Sythbane Squadron

Skyrim review

2011-11-11T13:12:00.005-06:00

Everybody please jump over to Techcetera and take a look at my review of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim! It's quite likely to be my game of the year, because I can't quit playing it. Right now, all I want to do is go home and play it some more.

I had an ancient Nord helmet that I found at a tomb, and then I got bogged down with too much gear and sold it, and now I want it back and can't find it! Any ideas? I can't remember which merchant I sold it to, but their stock changes a lot anyway.

I know a lot of you will be getting Skyrim, too. What do you think of it?

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine review

2011-09-06T16:25:00.003-05:00

Finally, the long wait is over! Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine is finally here, and I LOVE IT. It's what a great game should be. Please take a look at my review, and your comments are welcome!

Here's my review of Space Marine on Techcetera. Please give it a look!

Ready to Enlist in the Space Marines

2011-08-25T16:18:00.008-05:00

Pushing forward to our next objective, the next thing on our gaming map is THQ's Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine. The free demo came out this week on Xbox Live and PSN, and it is a blast! The multiplayer promises to have incredibly deep customization options, which thrills me, so I hope many of my online friends will join the Emperor's cause.

THQ released an appetizer on Xbox Live Arcade called Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team, which is a top-down shooter. Check out my review of it on Techcetera. It's a lot of fun!

The full game will be released Sept. 6.

Conan the Barbarian Movie Impressions

2011-08-22T23:25:00.004-05:00

Conan’s bloody rebirth on the movie screen is a fitting time to renew my Sythbane Squadron blog. I had been looking forward to the new Conan the Barbarian. I enjoyed it greatly on opening weekend, and it vexed me to see snarky reviews by people who have contempt for the genre steer too many people away from the theater. What follows are some of my impressions of the movie. I tried to reveal no spoilers, other than what you might glean from the trailers:

• The new movie reads like one of the original Conan stories by Robert E. Howard. They are fast-paced tales, laced with lurid action, without much emotional depth. They are adventure stories. In this vein, the movie emulates its source material very well.

• Jason Momoa plays Conan with terrific ferocity. In one scene, Conan swipes his palm up the flat of his sword with a bloodthirsty, snarling laugh that I think Howard himself would have cheered! I can think of no one else who looks so much like the great barbarian. Frank Frazetta, my favorite artist, painted the quintessential images of Conan. Momoa doesn’t look quite as gaunt and grizzled as Frazetta’s Conan, but he sure captures his savage spirit. I wish Frazetta had gotten a chance to paint Momoa as Conan!

• Momoa’s Conan is more true to Howard’s original hero than Arnold Swarzeneggar’s, classic though the 1982 Conan the Barbarian is. Too many people think the 1982 movie is the “original,” when the original is pulp fiction written in the 1930s. Arnold’s movie has many virtues, but it is no sacred relic. I disliked how Arnold played Conan as slow-witted. Momoa’s Conan is smart and wily.

• Likewise, Momoa is physically a better Conan than Arnold. Howard often described Conan as having the supple grace and power of a big cat, like a panther. Arnold was awesomely powerful as Conan, but he lacked the barbarian’s fluid, cat-like movement. Momoa is like a deadly dancer with his sword, combining his imposing bulk with lithe lethality.

• The athletic young actor who plays Conan as a boy, Leo Howard, is great! He is expressive, conveying Conan’s intelligence and confidence, as well as his precocious physical prowess.

• Ron Perlman adds an essential Ron Perlman elixer to the movie. He is grand as Conan’s Cimmerian father and combat mentor, Corin. Scenes between the father and son are the most emotionally powerful in the whole movie.

• Some of the slave girls who Conan rescues in the movie are appropriately attired, in the manner of Conan stories. Which is to say, they are appropriately and pleasingly unattired. The actresses are officially credited as “Topless Wenches.” This I applaud. In fact, if the movie was really true to Howard's vision, the leading ladies would have dressed more like the women of Frank Frazetta’s paintings. A Frazetta woman typically looked like she was going to a Brazilian beach wearing a few bronze earrings for a bikini.

• One of the snarky reviews of the movie said it was like being hit on the head for two hours. By this the writer apparently means that Conan isn’t boring. The movie is unburdened by tiresome chick-flick parlor dialogue. Bloody, frenetic action sustains it.

A Few Disappointments

Conan the Barbarian is a satisfying action film, and a solid foundation to restart the Conan franchise, yet there is room for improvement:

• Momoa, while perfectly cast as Conan, rushes across some of his dialogue and is sometimes hard to understand. I would fault the director for failing to recognize this problem and have Momoa deliver Conan’s growls a bit more slowly and deliberately, with suitable barbaric enunciation.

• Rachel Nichols is a beautiful actress who is fiery and splendid as Scarlett in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, but she seems miscast as Tamara in Conan the Barbarian. She could have been made up as a wild, Celtic priestess, but as she was presented, she was too waspish. An actress with a more exotic, sultry look would have been more fitting. There seemed to be little chemistry between Momoa and Nichols, so their characters’ relationship fails to fuel much emotion in the latter part of the movie.

• The young actress who plays the youthful witch princess Marique, Ivana Staneva, was scarier than Rose McGowan. Now, I am a fan of Rose McGowan, but the character wasn’t allowed to be quite scary enough. She looked like a Trill from Star Trek, with her splotchy temples and forehead, which was almost comically distracting instead of scary. And furthermore, the witch princess’ armor is way too demure for a Conan villain. Rose should have worn a much more scanty, sexy witch princess outfit. Once again, I would call the director’s attention to Frazetta paintings and Heavy Metal magazine for inspiration. And to my great disappointment, Rose never once lets her armor down!

• The story needed more epic weight. The story needed to be bigger and grander.

Overall, though, the disappointments are minor. Conan the Barbarian is a fun film. Jason Momoa is born to play Conan. He has the mighty thews. Live, love, go see Conan, and you will be content.

Medal of Honor Dusty G.I. Joe

2010-10-17T18:03:00.014-05:00

Here's a G.I. Joe I outfitted recently as Tier 1 operator Dusty in Medal of Honor. Not all the details are exactly right yet. I plan to get some Oakley shades for him to more closely match the character, and his scarf is red instead of tan, but I think this is a good start on a custom video game character. You might recall my customized Ghost G.I. Joe from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in a previous post.

Here's my review of Medal of Honor on Techcetera.

Here are two more takes of Dusty. I tried a low-saturation shot like the game box cover, as well as a some with and without the scarf. Which do you think looks best?

With scarf:

Low saturation:

Halo: Reach beta - Spartans on the ground!

2010-05-07T16:20:00.015-05:00

The Halo: Reach multiplayer beta hit this week, and I've been playing it every night.

Click over to Techcetera and read about my first impressions of the beta. I've been playing several nights with my friends Still Suit and Buzsaw01. We're hoping that some of our Call of Duty friends will join in for a tour of duty in Reach -- hear that, TFH 5, Bama Breeze and Smokin' Buddy?

My clan tag in Halo: Reach is SBS1. My Sythbane Squadron friends are invited to join me!

Here is a slide show of screen shots of me, Still Suit and Buzsaw01 knocking some heads in the beta:

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 veteran

Before I started dropping hammers on people in the Halo: Reach beta, I've mostly been playing Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

I really like the multiplayer. I recently finished unlocking EVERY weapon in the game. Now I'm working on completing my set of pins and awards, and getting gold stars for proficiency in my favorite weapons.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2, I can't deny ...

2010-03-12T16:19:00.005-06:00

With apologies to the '70s rockers whose hit song I hear in my head every single time I say the name of this game, I bring you my review of EA's Battlefield: Bad Company 2 on Techcetera.

BC2 is a really good shooter. I hope to see some of my Sythbane Squadron friends on the field. We can crew a tank together. It will rock.

Aliens vs. Predator hugs our faces

2010-03-05T13:51:00.005-06:00

A couple of my Sythbane Squadron wingmen help with my official review of Aliens vs. Predator this week on Techcetera. Take a look!

Watch for more about AvP coming soon on Sythbane Squadron with impressions from our friend Wyt Tygr!

Reviews on BioShock 2, Dante's Inferno

2010-02-26T13:59:00.007-06:00

My faithful apprentice Fortiscule has been busy writing reviews lately.

Click on over to Techcetera and check out his reviews on BioShock 2 and Dante's Inferno.

Last week, we visited a class at Mortimer Jordan High School to talk about how we review games, as a father-and-son reviewing team. Here's an account of our visit.

It was a great experience, and we enjoyed meeting people who share our interest in gaming!

Coming soon ...

Many thanks to our new Sythbane Squadron contributor, Wyt Tygr, whose work will be appearing here very soon!

Mass Effect 2, Bayonetta reviews

2010-02-12T16:41:00.010-06:00

A couple of new reviews are up on Techcetera!

Check out my review of Mass Effect 2. A solid week of gaming went into that one.

Also check out a review of Bayonetta by a first-time reviewer, Sythbane Squadron member "Da Chief."

Gaming season just got busy. This week, Dante's Inferno and BioShock 2 came out, and I just got my hands on Aliens vs Predator to review. This is shaping up to be a superb weekend: I sent Valentine roses to three lovely ladies today, I have plans to see The Wolfman with friends tomorrow, and we have three good games and a new episode of Spartacus to see. Life is good!

Mass Effect 2 Marathon Under Way

2010-01-31T00:02:00.004-06:00

My assistant Fortiscule and I have been tag-teaming the Xbox 360 all week playing Mass Effect 2.

We're both hooked on it, and we're leap-frogging each other's progress as we take turns. It's one of the most absorbing games I've ever played!

The Saboteur takes it off

2010-01-29T13:12:00.006-06:00

My review of EA's The Saboteur is up on Techcetera. Check it out and leave comments!

A notable feature of The Saboteur is that it offers to let you see topless dancers in a cabaret if you download the nude content with a special code.

Although it seems tiresome to me that they withhold such innocuous content from a Mature-rated game to begin with, it does present an innovative way to please people who might be offended, while also pleasing less-offendable gamers such as me.

My friend Tee Boan has advocated compromises such as this, to give parents and gamers more control, and I must say that it works well for The Saboteur.

Spartacus: Blood and Sand is brilliant blend of blood, biceps and breasts

2010-01-23T14:42:00.040-06:00

Spartacus: Blood and Sand is great. I just watched the first episode of this new Starz series on Netflix via Xbox Live. It borrows shamelessly and brilliantly from some of my all-time favorites: Gladiator, 300 and the HBO series Rome.

Spartacus: Blood and Sand is extraordinarily violent, bloody, gritty, vulgar and foul-mouthed. There is unblushing nakedness wherever nudity serves the story, with no pretentious, coy reluctance or shyness. And there is a passionate love at the heart of the tale, driving the entire plot. The combination is shocking, beautiful and engaging.

Although it is visually stylized, often evoking the look of 300, all the elements the show combines help it approach reality more intensely than other films that hold back on any part of the recipe.

These elements are what I've been wanting to see in a video game, especially in a role-playing game. Game makers kowtow to the ESRB by sanitizing games that supposedly are made for an adult audience; no so-called "Mature" game has ever been so bold as to present a story as raw and realistic as Spartacus: Blood and Sand. As long as video game makers surrender to the nannies and sit at the kiddie table, they will never be seen as a mature entertainment medium like film. There is NOTHING in the video game world that compares to this series, no video game rating that really parallels an R rating for movies or a mature show on cable TV.

What a ludicrous, crazy-world joke it is that a game with the kind of content shown in Spartacus: Blood and Sand would never be allowed on the Xbox console. But wait! Hello! I WATCHED IT ON MY XBOX, ON NETFLIX! We can watch the movies on the console, but we can't play games that would appeal to the same audience. Why is that?

Consider these qualities and virtues in Spartacus: Blood and Sand, and how they might be applied to a truly mature role-playing game:

Violence and blood. How can a story about Rome's horrific arenas be anything else? The reality had to be much more awful than anything we could possibly stomach, even in this show.

The exaggerated splashes of blood, reminiscent of anime and Hong Kong action flicks, remind us of how shocking it is. For a freeze-frame instant, a gouting splash of blood is shown when a weapon connects, with a greater volume of liquid than would actually be present. Indeed, in the next frame, not that much blood remains in the scene. The fleeting exaggeration is a visual exclamation point, highlighting the horror of the moment.

Vulgar and foul-mouthed. The dialogue is very much like that in HBO's Rome, which surmised that characters would accent their speech in much the same way their counterparts do in modern conversation. The show takes a guess at what such expressions might have been in those times, and translates them for us. I think it adds a layer of realism.

Nakedness. Look at statues and art from ancient Greece and Rome. Lots of nudity. The natural state of human bodies wasn't such a big deal to them. Our society's sensibilities about nudity have been distorted by centuries of mind-numbing Puritanism, and a show like this tosses off that dour, smothering blanket.

Specifically, in a story about life-and-death struggles in the arena, and your wife being kidnapped into slavery, wardrobe malfunctions had to be last on your list of concerns. There would be no coy clucking over nudity.

Spartacus: Blood and Sand doesn't bother with the absurdly contrived camera angles where wisps of cloth or hair always cover "the naughty bits." To my eye, such silly efforts to hide body parts tend to degrade the human body, perversely calling attention to body parts that are too "dirty" to be seen; the underlying presumption is that human bodies are naughty and evil, not beautiful in their natural state.

BioWare does this all the time, and the gamemakers end up looking like 12-year-olds. It's like they want to peek at the Playboy pictures, but they're too immature to openly admire a woman's body or really have a girlfriend. The result of such stunted sensibilities in video games includes stupid scenes like the gauzy love scene in Mass Effect, and the ridiculous bra-and-panties sex scenes in Dragon Age: Origins. Bethesda is guilty of the same sort of pious, immature nonsense in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Fable and Fable II at least included love scenes, but condescended to black them out in the Mature-rated games, to protect our eyes from the evil nudity.

Passion and love. In a teaser for Spartacus: Blood and Sand, a Roman asks Spartacus how many men he would kill men in the arena for the chance to hold his wife again. "I would kill them all," Spartacus replies.

Ah, there it is: The driving force of all drama. The fuel of life itself. Love. Passion. Sex. The engine that propels the story.

If you reduce our motivations to a very primal, basic level, most everything we do is geared toward finding and securing a suitable mate with whom we can procreate and send our DNA onward to the next generation. That is survival. That is how evolution has shaped us into who we are. It is our most fundamental biological imperative.

An integral part of that motivation is the sex part. What we perceive as beauty are signs of good health and suitability in a potential mate. Our sense of aesthetics is built on that reality. Furthermore, our intellect has enabled us to see physical beauty in a sublime light, as an expression of the Divine. Good deal. That explains why I want to see Lucy Lawless naked.

Sex is pleasurable, so we can't help but seek out that pleasure. This drive has served us well, as we stand at the threshold of exploring the stars, yet we spurn it, shun it and try to keep a lid on it. What hypocrites we are, biting the hand that feeds us! We continue to yield to the tyranny of misogynistic, Puritanical dogma and deny sex the respect it deserves.

We tend to show our respect, our reverence, for sex through our art. Go in any art museum and admire the nude statues and paintings. Glimpses of unclothed beauty in a story such as Spartacus: Blood and Sand are simply less formal expressions of that same aesthetic.

Motivation and Purpose

Video game developers don't seem to know what to do with passion, love, sex and nudity. The answer is obvious, and Spartacus said it plainly when he said he'd kill them all to hold his wife again. Sex is motivation. Sex is purpose.

The main character in Bethesda's Oblivion had no apparent personal motivation at all. Fable comes closer to getting the concept, yet falls short: Your character can get married, yet reaps no reward from it. Neither do you reap any reward for your efforts to win love in Mass Effect or Dragon Age: Origins. How blind can the game developers be? Spartacus told you! To reclaim his beautiful wife, he'd kill them all! Love wins the battles. Love builds the castles.

David Jaffe had the right idea in God of War's sex minigame. When you succeeded at getting Kratos together with some shapely ladies, you were rewarded with red health orbs. Yes, greater health would be a good reward for having sex in any RPG, but the reward should be even greater than that.

Winning the love of your mate should be the prime motivation in an RPG, because that is what life's about. The more immediate reward of love is sex. In a game, the player could be rewarded with a happy scene of naked beauty and conjugal bliss. The long-term rewards of love are endless, with greater health, and the joys of companionship and a family. RPGs should reflect all that as well.

