If I’m going to start doing comics (semi-) regularly around here, I’m gonna need to rework the site layout quite a lot. And frankly, I suck pretty hard at all that new-fangled page layout stuff. CSS! XLM! In my mind a Div is a drunken piece of obsolete home theatre technology, not a layout element. So… anyone out there know a bit o’ web layout stuff? I would like to work with you on making my layout not crappy! I am hiring with real tangible benefits. Money or artwork or something, I dunno.
Obligatory link crap:
This week’s Retronauts tackles the Mana series, with gorgeous musical interludes from Yoko Shimomura’s Legend of Mana soundtrack. Less gorgeous is my inexplicably punchy approach to hosting. Sorry, I’ll try to be less wacky and more boring next week. I’d hate for people to think I actually have a personality.
E3 is no longer a May event, but no one seems to have let the games industry in on that fact. Which is why this week and next are chock full of media events. I’ve been dragged into the nonsense, of course, and here are the results:
- MySims: The Wii game actually looks really good! The DS game… well, there’s still time for them to turn it around.
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: I think the details and captions in this one have outed me as a fan of the books. So much for pretense.
- Sonic Rush Adventure: Fortunately, much more of “Rush” than of “Adventure.” People seem very offended that I was under the impression that Blaze is a hedgehog, which is probably fair enough but does kind of confirm my wary sentiments about the Sonic fanbase.
- Ghost Squad: If a Tom Clancy military squad were trapped in Time Crisis 3, it would be Ghost Squad.
Finally, a freaking huge Mega Man 20th Anniversary feature went up today. It’s only the first part of four! Our good friend Nadia ably wrote the retrospective portion, while I put together a distressingly involved retro roundup of the entire series. It’s all really good, I think! And there are still three parts of equal size to go. Just please don’t watch the video. I am a horrible, terrible, no-good interviewer, especially when tag-teaming with someone else in a noisy, awkwardly arranged environment with someone who doesn’t speak the same language I do. YEAH.
I’m out of grad school for the summer and am looking for a job. I’ve been doing webpages since 1997 or so, have a BS in CompSci, and I know a bunch of acronyms like CSS, XHTML, PHP and WTFBBQ. Also, I know John Pading in real life. (It’s all about who you know, right? And an unpaid web comic guy is a good person to know, maybe?)
So will this Megaman feature end in some good news about Megaman Legends 3 maybe?
Yeah, have the same question as Thomas. I was really surprised to hear a tune in swedish there. It had a little bad sound quality to it, so I was also thinking “is this from an old game?”
It was extra funny because of the lyrics, which are sweet as sugar. Funny to hear on Retronauts :P
ps. can provide you with a translation if you’d like.
I can also chip in and help you out with that funky, funky CSS stuff. (I neither request nor require compensation.)
If it means anything, I have dissected the layout behind your current site in the past (sort of for fun), when I was thinking of starting a “wiki” of my own using the same pmWiki backend. (Unfortunately I got bored with it, though, and lost interest.)
You have my email address, and my website. If you need me, you know where to find me. I’d be happy to help.
Hi again. Could you please hide my email adress in my last post, or remove the post entirely? Having it public like that is setting me up for a SPAM attack by those SPAM-bots. :( (forgot to check the “hide my email”)
I’d probably also throw in, although I’d be loathe to call myself an expert. I can make a CSS-based layout work, and it’s something I’m pretty sure I’m able to do, but still, eh, haven’t had a look at it yet so I can only imagine the horrors that lurk within.
Mostly, though, I wanted to thank you just in case it was you that recommended people give Dragon Quest Rocket Slime a look. I saw it for $10 off, gave it a go, and have been spending the last enjoyable few hours having sentient smiling balls stuff collected weapons into cannons, ready to fire them across a battlefield at a hollowed out tree called Chrono Twigger.
And what is up with localisations these days? It’s so weird to go from one game to the next to the next and have them all present a top-notch script to go with that delicious gameplay. I feel like I’m spoiled.
Jeremy–
I got hired on to the NTFB to do pretty much exactly this sort of thing, so if I can pitch in, I’d be happy to help. I’d work for artwork!
