Bomberman Live came out on the XBLA last week, and I’m hooked. I suck at it, but I’m hooked. Sometimes the simplest games can provide the most fun, especially when they’re updated with clean new graphics without really altering the core gameplay underneath. I love it.

So Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword shipped this week. A few months
ago, 2KGames approached me about working on a project called
Civilization Daydreams to coincide with the release of the game. It
sounded like a fun project, so I jumped onboard and created four Civ
comics for them. Two of them will be released on this site (the first
of which can be found here) and others will be released on Civ fansites.

It’s kind of funny, when they first asked me about doing the comics for them, I had never before played a 4X strategy game. I’d always thought there wasn’t enough action, or visual flare in them for me. Obviously to come up with material for the comics I had to do some research, so I picked up Civ4, and on one of my days off a couple of months back, I popped it in at about 1pm. I ran through the tutorial, then started a simple game… and didn’t stop playing until 4am, when I had finally conquered the world. I just couldn’t stop. I started a new, tougher game the next day, which spilled over into the next. I got hooked.

I went out and bought GalCiv2 and the expansion, because I needed more 4X. That game just totally destroyed me, what with the ability to create your own ships. Not a day went by that I wasn’t playing one of these 4X games, and for hours at a time.

Eventually I had to just stop playing for a while altogether, because I wasn’t getting anything else done. I’m worried about installing the Beyond the Sword expansion. I might have to go through rehab all over again.

We will be reprinting the “Stop Shifting Blame” t-shirt, so thanks to everyone who wrote in that they were interested. I’ll let you know when they are available. It shouldn’t be long.

The PS3 demo for Heavenly Sword comes out this week. Thursday, I think. I may finally have to put my PS3 online. Would be nice to have a game to play on it for once.

Also, have you guys seen this gameplay footage of Metal Gear Solid 4? This will be another huge PS3 hit, without a doubt, and the game looks neat… but what’s with Snake and all the penis grabbing? First the statue, then he humps some guy on the ground, then he humps the ground, then he grabs some other guy’s crotch… slow down there, champ!