Look what I came across by accident...

Well if that ain't a good starter for a post, I don't know what. This is the dynamic duo of crime-solving anthropomorphic wack-jobs we have all come to love in the classic LucasArts adventure and their new plasti-mensional form in TelltaleGames Episodic Renditions.

As a youngster who got the game for Christmas back then in 1993/4 on CD in German, I was intrigued by some of the one page comics by some Steve Purcell included in the Step-by-Step-Hint-Guide (a Sam'N'Max kind of a walkthough). They were in English as far as I can remember and were of a level that I could only barely master at that time (with only a three or four years worth of School-English). The art and wackyness however came across and I distinctly remember that at this time I wished there was a Comic book for the self-proclaimed 'FreeLance Police'.

Sam and Max as they looked in the intro of the first computer game by LucasArts, called 'Sam'N'Max hit the Road' back in 1993. Oh the pixel glory.

Well in America there actually were several such releases, rare and not in great numbers, but they did exist. None were ever released here in Europe, not even the Sam and Max - Collected ("Surfing the Highway") Edition (see cover at the top) that included most of the previous works and is now considered the 'standard volume' on Sam (the wise-cracker dog) and Max (the totally insane rabbit).

I just happened to pass by some flea-market at our Uni and saw a slightly ruffled book with a dog and a rabbit on the cover. Something inside me went 'click' I had a blackout and when I woke up, I found myself the proud owner of the above mentioned paperback comic book. The events were a blur, I think I might have threatened several people with an axe at some point, jumped on one table and acted like a gorilla to scare an old lady away, but yes in the end it was mine, better yet it still is mine!

If you got any fond memories of Sam and Max or just want to contribute in any way with other memorabilia. Feel free to do so in the comments. By the way: I just saw that the exact same edition I got at the flea-market for 5€ for about $280 on amazon.com - yeah I am a lucky bastard...soon to get rich, maybe...

Well if you liked the classic gameplay of the Lucasarts game and still have the CD or floppies lying around somewhere like me, the you can enjoy the old game again under Windows95/XP/Vista with the help of a little tool called ScummVM. ScummVM allows you to use filters to upgrade the graphic quality, with in my opinion stunning results. You should definately check it out using the HighQualityX3 filter...

This is TelltaleGames Rendition of Sam and Max in funky new 3D. The game itself however plays like a classic 2D and the jokes are great.

If all this is an old hat for you and you like some more modern looking action, I bestow upon you the link to the genious minds of TelltaleGames. These modern bards have acquired the license to produce new games featuring Sam and Max from Steve Purcell their demi-god-like creator and have thus far spun out two hilarious episodes, the next of which will be released in the beginning of February. No endless wait like in the time before LucasArts cancelled their second game in the universe of the philosophically inclined dog and the schizophrenic rabbit anymore.

No, there's 4 more monthly episodes on their way for all of us to enjoy. The entire season comes at a decent and affordable $30 something price, or if you rather just test the season there is a demo version available (you could also download each episode for 9$ but doing the math - that costs $20 more... which at least for me doesn't make it an interesting option).

And if you still don't have enough, Telltale also has a webcomic on their site featuring the crime-pummeling duo-infernale in a story about cockroaches. Scrolling over the panels will reveal the text-bubbles, if you haven't figured that out already.

In this spirit: "Holy jumping mother o'God in a side-car with chocolate jimmies and a lobster bib! WE'RE ON OUR WAY!"

Thank you Steve Purcel, Sam and Max

Yours Staroc

What did I like about the E3?

A lot! Even more! For one... I am going to buy a PS3! I love the games that are coming out for it and I do especially like the game you see below: Final Fantasy 13 however will not only come out as one game, it will come out as 3 games, giving you access to certain sides of the story. It will be much like the Final Fantasy 7 Compilation. So for me I guess the main FF13 will be the only real option.

