July 2002 Archives

When I tell people that Rhonda and I go to an annual gaming convention, they usually figure it's casino-based, like we're going to play poker or something. I guess that's what leaps into their minds when they try to combine "grown adults" and "gaming convention" into a reasonable assumption. Well, Origins is one of several big conventions in the US for games... card games, board games, miniature games, role-playing games. So, yeah, you could play poker, I suppose. There is a huge vendor hall, several ballroom-size areas for 24-hour play and official tournaments, lots of semi-private areas for role-playing and such, and tons and tons of gamers looking for fun. Here's a very small photo album in case you still can't fathom it.

Here's Rhonda and me posing with Andrew Looney of Looney Labs. Looney Labs makes some of our favorite card games, including Chrononauts and Aquarius. This year, they were giving out three convention-exclusive Fluxx promo cards. Rhonda, Scott, Noelle and I played in a Chrononauts tournament preliminary round. Rhonda and Scott both won one game, but you had to win more than that to advance to the next round. Our main goal for the Looney Labs booth this year was to buy a whole passel of games for our relations in upstate New York, the Huth family. Which we did, and Mr. Looney's wallet grew three sizes that day.

This was the second year in a row that Mike (far left), Scott (far right), and I (not pictured) demoed Great Rail Wars, the Deadlands miniatures game from Pinnacle Entertainment Group. When you have under 2 hours to demo a game, you often don't actually get to a real winner being determined, so it's all in the crazy live-for-the-moment fun. Like Mike's USA Sharpshooters taking out just about all my Devil Bats, the Wasatch Automatons on my rear killing my Werewolf, or Scott's cannon decimating two entire posses of my Wolves. Thanks, guys.

Here, Rhonda is getting an exclusive card created for my dad. The gentleman on the right is Reiner Knizia, creator of the fantastic The Lord of the Rings board game. Not only is this game beautiful and Tolkien-based... but it's designed for cooperative play. You and your friends must work together to dunk The One Ring into Mount Doom or else everybody loses. It's very cool and very difficult. Mr. Knizia was on hand to give out exclusive cards for the game... you would pick out an existing LOTR card, say, "Farmer Maggot." Then he would write on the card "Joe may use this card as a double-star" or something, thus enhancing the effect of the card for Joe only. Then you run back home, shuffle the card in, and hope it gets to Joe.

The Doomtown World Championships. Rhonda, Scott, Mike and I all played, using Blackjacks, Agency: Union Blue, Texas Rangers: Dixie Rails, and Whateleys: Extended Family decks respectively. The tournament runs 5 rounds of swiss duels, and then the top 8 players advance to the quarterfinals. Our records were 1-4, 1-4, 3-2, and 3-2. I was the only one to make it to the quarterfinals (where I was quickly gunned down), based on my opponents' ranking.

Some other thoughts from Origins 2002...

I visited the Upper Deck booth looking to buy a Gregory Horror Show starter set, but was told they weren't selling them. Why would you demo a game at a major con - a game that's already out in stores - and then not sell it? When I checked in again on the last day of the show, they were.

The guys at ACME Games were selling random re-packs of Doomtown cards for 50 cents a pack. Mike and I probably took home 75% of them.

The only real incident of the whole show was with the game rental people. In the tabletop games hall, there's usually this rental place that lets you borrow games to play. We all love this idea, as we get to check out new and rare stuff for free every year. One late night, Scott rents a game, hands over his driver's license as insurance, and we play. But by the time he goes to return it, the booth has closed and the operator is gone. So Scott has to bother about a hundred different people before they find someone who has the key to the key to the key where his license has been locked. Meanwhile, the rest of went up to our hotel room to play Super Smash Bros. Melee.

A minor problem was with Game Base 7. These guys run tournaments in an unofficial status for lots of traditional games, like Scrabble and Hearts. They also seem to never really know what's going on when you ask them questions like "Where do we go for your Scrabble tournament?", "Is anyone else showing up for the Scrabble tournament?", "What time is the final round for the Scrabble tournament?", and "Will I be the only person in the Scrabble Tournament final at 8:00am Sunday morning, the time for which you appeared to just make up on the spot?" They always have a bank of crappy PCs to compute points and data management, but I suspect they're all playing EverQuest.