I hope Spartacus: Blood and Sand will inspire video game makers. All the hero wants is love, which is at the root of our most primal drives and desires. Enemies stand between Spartacus and his wife, but to reach her, he will kill them all.

That motivation looks like it will drive a magnificent epic series on Starz. And, if any brilliant game designers are paying attention, it would make for an awesome video game!

Army of Sythbane

2010-01-22T13:50:00.004-06:00

Fortiscule and I played Army of Two: The 40th Day all last weekend to complete the campaign and prepare our review.

Take a look on Techcetera!

Applause for Avatar

2009-12-19T21:08:00.006-06:00

I just took my family to see James Cameron's Avatar, and it is magnificent beyond superlatives.

As I told a friend, Avatar is so good you won't believe it. You'll BELIEVE IT, which is why you won't believe it. It is so well-done, it kicks you beyond the "wow that's an amazing special effect stage" to being unaware that you're watching a movie and being absorbed in the story.

The story works at many different levels -- sci fi speculation, historical allegory, contemporary political tale, and individual psychological/spiritual metaphor.

Go see it.

Best video games of the year

2009-12-18T15:55:00.011-06:00

Our annual video game gift guide, which is our list of the best games of the year, is up on Techcetera.

Big contributors this year are my reviewer apprentice Fortiscule and Mrs. ArcDream.

Fortiscule also handles the review this week on DJ Hero. Check it out!

You'll find a roundup of my reviews and recommendations (which include Fortiscule's reviews, of course) on my al.com profile page.

Are you playing any new games for the holidays? Let me know about it! Email me at Sythbane@gmail.com and let everyone know what you think of the game. We plan to see Avatar this weekend, and we'll be playing the game afterward.

Old girlfriends in Mass Effect 2

A G4 blog post says that your old girlfriends from Mass Effect might show up in Mass Effect 2, which is interesting. Then the blogger goes on to say he doesn't even remember who his girlfriend was in Mass Effect, Liara the blue alien, or Ashley the regular human lady.

Oh, for crying out loud! How could you NOT remember who you hooked up with in Mass Effect?? A BLUE alien chick with TENTACLES on her head is memorable. Either you remember that you DID hook up with her, or you DIDN'T, which means it was the other girl (unless you ticked her off). How could something like that not leave an impression?

Oh, these jaded gamer youths, for whom romance with a beautiful blue alien is mundane and forgettable! If I meet a sexy blue alien woman, I'm going to write it down.

Dads talk about profanity in MW2

2009-12-16T18:54:00.005-06:00

I've posted a column on Techcetera that's a series of letters between me and another father about parenting decisions and video games. He had inquired about the intensity of profanity in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, because he was considering whether to get it for his son for Christmas.

My son Fortiscule and I both love video gaming. We share a lot of fun gaming together, like some dads do with baseball, watching football or fishing. Many of my friends in the Xbox Live community are parents like me. I hope y'all will feel free to chime in with your thoughts as well.

The column is called Dads discuss profanity in Modern Warfare 2.

Spartans On The Ground

2009-12-14T16:14:00.004-06:00

Here's the trailer for Halo Reach. This looks absolutely awesome and gives me chills.

Halo Reach first look gives chills

2009-12-13T03:21:00.003-06:00

The new trailer for Halo Reach that was shown on Spike TV's VGAs gave me goosebumps.

I'll post it here as soon as it's available somewhere. In the meantime, here's the first trailer, which has a goosebumps moment in it, too.

Halo Reach - Halo Official Site

Furlough from MW2

2009-12-09T22:40:00.008-06:00

An e-mail letter to Sythbane Squadron, from our friend Fartknockker:

Sythbane,

I will be taking a break from Modern Warfare 2 for a while. Not because of problems with the Javelin glitch, but terrible respawns and lag have elevated my frustration level with the game to a point of walking away.

Above, Fortiscule serves as an example of a frustrated gamer, like Fartknockker has become lately.

My theory: Respawns have been programmed to increase the chances of payback kills. As a result you tend to spawn closer to enemies more often than in previous COD games. The other day I was playing Team Deathmatch on Wasteland. I respawned, turned around and there were three enemies 10 feet away. I am not saying this has never happened but it seems considerably more prevelent in this game.

Lag -- seeing an enemy pop in a window for a second and then getting shot by that enemy in that same second and then watching the killcam and that enemy having a full 3 seconds to draw sights, aim and shoot. I have a 6M down and 1M up net speed. This should be sufficient. In my book, that's not fair.

The misuse of tactical inserts to acquire a nuke is another deterent from my play. A player on team A will get a friend to be on team B. The player on team B will equip a tact insert and keep spawning in front of the player on team A at a predetermined spot on a given map that is not traveled very often and out of the way, so as not to be noticed. (I believe these spots were intented to be safe areas for players to operate killstreak rewards and call in airdrops but are now being exploited) The player on team A can get a 25-kill streak very quickly by killing the player on team B over and over because on the tac insert, not to mention the killstreak reward player A acquires for the tac insert kills. I have no patience for cheaters.

I will be working on Left for Dead 2, Borderlands and Call of Duty Classic until I have stored enough patience to return to MW2.

Fartknockker

Mode of Duty: Core or Hardcore?

2009-12-09T19:44:00.014-06:00

Editor's note: Our friend and contributor Mr. Fartknockker offers this rejoinder to my recent post about the shortcomings of hardcore mode in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. "I did not in any way take offense to anything in your piece. I actually agreed with most of it," he said. "I just felt like elaborating on the subject."

By Fartknockker
Sythbane Squadron contributor

There has always been a decision to make when playing online multiplayer in a Call of Duty title. Core or hardcore? There are advantages and disadvantages to both. Depending on your strengths and skill, one might work better than the other.

Some advantages in core mode include crosshairs on the screen. They help aiming quite a bit. The HUD displays match information, score, and ammo and equipment count, which is very handy considering the new scavenger perk.

If you’re good, core mode offers the best playlist for ranking up weapons and equipment, and completing challenges for bonus experience points -- the key for ranking quickly. Constantly changing weapons, equipment and perks will net you bigger XP on average at the end of every other match. Points you earn from completing challenges far outweigh those from kills or bomb plants.

If you are going to play core though, you have to be accurate with your shots because every one counts. That is really my only major gripe with core mode and the main reason I prefer hardcore.

Hardcore features decreased health and increased bullet damage, which means not only do you have to be accurate, but very quick. I want to know if I shoot you first, you will die, as opposed to me dumping half a clip and you turning and killing me. If I want to use an entire clip to kill somebody, I will go play Halo.

In core mode you can be a little more liberal in running around the map because you have more of a chance to escape damaged but not dead. Hardcore has to be played more conservatively because you can end up pushin’ daises very quickly. If you are a run-and-gunner at heart, like me, respawn times in hardcore might be a little annoying at best.

Camping is one of those things most people complain about but most of those same people will do themselves, at least from time to time. You will find more of it in hardcore because it tends to be a lot more tactical mode because of quick deaths. But, is a player that finds a high point on the map and snipes camping? No. He’s sniping. Is a player that hides in a bush near a bomb plant in search and destroy camping? No. He’s protecting the plant. I would consider a camper somebody who picks a certain spot on the map and stays the entire match. There is no skill in that and that’s why people find it annoying.

No HUD on the screen in hardcore means no clutter and as much visibility as possible. Some people might consider having no crosshairs a disadvantage, but people who play hardcore just know where the center of their screen is in relation to where they want to aim. It becomes instinctive.

It all comes down to personal preference. Personally I like both modes but I prefer hardcore. Luckily, most of my friends such as Big Daddy Ogre, TeeBoan, notatreehugger and BigTODA78 prefer it, too. I can speak for those guys when I say the main reason we prefer hardcore is increased bullet damage. You will find me, however, scoring dome shots and dominating with Sythbane in Core Team Deathmatch.

Sythbane hates it when he empties an entire magazine into Mr. Fartknockker, and then Fartknockker turns around and kills him.

My review of Dragon Age: Origins

2009-12-04T17:41:00.007-06:00

My Xbox Live friends might have noticed that I've spent a lot of time playing Dragon Age: Origins lately. My review is up now on Techcetera! Take a look and pile on the comments.

You can find all my recent reviews collected on my al.com profile page.

Below, you see sexy mage Morrigan, voiced by Claudia Black from Farscape. You better believe Morrigan is always in my party of adventurers in Dragon Age. Because, my name is Sythbane, and I party! (... just like Hot Rod.)

Coming soon: Mr. Farttknocker takes a long-range shot at me as he responds to my recent post about hardcore vs. core in Modern Warfare 2. I'd better duck.

MW2 and the Tempo of War

2009-11-22T17:53:00.020-06:00

My review of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is up on Techcetera. Take a look and see if you concur. TeeBoan and I discussed the game's virtues during a hardcore team deathmatch last night.

TeeBoan is one of the folks who shares my slight annoyance at the party-chat ban during matches, but we also agree that the game is amazing.

The only problem I'm having is that most of my Xbox Live shooting buddies prefer hardcore mode to regular "core" mode. My skill is somewhat deficient in hardcore mode, and my scores are far better in core mode.

My joy in playing the game is far greater when I've scored 20 or 30 kills in a core free-for-all than when I've scored 3 kills and 16 deaths in a hardcore match.

Farttknocker is so far ahead of me in multiplayer rank that I hear only rumor -- spoken in hushed tones of awe -- of his relentless ascent. I cannot fathom how he scores so highly playing hardcore, because the kill counts in hardcore are so low compared to core mode.

My problem with hardcore, as I've said before, is that it rewards players who sit and wait for others to come to them, a passive way of playing also known as "camping." I have little patience for doing this.

The fun of the game, it seems to me, depends on the initiative of players who move around and mix it up. Otherwise, everybody sits still, camping and waiting to snipe, like the stalemate in the trenches of World War I. The hallmark of modern warfare is the speed of maneuver, the suddenness of action and violence. Erwin Rommel figured that out and put it to work in the Blitzkrieg, and George Patton read the beautiful bastard's book.

The speed of maneuvering was accelerated again when the First Air Cavalry was formed in Vietnam, as infantry was lofted around the battle zone in Huey slicks, escorted by Cobra gunships.

In the recent HBO series Generation Kill, the First Recon commander, Lt. Col. Stephen "Godfather" Ferrando, talked about how the Marines were outnumbered in Iraq and their entire strategy depended on "tempo, tempo, tempo" and "the violence of action."

Note the discussion about 1:40 into this video:

Suddenness of action probably was used long ago, too. I'm also reminded of the scene in Excalibur when Arthur, his knights outnumbered as he rides into his final battle against the forces of Mordred, says, "We'll use the old ways. Speed of horse!"

Now, I understand that a hunter's patience, waiting to ambush his prey, is a warrior's virtue that is reflected in MW2's hardcore mode. I do not mean to disparage the skills of my friends who prefer hardcore mode. Farttknocker probably is so good at it because he's a turkey hunter, and he possesses the necessary patience. It's just that I personally don't think it's as much fun to play. I prefer to keep moving!

Ghost in the Joe

Moving on, I call your attention back to my recent post showcasing the G.I. Joes I customized to resemble characters in Modern Warfare 2.

(Here you go, TeeBoan!)

There are no Modern Warfare 2 toys as yet, so I make my own.

I'll be adding to this collection soon, so stay tuned ...

Midnight launch for MW2

2009-11-10T16:51:00.009-06:00

I lined up with about 30 other folks at midnight at my hometown Walmart for the 11-10-09 release of Activision's Modern Warfare 2.

As soon as I got home with the game, I played about three missions of the campaign, and then dived into the multiplayer.

I was slaughtered in the first match by a bunch of guys who had apparently had the game longer than the hour-and-a-half since the game was officially launched. They already seemed to know the maps, and had unlocked high-level perks.

Then I found my Sythbane Squadron mates Bama Breeze and Smokin Buddy, and we teamed up for some multiplayer and started scoring some kills. It was a good start!

I made a few notes on Techcetera about the midnight madness, too, so check it out. Did you play the campaign first, or multiplayer? First impressions?

I look forward to playing with all my SB-S friends in days and weeks to come. See y'all online!

Borderlands like living in a graphic novel

2009-11-06T15:49:00.010-06:00

My review of 2K's excellent new shooter/RPG Borderlands is up on Techcetera. Check it out and let me know what you think!

I have a siren at level 37 now. With my 4x flame elemental submachine gun, I can kill most anything. We should issue those things to our troops.

Sythbane Samhain

2009-10-31T18:22:00.001-05:00

Happy Halloween from Sythbane Squadron!

MW2 G.I. Joes

2009-10-25T18:09:00.017-05:00

I took a break from playing Borderlands to make another G.I. Joe look like a Modern Warfare 2 character.

A recent post highlights my G.I. Joe version of Ghost. I've tweaked that character a little bit and equipped him with a better headset.

Now I've added the new Duke from G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra to my MW2 squad. As you can see, I set him up to look like the soldier on the game cover. Some details aren't exact yet, such having a camo cover on his goggles, but I'll keep refining him.

Most of the parts are off-the-shelf pieces from other G.I. Joes, or from other action figures such as Power Team. His M16A2 is modified with an AGOG scope and laser designator. I hand-painted the Screaming Eagles patch of the 101st Airborne on the side of his helmet.

Also joining the squad is Heavy Duty from G.I. Joe: ROC. Heavy Duty arrived in stores this week with Wave 2 of the ROC 12" figures. I don't know if he's analogous to any character in MW2, but Heavy Duty is without a doubt the best head sculpt of an African American man I've seen in a G.I. Joe. He looks bad to the bone. I augmented his gear with a heavy armored vest, in keeping with his character.

New game reviews

I've been busy writing reviews of recent games. Please take a look at my profile on al.com, where you'll find my reviews of:

- IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey (loved it)

- Need for Speed: Shift (liked it)

- HALO 3: ODST (loved it)

- Wet (like Rubi)

Among those reviews, you might see comments by my stalwart Xbox Live friends and Sythbane Squadron comrades Fartknoccker, TeeBoan and Bama Breeze. Thanks, y'all!

Right now, I'm preparing to write reviews of Borderlands, Brutal Legend and Forza 3, so keep an eye out for those!

ODST Firefight screen shots

2009-09-27T03:50:00.009-05:00

Here are a few screen shots I grabbed after a round of Firefight mode in Halo 3: ODST tonight. I use the same Sun Crow emblem in Halo 3 multiplayer.

The first one below shows me having to reload my pistol at the most inconvenient moment possible ...

Below, see me taking out five enemies at once with one hammer blow, Thor-style:

Knife throwing in MW2

2009-09-26T20:06:00.013-05:00

In the multiplayer trailer for Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare 2, which Fartknocckker analyzed in a recent post, the last scene shows a kill by throwing a knife. The scene renewed my longstanding interest in this arcane skill of the warrior.

When I was an high school, a contractor who laid some carpet at our house was skilled in throwing knives. He said he'd taught knife throwing in the Army. The guy could take any knife and flip it effortlessly, making it stick anywhere in the room. I was amazed.

I asked him to show me how he did it, and he tried to teach me his technique of holding the blade, and flipping the knife so that it rotated 180 degrees in flight. This technique involved judging the distance to get the right amount of spin, so the tip would be pointing at the target when it got there.

I tried and tried to do it, but I could never master this method. I had a cheap knock-off of a Sykes-Fairbairn British commando knife, which I managed to stick in a tree a few times. I ended up breaking about a half-inch off the tip of the blade of that knife, ruining its appearance. I gave up throwing knives after that, but I always thought it was cool.

I normally take a fixed-blade knife camping. I've noticed that Bear Grylls always carries a fixed-blade on his survival excursions, frequently using it to chop wood by holding the knife by the handle and pounding the back of the blade with a stick.

Bulk and weight are issues in backpacking. That's why I admired this United Cutlery Combat Commander knife I saw a few months ago in the BudK catalog, which has a full-tang skeletal frame for a slim profile and minimal bulk. It also reminded me of the knives used in Starship Troopers -- the one Clancy Brown throws to skewer Jake Busey's hand, and that Denise Richards uses to cut the snout off the brain bug.