The sad thing however is that I haven't even played Final Fantasy 12 yet, since the expected release date over here in Europe (just like in America) is around September to October 2006. With the newly anounced worldwide release date for the PS3 on the 17th of November that doesn't really leave much time to play through 12 on the PS2 before embarking on journeys on the new console...


I did however observe that Gears of War on the XBOX 360 looks intriguingly well, even better than the similar PS3 title Killzone, which is in my opinion however not due to hardware limitations but due to the developers' abilities. Look at the FF13 trailer and you will see that the ingame scenes look just like the cutscenes. There is next to no noticable difference. THAT is how it's done!!!


Congratulations Square-Enix, despite your utter lack of well behaviour towards us European pigs at least you show us that you deserve to look down on us - wait wasn't there this German developer Crytek showing their new game Crysis?


Oh hell yes there was... Guess even the guys at Square could learn something from these guys - now who's the winner bros? The realism guys from Germany or the artsy cultists from Square? Well both are in my opinion however standing next to Japanese guys quite often lately, my pal Steve said: "As a 6 foot European, you look down on them just naturally..." What does that tell us? I don't know, I just need a coffee. See you next time (month?!?) - Staroc

Sudoku....Aaarrrggghhhh!

Hi everybody,

I found another waste of time that I can use as an excuse for the lack of updates. BEHOLD: Go Sudoku for the PSP!!!


This junkball of a simple numbers arranging game has already cost about 42 hours of my life. At least! Since I discovered that the PSP has a very well done Sudoku implementation I am totally addicted. Before I only played online Sudoku without any flashy effects and practical funtions: like DKMSudoku. Just test that and you may already spend your next few hours doing nothing else basically. Now imagine what the PSP version with its beautiful graphics, endless puzzles and practical functions (if you have put in all 9 instances of a number it disappears as a choice...) has done to me.

In other though related news, it is now possible to enjoy GTA Liberty City Stories on Firmware V1.5 PSP (like mine) where before it was only possible on 2.0+. A great day for the gaming and homebrew community.


Also my girlfriend and I are planning a trip to Canada for this fall, which means that I need to safe a lot of money now. Which means that I won't be able to buy funky new stuff that I could try and show off with on this site. Oh well you'll just have to endure my usual shit for a lot longer.

The funniest thing I read to day was on one of my favourite sites 'Penny Arcade'. They had the a comic up at Wednesday and on Thursday received 1200 Krispy Kreme donuts from SOE's big boss John Smedley. I've been told they were filled with choclate, however I do remain sceptical (knowing what SOE manages to do with almost every product they bring out, which is essentially to turn it into shit [see StarWars Galaxies for reference]).

Well time to grab a donut myself and see you around next time for my circus of oddities - my senseless yabbing >;o)

Japanese Games are like Japanese TV...

Well howdy, my fellow Erthicans. My two week writing break has to be justified by the utter lack of exciting things happening over here in Germany or the Game-Scene in general. France has burning cars (not that I would think of that as good, but it's at least something to write about!) we have foggy, rainy and already bloody cold weather.

Gladly then I found something that is worth reporting. My ultimate target is though not publicly displayed on this site, but one of my common targets since my childhood days, the Japanese Game Industry and the dubious stuff they tend to call 'games'. One such Playstation Portable Games has recently come to my attention.

"Yawahada Eigo Juku" is its title. It is, following the description on the box, a program for learning conversational English, or 'EngRish' as the 'L' does not natively exist in the Japanese language. The game offers the TVs standard method of teaching english: Videos are played with sub-titles, first doing a conversation in Japanese, then reperforming the same conversation in English. Bad English AND subtitles in this case however as the following picture of the protagonists of this little piece of software will make clear:


Yup, you're seeing right my conversative American protestant, those are half-naked bikini girls (thank you Japan!!!). Nice japanese chicks with big boobs (as rare as that might be, they found three role models for this disc)! Their ability to actually speak English while dancing on the screen, finding silly reasons to start hopeless 'conversations', is to say the least utterly horrible. Another site referenced this bit of 'EngRish' girl-talk: "KUDO YUU TERU MII HAU TSU GETTO TSU ZA GUDDO RESUTORAN NIA HIA?!" (meaning "Could you tell me how to get to a good restaurant around here?").