I demoed HeroClix on a really nice hand-built construction site table. I was the only person who had never played before (so why did these guys sign up for the demo?), and it wasn't as informative for a newbie as it should have been. Still, I'm looking forward to the DC Comics version.

Best New Game of the Show That I Bought Award: Battle of the Bands from Third World Games. I demoed this one at the very end of the show; it's about forming your own band and winning by playing lots of good gigs and getting hit singles. The demo went something like this:

Me: I love the artwork. Show me how to play.
Demo Guy: Okay, it's about forming your own band and winning by playing lots of good gigs and getting hit singles. [shows me all the different card types]
Me: Cool. How much is it?
Demo Guy: $15, convention special.
Me: Great. I'll take it.
Demo Guy: Don't you want to play a few hands?
Me: Nope. I got it. Set me up with one.
Demo Guy: Want to see our other game?
Me: No.

My Grandmother's home is being systematically disassembled over the next few weeks (months?) because she has been moved into a nursing home. I know that's somewhat of a dirty word, but that's what it is, and that's what I'm calling it. The whole situation is ugly, and now her kids have the ghastly task of ransacking her home of the past 20+ years.

Rhonda and I have been over to loot. Going through her stuff - and, by extension, the stuff of the entire family - is at once comforting, hilarious, and depressing. I mean, it's great to see old games/books/items that I remember from years ago... some of the stuff that has been unearthed is crazy funny... and then there's the sad finds, like a small stack of books with titles like "Coping With Loneliness: Creating a New Life."

It's rather ghoulish, stepping through the entirety of someone's life and then stowing choice bits in your hatchback. I feel like I'm stealing Grandma's memories, just so I can have some little sentimental piece. We've nabbed a whole bunch of games from her stash in the basement (Clever Endeavor, Master Mind, Pop Dog, Chinese Checkers, Merlin, Big Boggle, Carrom, and a nice wooden chess/checkers set), a couple of family pictures, some random furniture, genuine giant old milk can... but here's the fun stuff:

HE LOOKS INTO MY EYES AND HIS GAZE MELTS MY BRAIN. We always hated these hideous little elves as kids, so I don't know why I wanted one now. Perhaps I intend to pass on the hatred to my own kids. The Orange Thing is a slide viewer from Weeki Wachee, Florida... so it has pictures in it of the famous Underwater Mermaids Drinking Coke, Florida 'gators, glass bottom boats, and several more hot 1950s women at the floor of a coral reef with no scuba gear and swimsuits that cover more skin than what Neil Armstrong wore on the moon.

These scottie dogs have magnets on their feet. When you push one of them close to the other, the magnets attract and they lunge forward in the first white/black scottie dog kiss ever shown on the internet. Interestingly, if you push one dog ass-first towards the other, then the butts unite.

My Mom is telling me "Come over and look through Grandma's books." Well, her book collection concentrates on two themes: Inspirational and Reader's Digest. I consider those Reader's Digest Condensed Books an affront to literacy, so those are right out. And as for Inspirational? Let's just say I grabbed a few solely for comic value.

"C. S. Lewis: Mere Christian." I'm not really sure if Grandma even knows who C. S. Lewis was; I'm guessing the subtitle was more to the point here. Here's the best back-cover quote from Mr. Narnia: "When you are arguing against Him, you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all." I'm sure lots of athiests were shut down by that one, King Moonraker.

"Reader's Digest Favorite Quotes from the Bible." I'd imagine this is pretty useful for most Christians, since it offers up separated transcripts of the Bible's most famous bits (Noah's Ark, Sermon on the Mount) and a handy question and answer bit for solving life's little problems. Why read the full book and have to reconcile all the errors, mis-translations, and cultural disparities? Say you're feeling "tense"... why just refer to Job 11:16 "You will forget your misery; you will remember it as waters that have passed away." Good fuck, that's helpful.

