Fans vs Creators

This is going to be a short one, but the Laconic statements tend to be a little more meaningful.

For those that don’t know, about four or five days after Mass Effect 3 was released, a shit-storm erupted about how the ending of the game was, in a nutshell unsatisfying. The fan dissatisfaction has grown to such silly proportions that a facebook group has emerged to try and guilt Bioware, the developer, into changing the ending of the game by donating to charity. A single fan has also filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, stating Bioware engaged in dishonest marketing practices.

Here is where I have a problem. Wiser people then me have already come down on fans for being spoiled, falsely entitled, whiny little bitches. What I have yet to see though, is a proper indictment of the game.

I have yet to see a point by point list of charges, and corroborating evidence, on why the ending of the game was bad, and why the developer and publisher of the game in question need to be compelled to change it.

What I have seen can be surmised by commentator MatPat, the developer of webseries Game Theory.

“ Without spoiling anything, the ending of Mass Effect 3 breaks the established lore of the game’s universe, contradicts thematic elements that have been omnipresent throughout all three games, and throws logic out the window. In other words, it isn’t just unsatisfying or “not what we expected,” it’s sloppy and, quite frankly, disgraceful to the brilliantly-crafted world and expertly-handled stories that came before it.”

Therein lies the problem for me. Everyone who is making an attempt to debate this issue, starts by saying “without spoiling anything.” But if players really had the courage of their own convictions, and this games ending was such a crime against art and the creative process that they are saying, then who cares about spoilers.

Drop your emotional baggage, and don’t worry about others having the plot spoiled. If you are seeking to compel a content creator to fundamentally alter their work, then you must stand tall and stand proud and state how they did it wrong.

Why I love Battletech

So I was reading the Game Over-thinker, who created a video called I love Video Games, which he admitted was a rip off of friend of the show Film Critic Hulks "Why I love movies." and cause I have nothing else coming up the pipe creatively I thought I would rip of the man, who ripped off the man.

So here it is, the reasons I love Battletech

BECAUSE OF JORDAN WEISMANN.

BECAUSE OF BEER AND PRETZELS

BECAUSE OF TEACHING MY WIFE HOW TO PLAY AS A DATE.

BECAUSE OF THE GIANT ROBOTS

BECAUSE OF THE TO HIT MODIFIER

BECAUSE OF THE END OF A DYING TIME.

BECAUSE OPERATION KLONDIKE GOT MADE.

BECAUSE OF THOMAS FREAKING HOGARTH!!!

BECAUSE OF THE JUMPKICK IN TRO 3025 HAS NOT GOTTEN SOLID RULES YET.

BECAUSE OF MICHAEL STACKPOLE

BECAUSE IT IGNITES OUR IMAGINATIONS.

BECAUSE OF GRAYSON CARLYE STARING DOWN A LOCUST.

BECAUSE OF TIMBIQUI DARK

BECAUSE OF THE COUNCIL OF THE GEMS MEETING IN THE EARLY NOVELS

BECAUSE OF THE MOMENT WHERE VICTOR DAVION GETS PUNCHED IN THE FACE IN THE BLOOD OF KERENSKY TRILOGY.

SCREW IT, BECAUSE OF THE ENTIRETY OF BLOOD OF KERENSKY TRILOGY.

BECAUSE OF THE FIRST SOMERSET STRIKERS

BECAUSE OF THE DELIGHTFUL, LURID INSANITY ROMANO LIAO

BECAUSE OF MISTAKES LIKE FAR COUNTRY.

BECAUSE IT ALLOW US TO EXPERIENCE IMPOSSIBILITIES.

BECAUSE OF TUESDAY

BECAUSE OF THE INSANE RANGE OF THE AC2.

BECAUSE NO ONE WEARS THE WHITE HEAT.

BECAUSE OF GARISH COLOR SCHEMES ON CAMO SPECS

BECAUSE OF EVERY SINGLE LINE DELIVERY BY JAIME WOLF IN WOLVES ON THE BORDER

BECAUSE OF THE DELIGHTFUL RARITY OF KNOCKING OUT A 100 TON MECH WITH A SINGLE SHOT

BECAUSE OF THE JOKES MY FRIEND CHRIS MADE DURING GAMES.

BECAUSE I PRETTY MUCH KINDA SAW THE END OF THE FEDCOM CIVIL WAR, DOWN TO VLAD TAKING KATHERINE AS A SEX SLAVE, ERRRR BONDSMAN

BECAUSE I TOTALLY DIDN'T SEE THE MANEI DOMINI COMING.

BECAUSE WE'LL NEVER BE ABLE TO TOP THE HOT DROP SCENE IN FLASHPOINT

BECAUSE I STILL THINK “ENHANCED IMAGING” IS COOL 20 YEARS LATER.

BECAUSE ENDGAME WAS NOT THAT AT ALL

BECAUSE OF EVERY SINGLE PRODUCTION DETAIL OF THE WARS OF REAVING

BECAUSE LAMS ARE SO POWERFUL THEY CAN BE BANNED.

BECAUSE OF LAM LOVERS

BECAUSE OF LAM HATERS

BECAUSE OF MORGAN KELL.

BECAUSE IT MAKES THE WORLD FEEL BIGGER.

BECAUSE IT MAKES THE WORLD FEEL SMALLER.

BECAUSE OF THE UNCOMFORTABLE TIME MY WIFE CHALLENGED ME TO A TRIAL OF POSSESSION FOR MY GENETIC LEGACY

BECAUSE OF HOW ANY FAN CAN STAND UP TALL AND PROUDLY PROCLAIM TO LOVE THE URBANMECH

BECAUSE VICTOR STEINER DAVION’S ROMANCES WITH OMI KURITA AND ISIS MARIK ARE MORE COMPELLING AND MATURE THEN ANYTHING STEFANIE MEYER WILL EVER HOPE TO WRITE DOWN IN HER PUTRID EXISTENCE AS AN AUTHOR

BECAUSE OF THE CUT TO BLACK GHOSTS OF WINTER

BECAUSE OF THE ASSASSINATION SCENE IN ASSUMPTION OF RISK

BECAUSE OF THE BIG REVEAL IN LETHAL HERATIGE.

BECAUSE THE JIHAD DIDN'T COMPROMISE.

BECAUSE OF LINCOLN OSIS’ NECK

BECAUSE OF TANCRED SANDOVAL’S MUTTONCHOPS.

BECAUSE OF KAREN NAGASAWA’S SMILE.

BECAUSE OF ULRIC KERENSKY’S MIND.

BECAUSE OF ACE DARWIN’S PANTHER.

BECAUSE OF PHELAN KELLS GALL

BECAUSE OF THE LEGACY OF THOMAS MARIK.

BECAUSE OF THE WAY ANDREY KERENSKY PROJECTED DIGNITY.

BECAUSE OF THEY WAY NATASHA KERENSKY PROJECTED TROUBLE.

BECAUSE OF THE WAY HANSE DAVION WOULDN'T TAKE YOUR SHIT.

BECAUSE OF THE WAY ALEXANDER DAVION WOULDN'T TAKE YOUR SHIT EITHER.

BECAUSE I SAID “NO FUCKING WAY” WHEN THE MANEI DOMINI WHERE INTRODUCED AS MORE THEN RUMOR IN DAWN OF THE JIHAD

BECAUSE I CRIED WHEN OMI KURITA WAS KILLED

BECAUSE OF THE HORRIFIC AWESOMENESS THAT WAS STAR LORD.

BECAUSE OF THE JAGERMECH.

BECAUSE TRO 3075 PROVED YOU CAN STILL DO AWESOME THINGS WITH “OUT OF THE BOX SET” TECHNOLOGY

BECAUSE OF THE AWESOME ART OF BRENT EVANS

BECAUSE OF DOUG CHAFEE.

