I've been totally unhappy the past several months with using Livejournal as a mechanism for posting the random thoughts, reviews, and detritus that fills my skull.

After a series of conversations with Stacey, I was convinced to migrate to an installation of Wordpress that I could host myself. This brings lots of things to the table, not the least of which being a solid RSS feed that actually, you know, works, as well as other happy stuff like, oh, "being indexed by search engines in a non-stupid way" and the like.

I will likely continue to post "locals only" stuff here - party invites and the like - but otherwise, I'm moving on to the domain I've owned for 15 years:

www.gaijin.com

Come find me there.

Goodbye, MOSFET. You were a good cat. You let me scratch your belly.

And you played with the Bunny With the Butthole Mouth.

So, yeah. I've been playing Left 4 Dead 2, aka "Left5Dead".

It's . . . okay. It's a good game! But it's really just a polish on top of Left 4 Dead (which I loved). It's the same game, only with new maps, new weapons, a couple new special infected, and a couple new game play modes.

It should probably have dropped as downloadable content.

I have nothing really to praise overtly - it's really just polish on something that already shined - but I do have a gripe:

Seriously, Valve? It's been 2 years since the last Half-Life update. What's up with Episode 3?

Oh yeah. Livejournal.

This is new:



I'll spare all of you the details which I think are awesome but will likely disgust you.

This is an addendum to my previous post about syncing Google Calendar with the iPhone, in which I discuss what I have learned.

First, there is no way to sync events from the iPhone calendar that you create in iPhone local calendars to Google. Just give it up.

(A senior project for some enterprising CS student could be to make a way to read the iPhone's calendar cache and create a sync system. Such a thing might be welcomed. FYI.)

Anyways.

You can create events on the iPhone and have them sync to Google. Just, you know, be sure to select the Google calendar when you create the event. Done. It will sync to Google inside of 5 minutes or less.

Modifying the event on either end will cause the changes to reflect on the the other - though with a little lag time.

Problem: Creating an event in Google calendar will not create alerts for you on the iPhone. So you may want to create events on the iPhone first.

Problem: By default, Google calendar will email you alerts about meetings and such. Disable that shit ASAP.

By default, iPhone is set to create events inside its local calendar. You can fix this under settings.

I started to try to get Sunbird to sync to Google calendar but gave up. What's the point? I can just load google.com/calendar in the browser.

So, is there any way to sync appointments I make *ON* the phone up to Google Calendar? There doesn't seem to be an easy^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hany way to do this, which I consider to be a bit of a failing.

I have discovered the following magick:

1) I can create an account on the phone for an Exchange server and point it at google calendar. This allows stuff created on *Google* to sync to the phone.

2) However, in order for me to create appointments on the Phone and sync them to Google, I have to create the appointment in the "google" thing, which I don't suppose is so bad except that I have several years worth of stuff already in there.

Is there any way to get those older appointments moved over *at all*?

This post is about recent changes to network technology in my household and discusses problems and how I solved them. Unless you are interested in my experiences with home networking and the like, this will be of no interest to you whatsoever.

I swear.
( Cut for Nerdity )

Dear Lazyweb,

I am looking for information about - or even proof of existence of - "modern" day hobos. Not bums or homeless people, but hobos. People who move place to place, usually by trains, and do pick up work.

Any help will be appreciated, my little Google-monkeys.

Love, Jorm.

Today, after what amounts to several days of addiction-style playing, Maynard and I finished Assassin's Creed II, the sequal to last year's unsurprisingly titled Assassin's Creed.

Previously and previously, I had written not one but two reviews about the game wherein I complained about many flaws and bad design decisions therein - one before full completion and one after. Because my opinion about the game changed so radically with completion, I decided to wait until I was done playing this one.

Bullet Points, I Can Haz Them.

1) It has been a long, long time since a game addicted me to this level;
2) My playing it got Maynard addicted, and he ended up logging more hours into it than I did;
3) All the shit I hated about the first one is gone.
4) In my opinion, it is currently tied with Batman: Arkham Asylum for my Game-of-the-Year (my review)

Ten-Thousand Feet Fall Into a Bale of Hay.

Assassin's Creed 2 is a third-person perspective parkour platformer with plenty of pernicious perfidity in the form of fatal face-stabbings and stupefying stunts. It has four primary gameplay elements: killification, explorification, renovation, and stamp-collectification.