"Where are the Dead?" This is one of those Priest Writes a FAQ books, of which Grandma bought every single one in the known universe. To a man, these authors always spew a stream-of-consciousness sermon approach, writing circles around the issues and "proving" everything by pointing to various Bible passages. One neat spin in this book answers the problem of "How can I be happy in Heaven knowing that sinful loved ones are in Hell?" Reverend Brimstone has an easy answer: "...the fact that unrighteous loved ones ever lived will be forever erased from the memories of the righteous." That God, he's a clever one.

But this is the standout. "Help Lord - The Devil Wants Me Fat." It's about starting a faith diet. Which sounds about as likely to work as anything, I suppose. Brainwashing certainly works well for God in general. I can't even begin to describe the comedy gold in this book, from the chapters explaining why Satan makes people eat, to the suggestion that fasting is the best way to lose weight and grow closer to Jesus. But I will share with you this handwritten note we found inside the book, written by my grandmother:

Lord, I give my appetite to you. Let me hunger for thy word - not food.

Amen, Grandma.

In the PC/Mac games world, Matt has always been a bit more bleeding edge, so his first impressions of Warcraft 3 are already posted. But - and I say this without fear of reprisal because Matt's away for the week - his trouble is that he lives in a box. Matt plays, maybe, four games a year. Now, the few he does play he plays hardcore and I have to recognize him for that... but this just means that he is easily swayed by the few games he does play and doesn't have an awful lot to compare them to. To wit:

So far, I'm not particularly impressed by Warcraft 3. It's nowhere near the leap in quality from 1 to 2 as it should be. It's basically just More Warcraft, which, honestly, is no bad thing. The Warcraft series on a bad day is ten tons better than most games on their best day. But I'm only a couple levels in, and I haven't delved into multiplayer. Hey, I said this was a first impression.

The 3D graphics are a complete waste. The individual character models are far too simplistic. This wouldn't be a problem if the game didn't insist on zooming in on the teeny figures for the pre-mission movie. You take a screenshot of any of those scenes and you're looking at PS1 quality graphics. Obviously, if you're only playing multi, you won't even see this. But here's what really bugs me about the camera. The in-game zoom function is more of a cinematic zoom, and as such, it's pretty worthless. Unless you want to get a good look at those sad character models (the water elemental is especially depressing.) The only other camera movement allowed is a rotate clockwise/counterclockwise, which you're likely to never, ever use in a game that relies on compass directions so much. Dungeon Keeper 2 (which came out ages ago) utilized 3D much more efficiently. In DK2, you can position your camera anywhere you like, it rotates much faster, and you can zoom all the way in for a completely first person perspective, allowing you to explore your own city. Warcraft 3 should have implemented that.

(By the way, the Idle Peon Catcher thing? DK2 had that too.)

Colored lighting. Hoo boy is there a lot of friggin colored lighting going on here. Highlighting, spell effects, attacks, glowing heroes... well, colored lighting doesn't impress me anymore. I think they could have toned that down quite a bit and offered up battle scenes with a bit more class.

One bright spot in the graphics is the texture details. Everything is colorful, everything looks fully designed. Moving clock tower hands, appropriately scaled trees... so the textures are great, but the models are not.

Voice acting is great as well... but the script sucks. A sucky script is nothing new in these sorts of games, but it becomes especially obvious when the VAs are so nice. Warcraft 3's story is entirely done in Medieval Cliche. the difference between voice and script is a direct parallel to the texture/model disparity.

You know something I despise about PC games? All the damn video settings you're supposed to tinker with. First, it makes reviewing a game damn near impossible because you have to keep checking whether you're seeing the game as the designers intended. Second, it sucks that you have to have an ace video card, sound card, etc to properly enjoy the game. Third, I do not enjoy troubleshooting each and every game trying to find the right balance of frame rate vs. high detail. This is why I prefer console games. The hardware is known, the game runs as intended, and I don't waste time fiddling with shit.