BECAUSE OF 25 YEARS OF ART AND FICTION

BECAUSE THE SWORD AND THE DAGGER IS STILL NEXT TO IMPOSSIBLE TO GET UNDER 100 DOLLARS.

BECAUSE OF THE BRAZEN AUDACITY OF RANDALL BILLS AND LOREN COLEMAN.

BECAUSE OF SOME FANS STILL CONSIDER TECHNICAL READOUT 3025 TO BE THE PINNACLE OF THE UNIVERSE AND DAMN WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY ABOUT IT.

BECAUSE BECAUSE ARCHER CHRISTIFORI ASKING KATHERNIEN STEINER DAVION FOR AN EXCUSE TO PUBLICLY HUMILIATE HER WAS THE LAST GREAT SLAP IN THE FACE OF AN IRREDEMABLE CHARACTER

BECAUSE NOTHING IS MORE SATISFYING THEN PULLING OFF AN UNBELIEVABLY DIFFICULT MINIATURES PAINT JOB THE FIRST TIME AROUND

BECAUSE NOTHING IS MORE FRUSTRATING THEN NEVER QUITE GETTING THAT SAME PAINT JOB TO REPEAT IT’S BRILLIANCE.

BECAUSE I CAN STAY LOYAL TO THE PROPERTY WHILE BEING BANNED FROM THE FORUMS.

BECAUSE HERB, BRENT, LOREN, ALEX, RAY, BEN, JASON, AND TARA ALL GREET ME LIKE AN OLD FRIEND AT THE GENCON BOOTH.

BECAUSE THEY'RE THE ONE THING I WOULD PLAY OVER ANY OTHER GAME OUT THERE.

... EXCEPT SHARING THEM WITH THE PEOPLE WHO THINK THAT TOO.

BECAUSE AS CYNICAL AS WE GET, THERE ARE STILL A THOUSAND GREAT STORIES THAT HAVE YET TO BE TOLD. A THOUSAND GREAT GAMES YET TO BE PLAYED, AND A THOUSAND GREAT MECHS YET TO GRACE A RECORD SHEET.

AND LASTLY, BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST, BECAUSE BATTLETECH TOTALLY MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN.

Really?

Once in a while I come across something that I find just about everything wrong with. Not even an instance where I can say- “Well isn’t that cute??? BUT IT’S WRONG!!!!!” this morning as I plopped down at my desk at work and did my morning wind up, I ran across this article on The Escapist.

That led to the source article, which already got my blood boiling as is. A woman buried a potential relationship in two dates simply cause a hedge fund guy played Magic the Gathering. Despite the fact that this was Jon Finkel, the Magic World Champion, I honestly feel like that had very little to do with it, so much as the mere presence of cardboard crack in his life.

But that delicious main course of “Girl bails on a guy cause he is a geek.” Is just that, the savory ribeye to a glorious meal of hate. I want to talk about the other things she did in this story that piss me off

First was the shame that she approached dating online, using OkCupid. In my life I have had a few relationships going to “date rapey bars” and hang outs. I even went to a girls church just because I wanted to know if her boobs were real or not. I think it speaks volumes though that the woman I married, and have a son with, I met online.

The mixture of shame and fear of finding a person through a largely anonymous dating site just does not register to me. Granted women who go to these sites, don’t act creepy, saying things like “Cut the crap Hamlet.” If you ask me I think it sucks that most women set up free profiles and a “take a number” box. It makes me wonder if women get a perverse kick out of making men suffer to try to prove that they are good enough to even get the chance to see them in person. I am going to go out on a limb here and guess that it is the same way for websites that are similar but for… other purposes.

So here we have a woman who already is doing something she does not want to do, and being a total twat to people because she has not bothered to cancel her account, That is Strike Two to how she treated Mr. Finkel’s Strike One. A nice Caesar salad in this meal if you ask me.

The Second thing I want to talk about is the date itself. Now in Alyssa’s defense, she did not say how the date was agreed to. If they agreed to dinner and a show, and Mr. Finkel purchased tickets to Jeffrey Dahmer on Broadway without saying “how about this” that is on him. But part of the lesson here is that if you expect to be swept off your feet by a well hung Dudley Do-Wright on a palomino horse on the first date, I think you need a brief lesson in real life.

In an online dating situation, you got two people busting through imaginary social stigma, and their own insecurities to meet up with each other. The only information the have is their name, and if they are smart a criminal background check. In any first date you should be prepared for everything. By everything I mean Chinese food to bad movies, to heels breaking, and the possibility of drinking too much. If Magic the Gathering has players nicknamed Johnny, Timmy, and Spike, Dating has your, Ted, Marshall, and Barney

Ted is the guy who plays it cool, but deep down wants that long term relationship, ultimately involving you in a white dress.

Marshall is timid, but ultimately wants the same thing as ted, maybe with a little to much more focus.

And Barney is… Well he is Barney.

So Strike three, and a lovely twice baked tater on you Miss Bereznek. Sure there is the wine and the spinach I could have discussed to, but this fine meal of hate should stick to the staples.

Asses Kicked, Bubblegum Chewed

So when last we talked I gave the VERY abridged version of the development History of Duke Nukem Forever, leaving the final chapter out but leaving a cryptic video of the introduction to a completely different and awesome game.

That game if you were not paying attention Was Borderlands, a scifi single player shooter of epic proportions loved by fans and critics alike, and bringing Gearbox Software into the forefront of video game visionaries. Previously they were known as “those guys that did Half Life Mods for Valve.

The final development chapter of this review is that after a minor bit of Drama, Gearbox walked up to 3D Realms, raped it, took their baby away and left behind a roll of quarters for cab fare. And while such imagery may be vile when done to real people,. I can honestly say that 3D Realms deserved it.

So here we after after 15 years and one last delay for old times sake, is Duke Nukem Forever worth it?

No, it is not worth 15 years of development.

Let me elaborate. I was a Duke fan since the side scrollers. I know the game I followed it. I lost hope and regained it, and upped the bucks for the shiny super jumbo deluxe version to reward my reaffirmation of the game and its new developers. And when I played it, and got about half way through it I went back to playing Halo Reach.

Under that magnifying glass, Duke Nukem forever is not worth the money I paid. But then two things happened when I played the game for a friend of mine who was only vaguely familiar with Duke Nukem as a franchise.

I blew up then pulled the tongue out of a 3 boobed alien monster, went right into a strip club and had some fun. And my friend said

“This is actually one of the coolest games ever!”

He elaborated that there was no part of the game as a shooter that was trying to be serious. The over the top voice acting, the goofy writing, the ambiance all made for a rather hyper masculine cathartic package. That the lack of emphasis on story, game mechanics, and trying to “push the envelope” emphasized the character of the game.

Okay so he did not say it in so many words, but that was the conclusion I came to after viewing Duke Nukem Forever through his eyes. Speaking of which when he popped them back in his head from a virtual lap dance he applauded the little things that could be done, from using a toilet, to smoking cigars, getting lap dances, playing pool, pinball, arcades, and even flipping off the lights.

This perspective also allowed me to see how when you examine DNF you can see across the past 14 years at all the little traits that had been pilfered from other shooters. This allows the game mechanics themselves to be solid, if not revolutionary.

And that is the key thing to take away from Duke Nukem Forever. It is a solid game. They key criticism that you will find in any review is that “it does not bring anything new.” Never mind that whole franchises have been doing that for years and gotten away with it. Mechanically the weapons are uniqe, the Platforming elements are solid. the only point I really complain about is that about 2/3rds of the way through the game you have to engage in a vehicle section that is drawn out way the hell to far. but overly log arduous levels are nothing new in video game history either, right?