If you've ever played any of the modern Prince of Persia games, you'll have an idea of how the parkour/platforming mechanics work. While the first game's parkour was ultimately kind of weak, this one uses a lot of the actions from the 2008 Prince of Persia reboot. The controls can be both super fluid and frustratingly difficult. However, while in Prince of Persia, the parkour is super important, AC2 is more about the act of, you know, assassinification of dudes.

Hence the title.

Let's Talk About Sex, Baby.

Oh, man. There are sooooo many great gameplay elements introduced here.

First, unlike the first game, where you could only blend into certain types of crowds and had to follow their pre-defined paths, you can blend into any crowd now. You immediately become invisible to guards if you're standing in a crowd. It's a kind of "group camo" and it's a powerful bit of strategy.

Second, (and the most useful element, in my opinion) is the ability to hire groups of NPCs to do your bidding:

1) Whores, who are "excellent" at distracting guards for you, cannot follow you on rooftops, and are shit-ass at fighting for you;
2) Thieves, who are "okay" at distracting guards for you, can follow you over rooftops, and are "okay" at fighting for you;
3) Mercenaries, who can't follow you over rooftops and cannot distract shit, but are "excellent" at killifying people for you.

The best part of any of these groups is that hiring them provides you with a "group camo" that moves with you. I spent a hell of a lot of time wandering the cities surrounded by a bevy of hookers.

Much like my real life.

Moving on.

The collectible system has been revamped and is actually fucking useful and fun. There are about five major kinds of collectibles, and they range from treasure chests to paintings to pages of the Assassin's Codex (you want all of them), to Assassin Tomb seals (you really want all of these - there are six, and getting each one is a hell of a lot of fun), to the trivial (eagle feathers).

Most of them are used to increase the value of your family's villa, which is the entire "renovation" gameplay. As your villa gets more valuable, it earns more money. This bit was a bit unbalanced; about halfway through the game we discovered we had no real need to obtain money because we had a stash of 300,000 florins on hand at all times.

The most fun (for me) collectible were the "glyphs". Unlocking each one was a kind of "memory hack" that sort of explained where humanity came from - the origin of the species, as it were.

Gone are the tedious, repetition missions. Gone is the unavoidable combat. Gone is the tedious combat. Introduced are a bunch of cool new weapons (poisoned blades, a pistol, multiple assassin blades, etc.).

Time Keeps on Slippin', Slippin', Into the Future.

Storywise, AC2 is a much tighter, well-built beast than it's predecessor. The game takes place in 15th century Italy. There are several major cities that you will get to explore fully (Florence, Tuscany, Forli, and Venice) plus a couple "half-cities" (the Villa, a country-side, and eventually a bit of Rome).

There are a couple really famous people that you interact with for a bit (who knew that Machiavelli was a member of the Assassin Order?) but the bee's knees is that you have a big relationship to Leonardo Da Vinci. Leonardo does all sorts of cool things for you - building your bad-ass weapons, translating Codex Pages, giving you missions, whatever.

The cities themselves are vibrant, living things. Each one has a deep history and identity and they do a good job of immersing you in the culture and time.

The "core" story arc - the one that takes place in the "present" - is significantly better explained and much tighter. There seems to be A Plan now, and that will pay out in the next game (I expect - it kind of ends on a "To Be Continued").

And In the End...

Buy this game. It's easily 40 or 50 hours worth of stabbifying fun.

I have now finished Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. I am decidedly in the "thumbs down" camp about it, for several reasons which I shall attempt to express in a humorous manner.

This will be filled with spoilers. They won't make much of a difference, though; knowing what is "going to happen" won't change your enjoyment of the game since most levels are basically the opening sequence to Saving Private Ryan, only in different terrains.

We'll cut into sections.

( Cut for Space )

For my upcoming "Churchmice" horror game, I've been playing around with various types of systems. At first I was thinking to just simply not use a system but that seemed to point towards chaos. Then I thought to use something along the lines of "rock/paper/scissors" for resolutions.

That actually seemed too limited: I wanted to allow players to say "my mouse is super fast" or "my mouse is super strong" and then doing things like granting bonuses to things like dodging got overcomplicated. How do you handle that when there are only ever three outcomes (win, loss, tie)?

What I'm currently working on is a system that has everything handled with a single die roll on a d6, combined with a series of "trait cards." Any task that requires resolution is rolled on a d6. At least, I'm currently thinking to just use a single d6 (it may be that I want to move to 2d6).

TRAIT CARDS

Trait cards are "playable" during Events (or "encounters"). A played card will modify a thrown die. This does not have to be the player's die; it could be an opponent's (see below).