My good religious parents, some of you must have thought it: "Will they strip and shake those jumbos around and then have a shower and touch each other?" just like you used to love in those porn-flicks, when you were around the same age your kids are now? (I know while back than that was cool, you now have to protect your poor kids, even from erect nipples under a shirt, while you cannot stop staring yourselves... go and pray in church on Sunday!). The answer however is "NO"! No they will always keep their nice bikinis on, but they sure as hell love to dance around the screen, giving you as much chances to see the rest of their perfekt skin, listen to their little Japanese manga-voices raping the English language and being perfectly cute while doing so.

Use this UMD as a chance to show your kids that Asian girls are indeed hotter than the fast-food fed barn-queens they may jump onto on prom-night (or more likely not...). If you may spot some small criticism between the lines, then yes, my dear reader, I don't think the Japanese company selling this is doing anything wrong (except they should hire gorgeous Japanese Girls who speak English properly, though that might be rare and thus expensive), not even buyers are doing anthing wrong (except if they actually want to learn English with this trash, which would be a waste of money really).

No the only ones who are wrong are those who think the idea behind this Software is dirty, since even her in reality-land, looking out of my window onto the parking-lot, I see all the parked tanks (refer to Shiratami's blog for the Japanese view of what the typical German is like) and the hot bikini-girls scrubbing all the dirt off them and in the process drenching themselves in soapy water. Believe me it's better than HDTV - I can see ALL THE DETAILS! While my mouth now fills with the same kind of substance, hoping not to be beat up by an enraged girlfriend, I send you these words:

"Are we lost (have you seen her die in the series last week? now Ana-Lucia may be hated even more, if it really was her...) Daddy?" the boy asked, "SHUT UP!" his father explained!

Think about it and see the truth! Oh and Steve get me a copy of this as long as you're still in Japan >;o)

First G5-squad design

Hi guys, not much today, just the promised G5-design. Kalli this is for you, our expert sniper! Though Crawler and Sarge are quite adequate snipers as well they are not even close to your 'camping skills' >;o)

My little G5-design for you buddy - Eh voilá:

Hope GOLD is to your liking!!! I call it the 'Sniper's Goldfinger' - or if you like that better 'Goldmember' >;o)

Nintendogs goes Everquest...

Have you heard the news? Digital Pets sell well... Not really news in my opinion, since this is something I knew since that Tamagotchi wave during my childhood swamped over the world. Well however if you remember Sarge Starlight from my BF2 Squad that you have already seen in some of my short comics on this blog is also (strangely?!?) an Everquest 2 fan.

Well Crawler and I had this conversation about giving Starlight something nice for birthday, like a dog. We were laughing a lot about that, since Starlight will be turning 29 (almost 30) without a girl at his side and showing the first signs of age... (Like part of his digestive tract, deciding to leak explosively... yeah you get the picture). So we thought about getting him a hat, a stick and a dog, a dachshund. I suggested naming it 'Purzel' since that was what my grandfather (god bless his soul) called his dachshund.

We started laughing even harder when we thought that there should be a plaque or digital code-card of some kind coming with the pet, allowing Starlight to take Purzel the dog with him into the game Everquest 2 he so loves to play. Now that is SOME strong marketing argument, don't you think? Your true companion for hunting in real and digital life! A man's second best friend. A reason to live. OK, I'll stop it alright! Here is however the graphical result of our conversation depicted in a scene that vividly haunted our minds. Please imagine Starlight speaking with a scottish or a strong german (Cologne-Area) accent:


Well Starlight, since I know you read this blog aswell...I'll be out of country for a while *grin* AND I hope this doesn't spoil your birthday surprise for next year... >;o) Staroc out!

Kung Fu Hustle...