BudK was selling the Combat Commander for a good price, so I ordered several of them -- one for myself, as well as blades for Fortiscule, jrySix and crownshend. I engraved our names on them, as you can see in the photo!

When I saw the knife thrown in the Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer trailer, I was excited to see a blade similar to my Combat Commander! The scene renewed my contemplation about knife throwing.

I have a theory that the method the man tried to teach me in high school -- the 180-degree tumble -- wastes energy with superfluous movement and wind resistence. It seems to me that more energy is transferred from the thrower to the target when the knife flies as much like a spear as possible.

After exhaustive research, which consisted of a Google search and viewing about a half dozen clips on YouTube, I found a video that seems to confirm my theory. This man, whom I gather might be a Russian paratrooper or Spetsnaz commando, demonstrates a quarter-turn technique that looks deadly and effective. Holding the knife by the handle, with his index finger stretched along the spine of the blade, he throws the knife straight at the target. He hits a head-sized target with a solid THUNK from across a parking lot!

Here's another video I found that appears to be of the same Russian dude, with a slow-motion sequence showing his arm movement.

This Russian method appears to be the way to go with knife-throwing. I know that some of my gamer friends on Sythbane Squadron are veterans, such as Fartknocckker. Do any of you guys have any training or experience with throwing knives? What was your experience like? What do you make of the technique in the MW2 multiplayer video, and in the YouTube video of the Russian?

We dropped from orbit

2009-09-26T18:04:00.009-05:00

The season's cool games are finally starting to drop out of orbit, and you know which one I'm talking about!

Fortiscule and I played through the campaign in Halo 3: ODST last night. It took us about seven hours, from 8 p.m. to 3 a.m. We loved it. The game is great. It's more human than any previous Halo game. The characters are real people, not genetically engineered, trained-in-a-crucible Spartans, and they are very well acted by Nathan Fillion as Buck, Tricia Helfer as Dare, and all the rest of the cast.

I'll write a full review for Techcetera in the next few days, of course, but that's my first impression of ODST: thumbs up.

I've been busy writing reviews all week. The busy game season is upon us, and I don't want to get behind!

If you're into racing, take a look at my review of Need for Speed: Shift.

If sexy woman armed with pistols and swords is your bag, baby, then take a look at my review of Wet.

If you're curious about Wolfenstein, here's my review of that one, too.

We have new blogging software where I work, and so I'm figuring out how to best display my reviews with it. The new software, a new version of Movable Type, allows for a user profile page that displays all my activity on al.com. If you want to quickly find all my reviews, just pop onto that page.

I invite you to please visit my page on al.com often. It doesn't cost you anything, but it helps put bread and butter on my table (or cereal on my TV tray, is more like it), because the more hits we have, the better our ad rates can be, and thus my job is more secure.

You can create your own profile on al.com, too, and leave comments on my reviews. Please do that! It's fun to get feedback, when different gamers have varying opinions on games.

It looks like both Need for Speed: Shift and Halo 3: ODST allow you to take screen shots, which are posted to a corresponding web site. If you grab some screens of yourself in action, e-mail me a copy at sythbane@gmail.com, and I'll post them! If we have enough, I can create a gallery of Sythbane Squadron members in action. That could be a hoot!

Back to the game at hand: ODST. It's reported to be selling a gillion copies. Not surprising, because the game is great, but also because it was heralded by the best commercial for a video game ever, bar none, period. Here it is again:

Fartknocckker examines MW2 trailer

2009-09-04T19:13:00.012-05:00

By Fartknocckker
Sythbane Squadron contributor

A new Modern Warfare 2 video was released recently that revealed a lot of information that had been closely guarded.

The first was in the title of the video, “Flag Runner.” This is a new, fast-paced capture-the-flag variant in which flags are captured in about a second.

When the video begins, you can see that the weapon has reversed iron sights.

(I asked the esteemed Fartknocckker, who is an Army veteran, what the heck is a reversed iron sight, and he provided this expert explanation: Typically the rear sight of a weapon is a notch or aperture that encases the front sight, which is usually a post. In this case,the front sight has an annular shroud or ring around the post, which should be the rear sight. The MP5 and G3 are also examples of reversed sight weapons. Some rear sights can also be reversed to give you a V notch or U notch, depending on the distance from the rear sight to the front sight.)

Your teammate in front of you is sporting a shield and acts as an escort and spotter on your route.

Heads-up display elements and no team kills suggest the "core" game mode, yet there are no cross hairs, and the slightly increased bullet damage suggest hardcore mode. Is this a hybrid game type, perhaps? Or maybe this is a private match with custom settings.

The new kill streak system is demonstrated when at three kills, the standard UAV is unlocked. At four, an airdrop. And at five, a Predator missile.

The part I found very exciting was host migration in the middle of a match. No more of this nonsense of the match ending just because the host leaves. Just find another host and let’s play. Sweet.

Brok3ntrigger pointed something out to me that I had missed after viewing the video several times and overloading my synapses with eye candy.

(Fartknocckker admitted that he had, in fact, nearly soiled his brand-new Mountain Dew pants because of his enthusiastic physical response to this video. I confess that my Darth Maul underpants barely survived as well.)

At about the 1:50 mark in the video, after a knife is thrown to kill poor Mr. Bowling -- Infinity Ward's Robert Bowling, aka fourzerotwo -- sniping on a hill, the gun begins to be pulled back up into position and is slightly sideways. This is the best angle to view a suppressor AND a red dot sight. More than one attachment on a weapon at a time has been one of the most-requested features by players.

There are many other things to discover in this video, such as a bling “modifier” to weapons, but I’ll let you take another look to see what you can find.

Sythbane would like to see character customization. Big Daddy Ogre wants a “forgive” button for team kills and I already got my wish with multiple attachments. What would you like to see in Modern Warfare 2 or a future Call of Duty title? Leave a comment and let us know.

A powerful ODST trailer

2009-09-04T17:15:00.002-05:00

Here's the new live-action trailer for Halo 3: ODST. This is absolutely awesome. I can't imagine why they can't get their act together to create a Halo film, if this is what it would look like.

G.I. Joe customized as MW2's Ghost

2009-08-23T20:04:00.016-05:00

Combining my hobbies whenever I can doubles the fun for me. As a gamer, I'm looking forward to Modern Warfare 2. I also collect and customize 1/6-scale G.I. Joes.

When I saw the mock-up of MW2 character Ghost that Infinity Ward's Robert Bowling posted, I knew I had to create a G.I. Joe version of the character. I love the subtle, spooky camo skull pattern on his balaclava, and I figured I could paint it.

Hasbro recently renewed the 12-inch G.I. Joes, leading up to the current wave of G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra toys. In the wave prior to the ROC toys, there were two Joes with balaclavas: Beachhead and Shockblast.

The new generation of 1/6 heads are an improvement, with heavy rubber molds that hold good sculpts while still being durable for rough play. But Hasbro is also cutting corners, and instead of cloth shirts, most of them now have molded clothes on the upper bodies. I hate these molded upper bodies; they look cheap, and the articulation has less range of motion.

For Ghost, I used the molded balaclava heads of Beachhead and Shockblast. But Beachhead has a molded commando sweater, and Shockblast has a molded flak vest. I transplanted the heads onto bodies from a Duke and a Dusty, both of which have only molded T-shirts and look better wearing shirts. (Transplanting heads is an ugly but necessary chore for customizing. I won't go into the gruesome details here.)

Painting only required three colors: flat black, flat tan and flat dark tan. Water-based acrylics work best on plastic G.I. Joes, I find. I repainted Beachhead's green head to black, and gave Shockblast's black balaclava a bit of flat black to take the sheen off.

Using a fine brush, I painted the subtle skull cheekbones, jaw and teeth. I used the lighter tan to highlight the cheekbones.

Next, to assemble the uniform: Hasbro recycles G.I. Joe weapons and accessories year after year, so I scavenged some other toys for their gear. The Oakley glasses were a problem, because the ones I had were clear instead of tinted. Some glossy black paint took care of that. I put Oakleys on the Beachhead version and modern combat goggles on the Shockblast version.

The black jacket comes from a $1 action figure clothing set from Dollar Tree, believe it or not. It's actually from a firefighter outfit, with a bright yellow stripe removed. I bought a whole bunch of these sets because they work well for customizing.

The end result is pretty good, I think. I like the eyes of the Beachhead sculpt better, so that's my favorite of the two.

It just goes to show you how it would be possible to make a special Call of Duty series of G.I. Joes if Hasbro and Activision and Infinity Ward cut a licensing deal. I made these guys with a few dabs of paint, off-the-shelf accessories from other G.I. Joes and a shirt that literally cost a few cents.

Adding to my COD theme, I was dabbling with a blue paint marker recently and painted a G.I. Joe's M16A4 with a blue tiger paint scheme. Now it looks like Dusty is good at head-shots!

Now I need to find a good head sculpt with a Mohawk so I can make a Soap MacTavish character ...

Xbox Live update brings armor

2009-08-11T17:58:00.002-05:00

Check out the new suit!

Republic clone armor is the first thing I bought on the new avatar marketplace on Xbox Live, after today's interface update. I'm eager to see what kind of things my friends customize their avatars with. Fortuscule got a guitar, but it didn't show up on the screen grab, for some reason.

What do y'all think about the new features?

G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra rocks!

2009-08-09T15:27:00.008-05:00

Go see G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra! Fortiscule, Crownshend and I saw it together on Saturday, and it's great! Here are a few of my reactions, with no spoilers:

- Scarlett is way hot, especially in her black body armor.

- The friendship and banter between Duke and Ripcord is entertaining. Both are cooler characters than I expected.

- I had been dubious of the accelerator suits, but they turned out to be a minor part of the overall movie and worked well in the film. They looked great in the chase scene that's teased in the trailer.

- The over-the-top technology and gadgets are so prevalent, so overwhelming, that you either buy into the whole thing or you don't. We just sat back and enjoyed it.

- The action is fast, fast, fast. Your attention is so riveted that you hardly realize what a long film it is until it's over.

- The only thing I hated was the immobile mouth on Snake Eyes' mask. What was that supposed to be? The outline of his real mouth? Come on. Put a ventilated mask on it and let Ray Park breathe, for crying out loud. The mask made one of the coolest characters too weird. Ray Park's swordsmanship and martial arts, though, are incredible.

- There are so many great characters, there are endless possibilities for sequels and spin-offs. They should get cracking on that!

The Toys

The 12" Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow action figures were released prior to the movie, so I already had them. After leaving the movie, I found the new batch of four 12" action figures at Target. It's Duke, Ripcord, Cobra Commander and a Neo Viper. Duke and Ripcord are excellent head sculpts. I'll review the toys later, because knowing is half the battle.

DLC Achievements: Phooey

2009-08-07T14:07:00.007-05:00

By Fartknocckker
Sythbane Squadron contributor

Since achievements were launched with the Xbox 360, they have changed the way a lot of people play games. They not only boost your Gamerscore but record your accomplishments.

Gaining 1,000 out of 1,000 points gives you a sense of pride from finishing the job 100 percent. When downloadable content (or DLC, as gamers call it) is released that includes new achievements for that same game, your 100 percent completion status is automatically stripped away. The only way to regain it is to buy the new content and earn the new achievements. It is a brilliant strategy to increase sales of DLC.

Back in June, I was on track to unlock my last cheevo for Call of Duty: World at War –- reaching 10th prestige in multiplayer. I had been working on it for seven months. This feat would put me at 100 percent. On June 11, Map Pack 2 was released with -- guess what? -- new achievements.

Bye-bye, 100 percent!

Map Pack 3 has been released with yet more achievements. These two releases of DLC has dropped my 100 percent to 68 percent complete.

To add insult to injury, the new fall update will display the number of your completed games. This means that number will always diminish as DLC with achievements is released for games in which you have already acquired the original 1,000 points. Your completion status is taken away, and you have to pay to get it back.

Downloadable content is a great way to enhance games. I know in the grand scheme of the universe, this completion percentage gripe is not a big problem. But it nevertheless leaves me 100 percent annoyed.

Sythbane Squadron contributor Fartknocckker always gives 110 percent.

Transformers blows up good

2009-08-07T12:34:00.006-05:00

My review of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen -- The Game is up on Techcetera. I know all of you SB-S folks love the robots as much as I do. Please check it out and leave comments!

You can take the controller out of my hands when you pry my cold dead thumbs off the sticks!

2009-07-31T16:02:00.006-05:00

By Fartknocckker
Sythbane Squadron contributor

Have you ever seen or heard about something that is so new, so cool, so fresh and exciting that it blinds you to the fact that it’s ... well ... not?

I'm speaking of the motion sensing technology that began with Nintendo and is being copied and improved by Microsoft and Sony for applications in console gaming.

Don’t get me wrong; the demos these companies put on at E3 were an impressive feat of technology. Sony had the most accurate tracking and quickest response, matching players’ movement 1 to 1.

This is not about bad technology. When I said this began with Nintendo, I was referring to the U-Force. That was bad technology even for its time. The Wii, which was the catalyst for the current motion-tracking trend, is good technology. My concern is the extent to which these companies push the technology on players.

Nintendo capitalized on casual gamers, made millions and once again secured their spot as top dog among the big three. For this reason, I understand why Microsoft and Sony want in on the action. However, they should take heed and remember that casual gamers are a small percentage of the nearly $21 billion industry. Nintendo already has most casual gamers in their pocket. The core gamers who built Sony's and Microsoft's empires will not embrace this new way to play. It will be treated as a novelty.

From Pac-Man to Call of Duty, core gamers take pride in their skill on the sticks. A physical, tactile controller in which short, quick movements are made by the thumbs and fingers is far superior, when it comes to control, to flailing arms, turning hips and basically jumping around like an idiot. No, I am not calling you an idiot. People who like motion tracking games -- casual gamers -- just have a different definition of fun than core gamers.

Do I think, for example, that Natal should be nurtured and encouraged? Absolutely. Innovation breeds competition. Competition equals better products. Do I think research and development dollars should be diverted from great games to accommodate this trend? Companies should not jump on the bandwagon in the guise of innovation.

In the end, the market will ultimately decide which technologies will dominate. But give me a controller with a couple of sticks, triggers and buttons any day of the week. As we say in the South: If it ain't broke, don’t fix it.

Below, Big Daddy Ogre, Fartknocckker and Dmanitman dare defend their Constitutional right to keep and bear controllers.

A precious baby Predator

2009-07-31T14:54:00.003-05:00

This beautiful, bouncy baby would make any mother smile. I bet if you this cute little Predator perched on your shoulder, you wouldn't even need an optically aimed laser cannon to destroy your enemies.

The picture comes to us from James Gunn's blog, where you can find lots of funny stuff.

A Falcon in the Basement

2009-07-27T02:49:00.005-05:00

Cousin Crownshend has been building models in my basement while he visits our family on his summer break.

By day, he's "busting tables" or washing dishes at his summer job at The Restaurant at Campbell's Field. In the evening he's been disappearing for hours at a time, and then he emerges with a sci-fi work of scale model art.

He also spent a few Republic Credits at the local lightsaber store recently. You can see him perfecting the Jedi ass-parry below.

He has his eye on a Rebel Snowspeeder kit that's been collecting dust on my shelf for several years, and I think I might let him have a go at it. He's even working on a scratch-built Super Star Destroyer at his home base on Dantooine.

Check out Crownshend's various modeling projects at Cinema Models. If you leave comments, tell him you're with SB-S!

Prototype review posted

2009-07-22T19:43:00.006-05:00

Take a look at my review of Prototype over at Techcetera. I enjoyed the game, which can show other games a thing or two about character movement!

As a bonus, we also have an account by our SB-S friend Arc Dream about how to eat him in the game. Seems a buddy of his was on the development team for Prototype and wrote him into the game -- as a pedestrian you can consume!

The Wind Beneath My Monkey Wings

2009-06-18T21:10:00.007-05:00

Happy Birthday, Flying Monkey Joe, my furry, feathered friend. May your grubby little wings beat with happiness as you soar over the castle walls, in unending service to your Ape Overlords.

Here, I got you a banana. Please don't perch over my car to eat it.

USS Crownshend in orbit

2009-06-17T17:22:00.002-05:00

My cousin, who is known on SB-S as Crownshend, recently finished a magnificent model of the USS Enterprise. Check out more photos on his blog, Crownshendism!