Trait cards have names and effects that make sense but are also *very* simple and basic. They are spendable bonuses on die roles and map to what amount to basic attribute scores:

FAST: Applies +1 to anything involving speed (including dodging). Playing this card is like tapping the nitrous pedal in a car.

STRONG: Applies +1 to anything involving strength/body toughness (including damaging other things). Playing this card is like forcing an endorphin boost.

SMART: Applies +1 to anything involving brains. Playing this card is like forcing a lightbulb to go off in your head.

LUCKY: Applies +2 to anything, given GM's permission. Playing this card is like, well. Lucky. This trait card costs twice as much to buy as the others.

I am toying with other traits ("resilient", maybe, or "holiness"), but I'm not sure how well they'll mesh.

Once a trait card is played, it's gone for the rest of the encounter. Players will get to pick 5 (actual number TBD) trait cards at the beginning of the game. So if a player wants thier mouse to be really fast, they might just pick five "Fast" cards, giving them what amounts to a shit-ton of dodge.

For ease of gameplay, we just assume that all mice (and similar creatures) have the exact same "stats". This way we don't have to worry about math, only the trait cards (with what amounts to two exceptions - species advantages/disadvantages and injury - below).

As long as the GM allows for it, trait cards can be thrown on anyone's dice attempt - even an enemy's. So, a mouse could throw a "Fast" down on a cat's attack roll, reducing it's chance to hit (which is how "dodge" would work).

TASK RESOLUTION

For the most part, most tasks should be story-determined and not require rolls. For example, if a mouse says "I want to climb the rope", it should automatically succeed (this is something mice do). Unless, of course, he's trying to climb a rope that's on fire, or trying to do so while being attacked by a crow, or some other kind of duress.

A die is rolled. The result determines the degree of success, thus:

ONE Abysmal failure; there will be some sort of negative effect.
TWO Failure with no negative effects (other than failing)
THREE Failure, but only barely. If the task could be attempted again, give 'em a +1 next time.
FOUR Success, but just barely. Could be negative effects (e.g., the mouse makes the jump, but is stuck hanging to the ledge)
FIVE Straight success.
SIX Superb success. May grant future bonuses (e.g., if trying to understand some writing, the mouse will get a +1 on future attempts from the same book).

Players may play Trait cards on their own die rolls either before or after the roll.

If the player is playing a Trait card on a roll that is not theirs (including another player's), the card must be played before the die is cast.

Exception: "Lucky" cards can be played at any time.

Initiative is a special resolution; all characters involved roll a d6 and then go in descending order. Players may spend Fast cards on initiative checks.

(Play examples are below)

SPECIES TRAITS

Since cats, mice, rats, owls, snakes, and humans have different characteristics, we have specialized trait values that are applied to them but only when interacting with other species. Human beings have relatively the same speed, but compared to a human, a mouse is "faster". Thus, if a human is trying to swat a mouse, he's going to have a -3 on that attampt always. However, a human is nearly always going to do 45 points of damage to a mouse if he connects, while a cat will only do 1 or 2.

This is going to be very vague; I could make a big chart, but we'll just let the GMs handle it as they see fit.

INJURY

Mice are going to have three states: Healthy, Injured, Dead.

Most mice have 2 "injury levels" or hit points. If a mouse takes an injury level, they're given an Injury card. If you get more Injury cards than you have hit points, that's it: death.

In every task resolution, the Injury cards are applied. They are not applied per event but serve as a permanent (until healed) -1 penalty to all actions. If you have two Injury cards, you're at -2.

Variant: allow mice to buy an extra injury level in exchange for a trait card (thus buff mice who are less capable), or buy an extra trait card in exchange for an injury level (thus we have a weak mouse who may be extra smart).

In combat, if a "hit" is scored, the GM makes a "damage" roll for the mouse. The mouse can apply either Strength or Fast cards to the roll. If the end result is a 3 or 4, the mouse takes an Injury card. If it's a 6, the mouse takes 2 Injury cards. If this results in more Injury cards than the mouse has available... Well. That's that. Meeces to pieces.

EVENTS

Game time is divided into Events. An Event is of an arbitrary and vague length of time, determined by the GM, but nearly always consists of a single encounter or series of chained tasks. The obvious choice here is a single combat, but it gets trickier when you do things like "study" tasks. In that case, an "Event" is anything from a couple hours time to an entire day, depending.

For example, if a character is trying to decipher the text in the crumbling book and chooses to do nothing else, the Event for that may take a full "day period".