Long and short, check your high expectations at a door. This is not a fantastic game, but it is competent. I want to see what Gearbox can do with the franchise next.

Come Get Some!

So yeah, 15 years in the making, was Duke Nukem Forever worth it? Yes and no. Wait most of you don’t know what Duke Nukem Forever is? Okay story time!

Duke Nukem began its life in 1991 with Apogee Software releasing a simplified side scroller, whereby a blond hero named Duke Nukem was captured by the Mad Dr Proton and had to escape and simultaneously stop his antagonist plans for world domination. Plots don’t get more silly then that. It was popular enough that a second side scrolling sequel was released in 1992, but by then Video Games were undergoing a fundamental shift. At the time a Mesquite Texas based company founded by Kansas City Native John Carmak created Wolfenstein 3D, followed by Doom. Both published about about the same time.

Seeing a chance to make a name for itself on the then emerging First Person Shooter Market, Apogee Renamed itself 3D Realms and took the plunge. After three years of development Duke Nukem 3D was released. And did it impress.

Seriously the computer gaming world had seen nothing like this, and consoles were unable to compete as well. The titular character went from a bland sprite to this over the top, chauvinistic blend of Ash Williams and Snake Pliskin. More so then anywhere else Duke Nukem 3D tread on ground no other game would, by introducing elements such as alcohol use, sexual situations and entertainment, drug use, and no holes barred foul language, Duke Nukem played to the adult market at a time when even PC gaming was seen as for children.

Immediately upon the commercial success of Duke Nukem 3D, 3D Realms announced in 1997 a sequel titled Duke Nukem Forever. Despite Seven Spin off games however during the times pan, DNF was delayed repeatedly.

The development History of the game is nothing short of Legen- Wait for it…

It got to be so bad that DNF became the butt of many jokes, to the point of being the definition of Vaporware. Such comments like Duke Nukem If Ever, Whenever, Fornever and the list goes on became standard for making fun of it. Fans even grew weary and by 2001, there was little press on developments as 3D Realms shuttered itself and simply said it would hit the streets “when it’s done.” In that time-span fans largely forgot about the game though some remembered, and compiled a list of things that happened since Duke Nukem Forever was announced.

When it was finally announced that 3D Realms had fired the Duke Nukem Development Team and was undergoing financial restructuring, Forever finally seemed all but dead, despite the teaser released earlier in 2007.

But then again…. There ain’t no rest for the wicked.

We will finish the History Lesson and get to the review next time.

Some things Just do not need to be...

WHY GOD WHY!!!!!

Look, here is the thing, I am a Halo fan. I was first exposed to Halo combat evolved when my brother and I simultaneously split with our respective girlfriends and in a huge bout of male sympathy, I had my first beer with my dad, we went out for burgers and ended up buying a Microsoft X Box and half of its launch library. Halo was the only thing that stood out. While its level design was not very impressive, it did a lot of things to the First Person Shooter (which I was still calling Doom Clones) that were impressive. A regenerating health bar, the ability to only carry two weapons, use of grenades as an action instead of a separate weapon. Halo took a lot of ideas from various other shooters and melded them into a perfect experience.

Halo as a fictional universe has a core trilogy, surrounded two (later three) main characters on a quest to save the galaxy from Religious arrogance, I mean space bugs. It was rich in allusions to Biblical, Torranic, and Islamic scripture. It also had elements of Greek myths, Chinese fables, and even King Arthur, particularly the ending of the core Trilogy.

RIGHT THERE! The hero who saved the world is presumed dead from his crusade, and is being escorted by the Lady of the Lake to sanctuary until he is needed again. Bang! Fineto! Done! story is closed, yes there was allusion to further tales, but really we did not need them. If the Halo Universe was to survive, it should have done so upon its own merits rather then trying to artificially drag out a long gone protagonist’s story.

And you know what pisses me off more then anything else. I am going to buy it! I am going to play it! And I will probably enjoy it despite the inevitable glaring faults.

Video Games ARE Art!!!

So last month the National Endowment for Arts declared that Video Games are considered an art-form, and therefore are open to federal funding for development, the same way television, film, theater, and literature are occasionally granted pitiful grants that keep the people working on those projects fed for a month.

Run on sentence lead-ins aside, we now have exhibits from talented developers on video games great and small on display in the Smithsonian. This project from what I hear was in development for the past five years, and continuously updated till its debut this year. So next to your Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, Raphael, and the Shredder will be the works of Shigeru Miyamoto (of Mario Brothers fame).

This is unequivocally a good thing. One only needs to go onto YouTube and search for “Halo 3 VidDoc” too see the tireless effort that artists go into drawing on paper, then creating real life models of before finally rendering onto screen their works to be the Master Chief we love to send out into Alien Kickassia on weekends.

Wow I am abusing grammatically correct run on sentences today…

Of course it did not take much time for the controversy engine to stir up whether this new declaration had Merit. Credit has to go to Fox news for presenting our subject matter in not only the wrong light, but an incredibly biased light. You can either watch this video or if you want a smart ass comic that tells the same story you can look at this.

The Video specifically mentions the Call of Duty Series, and it possibly getting federal funding. Call of Duty, for the uninitiated is a video game that places you in the perspective of a solider (usually British or American) fighting wars. Initially the game was set in World War II, but eventually evolved into more modern scenarios. As I mentioned above the argument postulated by Fox is that should such a game be entitled to N.E.A. funding.

I agree with Fox, it does not. I also agree with Activision, it does not. I agree with numerous gaming websites and magazines, who all agree with Fox. There is no need for a Triple A studio blockbuster of a Video Game to receive any federal funding to ensure its release. It is a good thing that is not what the NEA is interested in.

To give Activision federal grant money to release a Call of Duty game (which despite my criticisms does have some artistic merits) would be the equivalent of the NEA giving James Cameron money to make Avatar. No one would deny the artistic merit of the film, but it was doing fine on its own, being funded by one of Hollywood’s powerhouses, and a major studio.

The NEA would be more interested in providing funding for a game like Minecraft, Braid, Limbo or Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Google each one of them, or YouTube some game footage and you will see what I mean. These are engines of creativity that even despite every one of them being a roaring success never got enough credit.

Of course major media outlets don’t care. They call up IGN and ask “what were the top 5 selling games of the past year?” Then of course they are treated to four First Person Shooters and Grand Turismo and show clips of those while they ask game developers “IS THIS ART!” And they might as well do it in German accents for all the choice any relatively reasonable media critic or games industry insider has.

The key thing is that we have across the world what is Commercial Art, and what is Fine Art. You never see and advertising agency putting up their projects for Kellogg’s up for federal funding. Likewise BioWare will not be trying to get the Feds to fund the last quarter of Mass Effect 3. Even controversial art-house games would be subject to federal scrutiny, and cynical attempts to garner attention like the so called “School Shooter Mod” would be rejected immediately. (if you want to see an art-house style game covering school shootings I highly recommend Super Columbine Massacre by the way. The creator actually makes a significant attempt to explore the psyche of the Columbine Shooters.)

History is on the side of Games however. We have schools at major universities devoted to animating assets for video games. There are more man hours spent rendering every curve and angle of Miranda Lawson’s arse then in any one Rembrandt painting.

The major Pushback against Video games entering the mainstream has to do with one very key item. Video games are still by and large regarded as toys for children. Much in the same way that Radio was regarded as a tool, and film a meaningless novelty, the origins of Video games from the days of the Magnivox Oddessey and Atari 2600 has permitted a generation of journalists and political leaders to have a clear waypoint to try and keep games “in their place.”