Well well well... looks that there were no BIG news or a lot of fun stuff in the last few days going on, especially with out German elections and the 'interesting' results, but let's not bath in pessimism:

Have you seen the 2004 movie Kung-Fu Hustle? Great movie! Fun, fist-on and wacky where needed. I like that! No me as a gamer asks himself, how come there are no cool kung-fu games out there reflecting some of that Hong Kong fun-style? Why aren't there any proper Kung-Fu games... Well as a language analyst you might add that kung-fu only means 'always train' and that some freaking games require exactly that to become well enough to earn ranks (yeah I KNOW what I am speaking of, still being private and also being scheduled forBF2 parachute lessons by my own guild...). It's not the same however:

Since I am a modern man, I want to be a master of 'having always trained' without the effort of 'kung-fu' (or was it the otherway round..). Someone must have thought the same: BEHOLD mortals the great power of Ragdoll Kung-Fu!!!


It's a game alright, it's about wacky Kung-Fu movies and it let's you create whatever moves you like to apply and let you use every object around. Yeah I know it looks sorta dated and 2d-ish but that is not the point: I really don't expect this to be a major game, a seller, I just expect it to be fun as hell, as a distraction that only requires a little training for the desired effect. You basically use the mouse to drag the ragdolls' limbs around to create devastating manouvers...

The above picture really cannot convey any of the possible fun this little piece of entertainment may bring, so I strongly advise you watch the trailer (warning: slow download - you can also watch it here - oh watch the second official trailer, the first one is crappy: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/ragdollkungfu/) Have fun guys, I know I will... oh and by the way it will be available for download on the Valve steam servers (no matter how evil that may be...)

The best console gets even better!

The PSP has got lots of goodie homebrew fun for everyone already but now it got even more in the house for all us PC lovers:

"DOS - if you are as old as I am *cry* you can remember this..."

"Blue-Screen coming to PSP soon..."

Not much to say on that other than AWESOME, all the DOS and WINDOWS greatness coming to PSP - what more could I as an abandonware freak hope for? - Well okay there's one downpoint to the current x86 emu - it is slow as hell... keep your fingers (or if you are from Zemrulon 5, all your 7 tentacles) crossed for future updates, or even a running DOSBOX port >;o)

The Truth on Gaming Violence...

Well as we all know, we gamers are a brutal murdering lot of unsocial alone-living friendless ugly-looking fat idiots that have never seen daylight. Of course we are all most comfortable with this. >;o)

Now however one professor by the name of Dmitri Williams tries to shatter what we all know and love as the only reality and truth:

"Results of some of the first long-term research into online video game playing, conducted by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign alongside Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, has reached results claiming that there is no evidence of a strong link between video game violence and aggression behavior in players.

Studies were made of players of Turbine's massively multilplayer online role-playing game Asheron’s Call 2, where, after an average of 56 hours play a month there was found to be “no strong effects associated with aggression” caused by the game. Players were found not to be statistically different from the non-playing control group in their beliefs on aggression after playing the game than they were before playing – according to Dmitri Williams, the lead author of the study.

Gameplay was also found not to be a predictor of aggressive behaviors. Compared with the control group, the players neither increased their argumentative behaviors after gameplay nor were significantly more likely to argue with their friends and partners.

"I’m not saying some games don’t lead to aggression, but I am saying the data are not there yet," Williams said. “Until we have more long-term studies, I don’t think we should make strong predictions about long term effects, especially given this finding.”

The new study involved two groups of participants: players – a “treatment” group of 75 people who had no prior MMORPG play and who played AC2 for the first time; and a control group of 138, who did not play. The participants were solicited through online message boards and ranged in age from 14 to 68, the average age being 27.7 years.

