You have got to read Tim Rogers's writeup on this year's E3 over at Insert Credit.com. It exactly the kind of webloggy article I prefer to read about video games, because it's random and personal and interesting and catered towards fans. I mean, the dude refs Gyakuten Saiban 3 and doesn't even have to explain what it is. (A Japan-only GBA lawyer sim, ahem. That's right, I said "lawyer sim.") Most video game websites can boil down to "The graphics are superb and you can shoot lots of stuff." Because that's what most gamers want to hear, sadly. Tim's article goes beyond that, and offers the most detailed and genuine E3 account I've ever read.

I can't resist giving you some of my favorite quotes, but I really hope you go through the entire five page article.

I've been lusting after the 20th Anniversary Optimus Prime ever since it made Toy of the Month in ToyFare. If you'll recall, the better portion of Transformers sucked. And they make it even easier to recall this, because Hasbro is busy re-releasing tons of the original toys. Most Transformers looked great as vehicles, and looked like crap as robots, like a car standing on its ass with folded out fenders for arms. And yet, in the cartoon, they all looked incredible.

20 years later, they finally deliver on that impossible promise... making a toy that looks like both halves of the cartoon, truck and robot. First of all, this bitch is huge: standing 12" tall in robot mode. He's as poseable as an action figure, yet hides one of the most complicated transforming processes I've ever attempted. And none of that pop-off-the-hands bullshit either.

I never had the original Optimus Prime. I had the Go-Bots equivalent, Staks. Staks was orange, and had a similar but drastically simplified transformation. The windshield became his head; I guess they were his eyes. The exhaust pipes popped off the back of the cab and became guns of some sort. Staks sucked.

This is a test. My home network is having trouble, so this update is coming from the hiptop.

Continuing the test. This sentence comes from the iMac after having removed the wireless router.

OK. I think we're back up. Chew on this story, tech-heads... late Friday night, I noticed that Safari was loading fourhman.com like shit. Slow response, missing graphics. I chalk it up to crappy network problems and go to bed. The next morning, fourhman.com is still loading lousy... but everything else is fine, slashdot, eBay, etc. But anything coming off of fourhman.com just will not load (including all my subsites: TaleSpin card game, Mappyland, etc.)

Next week we'll be at Origins, so I'll be blogging from the road again... given the hiptop holds up and/or the convention center has that surprise wireless network up again. So for now it's time to review some of the games I'm hoping to see at this year's event.

AEG has a promising-looking card game coming out, based on their Spycraft RPG stuff. Last year we demoed their Initial D card game, and it did not stick to the roof of our brain (it's based on the manga about a race car-driving tofu delivery boy, and Rhonda thought the game needed less race cars and more tofu.) They have the Spycraft rulebook online already, and it reminds me - in general design terms - of my faves Doomtown and 7th Sea. To wit, there's multiple factions you can play, each with individualized personality cards, and an overarching continuing storyline. I seem to like that sort of thing, so if the game itself can stand up, I could be in for keeps.

So the big bad news is that the convention center may have locked up their wireless network. The iBook definitely saw a network, but it would not hold a connection for more than a second.

Even though we all got here Wednesday, Thursday was the first actual con time. Mike and Scott talked me into entering the Doomtown sealed deck tournament... and I have to say that whole sealed deck bit was more fun than the event itself. Sealed deck = everyone is assigned a random starter, then everybody gets 1 booster, of which you take one card and pass the rest to the next guy. Etc. I pulled the Stoker's Alliance outfit, and Mike suggested I start with the Exp 2 Black Jack. The plan did not work, and I was knocked out right away. It was a risk, but I had hoped I had built the rest to work around that, but nothing fell as expected.

Remember how I said my Collegium deck was gimmicky? Well, I went 2-3 in the five Swiss rounds. This deck really needs a couple unmolested days to get going, and an aggressive tournament just isn't the place to expect that.

My first two losses were against Dixie decks fielding Ezzie, but the second guy out-and-out cheated on me right from the start. He waited until he saw my starting dudes and then quick fished out Ezzie as a starter. I let it go, but then he did the same trick in a game against Shannon. Asshole. Plus, he smelled so bad that I thought it might have been part of his strategy, because I had trouble concentrating on anything but his overpowering exhalations. If he shows up next year, we're considering refusing to play him. Happily, he did not win the whole enchilada.

You can't count ten people out here without hitting a Homestar t-shirt.

Our Saturday had some minor rough spots... barely anyone showed for Rhonda's Apples to Apples game, but she played anyway. And we all figured our big Lord of the Rings game was cancelled when we went to the event location and no one was there. Turns out things were moved, and the organizers did eventually make a convention-wide announcement 20 minutes later.

The first thing Reiner Knizia did was refund our event fee, because he personally doesn't feel people should have to pay to play games with him. Since he role in our game was to play Sauron and beat on our poor hobbits, that was probably his last gentlemanly act! I've been in awe of this board game since we bought it, so playing against the designer was very cool. Since time was limited, he requested that the game would end whenever any hobbit dies... so the pressure was on.

Here's a couple shots from this year's event.

Our Doomtown banner, still hanging proud over the World Championships. This is its second year in service. Saturday morning, three of our group participated in a Scrabble tournament. Here, Chris watchs Mike play Scott, while Shannon has her match two games up. Mike ended up doing really well, beating one Scrabble pro and losing to another in the finals. He contested the word "vino." I hate Scrabble.