At the conclusion of an Event, the player will get all of his cards back. Events are always considered to be "over" if the character loses consciousness.

PLAY EXAMPLES

Combat: Cat Versus Mouse

Cats have a +1 damage bonus when hitting Mice and Mice have a -2 damage bonus when trying to hurt Cats. Otherwise, it's all the same.

Our cat, Caesar, has 4 trait cards: 3 Fast and 1 Strength. The mouse, Mark, has 5 trait cards: 3 Fast, 1 Strength, and 1 Lucky.

Initiative is rolled:

Caesar rolls a 4 and applies a Fast card, giving him a value of 5.
Mark rolls a 3 but decides not to apply a Fast card, since he's going to go second anyways and wants to save the card.

Caesar takes a swipe with his paw at Mark. Mark's player declares that he is going to apply not one but two Fast cards to dodge the attack. Caesar rolls a 4 - a marginal success - but this is reduced to 2 given Mark's dodge, so it's a failure.

(At this point, Caesar has 2 Fast and 1 Strength card while Mark has 1 Fast, 1 Strength, and 1 Lucky card).

Mark decides to book across the room to a mouse hole. Normally, this would just be an action, but he has to get around Caesar to do so, and it's under duress. Having spent two cards already, Mark doesn't want to waste them ahead of time, and just decides to roll. Caesar, being sneaky, plays a Fast card to prevent Mark from succeeding. The die roll is a 3, resulting in a 2 (minus 1 from Caesar's card).

Mark could spend his last Fast card now but still won't succeed so he decides to save it.

(At this point, Caesar has 1 Fast and 1 Strength card while Mark has 1 Fast, 1 Strength, and 1 Lucky card).

Caesar decides to end this and attacks. Mark decides that he really doesn't want to get hit, and spends a Fast card. The die result is a 6, reduced to 5 from Mark's Fast card. Caesar, however, is a bit of an asshole, and now spends a Fast card (he can affect his roll after the fact), bringing the result back up to a 6. This is a "superb" hit, and the GM says that it will give Caesar a +1 on his damage roll.

(At this point, Caesar has 1 Strength card while Mark has 1 Strength, and 1 Lucky card).

Caesar spends his last card (Strength) on the damage. Mark counters it by spending his Strength card to resist the damage - thus flattening the bonus. The die result is a 3 - but cats are +1 damage versus mice, which results in a 4, which means a success for Caesar. Mark is now given a single Injury card, having gotten smacked in the head, and is now at a -1 penalty for every action.

(At this point, only Mark has a card - a Lucky).

Mark decides that he absolutely wants to get the hell out of town, so he tries his escape roll again. This time he rolls a 4 - marginal success. However, he's at -1 due to injury, so this reduces it to a 3 (marginal failure). He decides to spend his Lucky card, which gives him a +2 bonus (resulting in a 5 - straight success). Mark manages to duck and weave through Caesar's paws and escape through a hole in the wall.

I'm about halfway through this game, Modern Warfare 2.

I'm not a fan so much yet.

It seems every mission is either

a) Pure "Run n' Gun";
b) Run n' Gun with a stupid gimmick (e.g., "tell the tank to actually shoot people instead of sitting there stupid"); or
c) Something Neat and Different that quickly turns into A or B.

I'm on some oil rig right now. The first part of the mission was the fucking bomb: SEAL stealth infiltration, killifying dudes, rescuing hostages. Then, suddenly, it turned into "Waves of Enemies that Keep Respawning until you Move Forward to an Arbitrary Checkpoint." How there seem to be an infinite number of Russians on board a fucking oil rig I'll never know.

So, does it get better?

To my mind, "modern warfare" isn't so much Running and Gunning. It's sitting far the fuck away and killifying dudes with predator drones (which you get to do, actually - but only for like, 3 seconds). Modern warfare is about killing as few people as possible.

It's very pretty. But the story line is. . . actually pretty fucking laughable.

Seriously, guys? Red Dawn? That's your plot?

There was a big deal made about a "controversial" mission in the game. Well, that mission was pure option C there. In the mission, you play an undercover CIA operative who has infiltrated some Russian terrorist group. And your terror cell waltzes into an airport and murders all the civilians. That's the mission: kill civilians. And you have to do it. (Of course, it quickly turns into a Run n' Gun, and is promptly followed by your character getting shot in the head and killed).

