Also while you’re at it, check out my game studio, Just Play a Game Studios LLC! Our first game, Spy Babies Episode 1, should be out on XBox Live Indie Games by this summer.

With the recent security breach of the Playstation Network, many people are expressing some hesitation at the thought of purchasing content on the PSN once it gets back up. That’s a very understandable worry, given what’s happened. The funny thing is that when the PSN does come back online it will be a much more secure and better protected system than what it previously was. However, its reasonable to expect there to be a stigma around using a service that just got hit hard by a hacker attack and lost all of your personal data and probably lost most if not all of your credit card data.

That doesn’t change the fact that there’s a lot of worthwhile content on the Playstation Network. There’s a wealth of quality PSN games, PSOne classic games, and game add-ons to choose from. So how to get all this content once the PSN comes back online? I’m sure many gamers know by now that Sony sells PSN Cards in stores that can be redeemed on the PSN for credit. They come in $20 and $50 varieties and can be found at just about any retailer that sells video games. There’s also a lot of options online as well. Amazon, Best Buy, and Gamestop all sell digital code versions of these cards, meaning that as soon as you purchase them you will have access to the code so you can redeem it immediately. From skimming the reviews Amazon’s service seems to work the smoothest for this. Both Best Buy and Gamestop reviews seemed pretty pleased with their purchases, but there were a few instances of buyers complaining that they had to wait hours or even days for their codes to be emailed to them.

What’s probably less well known is that you can purchase PSN content directly from these online retailers as well. Amazon has an entire section for the Playstation Network where you can purchase just about any game that is currently on the PSN as well as a good selection of add-on content (Rock Band tracks don’t seem to be available though, sadly). Amazon seems to have taken the most time to set up their PSN storefront, with full navigation options featured content.

Best Buy has a very sparse selection of PSN games to download. There’s less than 20 games at the time of this writing in fact. And there doesn’t seem to be any add-on content available.

Gamestop offers a bit more selection than Best Buy, with over 100 full PSN games and over 150 pieces of add-on content. Their navigation is a bit messy though. It’s basically just a search result.

If you’re looking for the quickest way to get PSN content, Amazon is your best bet. Over 1,200 games, over 650 pieces of add-on content, plus 100s of PSP and PSOne Classic games. All three retailers offer quick solutions for acquiring redeemable codes for pre-paid PSN Cards, although Amazon is again the smoothest here.

In the wake of what’s happened to the Playstation Network many gamers are going to be a lot more careful of where and who they give out their private information to. That’s understandable. I also expect that Sony is going to have to work very hard for a long time to rebuild trust in the security of their online services. But in the meantime, there’s still plenty of ways to acquire and enjoy PSN content.

Happy gaming.

So, way back in 2009 I created this image, Purity is a Fallacy, as a marketing piece for my webcomic the Devil’s Gate. It’s still one of my favorite pieces I’ve ever done. Even though the Devil’s Gate is dead, a version of the main character, Youmi, has made her way over to my new comic project, Void Domain eM.

In gathering stuff to put on the new Void Domain eM site, I decided to tweak Purity is a Fallacy, playing mainly with it’s lighting. The outcome is a set of spiffy wallpapers.

This is a piece I made as a placeholder image for the Void Domain eM site. This was done back in early November. Her coat looks very “Tron-y”, but Tron hadn’t even crossed my mind when I was designing it, I just wanted something cool that had lit up bits.

Nintendo’s 4 year experiment with forging a new direction of gaming has been hit or miss. For Nintendo’s bottom line, it’s been a resounding success. For everyone else, eh not so much. The monolith of money that has been the Wii has attracted big name developers and publishers which has led to a number of big name franchises seeing the light of day on the machine. Unfortunately most of them haven’t really sold very well. Most have either sold OK, or just downright poorly. Quality has little bearing, or maybe even a negative effect, as many of the better made Wii games haven’t sold well at all. Except for Nintendo’s. But Nintendo is the exception, with the bonus that being the console maker as well, they clearly had the best idea of what you should do with it. Nintendo’s titles also clearly blur the boundary between “core” and “casual” games, as they’ve done for 25 years now.

What the Wii has proven to me is that motion controls for dedicated core games just doesn’t work. Core games, and core gamers, demand a different level or precision, a deeper level of control. There’s a reason that the 360 and PS3 controllers have 4 face buttons, 4 shoulder buttons, a directional pad, and two analog sticks. For the most part core games demand quick and responsive multitasking. Dodging an attack and countering with a combo while adjusting the camera. Strafing, shooting, while cycling through your grenade types. This is the kind of controls that motion game just isn’t built for. Not naturally anyway. That doesn’t mean that motion gaming is necessarily inferior, it’s just different, and demands a different type of gameplay. One that’s more streamlined. One that’s more accessible. Basically motion gaming, Wii style anyway, is tailored for a more casual experience.