Sarcasm: I can hardly wait to meet all the amazing Warcraft 3 masters out there, lurking on battle.net.

Part 1: First Impressions, Part 2: Coolest Moments. Part 3: The Fett Family. Now we dive into the Jar-Jariest, Ewokiest, most annoying, absurd and asinine portions of the film. What we hated.

Joe: I held extreme dislike for the car chase scene. What an insane amount of coincidences and lucky breaks for Our Heroes. It's a shame, because I'm a huge Coruscant fan, so seeing it before the Empire is very cool. Some particular moments of hatred: the continued usage of non-human species for purely comic effect... like the H. I. Larious alien cab drivers, mugging and gesticulating for your amusement. The magical light saber catches... I guess the write-off here is that Obi-Wan used the Fucking Force to find Anakin's saber. The crowd scenes that contain vast amounts of aliens one second, and nothing but humans the next. But the absolute worst part of the car chase was the fact that it took forever... I would've walked out if I hadn't already passed out.

But my personal choice for Most Useless and Terrible Scene is the droid assembly plant sequence. It was like a Tom and Jerry cartoon, with the conveyor belts and mindless enemies and giant crushing hammers and buzzsaws and my god did I want to puke. It's going to be level 6.2 in the Attack of the Clones video game... and it will be even longer and more repetitious there.

Chris: "If it weren't for that horse, I wouldn't have spent those two years in college." -Louis Black. Or it could say, "If it weren't for George Lucas i wouldn't have wasted ten dollars on shit."

Yes the film was better than PM, but still it wasn't what it could have been. If Lucas had let Lawerence Kasdan, or even say... ME, write the script, I can guarantee the story would have been better.

My left right butt cheek could come up with better dialogue then "I've been dying a little bit every day since you've come back into my life." May the puke be with you.

What did I hate? the OBVIOUS CG clonetroopers at the end. Yea, that comes straight from REBEL ASSAULT XVI: OVERDONE.

What else? The ludicrous homage to SOUND OF MUSIC, with Natalie Portman twirling in circles over a hill. I swear I heard people say, "THE HILLS ARE ALIVE.."

And finally, was Anakin MASTURBATING in the bed scene, or having a nightmare?

Other than that, it was OK. But "Ernest Goes To Camp" was better.

Scott: To start, the pacing of the movie was anything but perfect. Not getting into too much detail about the opening sequence as Obi-wan and Aniken raced around Coruscant (which was unnecessary plot development and just an excuse to use as many cool digital effects as possible), Lucas never established a flow to the film. Especially through the middle of the film, while many useless and less then dramatic love scenes were interwoven with several less then dramatic plot developments.....I went in thinking the film's main goal was supposed to be Aniken's character development (leading him to the dark side, his relationship to Padme, etc.) and the rise of the dark side....but I didn't come away very enlightened in those categories.

Meanwhile, the entire sequence in the droid factory left me shaking my head. Sure, the younger folks need that kind of comic relief (I suppose) but for me that was a 15 minute waste of my attention. And why couldn't R2-D2 fly in previous movies? Possibly another cool digital effect which wasn't possible before? Hmmm.....

Matt: Everyone's already picked apart my most hated scenes. The car chase was technically very nice at times but overall quite pointless. The love scenes, each and every one of them, were horrible. Bad acting. Bad dialog. Bad camera angles. Bad sappy music. I was not alone - when the corny dialogue hit the speakers the entire audience groaned aloud... I kid you not. Another oddity: the scene were Anakin says "I slaughtered them... All of them... Blah blah blah" seemed REALLY harsh, and I only say that because as a 6 year old boy behind me turned to his father and said "Daddy, what's slaughter mean?" I kind of cringed. I mean, I understand the plot point and I'm not one to get queasy about that kind of thing but jeeeeez... Did you have to ram it down the kid's throats? Anyway, onward. The factory scene: stupid. All the shots and dialogue from C-3PO: stupid. Rocket Booster R2D2: stupid. Chains that can hold a Jedi: stupid. It seems anyone could have come up with a better way to do this movie, but then again I'm a white-collar techno-nerd with delusions of grandeur... so what the hell do I know.