Where the moment in games is that the proverbial “chains” were broken and Video games managed to break free of being merely children’s toys, I can not point to. Some say as early as February 12^th of 1991 with the release of Super Mario Brothers 3, one of the most critically acclaimed video games ever. Others would cite Final Fantasy VII or Halo: Combat Evolved.

But the chain has been broken, game designers are no longer toymakers, and players, as has been shown by statistical analysis time and again are not just children. Games are no longer approaching mere entertainment, but instead ask the player to consider moral quandaries and balance out the consequences of their actions. Whole avenues of entertainment have sprung up around gamer culture. To say that it is only a matter of time shows that people have not been paying attention, as now we merely have to wait for the stubbon holdouts to die.

Munchkins

This is another case of me sharing someone else story. There is a debate going on in the Battletech community of “what is and is not Munchkin.” It arose for reasons I can not quite explain, though it seems the property is in this state of singularity, with so many antique rulebooks that the company with the IP now has been working, for really the past five years now, to create a set of “Core” Books to put everything in a few easy to read volumes.

The way it works is that the core rule books are “Tiered” in a particular way. The first book gives you the Standard Rules, the ones that will never change or go away. Book 2 is an instruction manual on how you can build your own game pieces, which is where things start to get controversial. The reason being is that after a quarter of a century in development, Battletech already has over 1000 “Official” play pieces and variants, so there is a core of players who refuse to play with customs made from this second book.

Books 3 and 4 instruct you in ways to expand the standard rules to allow for new ways to play. The joke is that with them, you can have a military conflict on a sinking super tanker in a hurricane that was carrying hives of bees that are now loose, and giant robots are throwing cargo containers at each other like wrestlers and steel chairs. And there is one more book to go.

Among players there is this sense that if the rule even exists, then they have a right to use it, no matter what other players say, so this can cause some contention if at the very least, no other player is even familiar with the rules being used. Anyway on to the story.

“Back in the days when the Clans were relatively new, I got conned into playing a demo at the local RPG store. While just hanging out one day, I was talking to a friend and mentioned some 10-15 ton ‘mechs that I had designed and was quite proud of; I said that I’d put them up against any canon light design in the books. Next thing I know, the owner of the store says “We have a challenge!” because another player there told him he’d take that challenge.

So we work out the date, time and terms: I’d bring a 4-‘mech lance of my custom IS ultralights and my opponent would bring a lance of 4 LIGHT Inner Sphere ‘mechs from any official book available at that time. We settle on maps (3 x 3), victory conditions (last ‘mech standing) and go home.

At the set date and time, I show up with my force; two15-ton and two 10-ton IS ‘mechs (I might post stats later; fastest one was 6/9, I made extensive use of advanced IS tech and the lance was fairly well balanced with LRMs and even an ISerLL… and all-regular 5/4 pilots.

My distinguished opponent brought a STAR of FIVE custom clan ‘mechs; ranging in weight from 35 tons to 55 tons (yes, two mediums) each with an elite 2/1 pilot.

When I pointed out to him that this was not the agreed force composition he claimed to have forgotten, that he’d misplaced his TROs, that he was ‘used to clan tech’, that it was too late to make new sheets, blah, blah, blah…

When I complain to the store owner, he says that I ‘did say any ‘mech’ and implied that I was being a poor sport. In the end, I had nothing better to do that afternoon and if nothing else, I’d test my designs in battle.

I did ask to level the playing field by at least matching skill levels (to which my opponent strenuously objected, claiming that ‘clan pilots are the best’ so he would not even consider reducing his pilot’s uber-elite rating), but after much wrangling (and being accused of being a crybaby) I was “magnanimously” allowed to increase my pilot’s rating to 3/2.

So there I am, my 4 IS ultra lights facing five custom clan ‘mechs, the lightest of which is twice the weight of my two heaviest ‘mechs put together and his heaviest heavier than my entire lance put together.

Battle starts and surprise, surprise; he ignores zell. I start setting fires anywhere useful, generating smoke and maneuvering to get the best advantage of available cover. Within three turns we started shooting at each other. Superior tactics on my part (humbly, I have to admit it’s true; he basically tried to charge across an open field, decreasing his chances of hitting) and a few lucky rolls soon (2 combat turns) had two of his ‘mechs down and a third in dire straits, while only two of my units had any type of damage (worst damage was the loss of an arm with nothing mounted on it).

My opponent goes NUTS. Picks up one of his minis, throws it against the wall, overturns the table, kicks his sheets on the floor and storms out in a fit of fury, never again returning to the store.

Yeah. He pretty much defined “munchkin”; extreme power-gamer hell-bent on winning at any cost, including at the cost of the enjoyment of others. No single thing makes someone a munchkin.”

All Hail Suavo, Lord of Bad Rolls

When I was in college I played board games with a group of fellow nerd ranging in ages from 8 to 50. All of them had their ups and downs as people. Scott was a gentle giant of a man, but I worry about his health, James Ernst was a mathematical genius but took to playing the Meta- game to seriously. And Pete was way to hard on himself, to the point where if something went the wrong way he got distracted and his composure collapsed.

One man stood above all of these though as someone I remember. His name was George but everyone including himself called him Suavo. The first reason was that his actual polish last name was difficult to pronounce. The second reason was that he was a suave mother fucker.

When he played MechWarrior in the group he gravitated towards a faction that was known for the ability to take hits repeatedly, but not have much offensive might. Everyone questioned his choice, as it seemed that when rolling dice, he had no luck at all. He would often just miss the required rolls needed, or when he did hit it was of little consequence at the time.

He had this inane ability though, to share his luck, or lack thereof. Like a Jedi convincing a drug dealer to rethink his life, he merely waved his hands, and his opponents dice would turn to piles of cubic mush. I dunno how he did it, but at some point the rest of the play group would start praying and paying tribute to Suavo, hoping to appease him so our rolls would not go south.

To this day I still spread the word of Suavo, calling upon him for timely bad rolls and waving my hand like a jedi over my foes dice. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. Suavo is a fickle god, and he does not dole out his power whimsically

Wow, I am late on this....

It took me a while to write this last entry on Ninja Gaiden, and Metroid. That was mostly because the two games were hard as hell, to the point of me NEVER in my life finishing them (unlike all the other previous entries.) And each shared so many aspects with the previous NES classics that I ran out of things to talk about. So I finally decided to consolidate the two and discuss highlights of each.

Ninja Gaiden was side scrolling beat em up. Its notorious difficulty was born from having to beat not only bad guys and bosses, but also the map and the timer. Precision jumps were the key, and coupled with the Castlevania “flinch” if you were off or got touched by an enemy, you were tossed backwards.

Ninja Gaiden was unique in the NES days for having cinematic story telling, with crudely animated cut scenes between major acts of the game. Taken for granted today, where such events are not only common but often rendered in the games engine, these comic book style graphics were a progressive leap forward, and possibly the first of its kind.

Musically the game was nothing special, and graphically it was hit or miss. While the backgrounds were rendered in stunning detail, you often looked at foes that were more a jumbled mess of pixels then anything else.

in the modern Era Ninja Gaiden has retained its nigh impossible difficulty, and romps through the demon world are little more literal then cult like. the problem is that modern games in the series are pretty forgettable, particularly since the developer at Namco "Team Ninja" seems to have a VERY unhealthy fascination with breasts.

Metroid was another beast. Where as Zelda had you explore what seemed like a large and expansive world, Metroid downsized it to a large alien base. Game play focused on exploration above EVERYTHING else, with power ups scattered far and wide, and your list of objectives was quite narrow.

