I’m still not sure what to make of it.

When I heard the Penny Arcade guys (Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik) were going to be at Comic-Con, of course I wanted to drop by and say hi, get something signed, and somehow find the nerve to give them a swag bag. I’m just deeply impressed by them, from any angle you want to pick: I admire their talent, I respect their commitment to their charity, I’m delighted by the Penny Arcade Expo, and most of all I view their management of their relationships with game publishers – in short, at an arm’s length – as something to be emulated. They take care of their readers. If more voices in the gaming media mimicked their approach, the phrase “games journalism” wouldn’t elicit as many chuckles or indignant tirades.

So anyway, I wanted something for them to sign, so I picked up the Street Fighter Tribute book at the Capcom booth, which includes a sketch of Zangief by Krahulik. By the time I hiked back to the Penny Arcade booth…

(By the way: getting anywhere on the show floor takes 8 times as long as you think it would. The crowds make it slow enough, but then they’re made even worse by all sorts of other bullshit like

I tell you: 4 days of the SDCC has made me really, really want to play Dead Rising, the (highly underrated) 360 game that places you in another public place with thick crowds of people that don’t seem to have any idea of where they are or where they’re going – except in the game, you can clear a path with a baseball bat applied judiciously to people’s skulls.)

…Krahulik was nowhere to be seen, only Holkins manning the booth. I marched forward and introduced myself.

“Hi, I’m Gary Hodges. I write for Village Voice Media’s gaming blog, Joystick Division, and I wanted to let you know I’m a big fan.” At least I think that’s what I said, I was pretty nervous. It was at least 60% similar to that, probably. I can say for certain I didn’t mention anything about fish.

“Oh yeah, Joystick Division!” Holkins chirped. "You guys are awesome.”

At this point my brain froze up. Certainly I didn’t hear that right. Or maybe he just says that to anyone who walks up with an oblique plug, “Oh yes, I love that site.”

“Oh really?” I stammered. (Bracing myself for a quickly added “Oh no wait, that was Controller Brigade I was reading. You should check them out, they’re awesome.”)

“Yeah, I was reading it the other day… I really liked the column about what to do with all these old peripherals.”

Bafflement. Synapses firing, but no messages being sent. How long did I stand there staring into Holkins’ bespecled eyes without speaking? Twelve, maybe thirteen minutes? Was he actually telling me he was a Joystick Division reader?

“Yes… that was Chris Ward’s piece!”

“Be sure to tell him I really liked it.”

“I will. He’ll be thrilled.”

“Yeah, I think I found you guys through Insult Swordfighting or something…”

At that point I completed passing a thick, winding cylinder of feces into my jeans. I did the math in my head: probably had at least a minute or two before he would notice the odor.

“Yes, he quoted a bit of my Metal Gear Solid 4 review.”

"Yeah, that was it." He looked at me earnestly. “That was awesome, man.”

Starting to feel faint. Don’t fall over – you’ll crush the feces in your jeans. Faint standing up, like horses do.

“Thank you so much, that means a lot to me.”

“I was really looking for a review written by someone who played the same game I did.”

There was more talk after this, but I’ll keep it to myself. First, because his kind words meant the world to me. Second, because I can’t remember what the hell I was saying. I gave Holkins a set of buttons, he thanked me, and about then Krahulik reappeared and signed his Zangief, adding a sketch. Still in a daze, I said:

“I know you probably get this all the time, but I’m a huge fan.”

“It never gets old,” Krahulik said.

“In that case: I’m a huge fan.”

“Thank you,” he smiled, handing my book back.

And I fled. The encounter could only get worse the longer I stayed.

Castle Crashers and Dan Paladin

I'm a sucker for both 2D graphics and classic gameplay, so The Behemoth is a personal favorite developer of mine, with Castle Crashers being one of my more anticipated games of 2008. So I ran by their consistently packed booth, where they had CC set up on a few 360s and lots of merchandise for sale.

Regarding Castle Crashers: it looks awesome, it's a blast with three other players, and it'll be out soon. If you have a 360 you need to get this game. Support a small developer, man.

Behind the counter I spotted The Behemoth's artist Dan Paladin, so I decided to say hi, I'm Gary, Joystick Division, yadda yadda yadda.

Dan was great as usual, gracious and friendly. So even though I felt funny about giving a real working artist my silly little swag buttons, I whipped out a Ziploc and handed him a set of Joystick Division buttons.

"I can have all these?" he asked. He seemed flattered... at first. But then he did something only a couple other people had done so far: started checking out each button one by one, until he got to one in particular. A very special one. This one:

Dan Paladin squinted at the button, and I could almost see his brain refusing to believe he was seeing what he was indeed seeing. His eyes got narrower and narrower as he leaned closer to the button.

I couldn't take it anymore.

"Yes, he's naked."

His head snapped back, as if suddenly realizing the thing he was peering at was a rattlesnake. "Oh!"

"Yeah, it, he... um," I explained.

"That's cool."

"There's a whole story," I shrugged. For the first time in days, I suddenly felt a little weird passing out the Ikari Warriors II alien shopkeeper button. Anyway, he couldn't have been too horrified: he then helped me with a couple t-shirts I wanted to buy, and then caught me before I left to hand me a few buttons of his own.

Grown men, exchanging buttons with silly drawings on them. I'm sure Dan would agree we both have pretty neat jobs.

Bionic Commando Rearmed

For this one, Simon Viklund himself walked me through a little bit of the PSN/XBLA/Steam remake of the 8-bit classic, giving me a chance to play both a few of the top-down levels as well as a couple of the conventional maps - and even a boss battle.

Alas, I had to play it co-op with another guy, a somewhat frightening, pudgy dude with intense eyes wearing a lavender cape. I have no idea who he was dressed up as; he might not have been dressed up at all. It might've been his everyday cape. Because I found him a little unsettling (and I'll just say it: smelly), I let him land us at a neutral territory 4 times in a row before gently suggesting a different level with, you know, action in it.

One thing I couldn't figure out at all was the new hacking minigame, which seems to involve manipulating a 3D shape so certain blocks in the shape line up correctly... maybe? I can't say for sure, because I never got it to work.

Aside from that: it was all great, and really will be a steal at $10. The 8-bit original is practically perfect already, but if it lacked anything it was boss battles - after a while, blasting power cores got a little routine. Rearmed fixes that, and I got to tangle with one of the new bosses, a guy barricaded in what looks like a massive piece of construction equipment that needs to be strategically disassembled to destroy.

The first part was obvious, blasting away at the vehicle's tank-like tracks until they finally dropped off. But then me and lavender cape man were stumped, none of our attacks doing damage to any part of it.

"You have to pull these parts off with your arm," Viklund said, pointing to three or four features on the front of the vehicle. Turns out they're large bolts, and by hooking them and then jamming on the grapple button, Rad Spencer could slowly unscrew them and pull them free of the vehicle. Remove them all, and the entire armored front of the machine drops away, exposing the driver.

Of course, doing this makes the driver kick his offense into overdrive, and I was killed. But I liked what I was seeing.

Some more cheesecake to sign off with. The girl dressed as Leia, her costume was a bit flimsy so she had to hold the skirt portion down because it would flap up as she walked... and my impression was she wasn't wearing much of anything under it. Maybe some fishing line or something... dirty little manx.