This is a fantastic idea.

It may seem small, but this new secret for Super Smash Bros. Melee harkens to cool new direction for video games. Games that grow over time - a gamagotchi - without any additional cost or download. If you haven't read the article, here's what's happening: if you have a Metroid Prime and/or Super Mario Sunshine saved game file on your memory card when you boot SSBM, you'll get a hidden Samus and/or Mario trophy for your collection.

Why is this cool? Because this remained a secret for so long, first of all. But mainly because it means that games can have the ability to add features to themselves over time. Super Mario Sunshine is due in August, about seven months after the release of SSBM. Melee is encouraging you to play it well after it's realistic hardcore play period, by providing what are essentially time-based unlockables. Ever wonder about the "TOP SECRET" Motion Detector Bomb trophy? I suspect we'll find out that item's "SECRET" origin once Nintendo releases it.

By the way, 293 total trophies is a pretty stupid number. No doubt more hidden trophies are on the way.

UPDATE (09/02): I've since read that this secret is a complete lie, and now that I have both SSBM and Super Mario Sunshine, I can agree. Rats!

I think we'd all be shocked dead if our small human brains could comprehend the totality of how society works. Basically we all live in an enclosed sphere that, geographically, stretches about 20 miles from center, and, mentally, lasts about 60 minutes. Our own personal self-delusion about our place in the universe is all that's responsible for keeping us from stabbing our own eyes out and raping children.

Take surveys.

A monstrous amount of businesses live and die by surveys. They decide what products and services will be offered. They control how corporations choose their investments. In my case, working for a television station, surveys decide the quality of my life... if my station is doing well, I get a raise.

The secret is: surveys are all a bunch of randomly selected horse shit. And our world operates on what they say.

Two nights ago, I was called for a phone survey. In most cases, phone surveys end with me swearing loudly at the caller through a mouthful of supper. But this one stopped me just before the cussing began with the phrase "video games." Ah, I thought, someone has finally randomly selected me to provide my thoughts and opinions on the current console game market!

Yes, I am between the ages of 18 and 29. Yes, I play video games. No, I do not intend to buy a console in the next 12-18 months. (Because I already own all the ones worth owning.)

Survey over, goodbye.

Rats! Oh well, Mike, Scott and I were in the middle of losing The Lord of the Rings board game anyway.

Well, today I get another call: from the same exact survey. This time, I will be smarter. I answer "Yes!" to the question that cast me out before, and we're off and running.

After some generic questions about my personal philosophy on console gaming ("Do you enjoy any of the following video games: platform, action-adventure, party, team sports, extreme sports, racing?"), it becomes obvious who is the progenitor of this little Q&A. Microsoft. I have been chosen to vote in Xbox market research. The Apple enthusiast in me rejoices.

So when the questions become decidely Xbox-centric, I turn brutally honest. "Is the following phrase extremely, very, semi or not very important to you: Xbox is improving video games by taking chances and providing a different and more daring playing experience than the PlayStation 2?" "Not important because it's not true."

"The power of Microsoft means that Xbox gamers get the best the video game world has to offer." "Not important."

"I want my video games to be as graphically realistic as possible." "Not important."

"Would you be more or less likely to buy an Xbox if the following were true: You get a free copy of Halo." "Less." "You get a free second controller." "More." "You get 6 months of free DSL service." "Less." "You get 12 months of free Xbox Live service." "More." "If the Xbox cost $100." "Extremely more." "If it came with an entertainment add-on that turned the Xbox into a karaoke machine." "Extremely less."

And so on. They received both barrels of a gamer who has yet to be impressed by Xbox marketing and "exclusive" games that get released for PS2 two months later. But I'm an educated player... I get several magazines, I read website news... I know what's coming up in console gaming. I can just imagine the responses this survey generated from a 12 year old who begged his Mom for an Xbox last Christmas and didn't get one.