1) Destroy the two bosses
2) After 1) destroy the bases main computer

Simple until you realized that you started off with none of the tools needed to do that task, and you had all of THIS to contend with. These aliens were not fucking around were they?

It is amazing in Metroid to see that the titular creature usually does not show up in it’s own game till the end. Much like the legend of Zelda before it, I assumed the main character you played was named Metroid, rather then the space jellyfish that the franchise centers around.

The Metroid franchise however is known for more then dungeon crawls, and exploration through upgrades. It can be argued that the Metroid series was the first video game series to have a female protagonist. Furthermore, the nature of Samaus Aran’s appearance belies and refutes any chance to sexualize her as a woman, providing a strong female (though I argue not feminine) character. For that, Metroid will always be remembered while Ninja Gaiden will be tossed aside in the Jiggle Physics bin.

What is a Man?

Castlevania was one of those Nintendo games that while popular at least in my social circle, I never owned myself. My first encounter came with going to my cousins house and she popped in a game, saying it was about Dracula. My mind crept to Christopher Lee, who was the popular Dracula at the time, and old school horror movies of the Universal and Hammer Vintage.

And then she hit start, and I beheld a man with a whip, and one of the most awesome video game musical scores I EVER HEARD.

The three Castlevania games on the Super Nintendo were not a massive revolution. Their scope only seemed more epic then Mario Brothers or many of the one word Nintendo titles like Karate or Golf because of the sheer variety of levels. Castlevania succeeded because it created an atmosphere. You as a lone man going through a castle and taking on every mythical creature and classic monster you could possible think of, and even Death himself all to destroy Count Dracula. This game was literally every kid’s fantasy if they were fascinated by horror and monster movies.

The plot of the series is centered right on stokers Dracula mythos, taking place primarily between the 11th and 18th centuries. Mathaias Cronqvist, who assumes the name of Dracula, is a vampire and count of Wallachia. Because of his vampiric nature he is a natural enemy of the Belmont clan of vampire hunters. In the first game (in terms of production) Simon Belmont, follows in his grandfather’s foot steps to ONCE AGAIN suppress a resurgent Dracula.

Resurgence and suppression is the main theme. It is acknowledged that Vamparisim, particularly Dracula’s Curse, can not ever be truly destroyed, merely battled. Throughout the series many characters that may be allies in one game are manipulated into foes in the next, creating on ongoing cycle of valor, betrayal, and redemption. Most of this is explored in latter games with more sophisticated platforms and the ability to better explore narrative.

As awesome as the setting was and a wonderful challenge to conquer, Castlevania was one of those games that defined “Nintendo Hard.” Aside from managing the maze of bullets and bad guys you had the three fatal flaws in the game to contend with.

The first flaw was that if your character got hit, at all, by anything, he would be propelled back a good four tiles. This can sometimes lead to you being able to clear a gap you would have trouble jumping, but most of the time it shoved you into a bottomless pit, or more bad guys.

Fatal flaw number 2 is that when your character had to climb stairs, he is fundamentally defenseless. Later games allowed you to attack on stars, which helped a bit, but when you are climbing a staircase between twin columns of fire breathing dragon skulls, expletives will leave your mouth.

The final flaw is the inability to control your jumps. When you are stark still, you jump strait up, and when you are moving forward, you jump forward a set distance. You can not short change your jumps, or perform any course corrections in mid air. And while games receive high praise for realism these days, on the NES THAT level of realism is a handicap.

Over the years Castlevania has produced over 30 games on over a dozen platforms, making it perhaps the most wide spread of the Nintendo 8. These days most Castlevania games have abandoned the linear progression in favor of a more exploratory format. 8 bit chip tunes have passed in favor of orchestral scores. But the core of the series remains the same. The twilight always comes, Dracula’s Curse lives on, and children of the night will dance once more in the woods of Romania.

Hope you all have a wonderful new year, it will be 2011 when we come back to take a look at memories of one of the most loved, yet hated, Nintendo turned gaming franchises, Ninja Gaiden!

Sorry to keep you waiting!

In an age where franchises in all popular media are being turned through the meat grinder for any last ounce of profit they can generate, one kid had been left behind. Kid Icarus was a gem of a game that was largely left behind in the great Nintendo boom of the 1980s and early 90s. It was known largely for its unforgiving difficulty, unique story and setting and quality music.

The story takes its roots in a hybrid of Greek mythology and Christian demonology. You play as an angel named Pit; whose “Land of Good” was invaded by an army of monsters from the “Land of Evil.” I shit you not, the plot is that much of a trope. So you as a surviving angel are given a bow by the gods and told “go forth and conquer.”

Graphically the game was built on the same “guts” as fellow cult classic Metroid. You can tell with the jump physics, and even the patterns that some on screen enemies move. Musically it had a style all its own though. Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka provided four six tracks (massive for the NES) that gave an ambiance any Dungeons and Dragons player would love for their own games. Not nearly as up beat as Mario’s over world theme, nor as depressing as Zelda’s Dungeon music, Kid Icarus Soundtrack managed to capture a sense of epic adventure and wonder.

In terms of game play, Kid Icarus was a platformer that managed to work out two sub genres in one game. The first sub genre was typical platforming, with the twist of stages being largely vertical since the goal is to “retake heaven.” The second type of plat forming genre is the dungeon crawl, where three levels are set up in a castle like area.

The game was mind blowingly difficult though. You started bare bones in the game, with next to no health, and a weapon with no power and range. The vertical nature of the game meant falls off the screen were lethal and enemies could hurt you in was you did not expect.

Most famous of these said enemies was the so called “egg plant wizard” a purple one eyed magician who instead of damaging you transformed you into a walking eggplant, preventing you from attacking or using any of the items you collected along with way until you were uncursed.

Kid Icarus was praised critically for the past 25 years, despite only having one sequel on the Game Boy console. Released in 1991 “Of Myths and Monsters” was largely a port of the classic game, with a minimally enhanced story and few additions.

The classic Nintendo game reach something of a cult item, retaining a certain popularity. Four Nintendo consoles passed up the opportunity for a full blown new game however, with only the Wii paying homage to the character in the crossover orgasm Super Smash Brothers Brawl.

It was not until the 2010 E3 this past year when Reggie Fils-Amie was pimping Nintendo’s latest handheld and showed us a very special trailer.

Video Games | Kid Icarus: Uprising | E3 2010: Debut Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Sorry to keep us waiting indeed. Whatever took you so long Pit, We are just glad to have you back.

Next time we will return to the original schedule and I will talk Castlevania.

TwouptwodownleftrightleftrightBA

Contra was not exactly a compelling game. The plot, like most in the NES series was a single four sentence paragraph that really served as a meager justification as to WHY you pumped quarters into the arcade machine. Your in game avatar was a silly knock off of the shirtless John Rambo, complete with a little bandanna, and you ran to the left and shot up billions of dollars of military hardware in the jungle. The game stayed that way until the very last level, which then made it look like the game should have been an “Aliens” arcade game.

Contra was a game for the Nintendo that characterized several things that are important for gaming as a whole. It clearly demonstrated that tight mechanics are important to narrative, and that a shallow game experience can be made up for by extreme difficulty.

Contra also reflected a fundamental misunderstanding of early video game producers. The limited lives and continues of early NES titles were brought to simulate the effect of being in a real arcade operating an actual cabinet. Lath meant limiting lives, something many video games continue to do this day, but also limiting the number of “continues” fabrication to represent limited pocket change. This created a whole slew of Nintendo game that demanded exceptional skill on part of the players to even finish.

Konami got around this with one simple keystroke combination though that spread like wildfire. The button pattern Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right B,A, entered before you started the game gave you 30 lives in the game, including after continues.