Triple the prestige

2009-06-15T22:55:00.005-05:00

I ranked up to Prestige Level 3 last night in Call of Duty: World at War.

I enjoyed numerous rounds of multiplayer with the SB-S crew as I tried out the new Map Pack 2 on a double-points weekend. Like my friend Bama Breeze said, it was like having a whole new game.

Review to come on the new maps. What do y'all think of them?

Red Faction: Guerrilla -- get hammered

2009-06-12T23:44:00.003-05:00

Take a look at my new review of Red Faction: Guerrilla on Techcetera! It includes a description of "Sythbane: The Angry Gamer."

I also pose some questions as to why the evil EDF soldiers look so much like our American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Your thoughts and comments will be welcome, as always.

Also, please click on the "Follower" button on the upper right of this blog, so we can begin to see the faces of our own gaming community.

The D-Day Call

2009-06-06T16:09:00.007-05:00

Every year for the decade that I knew Capt. Wallace Swanson, I called him on June 6 and said, "Thanks for jumping out of that airplane!"

I can't call him anymore, but I hope he remembers.

The art of sexy robots

2009-06-05T22:46:00.011-05:00

All the years I've been reading science fiction, I've enjoyed looking at the fantastic paintings on the covers as much as reading the novels. The art of science fiction comes alive in movies and video games, and that's part of why I love living in sci-fi games.

I like to keep an eye on the pictures that flow through an artists' forum site called conceptart.org. That's where I discovered this gorgeous painting called "The Showstopper" by Neville D'Souza. It's reminiscent of the sexy robot in the sci-fi classic film "Metropolis." There's also a similar, gleaming waitress who is briefly seen in "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith," walking through a room with a sultry sway to her chrome hips.

I contacted Neville by e-mail, and he kindly gave his blessing for me to post his painting here on Sythbane Squadron for my friends to enjoy. More of his work may be seen on his gallery site. Like Senator Palpatine told young Anakin, we shall be keeping an eye on his career!

The great Frank Frazetta is foremost among my favorite artists, and others include Frank Cho and Dave Dorman and Terese Nielsen. I met Rowena Morrill at DragonCon in Atlanta one year and got her autograph on a print, and I was giddy and starstruck!

It looks like D'Souza may be joining that pantheon of gifted artists!

My review of Fable II: See the Future

2009-05-29T14:17:00.007-05:00

My review of the Fable II: See the Future expansion pack is posted on Techcetera. If you're a Fable fan -- and I know some of you are -- be sure to check it out!

Leave comments, and I'll give you a free health potion the next time I see your big orb-head walking by me in Albion.

How to make The Perfect Video Game

2009-05-25T22:04:00.015-05:00

By Bryan Crowson
Sythbane Squadron leader

There are rumblings in the video gaming press that BioWare's forthcoming role-playing game, Dragon Age: Origins, may be a rip-roaring RPG, bursting with buckets of blood, copious violence, and throbbing with bodice-ripping, high-fantasy sex.

I sure hope it is! That means Dragon Age: Origins might have three or four of my criteria for The Perfect Game.

In my last post about games I'm looking forward to, one of the games is Dragon Age: Origins, which publisher EA says is coming for PC and consoles in the second half of 2009. My high hopes for Dragon Age got me to thinking about the best of all possible games which I hope to play someday.

As much as I loved The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, I got really annoyed (and bored) by the fact that it included NO romance, no nudity, and only subdued violence. Can't somebody give us a grown-up game, no holds barred? It would sell like crazy! EA's The Godfather 2 made some progress toward this goal of realism by including strippers that were actually topless. (Kudos, EA! The fact that EA now owns BioWare is another hopeful sign.)

But no mainstream Mature-rated game has yet to have any scene that compares with the gloriously beautiful sight of Atia (Polly Walker) walking out of her bath in HBO's epic miniseries Rome. Although a few games such as The Godfather II have broken the brassiere barrier, none that I know of have presented any posteriors -- pretty as Polly's or otherwise. The Mature-rated Oblivion was so prudish that it abandoned all pretense of realism for the medieval fantasy epic and anachronistically clad its female characters in modest, modern bras and granny panties. The ladies might as well have been wearing Nike cross-trainers and iPods, too.

I have a notion of a perfect game in my head. I await the day that somebody makes it, but it hasn't happened yet. David Jaffe came close with God of War, but God of War had too much platforming and not enough role-playing to meet my Perfect Game criteria.

My prescription for the Perfect Game continues to evolve, but here are some of the qualities I'm looking for:

- It will be a role-playing game for consoles, including the Xbox 360. I don't do PC games anymore. I want to relax on my couch, not hunched over a keyboard. And my favorite genre is role-playing, where I inhabit another world for a time. Mass Effect came close to my ideal, but it it had no online element. Could there be a massive multiplayer RPG on Xbox Live someday? I sure hope so. They keep teasing us about the Age of Conan coming to Xbox Live, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Role-playing is the ideal genre for my Perfect Game because it allows for the most creativity by the player. It casts me as the lead role in a story, where I make the decisions for the character like an author would make decisions for a character in a novel.

- RPGs typically also allow for the most customization, which is another trait of my ideal game. I want to be able to customize every facet of my character, as well as other important characters in the game (I couldn't get my spouse to wear the sexy clothes I gave to her in Fable 2! But maybe that was an ironic element of realism.). I want to customize the sex of the character, the face, the body, the clothing, the weapons -- everything! I want to make the story and character mine.

- It will NOT be a platformer or have any platformer gameplay elements. Jumping around is for kids.

- If it is a swords-and-sorcery fantasy story, the imagery will resemble the magnificent battle scenes of 300. Zack Snyder set the standard, until something better comes along.

- If it is a modern story with first-person shooter elements, the level of violence and imagery will resemble Saving Private Ryan and the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers. These have the most gripping, visceral battles scenes ever committed to film, and a game maker would do well to emulate them, regardless if it's modern combat or science-fiction warfare.

- As a mature game, it will not shrink from the realities of life. There will be touches like Peter Molyneux put in Fable 2, such as having a dog. There will be spouses, and children. The problem at the heart of Oblivion was that it had no compelling motivation. There was no romantic interest whatsoever in the story. Love is the greatest motivation for any story, the driving force in almost everything we do. Whether the hero seeks to win a girl, or protect his child like in Taken, the engine for the plot is love.

Apparently, Peter Molyneux is alone among game makers in recognizing this great fact. Mass Effect almost took the plunge into having a romantic interest, but ultimately it shied away from it like a child who put his hand on the stove. The controversial love scene between Commander Shepard and Liara or Ashley was very tame and a huge disappointment. You can see more nudity by flipping through a Redbook magazine in the checkout line at Wal-Mart and scanning the ads.

- As a corollary to not shrinking from life's realities, the game will include nudity and sex at appropriate points in the story. That doesn't mean it would be a series of sex scenes for the sake of sex scenes, like a late-night "skinimax" flick. It means people get naked to bathe and change clothes, and to have sex, and we all have skin under our suits of armor.

HBO has produced shows in which nudity happens naturally with the flow of the story. Rome, Deadwood and True Blood are the best examples I can think of. The tone of the story and the nudity in the Perfect Game will be like this.

These shows are for grown-ups. Various studies keep showing that the majority of gamers are adults, not children. And yet, even Mature games have this lingering guilt, like the developers can't quite get past the notion that they're making toys for kids. Games are labeled Mature just as movies are rated R. Kids have the same access to mature content on television and movies that they would have with games, yet violent or sexy R-rated movies never cause a stir like games that push the Mature-rated envelope. Ultimately, parents must take responsibility for what their children consume.

(This topic gets me on a soapbox. If you're interested, please see two previous posts where it is discussed further: Severed heads, naked breasts and video games, and Naked breasts vs. severed heads, Round 2.) Somebody needs to stand up to the ESRB's cultural tyranny. Grown-ups buy the expensive, $60 games, because we have the money. Is it too much to ask for a game for our own demographic, as grown-ups?

To conclude this rant, I'm not really expecting my Perfect Game to be The Next Big Thing this year. My frame of reference for video games goes back to the days when only the rich kids had Pong. Later, in high school, I started playing Asteroids at the arcade. The technological march of video games continuously amazes me.

Every year, my Perfect Game gets a little closer, but I'm still waiting.

In the meantime, I suppose I'll go play Halo 3 and Bejeweled 2 some more.

Thanks to my geek wingman, Flying Monkey Joe, for suggesting that I chip off this rumination on The Perfect Game from the previous post and make it stand alone. May your little blue malodorous wings bear you safely to the witch's castle!

Gamers ready for the Next Big Thing

2009-05-24T18:08:00.023-05:00

By Bryan Crowson
Sythbane Squadron leader

The day has finally come when even the most stalwart shooter fans on my Xbox Live friends list are tired of Call of Duty. Until recently, whenever I got online, most folks were playing Call of Duty: World at War. Now, hardly anybody is playing it regularly. The friends and party list show a variety of games and genres, as people revisit old favorites. Fable 2 has popped up again as people explore some of its new downloadable content, and some have dipped back into Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2.

Last night, I joined a lively series of Halo 3 slayer matches with Big Daddy Ogre and several other friends. Playing Halo 3 online against random opponents can be off-putting, because the Halo community is unfortunately burdened with more than its share of mutton-heads. But if you can play Halo online with actual friends, it remains one of the most fun games ever. It's interesting to note that when people tire of everything else, Halo 3 is the fall-back game!

I've also gone back to Fable 2 a bit. I fired it up to try out the See the Future expansion and noticed that my main character had acquired enough cash to buy Fairfax Castle. I did that quest and (possible spoiler alert here!) got to the part with the sex-changing potion. OK, so it did warn that was permanent, but I assumed I could go back to a previous save. I wanted to see if there were any cool animations to the effect, and to see what my character would look like as a woman. I saved the game, so I could revert to my old self if I didn't like my estrogen-enhanced self, and then drank the potion. Blip, and there I stood, a woman in ill-fitting clothes. No fancy animation.

And, aside from the anti-climax of the transformation, I was NOT a pretty woman. You'd think a high-level female fighter would be a sexy, athletic woman like Xena, Red Sonja, Witchblade, or -- a more recent example -- super-hot Aneka of Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire on Comedy Central. I don't know what the folks at Lionhead were thinking, but a female high-level fighter in Fable 2 looks like a male heavyweight wrestler wearing a bra. Haven't any of them ever picked up an issue of Heavy Metal magazine?

I was displeased, so I tried to reload my last saved game, and guess what? Peter Molyneux got the last laugh, because the game saved automatically when I drank the potion. I'm stuck looking like a refrigerator in a dress. This transformation should have been a blessing, not a curse! I got online and searched the message boards and forums for a trick to change back, and it looks like lots of people have done exactly what I did. There apparently is no way to change back. Like many of those folks on the forums, I've gottened annoyed with Fable 2 because of this and set it aside.

Now what? Heads up, game makers!

To be fair, there have been some decent game releases lately, but nothing that seems to be widely embraced as a must-play for everybody. This limbo period, with gamers adrift, looking for something new, is an opportunity for game makers to break this absurd fall holiday season glut of game releases. With new video games at $60 a pop, who can afford to buy all these games? You should be feeding the beast throughout the year! Quit saving so much of the best stuff for fall.

There are a lot of games I'm looking forward to, but I'm having a wait through this period of malaise for too long before I can play them. The longer I wait, the greater my expectations are for the games. Here are some of coming releases that I'm really eager to get my hands on, and some of my hopes for the them:

- Alpha Protocol. I'm really ready to get my hands on another good role-playing game for my Xbox 360. This looks like a Jason Bourne-type character in a Mass Effect type game, which could be awesome. Release date: Oct. 6! Dang it!

- Halo 3: ODST. A fresh take on the Halo universe, playing as an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper, the special forces of the UNSC. How long until this one? The release date is this fall. Doh!

- Red Dead Redemption from Rockstar Games. I don't know much about this one, but I get the impression that it might be a role-playing game like Grand Theft Auto IV, but set in the Old West. The trailer looks fantastic, like a movie. I'm really stoked to try this. I thought the seedy atmosphere of GTA4 was depressing, but I could get into the wide-open spaces of an Old West RPG. Again, the release date is this fall!

- Aliens vs. Predator from Sega. This one makes me giddy. A shooter, with multiplayer as an Alien or a Predator or a Colonial Marine?! Holy face-huggers! Sign me up! How could anybody possibly screw this up, with so much cool source material? And yet, the movies keep screwing up this franchise. Here's my advice: IGNORE the ill-conceived abominations known as Alien 3, Alien 4 and AVP: Requiem. Key the game on Aliens and the original Predator, and it will be a winner. Release date: early 2010. Argh!

- Modern Warfare 2. This one will have everybody tied up, game makers. The 500 pound gorilla will own Xbox Live when it's released Nov. 10, so don't you want to throw us a bone before then?

- Brutal Legend. I am ready to rock.

- Dragon Age: Origins. This swords-and-sorcery RPG from BioWare hints at a mature treatment of the genre, not the namby-pamby Saturday-morning kind of thing we're used to. I say: Bring it on.

Reap the rewards of renting games

2009-05-24T17:12:00.007-05:00

By Fartknocckker
Sythbane Squadron contributor

Game rental has always been a money saver. It's different from renting movies, because you need to keep a game longer. That problem was solved with the advent of online rental services such as Gamefly. The promise of one monthly fee for unlimited games delivered to your mailbox -- with no return dates -- seems like the definition of practical.

Since I was one of the early adopters of Netflix, the online movie rental service, I decided to try my hand at Gamefly, the online game rental service. As a new customer I was treated with the highest regard. I received games promptly, in some cases, only a day after release, and I earned rewards as my membership time grew.

After about an eight month span, however, one game remained on my list for six weeks. Another languished for four weeks, and yet another for two weeks. After a friendly but firm e-mail to the company, my six week status game was shipped, but the other two remained in my queue. I realized that this problem was not intentional and probably a result of a company growing too fast to keep adequate inventory.

Before online rental services, most people would go to their local Blockbuster or Hollywood Video stores. The convenience of ordering movies and games online and having them delivered, however, pulled customers away. That left brick and mortar stores with greater inventory. This prompted me to investigate other sources for my game rental.

I walked into Hollywood Video and there on the shelf were four copies of my two-week status game, and two copies of my four-week status game. They also have a program with one monthly payment, unlimited games and movies and no return dates. This program was also a few dollars cheaper than my current combined bill for Netflix and Gamefly. Walking into a store and picking up a game the same day was a far cry from waiting six weeks on another plan.

I want to point out that I have never had a problem with Netflix. Neither is this a stab at Gamefly, because I am sure there are thousands of satisfied customers. Nor is it a promotion for Hollywood Video.

My point is, before you go to an online service, don’t count out the traditional way of renting games and movies. Just because it’s new and convenient doesn’t necessarily make it better. Explore you options. You might be surprised.

Fartknocckker always plays a game like he owns it, regardless if it's rented or purchased.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine reviewed

2009-05-15T16:33:00.003-05:00

My review of the X-Men Origins: Wolverine game is up on Techcetera. I had more fun than usual writing this one, so please check it out and leave comments!

A happy headbanger family

2009-05-01T12:53:00.007-05:00

Check out the review on Techcetera of Guitar Hero: Metallica.

The primary author is a special member of Sythbane Squadron. Rock on, Fortiscule!

Pursuing Prestige in CoD: World at War

2009-04-04T18:49:00.007-05:00

Last night I ticked over Prestige Level 2 in Call of Duty: World at War online multiplayer! I know this is no big deal to my friends who already passed that mark long ago, such as Fartknocckker, Big Daddy Ogre and Bama Breeze, but I was pleased with myself.

I must thank my friend Fartknocckker again for a key piece of advice he gave me about ranking up in Call of Duty. My progress in ranking up in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was glacial because I had it in my head that I had to max out the potential points on every weapon. Yes, I know I hadn't thought it through very well, but that's what I did, and it took me forever to top out my rank. I struggled to score kills with weapons unsuited to my playing style.

The great Knocckker of Farts suggested sticking with the weapons with which I was most comfortable to score as many kills as possible, and thus help make sure that my team wins as much as possible. That's what I've done in World at War, and the points I score for doing that far surpass the points for using all the diverse weapons.