I can see why people call it controversial but it was supposed to be emotional or something like that. I didn't feel anything of the sort; it was pretty much the third mission (and only the second playing that specific character), so I didn't give a fuck about him, and, well, you know, I've played a lot of Grand Theft Auto. Mowing down civilians is a hobby in that game, so doing so in CoD:MW2 evoked the same response.

Anyways. Not seeing the hype so much. Maybe it gets better. I'll definitely finish it but I'm kind of sad I blew the dosh on this.

First off, Fuck You for making me a beta tester without me opting in. This is like, the fifth time that's happened.

Second, what the fuck is this happy horseshit?




(I know this person is a friend of someone I know and so forth. My complaint is not about them or the message, but the fact that some random joe has been inserted into my timeline now.)

I've trained my eyes to ignore lines that start "RT @Whoever". I'm not interested in that. Now I have them just showing up wherever and whenever?

I'm sure someone thought this was a good idea but no, no.

My review of 2012 is really, I think about, the director. So be warned.


Let's just get the obvious out of the way: Rolan Emmerich directs porn. It may not be porn that shows penises and va-jay-jays, but it is porn. To be precise, he directs disaster porn. Which, like, you know, sexy porn, has a direct correlation between "excitement" and "plausability".

Stargate was his first real foray into porn. It's relatively softcore in nature - the type of stuff that shows up on Cinemax late at night. Totally not plausible, but then it's a movie about aliens and really how often do scads of horny cheerleaders check into super expensive hotels in the Carribbean? Not often, I tell you.

His next film - Independence Day - was his first foray into the XXX genre, and despite some flaws it was a fun ride. High budget, some A-list stars, and a plot that provided moderate entertainment during the "down time". Still smack full of implausability (who believes anyone when they say "It's okay; I've been snipped!") but okay.

Then he did Godzilla, which was. . . well. Remember that time you pulled down a movie because it had some great keywords in the description, and it was kind of hot for a while, and then suddenly someone is peeing on someone else and the film has gone to "nonononono" land? Godzilla is like that.

Then he did an artsy porn, The Patriot. This was the disaster porn equivalent of The Story of O: overly long, too much talking, and then the mood is ruined when Udo Kier opens his mouth. Someone gets "stabbed" with a "flagpole", there are some jingoist words spoken, and we reach for the tissues.

Emmerich returned to his XXX strengths with The Day After Tomorrow, which was also wonderfully implausible but hey, some people find Ron Jeremy attractive.

Let's just not talk about 10,000 BC because that was more like one of those incomprehensible flicks that get churned out of basement studios in Italy.

This brings us to 2012. In this film, Roland is trying to break that mythical "fourth X" wall. It's what my friend Christian calls "Spleen Porn": the film doesn't fuck around with foreplay; it goes straight for the starfish, do not pass go, do not collect two-hundred dollars. What we call a "plot" is really just the DVD menu flickering around as one picks a "chapter".

If you like this kind of porn, this movie is for you. It's long, though, so bring extra kleenex.

My next "game event," entitled "The Mischief of the Great Squee," poses several problems with regards to the gaming "system."

Specifically, it doesn't lend itself to . . . well. Any of them that I or any of my players may be familiar with. I mean, the player characters are going to be churchmice. The game is "Rats of NIMH" meets "Prince of Darkness".

(The closest system that might work that I can come up with is Bunnies and Burrows, a game from the Dark Period of the 1980s. I am pretty sure I own a copy of it, but I don't remember seeing it in a long time, so who knows. My library has about 30 years of gaming cruft built up; shit gets lost.)

So, for real. I could spend a lot of time hacking together some simple d20 variant, or even a d100 thing, but what's the point?

All of the characters are mice.

What's the point of picking up skills? They all have the same ones: running, climbing, hiding, chewing up shit. They all have the same claw/claw/bite attacks. There doesn't seem to be a lot of point in spending a lot of time trying to hammer a basic system into a game that will be comprised entirely of "special rules."

So, I think I'm going to go, uh, "systemless." No dice, no structure, no nothing. Just players saying "I do this" and then the GMs saying whether or not it works based on the needs of the story at the time.

My hope is that this grants more power to the players to define what happens. If they can justify how and why they should be allowed to do something, why the fuck not? If the players get too clever early on, we just ratchet up the bad-assery of the conflict to match the storyline as is being "written" by the players.

So, anyone have experience running a purely "systemless" game, and know of any caveats I should be aware of?

The next Cthulhu game is coming. This one is . . . radically different. Here is some background story.

This is the story that the Eldest Mouse tells to the pups.