This key combination spread like wildfire in the 1980s, quite remarkable considering that the internet as we knew it was in it’s infancy. Word of mouth was powerful though, and it inspired game producers to include other so called “cheat codes” into games, or sometimes even allow players to enter a “debug” mode allowing you to fully customize your game experience.

Wow, I really did not have much to say about this game after all. Enjoy this music video then.

next time I will talk about the most under appreciated NES game, Kid Icarus

I'm Blue... and Cyan...

In my NES retrospective I am compelled to move beyond the realm of Nintendo owned characters, and into the world of licensed properties. Mega Man (Rock Man in Japan) has spent the better part of his 25 years of existence dominating my gaming life. Living in an implied near future (constantly referencing 20XX) the world the game takes place in seems to be a mysterious blend of Issac Assimov and Harry Houdini’s wettest of dreams.

6 NES games, 1 SNES, 1 Playstation, and two throwback style games for download on your console of choice, and the entire plot is the same. Dr. Albert Wiley, a mentally unstable computer scientist specializing in Artificial Intelligence, in an effort to get revenge for his perceived ostracizing by college Dr. Thomas Light builds (or in a few cases steals) robots to engage in terrorist actions around the world.

The Core Mechanics of Mega Man are nothing special. Solid Platforming around obstacles and bad guys is a must. The ability to blow the hell out of what’s in your way is important as well. But Megaman offered two unique mechanics that let it stand out.

The first is that you hyad the ability to choose the order of the levels you went through. A relatively simple mechanic that blows away the concept of levels simply getting “harder” as time went on, instead level design had to pose unique challenges.

The other mechanic was that every time you beat a level, you got to use the master of that levels weaponry. weather it was an explosive, Flame thrower, or even bladed boomerangs, whatever weapons you picked up also served as tools to assist you in getting through other levels as time went on, until you reach Wiley himself, and had to use all the tools at your disposal to even GET to him.

In my adulthood I realize the game was far from perfect. Plot-wise, as I said before it can be summed up in the same old

“Dr. Wiley is on the loose again.”

While certainly not the first, nor the last to have a plot point repeat to the point of silly I really wish Capcom has stuck to their guns. In the 4th game of the series a whole new character was introduced in Dr. Cassock, and then in the middle of the game they backed out and revealed it was Dr. Wiley blackmailing Cassock. In the 6th Game a Mr. X (creative right?) who stole robots from a competition was also reviled to be Dr. Wiley in disguise.

What would be so wrong with having a NEW villain… Seriously? Each time it Might have breathed some fresh life into a stagnant plot, and it DID till you screwed it up! but it does not end there.

Finally in the often derided second game, our protagonist finally had enough and was ready to vaporize this clichéd villan. Here a Robot with a sense of justice finally had himself pushed to far, where he overrides his own programming for the sake of a perceived greater whole. When it is pointed out that he as a robot is programmed never to cause a human harm he replies

“I HAVE BECOME MORE THEN A ROBOT!” the only thing that keeps him from firing though is not pity, but self preservation, as the building they are in is about to collapse.

COME ON! we were about to explore self actualization of an AI CAPCOM! And you BLEW IT!

Mega Man still has a huge following after all this time. To the point of Bands like the Megas dedicated to making music based off the games, plenty of artwork and ROM-Hacks out there as well.

What is most fascinating is that Eddie LeBron, an independent film maker, actually created a film, about an hour and a half long, based on the Mega Man Franchise. I got to be honest, it’s not Oscar quality, but it certainly has Lifetime Movie Quality script, even if the effects and costumes are…. UPN quality.

Then again this is big budget action on no budget.

The series is worthy of a checkout if your not familiar. You can find a compilation of the first 8 games on the Playstation 2, as well as the Mega Man X Series (which I consider separate)

You can also get the classic Nintendo games at vintage stores, but the price tag tends to hover around 20 dollars, if you pick ONE up, make sure it is Mega Man 2 or 3 often held as the gold standards of the series.

It's Dangerous to Go Alone... Take This.

If Mario is the King of Nintendo, Zelda is most assuredly the queen. Everything about the original Legend of Zelda game made it stand out from the rest of the Nintendo Library. From its metallic gold cart to its overall play style to the little lithium ion battery that allowed you to save a game directly on the cart, as opposed to a password system, Without the Legend of Zelda, video games as we know it would not exist.

In 1986 Shigeru Miyamoto fresh off the success of Mario Brothers, created another world. Named after the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald, the Legend of Zelda tells the tale of a Boy named Link, off to save a Princess named Zelda, from a Wizard named Gannon, who has taken the form of a Pig King. Creative right? Eventually there would be whole mythologies devoted to a Triple goddess, and sages and blah blah, but for now, the Triforce you had to find and build was nothing more then a huge MacGuffin.

Rather then giving us single levels like most games, where we were moved in one direction towards a goal, we were dumped in the middle of a mystical land. We That very first screen had three roads and a small cave in front of us. In that cave, if you did not miss it at first. was an old man and a rusty sword.

“It’s Dangerous to go alone… Take this”

It was like tossing a toddler in a poll and telling it to swim. Nothing had ever existed like it. You had to explore the world to find your goal. Each dungeon you went into had a new device to help you explore further, to the point where once your realized you could bomb walls and burn bushes, you would do that on every single tile of the game possible to find everything.

And you were doing it to some bitching music! Again Koji Kondo brought us a fantastic chip tune. On the over world you were treated to a track that sang to the epic nature of your quest, in the dungeons a dark brooding tune reminded you constantly of the danger you faced.

Yet you were not some sword swinging Conan the Barbarian. Often times you had to think through the game, figuring out that you could only kill the Dinosaurs by “feeding” them bombs, or that the hungry but passive monster blocking your path could be fed meat to go away. Puzzles would be as simple as step on that switch, to playing with beams of light to reveal a ghost.

Music was also an important tool, able to transport you instantly across the entire game world as early as the first game. Others had musical instruments as plot points, or as tools to allow you to change time, the weather, or even act as a key to unlock certain doors.


But there is a lot of controversy about this tale of a boy, a girl, and a man… who is sometimes also a pig. You see the Legend of Zelda spans almost 20 games. But to an audience to crave continuity, this franchise has been hard to pin down. Nintendo has taken the aspect of “Legend” to it’s furthest conclusion, and despite a handful of direct (Zelda II, Majora’s Mask), and sometimes indirect sequels (Spirit Tracks) there seems to be little continuity between the games.

Timeline arguments always focus on the 1998 released Ocarina of Time, argued to be the earliest point in the timeline, and its direct use of Time Travel. So dedicated are some fans to the story of the Boy, the Girl, and the Man… who is sometimes also a pig, that wide ranging debates always result in a stalemate. As for me, I tend to focus on the “Legend” aspect of the series title. Tolkein got it wrong as far as I am concerned. The best stories are not the ones that never end, they are told over and over again, eventually gaining new aspects and loosing old ones.

Anyway, that’s it for that retrospective, next time we will discuss my personal favorite of the 8 bit pantheon… Mega Man.

MARIO! BUSTED UP THE PIPE! YOUR SAVIOR HAS ARRIVED!

What can be said about Super Mario Brothers, that has not already been said. Shigeru Miyamoto could largely be considered a genius when he made this game, because his focus was for the player to complete a story, rather then just get a high score.

One of the more amazing facts about Mario is the design of the character. By now we all know about the blue overalls, white gloves, cap and mustache. What few know was that Mario’s Getup was deliberately designed to avoid having to draw poorly rendered 8 bit characters. The hat hid hair, the ‘stache hid the face, and the contrasting overalls and shirt were to give the character a less monotone body.