I tend to do best with bullet hoses -- submachine guns and the STG-44. I like the semi-automatic rifles, but I don't do quite as well with them. I also like the bolt-action rifles, even though I'm terrible with them.

H.A.W.X review in progress

My next review on deck is Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. Flight sims and air combat are my first love in video gaming, so I've been excited about this game. The review will be on Techcetera early next week, and I'll post a link here in Sythbane Squadron.

As I was preparing the review poking around on the H.A.W.X web site, I discovered that an affordable flight stick controller is finally available for the Xbox 360!

It's the Saitek Aviator, and I can't wait to get my hands on one. I haven't found one yet, but when I do, I'm going to go back and try every fighter combat game in my inventory and review the joystick.

None of my shooter friends have joined me in the sky yet, but I hope some of you will try H.A.W.X and do some dogfighting.

Pyramid Head rules Imagicon

2009-04-02T00:12:00.009-05:00

My son, the Pyramid Head!

Sci-fi fans were clamoring to have their picture made with Fortiscule at Birmingham's Imagicon last weekend. The whole Sythbane family had a great time. Fortiscule worked for weeks on his costume of Pyramid Head, a villain in the Silent Hill video game and movie franchise. He was quite the chick magnet, too.

Thanks to my friend Flying Monkey Joe and his ape overlord at Revolutionsf.com, Fortiscule stars in the photo with their centerpiece story about Imagicon. Thanks, Flying Monkey Joe! May your little blue wings beat with bluster.

Below: Fortiscule charmed the lead dancer of the Corpsewax Dollies by helping them find the exhibit hall where they were scheduled to perform. Here, after the show, she happily posed with him!

Annual vacation Xbox crash

2009-03-15T16:12:00.008-05:00

One year ago, as my family began our spring break vacation, my son and I were looking forward to a week of relaxation and video gaming. Then, on the first day, I got the Three Rings of Death.

Knowing that our vacation would pass with no Xbox, my beautiful and thoughtful wife surprised us by buying us a new Xbox. We sent the Red Ring box off to be fixed, and when it was returned, I gave it to my brother jRySix for his birthday. Everyone was happy.

Now, one year later, on the first day of this year's spring break, our black Xbox 360 Elite has gone belly-up, too! Is Microsoft determined to sabotage my spring vacation? To say I am outraged is a thunderous understatement.

We turned the 360 off for a while to watch a movie yesterday, and when we turned it back on a few hours later, the red light in the 5 o'clock quadrant was flashing, and we got this error message: E 73. After some Googling, I found that this indicates a hardware problem with the Ethernet port. WTF? I thought the expensive Elite model was supposed to be built like a truck and immune to this nonsense.

I called the support line, and guess what I got? A robot phone tree with a dead-end, and NO option for talking to a human being. It told me to go to xbox.com, and basically kiss off. Thanks Mr. Gates! Congratulations for your recent return to the top of the Forbes list of the richest men in the universe. I guess you saved up a few billion by firing the human beings who answered the phones.

Despite my preference to speak to a person, I ordered the repair box on xbox.com. The registration on my Elite said I had only two more days on the one-year warranty! The red light happened on March 14, I reported it March 15, and it says the warranty expires March 17. Can you believe it? Talk about "planned obsolescence."

So now here we are again, on the horns of a dilemma in our love-hate relationship with the Xbox 360. Do we use some vacation money to buy another one, as a backup? We could network it and use it for system-link games after the Elite is repaired. Or, my son and I can play at the same time online, if my recently-upgraded Charter cable connection has enough bandwidth.

As much as it irks me, there are advantages to having an extra machine, so I'm leaning toward that option. My son and I are already going crazy without our Xbox Live, and we're only two days into our vacation. Nevertheless, it blows my mind that the top-of-the-line Xbox crapped out at the START of vacation after 1 year, only three days short of running out the 1-year warranty.

I know some of my online friends have gone through several machines. Does anyone have a repair story to commiserate with me and help ease my anguish?

My own 50 Cents worth

2009-03-13T15:40:00.004-05:00

My review of 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand is up on Techcetera.

It's a really fun shooter and the dialogue is hilarious, if you think a longshoreman who stubbed his toe has a funny way of expressing himself.

I personally find expressive longshoremen a hoot. My friend Shawn used to provide dialogue like this when we played Pictionary, so it's nothing new to me. Some folks might be offended, but if you've played any shooter online, you've probably heard worse -- or just as bad.

I did have some concerns about lyrics in the soundtrack, which are noted in the review.

In the trenches with Halo Wars

2009-03-06T16:37:00.004-06:00

Halo Wars is fun, and the cutscenes will blow your mind. Read my full review posted today on Techcetera!

Keeping Killzone 2 under control

2009-03-05T22:46:00.013-06:00

By Fartknocckker
Sythbane Squadron contributor

The wait is over and all of the hype has come to a head. Yes, Killzone 2 has arrived. It has won rave reviews and high scores from many web sites and magazines. There is no doubt this is a top notch first-person shooter.

Having said that, I must point out that Killzone 2 seemed particularly frustrating at first. Don't get me wrong. Killzone 2 is a fabulous game. But I have a feeling a lot of other people have experienced the same problem.

Control. The feel of a game is key to enjoyment. All first-person shooters are controlled by touch, by how fast and how far the player has to move the sticks to place the cross hairs on a target.

Killzone 2 has a very slight delay after stick movement. Because what you are seeing onscreen does not respond immediately, you tend to move the stick too far. On medium or higher sensitivity settings, you overshoot your target.

This delay adds a sense of weight to weapons, but it can be extremely frustrating in trying to make accurate shots quickly, especially when surrounded by enemies from all directions.

All my fellow gamers who have played Call of Duty or Halo and experienced the quick, very responsive controls know what I mean.

This is a small hiccup in an otherwise outstanding game. With the saturation of first-person shooters in the market, developers should devote a lot of consideration in development of their game engines to this very important element of game play.

It's come to light that Killzone 2 developer Guerrilla Games is looking into the possibility of changing the game's controls in response to player complaints about their sluggishness. They are aware of it, and that brings a glitter of hope for everybody having this problem.

I believe this issue is a direct result of the Call of Duty franchise's influence on the shooter genre. Standards have been set, and they are destined to be followed.

Shooter ace Fartknocckker has worn the uniform. He knows what a killzone is. And, he sets a high standard for his comrades at Sythbane Squadron!

Call of Horror

2009-02-26T22:54:00.002-06:00

The party conversation took a turn for the macabre last night. TFH 5 had been talking about the economy, which was scary enough, and then Bama Breeze remembered a news story of the day about a funeral home director who left a body in a hearse over an unpaid bill. This train of thought led Bama to tell us a frightening tale she'd read about a psycho who abducted a woman and kept her in a swamp. When the victim tried to escape, she was eaten by the guy's pet alligator.

After a lull, Bama exclaimed, "I feel like I'm having to DRAG conversation out of you guys tonight!"

Apparently we were too petrified to speak, and our little avatars had gone pale.

It's fine to tell scary stories around the campfire, but now we know that a burning tank in Call of Duty: World at War is a good venue for horror, too.

Motley Crue keeping us in the game

2009-02-25T18:59:00.006-06:00

Fortiscule, jRySix and I attended the Motley Crue concert last Sunday in Birmingham, and we greatly enjoyed our collective Primal Scream!

The Crue is still going strong. They're from my generation, and seeing them so full of energy keeps me rockin', too. A song called "Go Down Swinging" on their autobiographical Saints of Los Angeles album makes it clear that they're not ready to yield the stage yet. Me, neither, guys. Keep crankin' it.

In addition to kick-starting your heart with rock 'n' roll, guitarist Mick Mars is inspiring to see. He has suffered and struggled with a rare bone disease that limits his movements, yet there he is in the spotlight, shredding on his Strat. He's shouting at the devil with an amp turned up to 11. The photo above is Mars playing a solo. It was grand.

Drum Roll

Speaking of rockers, last night jRySix and I joined Daddy Rocks LV for a few lively rounds of Call of Duty: World at War. We shot the shinola about music while we were shooting tanks, although those heavy metal monsters dealt us some misery. Daddy Rocks seems to have a different schedule than most of my other late-night gaming friends, but I hope he'll be able to circulate more among the gaming cadres of Sythbane Squadron. You would all enjoy his company.

Sythbane Squadron boasts several musicians: Daddy Rocks drums, jRySix and Fortiscule play guitar, Crownshend plays saxophone and piano, and I play banjo. Do we have more musicians among us?

Daddy Rocks LV

I had the finest of intentions to step up my blogging when I posted that Red Sonja item, but then I got sick. I'm feeling much better, so I hereby renew my resolve. This time, definitely!

Red Sonja to offer stimulus plan

2009-02-13T00:19:00.013-06:00

Rose McGowan will star as Red Sonja in a new movie to be released this year or next.

Scholars such as myself who specialize in the study of Barbarian Warrior Women are abuzz with this news. As some of you know, I am the chairman of The Institute for Cultural, Anthropological and Aesthetic Studies of Barbarian Warrior Women, and as such I have boundless enthusiasm for this important genre of art, literature, cinema and collectible action figures. We at the Institute are hoping that President Obama will give us a generous research grant as part of his economic stimulous package to really get the foundation off the ground.

Rose McGowan is a gorgeous actress who had an unfortunate association with Marilyn Manson that falls in the "What was she thinking?!" file, and we must not speak of it again. She is turning over a new cheek by donning a chainmail bikini. And really, what kind of world would it be if a lady can't get a fresh start by wearing a shiny new chainmail bikini? Bless her heart.

Thanks to the miracle of Netflix, I recently saw Rose's performance in Grindhouse, where her leg was eaten by zombies and she used an M-16 for a prosthesis. She demonstrated amazing flexibility and dexterity in this nuanced and layered performance, which doubtless will serve her well in swordplay scenes.

In Grindhouse, Rose was inexplicably coy and demure, an incongruous bit of modesty in a movie bursting with nauseating, over-the-top gore and grossness. The filmmakers obviously wanted to maintain some semblance of decency; after all the oozing, bulbous pustules and beheadings, the sight of Rose in immodest repose would have been offensive.

But compare Rose's shyness in Grindhouse to her scant trappings at an awards show where she was photographed on the red carpet with Marilyn Manson. (Dang it! Didn't I say not to speak of that again?) She wore a chainmail dress with lots of missing links in the caboose. This ample, public display of her healthy complexion gives me hope that Rose is at least willing to portray Sonja as equally daring in her fashion choices, and whoops, maybe she forgets her chainmail bikini in a scene where a sabertooth tiger surprises her. It could happen. This common scenario too often ended in tragedy, as archaeologists will tell you, but it would end differently for Sonja. A lack of metal lingerie wouldn't deter Red Sonja from winning a sabertooth catfight, that's for sure and certain.

Because, really, do you really think any self-respecting Barbarian Warrior Woman like Red Sonja would be consumed with notions of Victorian modesty? I think not. She has better things to do, like sharpening her sword and smiting her enemies.

This wardrobe issue is really a matter of historical credibility in cinema. Take, for example, the caveman movie genre: In the 1966 film One Million Years B.C., you knew right away when you saw Raquel Welch as Loana wearing an intricately crafted deerskin brassiere that she wasn't really a cavewoman, right?

But in Quest for Fire, cave people weren't concerned with modesty in the least. Rae Dawn Chong wore only dried mud, and that was for camouflage, not modesty. Which film was more believable? I, for one, prefer realism to suspend my disbelief while I am engrossed in a historical Barbarian Warrior Woman epic. Authenticity. Credibility. These are vital to the integrity of the genre.

Although the character of Red Sonja was created by Conan creator Robert E. Howard, her good name was tainted by an unfortunate 1985 film starring Brigitte Nielsen. The dreadful failure of that movie demonstrates the folly of trying to make a "kid-safe" Barbarian Warrior Woman film, sans nudity, sexuality or realistic violence. Barbarian Warrior Woman films properly should be rated R, with rampant gratuitous nudity and sexuality, intense action and dazzling swordplay. A decent story would be a crowning touch. I hope the new Red Sonja will be captured in the magnificent style of 300.

We at the Institute will be eagerly awaiting this film, which is sure to enrich and ennoble the venerable Barbarian Warrior Woman genre. It will certainly stimulate the economy, too.

Cheevos: Satisfaction for a job well done

2009-02-12T00:54:00.007-06:00

By TeeBoan
Sythbane Squadron contributor

This is a follow-up to our beloved Fartknocckker's post concerning Achievements (cheevos).

I agree with him whole-heartedly. However, I would like to add to it.

Recently, I had a conversation with a friend who is admittedly hooked on cheevos. In talking with him, I discovered that he sits at a desk and “puts out fires” all day. I, on the other hand, work in the trades and have for twenty years now. When my day is over, I have a sense of accomplishment, because I can see what I have accomplished. This friend doesn’t experience this luxury.

I like cheevos because I get a sense of accomplishment from them, but I am reasonably assured that my friend gets a greater satisfaction out of cheevos because he rarely gets a sense of accomplishment from his daily work life.

Cheevos come in all types and sizes, and each game has its own philosophy in how it implements them. Call of Duty: World at War took me four or five weeks to get all 1,000 cheevos. That was work, hard work. Avatar: The Burning Earth gave me 1,000 cheevos in under a minute.

Each game has its own emotions that go with earning the cheevos. CoD:WaW obviously was the more difficult and returned a hard-earned “I did it” set of emotions. Avatar returned a different set of emotions that were exhilarating for only a few minutes.

Don't overlook the way cheevos are set up in each game, because they may be too easy or too hard. We have to pick and choose which ones we want to add to our ever-growing gamerscore.

At any time in the future, each Achievement can be browsed and remembered. Men are by nature very task-oriented, and we like our cheevos. Cheevos represent tasks. Whether you see little accomplishment at work or otherwise, or if you see tasks accomplished daily, achievements can provide satisfaction. Sometimes it's only a little satisfaction, but sometimes they bring great satisfaction.

Cheevos may be insignificant in life, but they nevertheless can give us a little bit of enjoyment and happiness.

Keep on Keepin’ on!

TeeBoan feels a great sense of accomplishment every time he snuffs you in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.

Don't count out Dead Space

2009-02-12T00:43:00.007-06:00

By Fartknocckker
Sythbane Squadron contributor

Back in October, EA released Dead Space. If you were too busy with any of the other superb titles that were plentiful this holiday season and missed Dead Space, I strongly advise you to pick up this exceptional game.

Dead Space brings some cool features to the survival horror genre. There are no traditional meters, numbers or gauges on the corners of the screen or pause menus. All HUD functions are projected from your rig (suit) in real time about a foot in front of your character. This handles your inventory, objectives, logs and a 3-D map that can be tumbled in any direction.

Your health bar is a luminescent, segmented vertical tube on the back of your rig that follows your spine. Ammo is counted on the weapons themselves, although most of them are actually mining tools that cut or displace.

That is another unique aspect to this third-person shooter. Head shots won’t get you anywhere. You have to take off the limbs of the necromorphs to kill them. To aid your aiming, a stasis device is provided to slow down enemies. Telekinesis is also used to pick up objects to shoot at your enemies to conserve ammo.

The locater system which is similar to the “breadcrumb trail” in Fable 2 is very convenient to steer you in the right direction. Click the right stick, and a thin blue laser is projected from your palm to the ground.

Sections with zero-gravity and segments with no atmosphere (aka space) do not break the action and bring continuity to the theme and story.

The story of Dead Space is very well written. The voice acting stands out. The controls are tight. The visuals are some of the best I’ve seen in the past several years and the sound design is superb. This game has a very high production value and the positives far outweigh the negatives. I commend EA on their efforts.

Fartknocckker, a veteran gamer and a veteran veteran, was never scared of the necromorphs. They were scared of him.

New Call of Duty: World at War maps

2009-02-10T16:59:00.004-06:00

At last, some new hunting grounds for Call of Duty: World at War are on the way. Activision said today that Call of Duty: World at War Map Pack 1 will be available for download sometime in March.

Check out the details on each map that I posted here on Techcetera.

(Yes, I admit, I'm nudging my friends who read these personal notes on Sythbane Squadron to please look at my "official" reviews and essays on Techcetera, too, because that blog is for my workplace. The more hits Techcetera gets, the more job security I have! Many thanks to those of you who read it. A feed from Techcetera showing my reviews -- along with those by Arc Dream, ANT Pogo and jRySix -- is posted in the right column here.)