"Gather 'round, little ones, you pups, you squee, and I shall tell the story of how we came to be.

Once upon a time, here in fair Jaru-Selme, we were but dumb and liken to those we call "squeakers". The gift of speech was not upon us then, and our instincts were our only moral compass.

There came a day when the Squee Most Holy, the Pup of The Great Mouse in the Sky, him the Furless Giants call "Mr. Jesu", was born and dieded near This Place. The Romish Cats stuck pins into his paws and left the Squee for the Snakes. And he dieded, and was bound in ropes, the Squee Most Holy, and placed in the Tomb Not Far from This Place.

But the Great Mouse was Ears Up, and saw that the Avatar was died. So the Great Mouse went to his Pup and whispered into his ears: Awake, awake! And so the Great Squee awoke from deaded!

But the Squee's paws were bound! He could not escape the Tomb Not Far from This Place. And a sadness came upon the squeakers and the dumb, and they knew of this. So a small mischief crawled between the cracks of the door of the Tomb Not Far from This Place. And they found the Great Squee, bound in ropes, but in the form of a Furless Giant.

Being dumb, they knew not why they did what they did. They set about to chew away the ropes bounding the Great Squee, so that he could be free again, and leave the Tomb Not Far from This Place, and go to hissown Mischief, the Twelve Squee.

But before he rolled the rock away from the Tomb Not Far from This Place, he said to the teenies, "You mischief! You have saveded me, and the Great Mouse loves you! Forever shall you have a Nest in my name, and from this moment you shall no longer be Squeakers, but shall have speech!"

And lo! The mischief was struck with the gift of ManSpeech! I should hope not to tell you the obvious - that we are all children of that mischief. For that is how you and you and I are not squeakers but are part of the Holy Mischief of the Great Squee, and why we live so long and deeply.

For generations of pups, we have Nested in This Place. We collect the Lost Things, and ready for the return of the Great Squee. This is what we are, and who we are."

The Ballad of Gay Tony, Grand Theft Auto IV's final downloadable content package, dropped this week and I figured I would waste my weekend on it. I loved the previous DLC offering, The Lost and Damned, so I was more than happy to drop the dosh for this one.

I am currently paused halfway through the final "storyline" mission so I think I can talk about it.

The Ballad of Gay Tony is a parachuting simulation game with some side-time spent at Studio 54. I almost wish I were joking about that but I'm not: a rather disturbing percentage of your missions in this game involve parachuting and/or helicopters. Or jumping out of a helicopter with a parachute. The largest mini/side game in TBoGT is actually (wait for it) base jumping.

The guy who sells guns out of the back of his van will also sell you parachutes. Just sayin'. There's a lot of emphasis on it.

When you're not parachuting, you're usually going to be either a) stealing weird shit for some hyper-rich spoiled Arab; b) murderizing people for some Russian gangsters, or c) running errands for the game's title character, "Gay" Tony Prince, your business partner, with whom you own two nightclubs (one gay, one straight).

So, blah-de-blah. Let's just get the "gameplay" conversation out of the way.

This is a Grand Theft Auto game. That should be all you need to know about it. I will say that Rockstar has performed admirably and up to par by including a mission that is ri-COCK-ulously difficult, and they did it at the beginning of the game.

(You'll know it when you hit it; it's called "Sexy Time" and it seems easy until you have to shoot down some escaping gunboats and then you'll start crying. My advice: Buy a bunch of rocket launchers. Find out where the boats land. Take the copter there; land early; wait; shoot them with the rocket launcher. Just don't even try to do it with the helicopter because, for real, you'll start crying.)

Other than that, the story missions are pretty much a combination of GOTO/KILLALL. The side missions are interesting (club management, for instance), and there are now another 50 birds to kill (I'm soooo not doing that; 250 pigeons was enough kthnxbye).

Are we done with the gameplay conversation? Can we talk about the story and characters? Because that's the juice.

Despite the game's title, you do not play Gay Tony. And now, I imagine a whole slew of homophobic and gay-curious-but-denying-it-by-pouring-on-testosterone dudes sighing in relief. No, no. You play Luis Lopez, who is straight (and actually somewhat of a player). Gay Tony is your boss.

Previously, I've spent a lot of time focusing on the psychology of the protagonists in the previous two games, Niko Bellic and Johnny "The Jew" Klebitz. They are interesting characters and worthy of study: Niko is a clever nihilist; Johnny is a clever optimist.

Luis is a different sort of person.