So where are we, heading in 2011, in regards to motion gaming? The Wii, much like Nintendo’s previous two consoles, has become once again a Nintendo machine. That is, it’s line-up is dominated by first party franchises and games. Third party developers have found the most success by pumping out light casual games, while the third party core game well is drying up fairly quickly. Currently it’s identity is a casual party console with the occasional “core” Nintendo game. It’ll remain successful for a while still, and with 2011 likely being “All 3DS, All the Time”, as far as Nintendo is concerned, don’t expect to hear much about a Wii successor until 2012, giving the Wii one more solid holiday season before it really starts to quietly fade into the night.

While Nintendo’s first foray into motion gaming is on it’s last legs, it’s inspired offspring have just arrived. The Move and the Kinect present two very different strategies to the future of motion gaming.

The Move has basically said that the Wii was basically right, it just didn’t do it well enough or take it far enough. It takes the concept of the Wii, and makes it infinitely more accurate, and presents it in HD. What you get is that the Playstation 3 is now essentially two consoles (and a blu-ray player) under one roof. The Playstation 3 can now be both a “core” machine, and a “casual” one, depending on which way you want it to swing. And you can do it on the fly, no need to switch machines, or even discs perhaps, as a number of games will begin offering both Dualshock 3 and Move control schemes (a few already do).

It all works very well and honestly is a fine choice. A prospective console buyer would do well to look at it. You can get your Wii type games (which will look better and play more accurately) and your more core games together in one place. Plus you get a good blu-ray player to boot. It’s finally the complete solution to the “Wii60″, even if that’s no longer a relevant problem.

The problem is that the Move solution is also pretty safe and bland. At it’s heart it really is just adding a Wii to your Playstation 3. Gameplay wise, it has all the same problems and strengths of the Wii, even if it is more accurate. The Move is a fine Wii replacement, but that’s all it is. Nothing more, nothing less.

The Kinect is something quite different. In a way it doesn’t really fit with the Wii and the Move. The Move and the Wii pose the question “what if there was a more direct way to communicate movement in games?” What the Kinect asks is more along the lines of “what if there was a more direct way to communicate with your console?” There is no controller, and as such, you have to communicate directly with the console. The problem with the Kinect is that it sort of feels like a premature birth.

Kinect’s biggest problem right now is that it’s all potential, with little delivery. Of course, one could say that about most console launches, and make no mistake, that’s what Microsoft is treating this as. The Kinect has well documented problems with how your room has to be situated and how far you have to be. If these issues are not fixable through software patches this will prove to be crippling for the Kinect, as it’s just plain unreasonable to demand that your buyer “have a bigger house” in order for them to use the product. And how much and in what ways you can control with the Kinect on the dashboard is far more limited than should be or was advertised to be. And right now for all the “forward thinking” that the Kinect was supposed to be, it’s current line up is also just full of Wii replacement titles.

But it’s hard to deny that the Kinect does feel different, and progressive. This is most evident to me by the fact that there can be discussions on the merits of it without involving it’s dedicated games. The Kinect changes the way you interact with your XBox 360. It’s not great at this yet, because quite frankly the Kinect feels somewhat unfinished, unfortunately shoved out the door in order to meet the holiday deadline. It’s still neat though. It makes me think of stuff from Minority Report, and Star Trek. It feels, new and different.

Even it’s Wii-like games like Kinect Sports feels different, because you’re fundamentally interacting with it differently. Long term I don’t feel like I’ll really want to play Kinect specific games any more than I would Wii or Move specific games though, but I give it credit for being more exciting to me than anything on the Wii ever was. There’s also more opportunity here with the Kinect. I don’t think that games made exclusively for Kinect control will be any better or more fun than Wii or Move games, but unlike the Move and Wii, there’s an opportunity here for integration. Sadly, the first real tease at that, Fable 3, ended up having it scrapped, likely due to the fact that it’s probably pretty complicated to do. But it’s doable. And sooner or later will be done. And eventually done well. And that could be awesome.

Even just small stuff. Say, for instance, a first person shooter. Still played mostly with the controller, but now, you lob grenades with the Kinect. Now, you actually throw the grenade, your motion and arm speed controlling where it goes. A hard swing, you launch that sucker like a discus. Just a soft flick, you simply toss it over that fence just in front of you. As a fledgling game designer, the Kinect is a lot more exciting to me for this reason. Not because I can see myself making better Kinect specific games than Move or Wii games, but because I can see fun ways to integrate it into the more core games that I prefer making. Whereas on the Playstation 3 the “regular” and Move play modes have to be kept rigidly separate (well they don’t have to be, but who wants to just keep switching controllers during a game), there’s crossover potential with Kinect.

Using the Wii as a base, this is my opinion. The Wii has fulfilled it’s potential and will glide through a deserved one and half to two year farewell tour. The Move is one solid step forward done very well. A worthy successor to the Wii. Problem is that the Wii spent 4 years showing the limit of it’s motion control, and the Move doesn’t do anything to get past them. The Kinect is five steps forward, but done very haphazardly. Right now, a shaky evolution of the concept of motion in gaming. But if it can get it’s footing, there’s massive potential here.