I apologize for neglecting Sythbane Squadron for a couple of weeks lately. A friend from my childhood passed away last week and I've been a bit addled. I'll post a more detailed note later as a salute to my friend Dusty.

I also have another post from our friend Fartknocckker in store for you, so stay tuned!

In the Lion's eye

2009-01-21T22:41:00.006-06:00

I've been quoted! I feel like Steve Martin in "The Jerk" when he found his name in the phonebook.

The Fable II developer blog on the Lionhead Studios site has highlighted my review of the Knothole Island expansion. They even quoted my recommendation. It's exciting to know that the feedback in my reviews is actually making its way back to the source!

Squadron Notes

I appreciate all the interest in Sythbane Squadron lately, and I'll try to step up the posting.

D man has suggested a Sythbane Squadron clan tag for games where some of us might want to band together: SB-S.

Thanks to Bama Breeze for posting thoughtful comments on my reviews on Techcetera and here on Sythbane Squadron. I urge everyone to read her comment for insight on what it's like to be a female gamer.

I appreciate our resident achievement ace Fartknocckker's contributions to the blog. I've enjoyed some recent correspondence with TeeBoan about gaming issues, and I look forward to more discussions with him.

Are you folks following "Battlestar Galactica" lately? It's sure getting interesting.

Sythbane Squadron gets reinforcements

2009-01-17T13:48:00.003-06:00

My circle of friends on Xbox Live continues to grow. I'd be proud to call these friends "wingmen" as the new members of Sythbane Squadron, if they want to join the formation.

The common thread among my friends in Sythbane Squadron is that we prefer polite, fun banter on Xbox Live, even while we're killing each other. You might hear any of us utter an expletive now and then in surprise or dismay, but you won't hear us using hateful, bigoted or insulting trash talk. We pride ourselves on good sportsmanship and helping to make Xbox Live a happy community.

d man 4270

D man 4270 is a friend of Fortiscule. Fort and I were happy to assist recently when d man got his Xbox connected to Live and went online. Watch out if you face him in SoulCalibur IV, because he packs a mean roundhouse kick.

Bama Breeze

You'll do well to give Bama Breeze the respect the lady deserves. I suspect this homegirl calls herself "Breeze" because after she shoots you full of holes, the wind blows right through you!

TeeBoan

TeeBoan is a good sport and a gentleman. A good-humored shooter, he is a longtime member of the Ogreatti, the band of buddies who rally around Big Daddy Ogre and identify themselves with "Mr." as their clan tag.

Speaking of clan tags -- I've racked my brain trying to come up with a good clan tag to represent Sythbane Squadron. I came up with "squadron" for the blog name because it suggests teamwork and camaraderie, flying and fighting together, and patriotism. The problem is that abbreviating Sythbane Squadron yields "SS," and I'll be damned if I put those letters in front of my name and let anyone mistakenly associate me the Waffen SS or neo-Nazis, whose notions are evil and abhorrent. As Doc Holiday said in "Wyatt Earp," I disapprove of their very existence.

Do any of you Sythbane Squadron mates have proposals for a clan tag that would fit in the four- or five-character limit for clan tag fields and signify us appropriately? Please post your ideas in a comment or e-mail them to me.

Glitches, Updates and Forums

2009-01-17T12:29:00.007-06:00

By Fartknocckker
Sythbane Squadron contributor

We all have played a game and thought some aspect was not right. Your character or an enemy gets stuck in a wall. Checkpoints are not saving your progress correctly. The items you collect aren't being counted. Or, maybe you pull off a feat in the game that you're not supposed to be able to. Gamers call such problems "glitches."

There are several types of glitches, but technically a glitch is a problem in the game's code in which the inputs of a circuit change, and the result is a random value not originally programmed.

Intentional glitching results from hackers manipulating code. A perfect example is the recent hack in Left 4 Dead in which a player could spawn weapons at will or make maps small and people huge.

Another type of glitch is simply bad programming that causes poor collision detection or game freezing.

We take for granted now that consoles can download updates to fix the glitches and even add new content. But in decades prior to 2000, if your console had a problem, you just had to deal with it.

How do developers learn what the problems are, so they can deal with it instead of you? Forums. They are a very effective tool for developers to use to identify problems with their games, because the information comes directly from players who suffer these problems first-hand.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 has an achievement for completing the game on the hardest difficulty. I did it three times and still failed to unlock the achievement. I posted this problem on the Ubisoft forum and soon realized that other players had reported the same difficulty. Six weeks later, there was an update. I started the game from the beginning, made it to the third checkpoint on the first level and the achievement popped. It took a little time, but the problem was fixed -- thanks in large part to the forum.

Epic Games recently announced it will release a major update for Gears of War 2. This update will mostly address online exploits and issues, most notably client side hit detection on the shotgun in high-latency matches. That means that if you're playing in an online match and you are not the host (client side) and the connection is laggy (high latency), your shells will be more likely to hit your target. That makes me very happy, because I was getting tired of pumping rounds from the shotgun into an ugly Horde head only to have that player turn and take me down in one shot. Some of the issues in this Gears 2 update are a direct result of posts on their forum.

So if you are unhappy with a game, know that you have a voice in the forums. Support the forums with posts of things you would like to see fixed or improved. It works!

Sythbane Squadron contributor Fartknocckker is a longtime Xbox Live friend and ally of Sythbane. Fartknocckker is also an ace at shooters who will kill you and then politely salute you with an easygoing Southern gentility.

Heroes in fire and ice

2008-12-12T18:01:00.006-06:00

My review of Call of Duty: World at War is posted. Take a look!

I hope to see some of you in my sights this weekend ...

The Punisher's tragic triumph

2008-12-07T04:05:00.006-06:00

Here's my short review of the new Punisher movie, which I saw tonight.

On one hand, "The Punisher: War Zone" is as crass a shoot-'em-up as you'll ever see, with grotesque violence and appalling bloodshed. Ray Stevenson absolutely looks the part of the comic-book anti-hero, and the movie is relentless with action. The Punisher's cold precision and deadly grace with his weapons are showcased without apology. The violence is ugly. Frank Castle knows it's ugly but he faces it, and the film doesn't turn away from it either.

On the other hand, opposite from the heavy-handed carnage, Stevenson gives a subtle and compelling performance as Frank Castle. The Punisher is a commando with a broken heart and an iron will. He lives a nightmare existence of grief and despair and anger. He doesn't revel in his revenge. He does the job that he feels God has failed to do by punishing evildoers. He knows the blood on his hands condemns him, but he accepts it as the price he must pay to get the job done.

The Punisher is perhaps the most realistic of Marvel's "superheroes," because he has no super power. You may even view the character as a metaphor for the United States, like Viggo Mortensen's character in "A History of Violence." He detests violence, but he's terribly good at it despite himself, when he's pushed to it. It also reminds me of Clint Eastwood's character in "Unforgiven," who is a terrible, clumsy farmer, but as a killer he's as graceful as the angel of death.

This film is not going to be widely embraced like a Spider-Man or Hulk or Iron Man movie, because of the horrific violence (although if the camera in those movies were pointed at the recipients of the heroes' violence, they'd look this awful, too). It's the nature of The Punisher's story, because it's so dark.

For people who might be inclined to read a Punisher comic, "The Punisher: War Zone" is awesome. Ray Stevenson makes the character real. Frank Castle is a tragic hero is scorns himself, even as others admire him.

I've been a fan of Stevenson since he played the quiet, ax-wielding knight Dagonet in "King Arthur" who broke the ice on the lake and sent the Vikings for a swim. I became an even bigger fan of his with the HBO series "Rome," in which he played Roman soldier Titus Pullo, one of the main characters.

Won't it be interesting if Marvel movies become the venue for a "Rome" reunion? With Stevenson playing The Punisher, rumors are circulating again that "Rome" co-star Kevin McKidd may play Thor. For my money (which will be spent on tickets, DVDs and collectibles), that would be fantastic. I'll be one happy geek.

My favorite games of the year

2008-12-06T18:31:00.006-06:00

My annual Video Game Gift Guide is posted. Check it out! Leave some comments!

Hope you're having fun this weekend. Fortiscule and I are about to head out to see "The Punisher: War Zone," but I expect I'll be on Call of Duty: World at War later tonight. I'm up to lieutenant in multiplayer, and doing pretty well thanks to some sage shooter advice from my buddy Fartknocckker. I'll post more about that advice later.

Where's the 'B' button on this thing?

2008-12-02T23:01:00.006-06:00

This may be the most dangerous object I have ever seen, yet I am strangely drawn to it.

Kotaku reports that some gun enthusiasts created this real-life version of a Gears of War Lancer assault rifle. Its creators call it a "Firearm Mounted Anti Zombie Device." All the zombies who read Kotaku (and there are probably lots of them) are doubtless quaking in fear after seeing this.

You have to admire American ingenuity. Zombie-slayers, we salute you!

On a related note, here's my review of Gears of War 2.

Game giggles with The Guild

2008-11-27T21:53:00.006-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all.

To celebrate, I recommend you try watching "The Guild," which is a comedy series about gamers available now on Xbox Live. Fortiscule and I discovered it in the video Marketplace last night. We kept downloading and watching one episode after another until we'd watched all of them. It's free on Xbox Live, and the second season is even available in HD. Or, you can watch it on the Web if you don't have Xbox Live.

The creator and star of the show, Felicia Day, is a gamer herself and writes all the episodes. I discovered just now while looking at her bio that she was born in Huntsville, Alabama. So was I! Perhaps that partially explains her brilliance.

We'll be following the show, and I recommend it highly.

Aspiring to Achieve

2008-11-27T02:38:00.005-06:00

By Fartknocckker
Sythbane Squadron contributor

Having recently completed Call of Duty: World at War on veteran difficulty and gaining all 1,000 gamerscore points, I had a feeling of deja vu. It wasn't because I felt like I had played the game before, but the sense that I had just completed another game that got the achievements right.

So many times achievements simply do not match the game or require you to search around for hours looking for this do-dad or other. From a designer's point of view, these collection quests are a way of persuading the player to look at the world that they have created a little closer, and is understandable, but is sometimes downright tedious. Achievements that are difficult because they are based on the player's skill are much more rewarding and really give you a sense of accomplishment.

Other games are laughable when they clearly are not triple-A titles but require the player to get a ridiculous number of kills online, or play a certain number of online matches. Sometimes these achievements are nearly impossible to acquire simply for the fact that nobody is playing the game online. Did the developers really think their game was so good that people would play thousands of online matches? Have they played Call of Duty, Gears of War or Halo?

The redeeming quality about achievements is that if you want to unlock them from a particular title, you are forced to play the game differently (except for story progression achievements, of course). This adds a lot more value and replayability, because unless a game has multiplayer, you can drop 60 bucks and finish the main story out in two days. Even if you rent, rushing through a game in order to meet a return date offers no value.

There was a time when accomplishing something in a game was known only to yourself or maybe your little brother. Achievements not only offer a recorded recognition but add another aspect to the gaming community. Discussing strategy or offering tips to your buddies about achievements encourages friendship through something in common.

Now, some people couldn't care less about these little notifications of specific tasks performed in games. Other people will cheat, glitch and have somebody else play under their accounts to have these puppies pop and increase there gamerscore for bragging rights. I personally find the latter to be obsessive and not very healthy. I would be lying if I said no part of earning achievements, for me, was for bragging rights because that is a small percentage. I look at them as enhancements to a game that can build confidence and add value to entertainment.

I recommend at least trying Call of Duty titles on veteran difficulty. Even though, at times, you will want to throw your controller through your T.V. and the wall behind it, it is a very satisfying set of achievements.

Editor's note: The other night I joined a co-op party led by Ogre through the last level of Call of Duty: World at War. During the mayhem, Ogre mentioned that Fartknocckker had completed the game solo on veteran difficulty -- a feat which, he noted with awe, is insane. We all had to agree. Fartknocckker is the Man. He probably gives gaming tips to Chuck Norris.

-- Sythbane

Age of the Avatari

2008-11-19T22:44:00.005-06:00

So here's my new Xbox Live avatar. My brother jRySix says it looks like me, and his looks like him, too.

I'm frustrated that there are no cowboy boots and banjos, but perhaps that will come later. They're likely to start nickle-and-diming us for clothes and gadgets for our little people.

I hope that at least we can get the advertising stuff for free. I'm expecting we'll see avatar T-shirts and trucker hats pushing new movies, soft drinks, cars and other stuff. Maybe rock bands, too. That would be neat.

So what happened to all those gamer pictures we've downloaded -- and paid for some of them?

I like the avatars, though, and I'm eager to see what all my friends look like when you've converted yourselves into avatari. (I just made up the word "avatari" as a plural for avatar, so we'll see if it catches on. It has sort of a Tolkienish ring to it, don't you think? Remember you read it here first.)

Below is an avatari portrait of a Sythbane Squadron trio: me, Sythbane, with my son Fortiscule and brother jRySix.

A boy and his dog in Fable II

2008-11-13T23:51:00.001-06:00

My review of Fable II ran last week in the newspaper. I've seen some of my friends roaming around Albion. I've moved on to other games in this seasonal glut, but I'll be coming back to Fable II.

This week I've mostly been playing the multiplayer in Quantum of Solace, which is excellent.

The Force is strong in this one (that's what SHE said)

2008-11-11T00:15:00.002-06:00

I know it must be The Dark Side in me talking, but I find this incredibly hot. Any of my fellow geeks feeling the Sith love, too?

Luke, I am your mother. (from CollegeHumor)

Speed monkey

2008-10-30T00:01:00.002-05:00

Has something ever just struck you funny? I laughed so hard at this chimpanzee hauling ass on a scooter while the trainer and cameraman chase him that I almost cried and my stomach cramped up. I know it's a little incongruous for my gaming blog, but what the heck. Everything's better with monkeys.

Indiana-Jones-ulous

2008-10-19T19:00:00.004-05:00

I heard a lot about how bad "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" was, so I put off going to see it in the theater and waited for it to hit DVD.

Last night, my family and my brother's family all watched the DVD together. And to all you who said the movie was bad, I shoot my metaphorical pistol at you as if you are a scimitar-twirling thug. We all thoroughly enjoyed it.

Here's a spoiler alert, because I'm about to list some things I liked about the movie:

- I loved the old guy kicking ass. I'm enough of an old guy now myself that it thrills me to see an old guy open up a can of Whoop Ass Stout. It's like that new Motley Crue song says; if he's going down, he's going down swinging.

- I like the passing of the hat to his son. In a very satisfying way, those scenes bridge the old movies to whatever new ones they want to do with Shia LaBeouf, who performed superbly in the role. Indiana has his old barnstormer-style leather jacket, the second-skin of the wild adventurers of his generation, and Mutt in turn has his own generation's leather jacket. That is way cool. (So why didn't the 12-inch action figure of Mutt include that jacket?!)

- I like Mutt's sword-fighting, coached by his mom. It gives him his own oddball combat skill like Indiana's whip.

- I very much like that Roswell-style aliens were the subject of the big mystery of this film. What bigger mystery is there nowadays which would set the world on its ear if it were true? My brother, jRy6, said he'd heard people complain about the space alien story angle was too hard to believe. My little brother then keenly observed that in the previous movies, angels burst from a golden box that was a radio to God and melted the faces off Nazis, and a 1,000-year-old knight was guarding the Holy Grail, but those circumstances apparently were seen as perfectly feasible compared to space aliens. ... Riiiiight. We might refer you to Bill Maher on that one.

BIG SPOILER ALERT: - I loved the angle that the aliens were archeologists, and knowledge was the treasure they were after. Perfect! What a logic-affirming notion! It reminded me of the Predator being a big game hunter in space, which we all thought was very clever. The idea of interstellar archaeologists actually makes even more sense than trophy hunters, and we had no trouble at all with the idea of space-faring hunters using spears.

- I liked that Indiana married Marion in the end. Just as I was thinking how sad it was that they had wasted so much of their lives apart, Ox (John Hurt) echoes my own thought and remarks on it. It was a lovely bittersweet moment.

- My only minor quibbles with the film would be that the plot was a bit more disjointed than in previous movies, and the aliens would have been a little easier to believe if they had not been interdimensional, but so what. It's an Indiana Jones movie, so I went with it. It wasn't a pretentious bore like "Contact," that's for sure.