Here’s hoping that MySims gets the kinks worked out of the DS version, since I know Michelle’s gonna want it for Christmas anyhow.
Manniversary! It’s punny! The thumbs up icon is great. The thumbs down icon looks bizarre, but it’s still more than some of those games deserve. I guess I’m not surprised that so many of those games hold up since the sequels don’t usualy stray too far the formula.
Hey JP,
This will probably sound extremely creepy, but I recognized you at the SEGA event yesterday (I intern at a Rival Website). I wanted to say hi and mention that I’m a fan of the toastyfrogging, but it was a little too hectic to get the chance. Just thought I’d let you know.
P.S. Did they do the awkward Christopher Walken thing during your Sonic Rush demo, too? That was scary.
I guess I shouldn’t bother mentioning that you messed up the title to Rock Board, too.
About the response – I know a good deal of the Sonic fanbase is hysterically retarded and underaged but that would be a natural response to a factual error. I don’t see why they can be ‘suspected’ of anything for that.
Parish’s latent snark precludes him from admitting to an error without making at least a small jab back at those who have called attention to it. We still love’im, though.
Hey Jeremy, I’m sure that your readership runs deep with intarwub experience, but I’ll throw my hat in the ring. Drop by my site if you want to see anything. — Ben
I have a deep and terrified distrust of anyone who bothers to learn the names of Sonic characters.
Does anyone really care about E3 anymore? Oh, and the PS3 still sucks huge amounts of ass.
This myth that Sonic Rush is good must end. Of course, most of it seems to stem from the Sonic community, that swears up and down the 360/PS3 game is actually a fair step above unplayable trash.
Good summary on the Mega Man series’ titles, although I’d differ on X2, Mega Man Soccer, and X8.
Actually, it stems from the fact that Sonic Rush is actually good.
I seem to remember liking one of Mega Man 4-6. I can’t, for the life of me, remember which one now, though. They all blended together when I decided to do all eight in one weekend. All I remember is that 2 and 3 were the best (2 probably gets the nod just for the dragon/guy with big fist on tractor), 1 was good too (that weekend was the first time I had ever beat Ice Man’s stage), 7 annoyed me, and the voice acting in 8 was hilariously bad. And seriously, one of 4-6 was enjoyable, but hell if I can distinguish any of those three now.
I’m a pretty die-hard (read: forgiving) Megaman fan, so naturally we diverge on a few points, and I’m OK with that. But Command Mission nearly broke my fandom (and my PS2 controller), so I was pretty well surprised to find you enjoyed it. I wouldn’t mind seeing a more fleshed-out appraisal of your positive take…provided it doesn’t hinge solely on amnesty for the people behind Dragon Quarter, of course.
Question about a different Rush: thoughts on the new album?
The unwelcome attempts at dialogue and the occasionally uneven difficulty (especially playing back through as Blaze, who gets no alternate paths through the levels and starts off at level 4, then doubles back to level 1) hold it back from that, but it’s a lot better than Sonic games have any right to be considering what’s happened to the franchise in the last 10 years.
I also note with no small amount of relief how careful the level designers were to allow you to go balls to the wall fast and have it not backfire on you – they almost never put boobytraps at the end of a long stretch and they generally find some way to slow you down if the next section has a switch or something.
CSS pisses me off too. I’m only just now getting an all-CSS layout to sort of work so I can stop glitchily editing the ones that came with WordPress.
BRING BACK TABLES! BRING BACK TABLES!
BRING BACK TABLES! BRING BACK TABLES!
Yes! Bring back Miles “Tables” Prower this instant! He must be sacrificed to PETA and appease their human hating god as this act will assuredly make many many many many children very sad and drink beer to ease the pain.
Aww c’mon CSS and DIV layouts aren’t all that hard once you get the hang of it ;)
Throwing my hat in the ring (will work for free! your site does the internets a tremendous service) but it seems you already have plenty of great candidates already!
I know at least five flavours of nothing about CSS. And I didn’t like Sonic Rush much. I thought it was kind of gimmicky and frustrating.
BRING BACK FRAMES
I want like five different frames on each page and they all must be too big so I can v- and h-scroll in all of them. Also, super-repetitive galaxy wallpaper.
The galaxy wallpaper must of course be static