As an aside: The Kinect isn’t even a new concept to gaming. Sony basically did an early version of this with the EyeToy back in 2003 on the Playstation 2. The EyeToy obviously didn’t go much farther than a few party games, and it’s PS3 successor the PS Eye floundered in obscurity until being integrated in with the Move construct. But with the PS Eye being a pretty good piece of technology it’s possible we’ll see some of these Kinect-like features on the Playstation 3 down the line. Only downside to that is that once again Sony will be playing “catch up”.

For the last four years Otakon marked the end of the first half of the summer for me, and this year was no exception. If you’re not familiar with Otakon, it is a 3-day anime convention held every year around the end of July at the Baltimore Convention Center, in Baltimore, Maryland. It’s one of the larger anime conventions in the country, certainly on the east coast.

Honestly I think I’m beginning to suffer anime con fatigue. 8 anime cons in 6 years (plus 2 sci-fi and 1 comic convention), and they’re beginning to lose their luster a little bit. It was still fun though! Just being in Baltimore is a blast, and seeing over 29,000 geeks together in one place is a sight to behold. That’s the best part of anime cons, having that feeling like you can just completely be yourself.

For those that don’t know what there is to do at an anime con, here’s a quick rundown: A video game room; an Artist’s Alley, where independent artists can take commissions and sell their art; discussion panels on a slew of topics; workshops that range from art to ninja training; a cosplay masquerade; a rave; video rooms showing anime and asian movies at all times of the day; autograph sessions and Q&As with guests. Every year I hit the video game room at least once. Got my butt kicked in Super Street Fighter 4. I ended up hitting the dealer’s room like 3 times! Grabbed (the outstanding) Girl Who Leapt Through Time, a couple t-shirts, an Azumanga Daioh towel and a couple stuffed animals. Dealer’s room was a bit of a letdown this year. Sure there’s like a 100 vendors down there, but they all sell the same stuff! There’s like maybe actually 20 real kinds of vendors, just repeated over and over. Don’t get me wrong, there’s some cool stuff down there, but for how many vendors you have there you’d think there would be a bit more variety going on. And what was with all the Gundam toys? There were a LOT more than usual. Vendors who I remember getting stuff from in the past seemed to be all about the Gundam this year.

And I always end up dropping waaaay too much in Artist Alley. But there’s so much good stuff!

I got a couple of fantastic pieces of Rydia from Final Fantasy IV and Terra from Final Fantasy VI from Bonnie Tang:

These two pieces from Erina:

As well as a three really awesome pieces by Kevin KY Yanwhich I can’t find images of.

As far as things to watch, I unfortunately only got see one of the movies I was hoping to, but boy was it a doozy.

That’s right, I saw Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl, which was insane. And awesome! But it’s definitely for a selective audience only. It’s basically gore comedy action. I know that’s an odd combination. Think Evil Dead, but taken to a Japanese extreme. VG vs FG is from the director of Tokyo Gore Police, so if you know that, then you should be familiar with what to expect from VG vs FG. It’s actually a little less gory than Tokyo Gore Police, but it’s actually more insane. It’s probably best not to process that.

For various reasons, I wasn’t able to get to see most of the stuff I wanted to watch, which included Welcome to the Space Show, Claymore, and Skull Man. A shame, but I’m sure I’ll rectify that soon enough.

Panels, as they have been for a couple years now, were the low point of Otakon. Which is a shame, because they used to be my favorite part of a con. There wasn’t a ton that interested me, and from what I heard a number of panels were canceled due to issues with panelists. I got a taste of that first hand. Saturday night there was a panel on “Feminism and Fandom” that I was very interested in seeing. It’s actually a panel I wanted to see two years ago at Otakon 08, but it was canceled. And guess what?! Got canceled this time too! GRRRR. But that’s alright, some of us audience members had a makeshift feminism panel in the hallway, led by Viga the Otagal (who has an excellent podcast, btw).

Also have to mention the FIRE ALARM that was pulled on Saturday afternoon (one of the reasons I missed some of my shows). Have you ever seen 29,000 people evacuated from a building at once? We SHUT DOWN Pratt Street basically. It was a very surreal scene. We were so packed across the street tons of people (me included) basically just had to loiter in the street for a while. And then it got crazier when a couple hundred people decided to try to rush one of the doors, screaming “Let us in! Let us in!” They did eventually let us in, after an hour, hour and half. And awesome note, less than 3 hours after the fire drill there was already someone in Artist Alley selling signs saying “I survived the fire of Otakon 2010″.

Also have to mention Uncle Yo’s comedy show, which was hilarious. I was falling out of my seat it was so funny. Good thing I sat at the end of the aisle. Brilliant stuff all around. Keep in mind though, you have to follow anime or at least geek culture to get any of the jokes.

Otakon 2010 was another fun one. But I’m definitely burnt out, which unfortunately colored my experience of Otakon this year. After a while every year it starts to feel more and more like the same thing. I think it’s time to take at least one year off from Otakons. For my bank account’s sake if nothing else! But if you’ve never been, I highly recommend going! It’s an amazing experience for any anime fan. Any geek in general really. So go, check it out. I’ll sit the next one out. Maybe we can hook up there in 2012.