Now I wish I'd seen it in the theater.

Rock and Roll fantasy

2008-10-12T19:03:00.009-05:00

Fortiscule and I have been playing Rock Band 2 some more, and I've figured out how to get pictures of our characters from the game. You have to log into EA's Rock Band web site, promise them your firstborn and the blood of an endangered wetlands animal or something -- there was a lot of fine print lawyerese -- and then you can link your game to your profile and the site.

I must say, this is pretty cool. You can also generate 6-inch action figures (which are really statues) based on any of your characters. The catch: it costs $60 to make the figure, but that might not be too much for a special Christmas gift or birthday present. Above you see me, in my white puffy shirt and blue parachute pants, and Fortiscule cavorting on the beach like rock stars do. At left, I point to an adoring fan in the audience so my roadies can bring her backstage for a special autograph session.

At right you see your smoking hot vocalist, Maria.

We're trying to compete in a big competition in Shanghai, and the game forces us to play Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive." The problem is, I can't play the song. Fortiscule plays the guitar on "hard," and I've worked up to playing the bass on "medium." Except for this particular song starts right up with some crazy left hand fretwork that leaves me in a quivery, cursing knot. We might never finish the game at this rate. But, hey, we look cool. Maybe I'll get an action figure of myself.

Here's my official review of Rock Band 2.

First-person shooter training

2008-10-05T16:08:00.004-05:00

Here I am at the range getting in some FPS training with my Lee-Enfield No. 1 Mk III .303 rifle. Fortiscule and I have been playing some Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway this week, so it's got us in a World War II frame of mind. My Lee-Enfield actually dates back to World War I, but British soldiers used them in World War II as well. We might cue up the DVD box set of "Band of Brothers" later tonight.

Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway is of particular interest to me because it depicts a unit that a friend of mine served in. Capt. Wallace Swanson commanded Co. A of the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment (the "Five-Oh-Deuce," as you hear the unit referred to in Hell's Highway and "Band of Brothers") from D-Day, though Operation Market Garden in Holland (the subject of "A Bridge Too Far" and Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway), and on through the siege of Bastogne in The Battle of the Bulge. Wallace, whose wife Jeanne called him "Jake," passed away a few years ago and I had the honor of being one of his pallbearers. I admired him very much as one of my personal heroes. He looked like a movie hero, but he was the real thing, as you can see in this wartime portrait at right.

We're looking forward to mobilizing the entire Sythbane Squadron to play Call of Duty 5 when it comes out, because it's supposed to support four-players in co-op.

A Sunday drive with Crownshend

2008-09-29T23:02:00.012-05:00

My bother, jRy6, and my cousin Crownshend and I have developed a lively rivalry in Forza 2 on Xbox Live. My brother and I both honed our driving game skills on the PS2's Gran Turismo, but Crownshend got a late start with the genre.

Crownshend has progressed rapidly, but as he's learned to drive with a thumbstick, he's been prone to plunge off the track. Often finding himself hopelessly behind, he developed a desperate tactic to entertain himself: He'd turn around and drive to meet the race leader for a head-on surprise.

Needless to say, this was quite alarming the first few times it happened. It does, however, add an interesting element of strategy to the game. If Crownshend gets quiet for a while or disappears from the track radar, you have to start looking ahead for him. It really keeps you on your toes.

Here's a slideshow of a typical encounter with Crownshend:

I turned the tables on him at least once, at Sebring. He had fallen behind and was in missile mode. Running second, I ran off the track in a curve and found myself way behind jRy6, too. Crownshend was running third and trying to catch up to a target. I came to one of those right-angle turns at the end of a long straight-away. I turned the corner and stopped at the end of the straightaway, perpendicular to his path. I was a perfect T-bone target -- irresistible Crownshend bait.

My patience paid off. He saw me lingering in the turn, and he floored it, aiming for my driver's door. At the last moment, I eased on the gas and stepped out of his path like a matador side-stepping a charging bull, and he rammed the wall in a glorious crash of profanity and sheet metal.

Crownshend is young with fast reflexes, and he's a quick study. He's becoming a better driver, often running even with us and sometimes winning, so his desperation moves are becoming infrequent. But he still sneaks a track missile at us once in a while.

He got us again Sunday night before the Xbox Live maintenance outage shut us down. jRy6 was drafting me, trying to find a spot to pass. I saw Crownshend ahead, bearing down on me at ramming speed.

At the last instant, I jinked left to dodge the incoming kamikaze Crownshend. jRy6, on my bumper, didn't see it coming and -- at the same instant -- pulled right to pass me. I missed Crownshend by perhaps a coat of paint, but jRy6 took the impact full in the face. I heard the crash in my right surround-sound speaker, and jRy6 expressed his surprise with some impromptu longshoremen's ballad as Crownshend laughed like a crazy person.

They were still spinning as I crossed the finish line and won the race!

Well played, Crownshend. Well played.

Rock of all ages

2008-09-28T15:29:00.004-05:00

Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together and let's give a big Sythbane Squadron welcome to the new supergroup, ASGARD! (yeeeah.)

Here's my full review of Rock Band 2 on al.com.

I've been dismayed that a joke reference that I sprinkled through my review is perhaps unknown to recent generations of gamers. My friend Kenneth pointed out how long ago "This is Spinal Tap" came out, and it perturbed me. So, to educate those who missed out on this comic masterpiece, here is one of my favorite scenes from the movie, "This one goes to 11 ..."

Rocking out

2008-09-20T14:58:00.003-05:00

I've posted a preliminary "first impressions" review of Rock Band 2 on al.com's Techcetera blog. I'm not quite through with a full review yet, but I wanted to get something out there since it hit this week!

And thanks, as always, to my buddy Fartknockker for his keen insight and comments!

Behold, the Dark Side

2008-09-14T17:37:00.002-05:00

Here's my review of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, posted on the Techcetera blog on al.com. Be sure to read the funny captions!

Hail Flying Monkey Joe! The Mighty Thor is read!

2008-09-05T00:01:00.011-05:00

He did it! My good friend Flying Monkey Joe (that's his code name) has returned from DragonCon with the prize of his quest on my behalf. It is Thor issue #199. As a bonus, he also brought back #201 and an issue from the same era that has both Thor and Conan in it. Who knows what sweaty horrors he endured in Atlanta to retrieve such treasures? I shudder to contemplate it.

He has proved himself to be a mighty comic hunter indeed, and an extraordinary simian soarer! Thanks, Flying Monkey Joe!

I will savor my new/old comic books and report back here on the impressions I have upon reading them.

Thor #199 and me

2008-08-27T23:16:00.004-05:00

Godspeed, Flying Monkey Joe.

My good friend Flying Monkey Joe (that's his code name -- d'ya hear that, ya hayseeds?) is going to DragonCon in Atlanta this weekend. He has his own reasons for going into that great weekend dungeon of geekdom, but he also goes with a quest for me: To seek the Odin-son.
Specifically, to find an original Thor comic, issue #199.

That was my comic book when I was a kid.

My parents were not backward, and they provided plenty of books for my sister and me to read, but somehow comic books got classified as candy or toys instead of literature. I almost never got to read comic books unless I was visiting a friend and got into his stash.

I did manage to claim ownership of at least one comic book, though, and that was Thor #199. If I had any other comic books of my own, I don't remember them, because they fade to oblivion in my memory in the light of Thor's might.

I still remember panels and images from the story. Pluto, in his form-fitting armor, wielding a double-bladed battle ax, his edicts called the ravings of "the mind of a god gone mad." Thor, looming above the battlefield, his red cape billowing about his shoulders as he answers Pluto's challenge: "The God of Thunder dares."

I never knew the context of the story, because I had read none of the other issues as the complex plot unfolded, but it didn't matter. He was a hero who sparked my imagination. A god with the voice of rumbling thunder who stood up against Madness.

I commissioned my grandmother to make me a red flannel cape, and I found a little tack hammer in the junk drawer to serve as mighty Mjolnir. One side of my godly weapon was magnetized to hold tacks, so you wouldn't smash your fingers hammering the tiny brads.

More recently, I've been following the newly relaunched Thor comic, buying each new issue at Double Header sports cards in Gardendale. I also bought Thor Vol. 1, the graphic-novel size compilation of the first several issues of the refurbished story, which captures some of
the brooding power of the old Thor that I remember.

The Thor who forged me in the fires of geekdom still lives.

Same old Clone and dance

2008-08-25T22:47:00.012-05:00

I've recently written reviews on SoulCalibur IV and Too Human. If Too Human is as bad as some reviewers say it is, why can't I quit playing it? I completed the campaign in one weekend, and immediately started a second campaign, and I'm still going. My "champion" class Baldur is up to level 40 now.

Likewise, I'm dismayed by the negative reviews on "The Clone Wars." Perverse contrariness of the fanboy generation is making a lot of people think it's cool to hate George Lucas now, and for what? Making up stories for us to enjoy? (What? "The Clone Wars" wasn't as good as "The Empire Strikes Back"?! We hate him, then! Scorn him! Diss him! Freeze him in carbonite!) ... Come on, all you George haters, lighten up. He's a genius at telling stories with pictures and music, and he's given us a wonderful place for our imaginations to visit. Hating on George Lucas is like hating on Santa Claus, as far as I'm concerned.

"The Clone Wars" is a fun film, reminiscent of the 1930s Saturday morning action serials that helped to inspire "Star Wars" in the first place. It's a computer-animated cartoon. It's clearly not in the same league with one of the films of the main saga, and it's equally obvious that it wasn't meant to be. I took my 13-year-old son and one of his friends to see it, and we all enjoyed it. The vertical battle on the cliff face was a pure "Star Wars" thrill moment, as the transport walker climbed like a big beetle while Ahsoka stands on the front and bats away blaster bolts to defend it. It made us cheer.

It's also interesting to compare Anakin's first attempt at being a mentor, teaching young Ahsoka to be a Jedi, and compare that with the darker, more mature storyline in the forthcoming game The Force Unleashed, as "dark father" Darth Vader takes a Sith apprentice. The parallel of the two stories -- one light, one dark -- is bound to be deliberate.

My apologies to both of my readers for allowing Sythbane Squadron to sit idle for too long. Lately I've felt like Max, the dog in "The Grinch that Stole Christmas," when the sled gets ahead of him and he's running along and being dragged behind it.

The wisdom of the Kung Fu Panda

2008-06-15T19:59:00.004-05:00

We just went to see "Kung Fu Panda" and loved it. Loads of fun, and beautifully animated.

Racing with flying colors in Forza 2

2008-05-23T19:36:00.003-05:00

When jRySix joined the Xbox Nation recently, the first game he bought for himself was Forza Motorsport 2. It's been out a year, and he found it marked down to $15. I bought it so we could race each other online.

I missed this game when it came out, and I was really missing something. It's freaking great. It's a lot like Gran Turismo 4, which jRySix and I both liked immensely, but Forza 2 is much better.

The racing is fun, but the customization features really stand out for me. I love customizing the cars. I painted some like my old Hot Wheels I had when I was a kid, in a metallic green-apple color, but then I thought of creating a theme of fighter plane paint schemes and markings on various cars. My first effort is displayed above, with a Corvette decked out in F-15 colors.

I'm starting to get the feel for some of the graphics editing features, and now I see that I can do almost anything with it. Below is a slide show of some of my cars. I'll see you at the finish line!

I know what you have to do now ...

2008-05-03T20:56:00.003-05:00

"THAT ... was the coolest thing I've ever seen."

-- Lt. Col. James Rhodes

"Iron Man" is fantastic. Go see it this weekend, so it will make enough money to build a dozen Mark III suits, and they'll make another movie immediately.

All Sythbane Squadron members should consider this a scramble alert. We are locked down in full geek mode.

Stay for the scene at the end of the credits.

An inept criminal in GTA IV

2008-05-01T01:23:00.005-05:00

It might be that I'm just terrible at Grand Theft Auto IV.

After all, I was hopeless as a "rogue" in Mass Effect. Even when I tried to play as a bad guy, I ended up making good guy decisions, so I gave up on the red meter. Nor did I have the stomach to ever play as an assassin or thief in Oblivion.

So far, as Niko Bellic, I have taken a woman on a nice date to go bowling, and later took the same girl out to a cabaret show (which was terrible). I also went to play darts with my cousin Roman.

I am, however, a terrible driver, a sure-enough menace on the road. I've "parked" by knocking over a group of pedestrians on the sidewalk like bowling pins as I fumbled for the brake button. Happily, they stood up, dusted themselves off and resumed their conversion, none the worse for wear. I was impressed by their forgiving attitude toward my appalling lack of skill at parallel parking.

I find now that I'm being forced to perform a few nefarious acts at the bidding of an odious fellow named Vlad, but it took me 15 minutes just to figure out how to throw a brick through a window. I haven't even found a gun yet.

On the bright side, I did get a polite kiss from my date after I took her to the cabaret. If I keep behaving like a gentleman, perhaps she will grow fond of me.

Welcome jRySix to the squad!

2008-04-28T14:22:00.004-05:00

Sythbane Squadron has added an important member: my brother, jRySix. I invite all of my online friends to add him to your friends list, too, and I'm sure you'll enjoy having him aboard.

jRySix

So far, he's been learning the rappel ropes of Rainbow Six Vegas 2, playing some campaign missions with me. He's also dived into Forza Motorsports 2. He was a big fan of the PS2's Gran Turismo 4, so he's an excellent virtual driver right out of the starting grid in Forza. Keep an eye out for him in your rear-view mirror!

I'm going to have to buy an Xbox 360 steering wheel controller so I can race him. I'm totally inept on driving games without a steering wheel controller, but jRySix is good at it.

He also has a peculiar talent that some of you might discover soon, when you join him for a game.

No glory for Mandos

2008-04-24T03:06:00.007-05:00

I just finished reading "Star Wars: Republic Commando -- True Colors" by Karen Traviss. I'm generally a fan of Traviss' writing. I admire her keen observations about the nature of clone troopers and the moral corruption of fielding a "slave army" of clones. The book is engaging and has virtues consistent with her other novels, but I found "True Colors" ultimately dissatisfying. If you intend to read the book, please note there are a few spoilers below, so you might want to skip this post until you've read the book yourself.

I forgave Traviss her tendency to skimp on battle scenes with her first foray into the Mandalorian mind in "Hard Contact," the novel that was spun off the video game "Republic Commando." Her observations were fresh, and I like how she developed Mandalorian culture. In the second Republic Commando book, "Triple Zero," I grew impatient with her for misplacing these soldiers, making them do detective work, dwelling on low-key investigations. What a waste of talent and skill! Wouldn't there be actual detectives to do detective work? Commandos should do commando work.

As much as I like Karen Traviss' writing, with "True Colors" I have to say, "Enough already." Have the Star Wars novel publishers forgotten that the Star Wars sage thrives on action? By the end of "True Colors," she has her favorite character, Kal Skirata, actually baby-sitting. All these elite commandos do is walk around and talk, walk around and talk. She has reduced the toughest, smartest, deadliest clone commandos of the Republic to introspective soap opera characters.

Besides the fact that the book is a soap opera rather than an action novel about commandos, I have problems with the soap opera plot itself: I find it completely unbelievable that Jedi Etain would give up her baby. Moreover, despite the author's consistent drumming on the theme that clone troopers should be respected as men, her own characters don't even respect Darman enough to tell him that he's a father.

It's a sad fact that fathers and mothers go off to war in Iraq and leave their children behind every day. So why do Kal, Etain and the rest patronize and disrespect Darman so horrendously to keep such an important truth from him? It's inexplicable, and the story loses authenticity on this point. It appears that they're setting up another Force user to be raised without his parents, and we've all seen how successful that is.

(Just don't even get me started on the Jedi's craven aversion to attachments, namely families -- families which could nurture balanced, mature adult Jedi who would use the Force as most of use it to the best of our ability: to protect our families. For most of us, that means our immediate families, but for some brave souls it also means the larger families of the nation and of humanity itself. But that's a whole different discussion from the one at hand ...)

I won't dwell on these difficulties in the book's plot, because they are not the real problem with "True Colors." What's missing is combat. It's a series about the two most elite commando squads in the Republic, Delta and Omega, yet we never see the teams working together in combat, which was the very essence of the video game that spawned the Republic Commando stories. We never see them doing what they were quite literally born to do, which is to fight. They are commandos, not a vice squad on a stakeout or a bunch of baby-sitters. Traviss need not have left the action out of the story in order to explore the emotional growth of the commandos, and their discovery of their place in Mandalorian culture.

