Quick update on that Kotaku Comic contest thing: the voting is still active, so if you haven’t voted yet (and would like to), why not click this link and lend a vote to my little strip?  It’ll make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Or it might not, I’m not really sure.

LIVESTREAM UPDATE:

Alrighty folks, after a mini hiatus last week, the livestreams triumphantly return!  Cool!  The next stream will be this Friday, December 14th, 2012 at 10pm est!  If you have something you’d like to see doodled, come on down and I’ll try to mix as many suggestions together as I can!  As always, I’ll be answering questions and having a drink or two.

The stream can be viewed by clicking here or here.  I hope to see you there!

END LIVESTREAM UPDATE!

Woah, what’s this?  A video game strip that isn’t Zelda related?!  Why, that can’t be!

Seriously, things have been pretty Zelda-y lately.  I’m still running through Twilight Princess (slowly, it would seem) so there’s probably another Zelda strip or two in the near future, but I’m glad to be out of the Zelda groove, if only for a moment.

Tuesday night I went to Rich’s place, and, as you might be able to guess, we played Borderlands.  I’ve never really played that game too much in the past, so I was thrilled to sit down with it for a solid couple of hours.  Seriously, this game is fun as heck.

Considering that Borderlands came out in 2009, however, you might already be aware of that.

Well… it’s new to me.  

As great as Borderlands is thus far, there is one part of the game that can be pretty frustrating.  If you take enough damage, you crumple to the ground and enter “fight for your life” mode, where you have a set amount of time to kill an enemy while lying on the ground.  If you are successful, your character pops back up and the game continues as normal, if not, you die and respawn.

Rich was playing as Mordecai, a skinny hunter fellow who’s special ability is tossing a bird around that damages enemies.  According to Rich, the bird can be called back quickly, allowing him to throw the poor thing over and over again until it actually has an enemy to take on.

Rich, as I would myself, was tossing the bird every possible time available.

Chances are you know where this is going.

We came into a situation where I was down in “fight for you life” mode, and there was an enemy in front of me with a tiny fraction of health left.

“SCREEEEEE”

The friggin bird comes in and kills my only ticket to salvation.  I died shortly thereafter.

Now, I wouldn’t accuse Rich of any malicious activities concerning my death, as he was constantly healing me whenever possible (and suffice to say I presented him with plenty of opportunities to do so).  That said, it was mildly frustrating that one of the few times I was in a position to rescue myself, the stupid bird flew in and more or less sealed my fate.

Curse you, bird.

This situation is hardly unique to Borderlands, however.  Think of any co-op game you’ve ever played, and I’m sure the following things have been said:

“You didn’t need that health, I did!”

“You aggroed all those bad guys and made me die!”

“Stop taking all the potions!”

“Stop pushing me into the bad guys!”

“Stop leaving me behind!”

Other goodies, although not necessarily related to dying in games include:

“The only reason you’re doing better is because I have the crappy controller.”

“You have the bigger screen!”  (when playing three player split screen)

“You’re just using the best characters!”

“You’re doing the same move over and over again, YOU’RE SO CHEAP!”

These are but a small few of gaming related outbursts, feel free to drop your own favorites in the comments.