08Nov05 (Monthenor): Melty cat! I am trying to hit all the high points of magical girl anime in the short time I have left. Pigtails? Check. Gemstones? Check. Magic wands? Check. And now: near defeat, shoulder wings, and a costume change? Check, check, and check.

I've recently been inundated with PS2 games. Since last we chatted I've had Burnout Revenge, ESPN NFL 2K5, and Shadow of Colossus. ESPN NFL 2K5 was an impulse used-game purchase, just to get some football into my game library, and I'm pretty happy with it. Burnout Revenge I'm not even going to give a full review. I'll just say that the racing is better this year, but the all-important Crash Mode is worse, not least because you are forced to play each crash intersection at least twice. It also represents a big step backward for Burnout parties, as the interface is worse and it refuses to give you intermediate leader boards during multi-stage events. We'd like to know who's in first place before the game is over, please and thank you! Therefore I still have to give the nod to last year's Burnout Takedown.

I only mention these games today instead of Friday because I noticed that both Burnout and Shadow made extremely heavy use of the R1 button: in Burnout this is your "nitrous boost" button, and in Shadow it is the "hold on for dear life" button. You hold this one button down for upwards of five minutes at a time in either game, and usually only release it to scramble to a safe place to press it again. R1 has seen more work this past weekend than I believe it ever has in its life. It is quite noticeably a button defeated, burdened with its sudden and unexpected importance.

This weekend's comic will deal with the philosphical implications of the quest to defeat the Colossi, which may or may not be a macrocosm for the beating we give R1.

Macrocosm!

08Nov05 (Monthenor): Before Slightly after I forget, there's a new version of Manager available. I fixed a couple bugs from the weekend version, made the left panel a little easier to understand, and added in the ability to "recall" a bad shot. Run your guy along the aisle to grab a Product you didn't mean to fire before it crashes off the end. Realistically, you better start running before it reaches about the halfway point; you're not all that fast.