He's a man with a flexible moral code, obviously. We wouldn't have a Grand Theft Auto game without it. He is an Hispanic from the projects, and his past life comes to haunt him from time to time. He spent some time in the pokey and when he got out he hooked up with Tony and became a business man - and a successful one.

Like Niko and Johnny, Luis is a clever. But he's neither nihilist nor optimist; he is a pragmatist and a realist. He doesn't really have any pre-concieved notions about how the world works (like Niko and Johnny); the world just is. He doesn't believe that it's out to "get him" nor does he believe that it is his pal.

Luis is a funny guy. He has probably the best dialog out of the three primaries, but that is possibly because there's no real emotional baggage associated with it. When he dresses someone down, it feels genuine: he's a "really real" dude. He's got no bullshit about him whatsoever.

Sadly, this kind of makes him boring.

The most interesting character in the game - and perhaps in all three games - is Gay Tony himself. He steals every scene and every conversation he is involved in. He's smart, funny, clever, driven, and powerful. He's not a mincing stereotype; despite his nickname, his sexual orientation has little to do with defining who he is.

The banter between Luis and Tony feels very real. Tony is a surrogate father for Luis, and the two of them have a very real love for one another (but Not In That Way). The previous games have explored "male bonding" (Johnny Klebitz and his crew; Niko and Roman), but hadn't really stepped into the father/child or mentor/student relationship space. This is what we explore.

Tony is a man with problems. Many of them. A large part of the story's drama is derived from watching him self-destruct through a series of poor choices. There comes a time when we wonder if we shouldn't just cut Tony loose and let him rot, but he continues to surprise and delight.

So yes. I'm saying that the most interesting character in a video game that I've been exposed to in probably 10 years is a 45 year old, gay nightclub owner with a drug problem who is experiencing a mid-life crisis.

And I never thought I'd write that sentence.

The Ballad of Gay Tony is about a 10-15 hour experience, and worth the money. You should play it. It won't turn you gay; I swear.

Brütal Legend is a game where yoü wander aroünd exploring a world torn straight from the cover of Dio's Holy Diver and pay homage to the Trüe Metal.

Büt more on the game in a moment.

I have, in my possession, a jean jacket. It has an old-school Iron Maiden backpatch (poorly sewn in places, held on with safety pins, natch). The jacket provides me with a strange level of internal comfort and pleasüre. Not becaüse it's cool or rockin' or whatever (it is) - büt becaüse it says to me, "roots."

"This is my history."

I was a metalhead growing üp. My Roots gain noürishment from the dark potted soil that is Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Led Zeppelin, Ronnie James, and the Prince of Darkness himself, Ozzy. Smoking cigarettes and listening to Judas Priest, getting stoned and thrashing to Metallica, playing Dungeons and Dragons while listening to Slayer. Camping oüt all night for Mötley Crüe tickets.

We üsed to watch Headbanger's Ball jüst for the faint hope that they might play the video for The Last in Line. I decided to learn Latin jüst to translate the writing on the borders of Sacred Heart.

Did yoü know that the rünes on Ozzy's Speak of the Devil albüm are actüally written in the Dwarvish langüage from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings? I fückin' did. Me and my coüsin spent all night one day translating them. They talk shit aboüt Sabbath kicking Ozzy oüt of the band.

So, I say to yoü, dear readers, that this game. . . I wish I had written it.

Brütal Legend (and we have to üse the ümlaüts) is a tribüte to everything that is fine and good aboüt the genre of Heavy Metal. Tim Shafer and Double Fine are sending a message: "We ünderstand yoü."

The game takes every goofy heavy metal fantasy that has ever appeared anywhere and türns it into reality. Smokey, apocalyptic landscapes? Check. Hot chicks in leather? Check. Giant fücking axes? Check. Melting people's faces off with güitar solos? Check. Driving aroünd in a soüped üp Deuce-Coupe listening to Diamond Head's original Am I Evil? Check.

It's so fücking cheesy büt that's what makes it so fücking wonderfül. I'm going to try to explain the in-jokes throügh the üse of hyperlinks.

What's to say aboüt the gameplay? Yoü play the part of Eddie Riggs, the world's greatest roadie (voiced by Jack Black, who for all he irritates me from time to time, knows the Trüe Metal).

Eddie can büild anything, repair anything. He has the Trüe Metal in his heart, büt he's stück working for a "nü-metal" boy-band and it's crüshing him.

Literally, it türns oüt, becaüse aboüt 1 minüte into the opening cüt-scene he gets killed by a falling beam from the stage. Büt it so happens that he has a magical belt bückle, and when blood reaches it, he is transported to, well, the Land of Dio.