So I was polled twice for the same survey, and I purposely was hard on the Xbox (truthfully hard; my only lie was suggesting that I was going to buy a GameCube in the next 12 to 18 months.) I'm counteracting Xbox fanboyism, I suppose. Now Microsoft is going to compile all of this critical information, and I'm going to be the 2 degree slice of red in a big blue pie chart.

Origins 2002 was our third consecutive year at the Columbus, Ohio-based gaming convention. We think it's safe to say that it was our best year ever. Rhonda and I spent the 4 day event with our pals Mike-and-Noelle and Scott-and-Shannon. We played in more game tournaments than ever, demoed a lot of great games, bought a lot of great games, and met a lot of cool people. (Mostly.) I'll put together a picture gallery soon, but in the meantime, I want to present a great letter we found in a local free newspaper, Columbus Alive. It's the kind of thing that 99% of the populace doesn't think about, which is usually exactly the kind of thing my posse is interested in.

Speaking of posses, here's a quick rundown of how we did in our tournaments: Rhonda won one game of Chrononauts in the preliminary rounds, but that was not enough to continue. Scott similarly won a single Chrononauts game. Rhonda also reached the Apples to Apples semi-finals. Noelle and Mike both bailed out of a Scrabble final (for reasons I'll speak on later.) Mike got all the way to the last game in a Hearts tournament. I reached the Doomtown quarterfinals and was mowed down by previous Doomtown champ Killer Kerry. Full reports on the way... now here's an excerpt from the article, written by Joseph C. Sommer..

Dear editor:
It is disturbing that Christian fundamentalists seem to be quite successful in promoting belief in hell through their popular Hell House in Cedar Hill, Texas [Film, June 6]. Believing in hell can be very harmful to individuals and society.

(the letter continues, and ends with a quote from 19th century agnostic Robert Ingersoll.)

I think what's most interesting about this letter is that is doesn't necessarily come from an athiest perspective. It could easily mesh with a more contemporary Christian mindset. Of course, the athiest in me says that if you dilute the Bible's words so that you don't offend people, or so that you apply logic to it (as this letter does), then you're about half an inch from throwing out the whole book anyway.

Regardless, the point is that a belief in hell fosters a dangerous arena... particularly when you're teaching it to children. It's okay to hate other people, because God will punish them eventually and eternally. It's the old "in-group, out-group" mentality that -- although it was instrumental in forming communities and rules in pre-history -- is wrongheaded, devisive and destructive in today's multiple-networked, value-menu, hyper-allergenic world.

NICE GRAPHICS. The spell effects, the terrain, the weather, the nice fog-of-war fade effects and the units are all very well done. The sheer amount of perspective in the game is awesome.

NICE SPELLS. Haven't gotten very far yet in those, but the ones I've played with are nice. Plus, I'm a sucker for "Chain Lightning" spells.

NICE TOUCHES. Idle Peons (and how many there are) are listed on your screen so you don't waste time hunting for them (clicking on their icon takes you right to the idle peon!). Multiple peons can work on the same building to construct it faster. Magic-using units autocast spells until they run out of mana... priests auto heal, etc. Very nice.

NICE... PERFORMANCE? Well, I have a dual 800 G4 tower with a GeForce 2MX and a gig of ram... so it's not the bottom of the rung. I'm also running it under OSX. The graphics card could use replacing, I suppose. But I have everything turned up all the way and the only that that I've noticed is that the cutscenes stutter a tiny little bit. Maybe I'll turn some things off to test. Or just get a GeForce4. I've had one crash so far trying to go into a new level, but that's it. And I just noticed a 1.0.1 patch, so I'll give that a try tonight.

OVERALL: NICE! It's cool. It's a nice advancement from Starcraft / Broodwar. If you enjoyed them, purchase this game now! (And email Joe and make him get it too.)

fin