Mario at the same time developed what became the most basic instructions for all video games to come, at least until plot driven narrative and X Box Live took over. This was namely the two cardinal rules of Nintendo.

1) MOVE CORRECTLY!
2) DO NOT DIE!

Two rules that can be found in EVERY video game, sure you can fight back by jumping or shooting, or you can hide, but fundamentally every video game from Mario to Modern Warfare 2 has this base assertion behind its controller.

Mario was also one of the pioneers in the video game music genre. Coming in a 3 minutes and 45 seconds, the ever infamous “ground theme” can usually be identified in the first second or so of play. Koji Kondo was a genius for making such a melody, particularly given the technical limitations of chip tunes in the day. These days composers working on video games have whole orchestra’s to work with, and high tech mixing tools. And while Halo and Metal Gear can claim some kick ass soundtracks, there would not have been those greats without Kondo’s work.

In my adult life it strikes me how much people try to interpret from the Mario franchise. Druggies want to see Poppies, shrooms and cannabis in Marios Power-ups. Freudians see the relationship of Mario, Peach and Bowser as the Id, Ego and Super Ego, figure that one out for yourself. And there is also a strange relationship with cake in there.

All that said, Mario is arguably the best selling video game franchise ever, with hundreds of games across 200 platforms. He was the gateway to many adventures for children, and we all owe him a debt of gratitude for opening a world from us?

Next time we will look at The Legend of Zelda

The Clarion Call

Let me make something perfectly clear. With a few recent exceptions, including sadly my upcoming pre-ordered purchase of Fallout New Vegas, I do not purchase games from GameStop. It just does not happen; I tended to favor Best Buy or Target until I found the joy of a more regional place called Vintage Stock. I chose not to buy from Gamestop because of a very specific incident that happened when I was trying to find a copy of Ace Combat 6.

I walked up to the counter and said “Hi, I noticed this game was not on the shelves, but it came out last week, do you have it?”

“Did you pre-order it?”

“No.”

“Well we don’t have it unless you pre-ordered it”

“Okay, I will check Target across the street.

“They don’t have it either.”

Ten minutes later I walked out of Target with my copy of Ace Combat 6 that they supposedly did not have. A year later I had a similar incident with Assassin’s Creed, in which I was told a best buy down the street did not have any copies of the game, and low and behold in the middle of an aisle was a CRATE full of Assassin’s Creed games. I still have the picture on my cell phone, and I showed it to the kid behind the counter who told me best buy did not have it.

So I made the conscious decision to get my game fix elsewhere, to exercise my power of the purse to reject GameStop business model, which fundamentally resembles a Pawn Shop more then a retailer.

This morning however I saw a video on one of my favorite gaming websites www.ScrewAttack.com my personal favorite feature there, The Game Overthinker posted a new video where he called upon gamers to do what I as a Gamer have chosen to do for years now and purchase games elsewhere. There really is no point in summing it up when I can just have you watch it here.

I want to take this call to action a step further though. I want to point out a few stories where I was suckered into a Gamestop Pre-Order that I really should not have been.

In the Case of Transformers War for Cybertron, I preordered From Gamestop, as opposed to Wal-Mart or Target for a specific Downloadable content character called Shockwave. Transformers Fans know what I speak of there. And I was happy and hunky dory, even though I felt dirty for giving GameStop money. Then what happens? DLC was made available to all that included the Shockwave character, as well as all the other Pre-Order Characters from other stores. I felt like the biggest jackass of all.
Another time I pre-ordered Halo Wars, and I got the phone call saying it was available Tuesday at midnight. I got the phone call Tuesday at 6 PM, so I thought “hmmm that was strange.” When I went to get my game I was told it would not be available for another six hours. When I brought up that was Wednesday at midnight and the message said Tuesday at midnight, all I got was “you must be the only one in the world that thinks that way.”

Obviously not, since that is how time works you jackass.

The Hardest truth of all is that I am not the only one. If I was one voice crying out into the night, that one whiney little bitch who had no real complaint, I could accept that and brood. But the internet is littered with GameStop Haters, many of them former employees. That there are so many Gamers out there that do despise this conglomerate for what it has done to gaming as a hobby speaks volumes to the company’s character.

So I answer the Game Overthinkers Clarion Call, and I ask you to as well. Take that mightiest of weapons you have, your wallet, and when it comes time to purchase a new game, go somewhere else first.

Online Exlusive RPG Content and YOU

Print is dead. This axiom has been stated going as far back as when the Radio was first introduced to the English by Guglielmo Marconi in the late 19th century. Yet for over a century, despite the advent of Radio, Television, Computers, and Computer networking Print media in its various forms has persisted as a preferred means of delivering information.

That said it is also undeniable that Print may finally be starting to decline. Newspaper and magazine circulation is at an all-time low, with such vaunted publications as national geographic and Readers digest culling their print runs from their bi weekly high, to bi monthly or quarterly. Major publishing houses are staring down the barrel of the Kindle, Nook, and iPad, and having to choose the embrace the technology or become extinct by it. The question is further exasperated with “print on demand” services largely cutting major publishers and editors out of the fiction publishing circle, and largely returning to an era reminiscent of the early days of the printing press where any schmoe could get anything printed so long as they had the money to do it.

Table Top gaming, my preferred passion, and why I come to you today, is stuck somewhere in the middle of this technological evolution. There will always be, at least for the foreseeable future, people who play with miniatures on tabletops. That will take the invention Holo-Deck to make extinct. But most tabletop games that are not “self contained” i.e. anything you need is all in the box with no expansions or customizations, fall under a peculiar conundrum. That is what to do about the vast majority of printed source-books, scenario books, plot line books, and just plain master rule books that are needed for play.

Catalyst Game Labs (my nerd crack dealer of choice) has been experimenting with publication of their rulebooks and other materials in digital form for the better part of five years, through their own website and a company called Drive Thru Rpg. In addition to new publications they have also experimented with products, smaller in nature, that will ONLY be published electronically.

Sales figures do not lie, according to Catalyst officials on their forums, the online exclusive products have been a roaring success. Being a smaller company in the middle of publicized financial issues, that statement is believable. After all, a company like catalyst can not afford to put money into products people are not buying.

That said, on Catalysts forums there is calls from the fan-base to publish these online exclusives in so called Dead Tree Format (.dtf). This brings me to ask two questions of the game play community. The first is why is it important to you to have these products in a hardcopy format published by Catalyst? The Second is if Catalyst does decide to print their electronic exclusive content, either individually or in compellation form, what advantage will those who have purchased the products electronically have? I admit I have my own bias on the entire issue, but that will be addressed as I attempt to answer these two questions.

As to the first question, “Why is it so vital for you to have these products in hardcopy format?” I think first we need to ask a corollary question. “Are you completely opposed to purchasing these products in electronic form at all?” If the answer is yes, that you are opposed to purchasing digital content for X, Y, or Z Reasons, I can not do anything for you. Trying to convince you otherwise would be pissing in the proverbial wind. And I do not need the reason either. If it is because you think online content should be free, have a pathological fear of losing digital content, or just flat don’t own a computer (in which case how are you posting on an internet forum?), I can not help you.

There is content for you game out there you do not have access to, and you feel left out. You fear that these special “whatever” is the equivalent of the “cool kids club”, and you are the one playing with the frog on the curb next to their clubhouse. I get that. Table top gamers are already a far too discriminated against sub culture of humanity. Whether the ignorance of others is do to disinterest, feeling of priority, or religious fear, we just don’t get along by and large with the outside world, so we want to stick together. I think that those who do not wish to or are incapable of downloading these items for pay, may fear being left out of the loop by their gamer friends.