The results of the new study, Williams says, support the contention of those who suggest that some violent games do not necessarily lead to increased real-world aggression. He does concede though that because the study didn’t concentrate solely on younger teenagers, “we cannot say that teenagers might not experience different effects.” "

English Source
German Source

Now how would he know anything from this dumb game? Has he never heard of Doom, GTA, Quake, Battlefield or even WOW or Everquest (the spawn of evil - already led to a kill...)? Asheron's Call is for pansys at best *evilgrin* Well obviously he has, since he limits his own proclaims in respect to other games aand teenagers...

--> Get it into your head Mr. Dmitri Williams do the same thing with these games and people then (only then) the world might start to believe you and all of us gamers will have to seriously think about getting friends, going out (into the sun) and getting a life. Gosh what a bummer - otherwise people might think we're different >;o)

Games I play at the moment

Well okay this is just to give you a short round-up (you already saw Zuma in the last post):

1. Battlefield 2 (EA Games)

A multiplayer tactical FPS combat game - my squad (Ace Herm Crawler, Seargent Vanessa Starlight and myself Private Staroc Bitch [Staroc will never get beyond private...]) and I have a lot of fun going round killing everyone else and in Crawler's Case 'us':

Sitting in an airplane Crawler shouts into his headset: "WOooooo I can see a whole nest of them down in that village - BOOoooMMbbbSSS FaaaLLLiiiNNggg..." - Vanessa cries : "Noooooo DON'T Drop the bombs, it's us down here!" I look up and see little falling things until the world dies in heated explosions.

The following scene is taken directly from gameplay... no modification


As you can see, we have great fun with our little team (guild) that exists in the same constellation in the other game we play(ed):

2. Guild Wars (ncsoft)

A massive multiplayer online guild-oriented roleplaying game. Yeah we have a guild there with our gay mage Vanessa Starlight, our slow (in every aspect mental and physical...) Barbarian Crawler that's always late and myself the slutty Necromancer Khara Staroc.

I am currently looking for a nice group-picture put let's start with this little one and one of Khara for all you dirty pigs:

"Give me all your gold!!!"

Naturally fun is guaranteed here aswell when we're out with our guild 'Civitas Venatio' hunting 'furs'...

3. Metal Gear Acid (Konami)

One of the best PSP games out yet, though of course not AS funny as the group oriented games above. This is single-player all along, tactical shooter game that bases it's rounds and actions on a stock of cards you hold (weapon cards, movment cards, armor cards, ... you get the idea)

Big points for the execution, the graphics and mainly of course (like with every Metal Gear) the story! Set in a not so distant future the governments of the world act like any big corporation and secretly build bipedal mobile nuclear battle tanks called metal gear. As terrorists and psychics get hold of these machines there's only one guy a genetically enhanced agent (cloned from the most efficient soldier ever) in their way: Solid Snake...


Prepare for some nice (unexpected) plot twists... TRUST NO ONE!

4. Lumines

Argghhhh... If you like Tetris this is for you. Same principle basically only you just have quaders of 4 blocks with each one of these 4 in one of 2 colours. Giving you a total of 6 variations. Do clear stones you must arrange patterns of at least 4 blocks to a square...

Addictive like Zuma, here a picture of the PSP version and a link for a PC clone

"Be wary of the alien dancers..."

And here the link to a PC-Clone of Lumines called 'Lumines'!!! Steering is a bit difficult as W,A,S,D are mapped as Up, Left, Down, Right and 'J' and 'K' can be used for turning the blocks.

5. Ridge Racer (Namco)

Another PSP favourite... Never really was into racing games, but this one definately is FUN. Only bad part is that the horny babe from the intro flic is under represented in the game itself (not visible at all) --> GTA 3 is better in this respect, if you know the same Hot Coffee Mod I know >;o). Well I can already imagine our wizard playing the game in 'HOT' Mode:


Yeah that looks about right *evilgrin* - But if you own a PSP this game is a must-have guys, even without cheerleaders in it...

6. Squarez (Globsoft)

Squarez is homebrew for the PSP and another one of these addictive little games I so love. As the name says it's all about circles...