After some reflection on the book, I've realized what I'm missing in reading "True Colors," besides the simple excitement of the action. It's what Traviss and her editors have forgotten, and it could have -- should have -- emerged from combat narrative.

"True Colors" has no glory moment. A glory moment is something we've all felt when watching good movies about soldiers, or reading a good book about them. It's a visceral thrill when we recognize the best and bravest in action in their defining moments. It's when we get goose bumps, shed a tear, clench our teeth or punch the air. It's when we recognize and admire the heroic self-sacrifice of protecting the weak or defending a comrade, the ferocious clash of combat itself and the deadly grace of the warrior.

"True Colors" needs an infusion of testosterone, the merest drop of Chuck Norris' sweat. Navy SEALs inspired the Republic Commando game, yet we never see the Republic commandos, nor the dangerous Null ARCs, do the kind of things that SEALs are famous for doing. Give me character development, certainly, but also give me some pages like a "Demo-Dick" Marcinko book.

Ordo, Mereel, Boss, Sev and the rest are out of their element. It's pathetic at times, like it was to watch CC DeVille on on VH1's "The Surreal Life." Walking around in that house, CC was sadly awkward, a fish out of water. But when you see him shredding his guitar onstage with Poison, the guy is swimming in his own sea and he rocks!

A song styled to be a Mandalorian hymn, "Vode An" (Brothers All) plays in the game menus in Republic Commando. That song captures the characters. The Mandalorians are like Spartans, and they would be moved by battlefield heroism, and maybe they would even admire a "good death" like the men in "300."

I started brainstorming scenes like I'm talking about -- the kind that is missing from "True Colors" -- and I started ticking off a list. These scenes are in movies and we're talking about a book, I know, but you still get this kind of moment in books. I figured most of you would remember these scenes, so they would illustrate my point. So, to suggest the kind of scene that the Republic Commando series needs, the kind of visceral response it should evoke at least once per book, I offer this list of glory moments:

- The entire film "Gladiator," especially two scenes: The prelude and battle with the barbarians, when we see Maximus charging from the forest behind the dogs of war; and then in the Arena when Maximus barks orders and points directions with his gladius from the back of a raring white horse. Those scenes, with the soundtrack, are magnificent.

- The scene in "Glory" when Private Trip (Denzel Washington) says, "... we men, ain't we?" Poignant and stirring.

- "Band of Brothers," the entire series, and especially the scenes with the Currahee suite music as they train, and the scene of the C-47s droning toward Normandy for D-Day, and then the battle for the gun emplacement when Buck Compton throws the grenade like a baseball. And also in the Battle of the Bulge when Capt. Speirs runs through the German lines and saves the day. I get goose bumps just thinking about that scene.

- The sniper, Private Daniel Jackson (Barry Pepper) reciting Bible verses as he fires his Springfield in "Saving Private Ryan."

- Conan, his body streaked with black ash for camouflage, flourishing his sword as he squares off with Thulsa Doom's henchman.

- In "The Last of the Mohicans" when Hawkeye (Daniel Day-Lewis) runs through a battlefield to try to reach his woman to save her, hooking his tomahawk under the ankle of a Huron and charging through the chaos.

- "300," King Leonidas in battle, carving up Immortals with his sword and then raring back to hurl a javelin like an image from a classical Greek urn. And come to think of it, notice how the Spartan's helmet visor is shaped. Looks like a certain Mandalorian helmet, doesn't it? It also matches the Republic Commando armor.

- The charge of the Light Brigade.

- "Serenity," when River says, "My turn," and proceeds to cut the reavers to ribbons to defend her fallen brother and comrades. She's like a goddess of war incarnate.

- The armored samurai emerging from the misty forest in "The Last Samurai."

- The premiere of "Battlestar Galactica," when Starbuck bellows with impatient rage and charges alone into the teeth of the attacking Cylons to defend her tribe, with a drumbeat accenting the primordial emotion.

- "Platoon," Sgt. Elias running through forest like a deer, slaying enemies right and left as he fires his M-16 from the hip.

- Boromir's last stand defending the hobbits in "The Fellowship of the Ring." This scene of Boromir's redemption, his utter ferocity in defending his childlike companions, never fails to bring tears to my eyes.

- Eomer's cavalry plunging down the mountain in a flashing cascade of steel to smash the orcs besieging Helm's Deep in "The Two Towers."

- The host of Rohan lined abreast to charge into the Pelennor Fields at the siege of Minas Tirith, and King Theoden's ride along the line, tapping the swords and lances of his men with his own sword. "The Return of the King."

- "The Outlaw Josey Wales" gunfighting, and when he parlays with the Indian chief who says, "There is iron in your words."

I'm still a fan of Karen Traviss. I'll buy her next book and read it, because I'm really curious how her characters will respond to Order 66. But for now, I'm going to read some Robert E. Howard and eat some beef jerky.

Out on a limb about nudity in games?

2008-04-19T14:55:00.017-05:00

After my essay "A game of double standards" ran on the commentary section front of last Sunday's newspaper, I expected some controversy. I was going to really get flamed in the letters to the editor, I figured. But what happened?

Nothing.

The only reaction I got was a smattering of compliments this week. My wife liked the essay. She was the one who encouraged me to submit my blog post "Severed heads, naked breasts and video games" to the newspaper in the first place. She said the staff at the restaurant where she works generally agreed with it. My mother-in-law said she liked it and agreed, and my dad liked it, too.

Thinking that the newspaper's video-game-oriented readers might have missed the essay (which ran with no pictures) in the commentary section of the web site, I reposted it on Techcetera, the newspaper's video gaming blog, with some photos, hoping to tap some more readers and maybe stir up some reactions. Still nothing.

Later in the week, MTV Multiplayer game journalist Patrick Klepek, who has been diligently tracking the issue of censorship in video games, posted an update on an ESRB edict about the ratings of downloadable content. Mandatory game downloads such as patches must keep the same rating as the original game, he reported, but optional downloadable content could carry a different rating than the core game. I couldn't resist the urge to respond, posting this comment:

"Does that mean that “Adults Only”-rated optional, downloadable content might become available on Xbox Live? Microsoft bans AO-rated games, but since the core game’s rating remains the same, the ban would still be upheld. After all, R-rated movies (and unrated director’s cuts) are already available on the Xbox Live Marketplace. And what’s to stop game makers from likewise offering “unrated” optional, downloadable content?"

Then, as you can see, a guy responded to my comment, basically dismissing my notion as pie in the sky. That torqued me up for another soapbox speech, hoping that MTV Multiplayer would reach a wider audience than my humble Sythbane Squadron blog, or even the newspaper's gaming blog. I posted my second comment:

“Dr. Proctor” might be correct in predicting how this ESRB edict will be applied. However, as an adult consumer of video games, I’m angry at being patronized by the ESRB, by Microsoft and by game makers.

The status quo will remain until sensible consumers stand up to say the emperor has no clothes: Microsoft’s AO-game ban is hypocritical in light of the R-rated and unrated movie content available for download on the Xbox Live Marketplace. The video game industry must assert itself and offer grown-up “R-rated” content if it ever wants to be taken seriously as a grown-up entertainment medium and not merely a kiddie venue. We game consumers would support more choices with our wallets, if ever given the chance. And as a parent, I don’t need the ESRB to tell me what I can and can’t allow my kid to see or play. Just describe the content, and I’ll
make that decision myself, thank you.

The key to understanding media coverage is the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Media coverage of adult content in video games has developed the way it has because sensible people too often have allowed themselves to be shouted down in public discourse. In the Mass Effect controversy, voices of truth and common sense rose up against the outright lies that were being tossed around by hysterical people, and the media coverage (led by the gaming press) dutifully shifted to hear those voices. It is possible for common sense to prevail, but the industry continues to pander the hysterical people who know nothing about games, on the assumption that they are more politically powerful. I believe the truth is that the hysterical people are simply louder, not more powerful.

Why are there are no checks on the ESRB’s apparent iron-fisted authority in controlling our entertainment choices? And why is there still no video game content rating analogous to an R? The ESRB is not a government agency with police powers, yet no one challenges its decisions. I understand the subtle role it plays in allowing the industry to regulate itself, by deflecting calls for government regulation of games, but it oversteps its role when it keeps the entire industry from growing up. Surely some way can be devised to allow adult video game consumers more choices, while maintaining suitable content labels and warnings for parents. This new ESRB stance on downloadable content could allow a way for that to happen.

This comment has yet to generate any more comments, and likely won't since the original post has descended on the blog.

All of which leaves me to wonder: What's going on here? If what I'm saying is met with widespread agreement, why are things the way they are? Why is violence accepted and nudity rejected in video games? How can the natural and beautiful image of a woman's breast -- that which nourishes us in our infancy and provides inspiration for much of the greatest art in the world -- is banned as pornographic, while the revolting sight of a butchered human being, a severed head, is socially acceptable for even children to see?

My dad suggested, "Maybe they just haven't thought it through."

So despite my efforts to help people think it through, the lack of response suggests that maybe it's just that nobody cares. Gamers must be perfectly happy with the ESRB's puritanical tyranny over game content, and the elephant-in-the-room hypocrisy of retailers, console makers and game makers about AO games.

Is everyone really content with the authenticity and realism of the Playtex-style bras and panties on the women of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion?

Was no one else frustrated by the black screen that popped up when you finally managed to bed your mate in Fable, instead of a real love scene?

Nobody else was disappointed by the absurdly tame love scene in Mass Effect, after all the hype about its inclusion in the so-called "mature" game? What you see at left is the extent of the nudity in the scene -- a side view of Liara's bare blue hip, revealing not much more than a bikini at the beach would reveal. The scene caused much ado about nothing.

Nobody else finds it outrageous that this censorship is practiced with such draconian zeal in the video game industry, yet you can download R-rated and unrated torture-porn flicks such as "Saw IV" on the very same Xbox that bans you from seeing a harmless breast or butt in a game? (The perverse illogic of this must be what drives me nearly to obsession on this issue, I think.)

Does anyone but me look forward to the day when a role-playing game is really realistic? When you can strip your character down to the flesh in the equipping screen, just as you do with the real-life "equipping screen" of the bathroom mirror? Wouldn't it be fun to tattoo your whole body like a Celtic berserker and go into battle naked in a game like Fable or Oblivion? Maybe your ancestor did that for real 1,000 years ago. Where else could you do something like that without getting arrested, except in a video game?

Does anybody else hope we'll someday see an honest-to-goodness love scene like you'd see on HBO or "Skinamax" when a love scene occurs in a video game? Not crass pornography, just something like the love scene between King Leonida and Queen Gorgo in "300."

Doesn't anybody else hope for the day when a fantasy video game will really look like a sexy, beautiful painting by Frank Frazetta, or a description in Robert E. Howard's "Conan" novels? At right is a thumbnail of "The Moon's Rapture" by Frazetta. I'd love to have a framed print of this painting. But art like this is considered way too "dirty" for video games, even the ones that only adults are allowed to buy.

Maybe other gamers really are content with the way things are. Perhaps nobody else yearns for video games that respect us as adults.

It sure is lonely out on this limb.

Naked breasts vs. severed heads, Round 2

2008-04-13T21:01:00.008-05:00

A previous post I wrote on Sythbane Squadron called "Naked Breasts, Severed Heads and Video Games" reached a wider audience today. A shortened version of it called "A Game of Double Standards" appeared in the newspaper, in the Sunday Commentary section of today's Birmingham News and on al.com.

The essay was shortened for space and toned down a little, but the theme is intact. It is expresses my dismay at how retailers have no problem with selling movies laden with brutal violence and torture, and despite their shrill condemnation of video games that depict nudity as indecent, nobody cares that they show a grotesque decapitated head on a DVD cover at kid's-eye level on the shelf. Even though such horrific violence in movies is routine, nudity and sensuality in video games are almost completely banned, even for games that are sold only to adults.

The condescending censorship applied to video games outrages me as an adult consumer. Why are video games with content analogous to R-rated movies banned? Nobody should be able to tell me that I can't buy a video game that includes some grown-up content. I can readily purchase an R-rated movie, but content that would give a movie an "R" would earn the "Adults Only" rating for a game -- which means it would be banned from the major game consoles, and it would be banned by major retailers.

More than the censorship issue, it appalls me that our society deems a naked human body more obscene than a butchered one.

Game Hard

2008-04-12T13:37:00.006-05:00

"Walk Hard" is a movie that speaks to me, mumbling like Elvis, leaving me confused and laughing until my stomach hurts.

To see what I'm talking about, read a few lines from Dewey Cox's song "Royal Jelly," and I know it will touch you the way it touched me:

Mailboxes drip like lampposts in the twisted birth canal of the coliseum
Rim job fairy teapots mask the temper tantrum
O' say can you see 'em
Stuffed cabbage is the darling of the Laundromat
'N the sorority mascot sat with the lumberjack
Pressing passing stinging half synthetic fabrication of his-- Time
The mouse with the overbite explained how the rabbits were ensnared
'N the skinny scanty sylph trashed the apothecary diplomat
Inside the three-eyed monkey within inches of his toaster oven life
-- Dewey Cox, "Royal Jelly"

Three-eyed monkey indeed, Dewey. Three-eyed monkey, indeed!

Darth Talon art worth framing

2008-04-05T15:26:00.006-05:00

The new "Legacy of the Force" Star Wars Miniatures series is out now. I have only three boxes so far, and the characters are cool, especially the red-armored Imperial Knights.

The box art is incredible. The painting of Darth Talon that graces one box is worth framing as an art print. Now I'm going to be looking for a print! In the meantime, I'm going to use some of these box covers as backgrounds for shadow boxes to display my collection. The other two boxes feature Boba Fett and Luke Skywalker.

I buy all my Miniatures from Double Header Sports Cards in Gardendale, Alabama. It's a mom-and-pop shop, and my friend Greg keeps all the latest Star Wars stuff well stocked. Go buy some Star Wars stuff from them and tell them Sythbane sent you!

Jackasses hurt gaming's bottom line

2008-04-03T01:12:00.006-05:00

My theory that being a jackass in online gaming is a bad thing is bolstered today by a new article on Gamasutra by a game developer. Bill Fulton, who worked on Shadowrun, asserts in his essay, "Fixing Online Gaming Idiocy: A Psychological Approach," that online jerks are hurting the game industry by driving new customers away.

Research shows, he says, that new players would rather not play at all than subject themselves to all the verbal abuse. Fulton advocates engineering game features to create a social environment that discourages jerkism.

Not long ago I wrote about "Gamers at their worst," where I vented my outrage at the rampant use of the "N-word" in online games. It's encouraging to see that game companies have a financial incentive to build games in such a way to discourage awful behavior.

The bottom line is the only reason companies ever do anything. If they can make more money by creating a social environment online where it's uncool to spew racist, homophobic and generally crass babble, then more power to them.

I am frustrated, though, that withdrawing from a game early is classified as jerkish behavior. Many games penalize you for leaving early, and Xbox Live gamers can "avoid" you for it. I've been subjected to people leaving the game for no apparent reason, which can be annoying, but there are MANY legitimate reasons for leaving a game. The phone rings and it's an important call. The dog has to go out. Your wife needs help with the groceries. Or, you might want to check out of a game because the room is full of jerks spouting the N-word. You leave, because you're sick of hearing it, and then some jerk labels you a quitter.

What's the answer to that dilemma? Looks like some social engineering is in order, Mr. Fulton.

See my Rainbow Six Vegas 2 review

2008-03-30T18:54:00.004-05:00

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 has the best customization features of any game I know of, including role-playing games.

That's one highlight of my newly posted review of the game, which you can read on al.com's Techcetera blog.

I must thank several of my online friends for unknowingly contributing to my review during the course of talking or playing with me: Fortiscule, Fartknockker, TheJoeyMo, StylishFever, Daddy Rocks LV and the cryptically named IC3W01Fcp666 (Ice Wolf). I hope you'll all recognize your particular contribution.

Don't miss the cool stuff about the Barrett M-468 on the second page of the review. It was interesting to me, so I thought you fellows might find it interesting as well.