In my humble experience though we as a sub culture are better then that. I have numerous life experiences where some kid I hung out with triumphantly held up a book of awesome he just got, and SHARED it with others. All this is doing is holding up an iPad and printing off pages rather then holding up a book and making photo copies.

Then there is the question of those of us who are not opposed to online content on any sort of principle. The best thing I have to offer is the nostalgia factor of flipping through a book. Again I get that, after all it is easy to not see a digital file as “Real” in any way. This is particularly troublesome for those of us who do not religiously back up our files on a regular basis. (remember kids, First Wednesday of every month is official Back Up Day!)

But these applications are real. Real effort goes into them, and the money you pay provides real support the company you love, be it Wizards, Catalyst, or other game producing companies that experiment in this form of distribution. This is not Vaporware in the Duke Nukem Forever mold. This is real stuff, and by not purchasing it until it meets a production standard you will be satisfied by YOU are missing out. And by purchasing them, you are in fact contributing to your gaming companies revenues, which allows them to produce more product both digitally and in hardcopy form.

Then there is what last thing that upsets me the most about the .dtf mafia that is out there. Hypothetically there are some who are OVERTLY saying they will wait for these products to be released in print form. I already addressed this prior. But I want to talk economic models with you.

If a gaming company takes a series of related digital products, like Battletechs Experimental Technical Readout Series, and prints a hardcopy for release, two things will happen. Other then cost to print, the development on the series of micro products has already been paid for. Thus any paper release of a digital product would be considerably cheaper then its cumulative digital cost. What happens when that sells like hot cakes?

The answer is that the early adopters will feel ripped off, and will hold off from the next big release of digital exclusives. Some might be loyal and buy the print version anyway, but many will not, partly because of product redundancy, but also out of feeling burned.

Because Digital exclusive revenues drop off sharply, what could have been a great constant trickle of game resources comes to a gradual stop, with nothing satiating the fans until the next big book release.

How do you counter this? the first thing is that if digital exclusive content no longer becomes exclusive, then there needs to be an incentive package for those who do buy them online. I am not speaking of something like a free print copy that would be far to expensive for the developers. Certainly a percentage off to print products price would be nice, or some sort of freebie like a years Battlecorps subscription.

Of course the whole issue is going be decided by the people that make this content, and it is a choice they will make based on what they feel the success of printing digital exclusive content will be. I just feel the need to contribute my voice to the greater whole, and hopefully I provided some context for people on both sides of the issue.

Call of Schmooty

Call of Duty can kiss me ass. That’s right I said it. I have a thorough dislike of Call of Duty for very logical, and I hope understandable reasons.

Call of Duty is a series of first person shooters that came out in 2003 as a means for a small time company called Infinity ward to cash in on Steven Spielberg’s highly successful “Medal of Honor” series of First person shooters. Both games take place during the Second World War, and while Medal of honor tried to create its own story within the era, Call of Duty tended to simulate pivotal battles, fulfilling historians wishes to be “Private Jimmy in the foxhole.”

All of that is well and good, and Call of Duty 1 and two were fantastic games in their own right, with lots to offer the shooter fan. It was right around the third entry in the franchise that something began to happen to the series that was a microcosm of Shooter gaming in general. What happened?

Xbox Live happened.

Call of Duty 3 was a tipping point in my ability to enjoy the franchise. When it comes to shooters I am more of a single player kind of guy. M I find the realm of on line first person games to be way to competitive for my tastes. Further I can not put on a headset on online gaming without be blasted by kids halfway through puberty calling me racist, sexist, homophobic, or politically charged names. yes I have been called a liberal on Xbox Live.

Does this bother me at all? A little. What do I do about it? I log off and stick to single player. Which brings me back to Call of Duty 3. COD 3 was not a bad single player game per say. Much how I was excited in the previous installment to play as a Russian at Stalingrad, or the Brits in North Africa, in COD 3 I was actually thrilled that you got to be smack dab in the middle of Canada’s vital but often underplayed role in the European Theater of World War II. The same goes for the Polish Army post Blitzkrieg. But the single player campaign, while suitably long, just was not doing it for me. It seemed that despite the 4 playable difficulties it still played like a racer at an arcade. Play on easy or hard.

So I gladly uninstalled COD 3 on my computer and sold it on ebay, got most of my money back and never game the franchise a second thought. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare passed me by without much fanfare, and while I thought the idea was interesting, I felt that all of the assets a modern solider had would make any first person shooter far to easy to play. I am sorry but what is the point of having dark levels AND giving me night vision goggles? Eventually I did pick up modern warfare at a reduced price and gave it a go, and this is where my chief complaint comes in.

I finished the single player campaign of that game in a weekend. I am not talking about a hardcore 12 hours at a time with only 3 hours of sleep a night weekend. I mean I popped it in the Playstation, sat back with an orange juice and some crêpes, and was about 2/3rds of the way done by lunch time. I was teased with what I saw as all sorts of story telling potential and awesome plot points. I mean for fucks sake YOU WITNESS A NUCLEAR DETONATION! But then said nuclear detonation is glossed over and barley talked about again, and you never even see that particular region (playfully dubbed notiraqistan) in the rest of the game. Fuck that noise.

See this brings me to my big point. Online Multiplayer has degraded the ability of Shooters to act as a narrative medium, when they have the potential to be one of the most power storytelling methods in gaming. Instead we have developers focusing on photorealistic graphics, and reflex oriented gameplay mechanics. Guys, those have been taken care of. The gore level is just about perfect in both realistic shooters and in Horror oriented shooters (F.E.A.R. THAT’S A FUN GAME!). We need a little work on the science fiction end though. As great of a story as Halo is, with its music and well tuned mechanics, lets face facts, staining the soil in purple ink is not good for alien gore.


It does seem that the “real war” inspired shooters is reaching a plateau. Because almost everything the allies have ever accomplished in WWII has been done, and no one thinks you can responsibly make a game where you play as the Axis powers, WWII is going by the wayside. Call of Duty is making a shift to the cold war and 21st century eras, The Halo Era is pretty much over, and Medal of Honor is set to become more of a Tom Clancy Oriented special operations genre. Meanwhile a lot of nerds are going to be waiting for the next big thing in science fiction shooting.

Which brings me to Transformers War for Cybertron…. Next time

It is not often that my education has an ability to intermix with my favorite hobby, Battletech. But some news popped up recently that has allowed it to happen. Strait from the horses mouth.

Long and short, the small business that runs and develops the Battletech line has exploded in growth beyond their wildest imaginations. But demand exceeding supply was not the only issue, there was also a hiccup in finance and it was one of the business owners fault.

This has lead to a lot of doom and gloom from the tabletop gamer community in general, but what surprises me is how the fans of catalyst propeties specifically have behaved. Shadowrun fans have been flapping around like chickens with their heads cut off.

My Fellow Battletech fans however seem to be taking a much more chill approach to this whole thing. Given that the revival of the two games were a mere 3 years apart, I can only hypothesize why one fan group is being Chicken Little while the other is Dali Lhamma.

Businesses large and small run into cash flow issues all the time. They can sometimes destroy perfectly solvent companies who rely far too much on receivables to carry the day. Other times they can be mere hiccups in a companies history, and be that tumble that leads to a brighter future. Given the success alluded to in the very beginning of the press release I am prompted to believe that Catalyst will be able to go forward despite this, to a brighter future ahead.

Sure many fans will cry fiat, or fanboyisim. But I look at it this way. Unless someone breaks into my house and burns my Battletech books and melts down my miniatures, no one is going to stop me playing the game. So I can afford to have faith. If Catalyst fails, I will continue to play, and with no new product to tell me what is going on in the universe, I will make it up, or use existing products to create and weave my stories. And that will be enough for me.