since the comic is co-written by a woman. I know that Maranda doesn’t pop onto the blog as often as everyone else would like, but that’s just kind of the way it is.  She’s going to be taking a much bigger role soon though, and then maybe these posts will be a little more coherent. I’ve been told I tend to ramble.

Oh, and speaking of I seem to have gotten myself off topic. CONTROVERSY!

There were some people who replied with some not nice things about Microsoft and I just wanted to say that my friends there just want to be careful. The last thing they need is a post on Kotaku reading, “BREAKING: Microsoft hates women and puppies”.  The comic is distributed to every Live enabled Xbox in Canada, that’s a lot of people to potentially offend. We shouldn’t blame them for wanting to protect themselves. I certainly don’t.

Inspired by some of my heroes, I’ve decided to delve into playing some Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition with my family. I’ve never played before, but I think it’s something the kids would enjoy so I went to my  local Chapters and picked up the 4e starter kit. In it I found simplified version of both the players handbook and a DM guide, a set of dice, some dungeon tiles, pre-made characters and a short adventure to experiment with.  In essence, everything I need to begin an adventure. The PCs are getting their character sheets tonight so they can give themselves names and familiarize themselves with their skills and stats.

I really have to hand it to Wizards on the Coast for organizing those podcasts. It certainly sold me on their product and if the kids enjoy playing then I’m sure I’ll be putting together some more elaborate scenarios of my own in the future. I’ll post some pictures after Friday night’s game.

What I’m most excited about though is that ODST marks (at least in my books) the official start of the 2009 gaming season. And yes, it’s a little sparse as compared to some previous years but we’re still getting some amazing experiences with games like Forza 3, Dragon Age, Borderlands, DJ Hero, Assassins Creed 2, Brutal Legend, and Modern Warfare 2. Before taxes, that’s still almost FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS worth of games. I can tell you that even with this “lessened” calendar I will not be purchasing all the games I’m interested in this holiday season. While I’ve never asked them, I’m pretty sure my children don’t want me canceling Christmas so daddy can play video games. Oh, the sacrifices a father has to make!

EDIT: I almost forgot to mention that we’ve uploaded a final look at the print we’ll be bringing to X09 to our Facebook page.

For the past three years I’ve been at the event meeting gamers, giving away prints and signing autographs and this year will be no different (hopefully). I’ve got an all new print featuring Halo ODST that I’m hoping you’ll like. I decided that I wanted to try something different this year and instead of a comic I took a shot at making a Photoshop render/illustration. I think it turned out pretty well but I’m curious as to what you guys think. Would you rather have had a more traditional comic instead? It’s obviously too late this year, but at least I’ll know for next time.

In addition, I am also looking into an option for people who would like a print but are not able to attend the event. Every year people ask me this and I’ve always had to decline them. I’ll be talking about this more later, but be aware that the non-event version will a) not be exactly the same as the limited edition b) have a cost associated with it. Well, *if* it happens at all that is.

Hit the jump to get a preview of this year’s print…

For the uninitiated, GameAccess is a Canadian version of GameFly (they’re not affiliated). You pay a monthly subscription and then they send you games in the mail. You can keep them as long as you want and then you just send them back when you’re done in a pre-paid envelope. It’s awesome for all those games you’d like to try but don’t want to shell out the big bucks for. [ do you want to know more? ]

I’ve got some great news, now you can support 360Prophecy AND extend your GameAccess experience with some coupon codes on new subscriptions.

1. Visit GameAccess.ca using our special URL: http://360prophecy.com/gameaccess
2. Click on “Sign Up”
3. Enter your details along with one of our special offers…
   • 360PROPHECY15 - Free trial extension of 5 extra days.
   • 360PROPHECY21 -  2 games out package at the price of the 1 game out package for the 1st month
     
   • 360PROPHECY2MR - 2 months of free Reserve a Game feature upon signup.
     
   • 360PROPHECY7 - First month promotional price extended by a week

Unused Concept Art

A few weeks ago I was approached by the infamous blogger Matt Brett. He was redesigning his site and looking for some illustrations to append to his reviews, Giant Bomb style (but different). I’m happy to see that they’re all now online and you’re more than welcome to wander on over and check them out.

There are five, four, three, and two star illustrations. No one star though, apparently he’s too good for shitty games.  Aren’t we all, Matt. Aren’t we all.

50. Chevy Nova?

When I was a kid there was nothing that I loved more than the Ninja Turtles. In fact, as it turns out, they are one of the few characters from my childhood that I can still draw from memory (the others being Mario and Mega Man) so it’s only fitting that Raph appears in comic number 50… a milestone for all cartoonists. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve probably noticed that I’m using Raph here as my avatar but I need to come clean, Leo was actually my favourite. Swords just seemed so much cooler back then than those little sai did. Plus, and let’s be honest here, Raph was kind of a dick sometimes.

I can still remember coming out of the movie theater thinking the first TMNT movie was one of the greatest things I had ever seen.  Since I haven’t seen in in well over a decade now (it came out in 1990, I was 12) it remains completely amazing in my mind.  If you don’t get the title of this comic, then you need to watch the first ten minutes of TMNT2 but I’ve got to warn you: it is less awesome.

While we’re on the topic, avoid TMNT3 at all costs. Your very sanity may depend on it.

Unused Canada Day 2009 Gamerpic

One of the reasons this comic took so long was because the Canada Day stuff took up a surprising amount of time and, again, I’m sorry we didn’t have any free stuff to give away this year. If it’s any consolation, you can have one of the gamerpics I created for it. I know  a lot of people were sad, but honestly, how many gamerpics with a maple leaf on it do you really need anyway? Jakenbear and I haven’t given up on getting more exclusive Canadian content out there though, just give us a little more time and we’re bound to come up with something.

UPDATE! July 23
And just like that THEY ARE GONE.  I’ve decided to pull them from Envanto. Don’t worry, they’ll be back soon enough! Until then you can still get the free pack from our downloads page.

—

I’ve been promising for months, and I’m happy to announce that my next Xbox 360 button pack, named the awfully generic “GameButtonPackX” to avoid legal implications, has now been released to the masses for the crazy low price of two American dollars on Envanto’s GraphicRiver.net online marketplace! In addition, PlayStation and Nintendo button packs are also inbound. PlayStation buttons will be hitting the review process next week and the Nintendo pack will follow sometime in August. You can see a preview of the Sony buttons after the jump.

So? What do you think?

So, as you have probably been able to tell, I’ve been awfully busy lately and this has directly contributed to comic #50 not showing up. In the meantime, I’d like to direct your attention towards my friend Greenskull’s enthusiast gaming community site ReadyUpLive.com.  A few months ago he started up his own webcomic series Just One RULe and this week he has posted a guest comic from yours truly. I have to admit, being freed of the content restrictions of Xbox Live was an invigorating experience.

Knowing this, I try to spend as much time as I’m able reviewing the work of others and reading/watching a lot of tutorials.  Here’s a few of my favourite spaces on the net to get Photoshop/comic tutorial goodness…

• Webcomics.com
• PSDTuts (their entire network is worth looking into)
• Pixel Perfect with Bert Monroy
• idrawgirls

The point of all this is to say that I’ve created by own video tutorial! I made it in response to an article on Webcomics.com regarding the creation of word balloons.  Video is going to be a big part of the 360Prophecy presence in the future and this is just a small taste (it’s not all going to be tutorials).  It’s embedded after the break, but you can watch it in HD by hitting up our Facebook page.