You are a blue square and your only instinct is to eat, you want to eat those yummy green suare that is around. Yet when you eat it there's suddenly a new green square and a moving red one. Now remember what Mommy said: "Don't play with the red ones Harry! They'll steamroll you when you want to eat them and nobody likes to be a steamrolled Harry Potter!"

So only eat those when you are properly protected (safer sex --> safer feed) with a yellow circle...make that square. Other toys are the kill all normal red bomb (deep red with counter), slow down all reds (light blue, counter) and big splitter bomb (yellow-orange with counter) that can possibly even kill a boss red (double outline - cannot be eaten even in protected mode) if a splinter hits them...


Confused? Download it here and see why Squarez are cool, Circles boring and Sprites suck >;o)

The game that haunts my family...

Alright I went home last weekend, visiting my Mom & Dad (aswell as my sister) and showed them an interesting little piece of game software that a friend (Hai) has 'infested' my computer with. Within minutes after his first demonstration my girlfriend and I were already addicted playing nothing else for hours...

The same happened at my parents' place - Mom, Dad and Julia (my sister) were fighting for a place in front of Mom's new notebook (where I had first installed it) until I told them I had left the installation file on the harddrive. Now that everybody has their own copy of ZUMA DELUXE, the regular fighting has ceized and now fights about highscores begin to errupt (btw. I have to admit that my girlfriend holds the record having reached level 10 or 11 with a score that would reach over 2 lines of space here *grin*).

So if you don't know Zuma Deluxe yet, go here to download it directly, or here to play it online.


The principle is quite easy: You are a stone frog in the middle of the playfield who turns around his own axis to face the mousepointer (it remains fixed on his spot however). Now on predefined lanes coloured marbles start rolling down slowly toward a 'death hole'. If they reach it the stone frog, 'you', loses a life! You have one chance of surviva: Dissolving the marbles. The frog can produce and spit randomly coloured marbles (You see the colour of the marble that can be spat at the moment and the one that is next [you can also exchange these by right-clicking]). If you create a pattern of at least 3 marbles with the same colour linked directly, these will disappear.

Sound easy? Try! When you succeed - try doing COMBOS! Still easy? Try reaching level 10? Still easy? DAMN YOU >;o)

Did I mention that Zuma is great fun? No? IT IS GGRRREEEAAAATTT ADDICTIVE FUUUUUNNNN!!!

Playstation Portable (PSP) Mania

For the past month I have really learned to appreciate the best handheld console of them all - the Playstation Portable.From Games over Music and Videos to Emulators, Homebrew or Applications you can have all the fun in the world with firmware 1.50 that is!!! Whatever Sony tells it's customers about the NEED to update to 2.00, don't do it, when you want to use the PSP in any possible way.

I know the loaders and hacks allow to play pirated games right now, which I despise by the way, but why the hack should I not be allowed to play Lumines (which I own) from my MEMSTICK if I want. That is the prospect I am talking about - own it and then play it any way you want!!!

What happens when you update to 2.00? Well okay you get a web-browser and the possibility to play movies in a newer MPEG4 Codec that still plays only in a maximum resulotion of 320x240. WOW! Well not so 'wow' when you consider that there are first homebrew browsers (or some ripped from games) out already or in development and that there's a DivX/Avi Player (homebrew again) that can play videos in the PSP's native solution of 480x272... Didn't give me much trouble deciding to keep my 1.50 firmware... What about you guys?

Some may ask: What then about games requiring newer firmware (like Rocketman Dash, GTA, ...)? Well I guess there will be overrides for these! Don't get me wrong I will still buy them, but I will not play them from UMD but from my memstick and skip the bloody update!

If you already upgraded you can only hope that someone will find a way around firmware 2.00 and enable you to run homebrew on that aswell, but chances are sinking with every new upgrade 'cause Sony closes every hole they find...

So guys have fun with 1.50 --> and if you consider buying a new PSP, there are still 1.50 PSP out there only living in Europe you would have to import them, 'cause when selling them starts on September 1st over here in, they will all have firmware 2.00 >;o)