There, we qüickly find Eddie embroiled in a power strüggle between the good, oppressed people of Trüe Metal. They are led by Lars Halford (who looks süspicioüsly like Robert Plant). Also in this motley crew are his sister, Lita, The Kill Master (voiced by Lemmy, natch), and a hot-badass chick named Ophelia.

Together, they fight against the evil glam rock army of General Lionwhyte (who is voiced by Judas Priest's Rob Halford).

Yoü have a variety of weapons, the most powerfül of which is Clementine, yoür magical güitar. With the right güitar solo, yoü can melt people's faces off, or sümmon creatüres to help yoü, or raise relics from the groünd.

It's an "open world" büt picking üp missions is üsüally pretty linear. It's mostly "drive aroünd and fück shit üp" büt then from time to time there are elements of "real time strategy" and command. The first several missions are aboüt büilding an army of headbangers and metal chicks. Yoü'll control them, and yoü have additional abilities that yoü can üse with each "ünit type".

For example, go near a ünit of headbangers, and yoü can enter "Mosh Mode". They form üp aroünd yoü and jüst bang heads, which yoü can then üse to protect yoü and jüst walk throügh large groüps of goons, knocking them down.

To be honest, the game isn't aboüt the gameplay. It's got pretty müch yoür standard tropes foünd in sandbox games now (side missions, collectibles, üpgrades). They have a different paint scheme, one that was made from The Trüe Metal.

And that's what this game really is: it's a love letter to the Trüe Metal.

And those of üs who have heard the siren call of distorted drop d and felt something break forever inside. . . it's a love letter to üs, too.

So, the month-long wind-down of my game has come to a close, and I'll be shutting it off for good tomorrow night. The "end game" has been a fun thing for me and my testers/development team to handle. We did it slowly:

First, access to the "outer" planes was cut off. Slowly but surely, other planes were locked away, until only the Purgatorio (a giant void filled with small "islands" of land) and Valhalla (the "earth" zone) remained. Then, elements of the void started eating up Valhalla. . .

Eventually, the main island in Valhalla was "moved" to the Purgatorio and Valahalla itself was shut off. At that point, the "memories" began appearing: shards and snippets of poetry, broadcast as global messages. These have served as my "bookend" for the game, and serve to connect one of its central themes back to itself.

Here is a log of the "memory shards", including my final speech to the players. They were broadcast in sets, over multiple days.


Set One:

There is a sudden flash of light from all around that blinds you momentarily. As your eyes return to normal, you momentarily see several unknown rune shapes.

Visions and memories, not your own, flood your mind.

There are the eyes of a woman, auburn-haired. Laughing. Her name is Molly.

Here are the cracked and peeling houses of the neighborhood where the you-who-is-not-you grew up.

Two small boys are chasing a dog through a field. One of them has a bb gun, and will shoot it in the side. The wound will get infected, and the dog will die.

The blonde woman buys ice cream for her son. His name is Clay. He has a liver disease. The sun is setting.

The sun rises behind the tower, spreading golden light across a field of yellow grass dotted with sleeping horses. The king is dead; you have failed.

You will hear the racous cries of the fishermen selling their wares one day; the whack-whack snicker-snack of knives gutting tuna and salmon.

The wails of the slaves, so viscous, a pathetic, liquid sound. Mayhaps you'll eat one soon.

You should speak to her. That girl. You know the one I mean. Tell her soon; the world is ending.

The symbols fade and the world rightens.

Set Two:

The true name of the Maker lies hidden between the muted rhythm of a heart beat and the liquid eeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhh-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah of the lungs. Thrum thrum thrum. Thrum thrum thrum.

The dentist grimaces as she sands bits of dried epoxy from a patient's tooth. The teeth are stained - too much tobacco and coffee - and the filling doesn't match.

A handful of dirt splatters on the coffin. The mortuary gave out cards; one side has a picture of a saint, and the other side has the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi. You fold it without thinking and put it in your pocket.

His name is Richard. You can smell his lust; it's a oily tang in the city air. He intends to sleep with the blonde stripper. He will fail. You order another drink and wait, the gun heavy in your pocket.

The prisoners sing spirituals as they work along the road. The pounding of rocks punctuates each verse. The noon sun gleams dully off the black steel of the guard's shotgun.

A young brunette woman leans out of an apartment building to watch a wedding processional in the street below. This moment is captured on a greasy stream of film. It will be one of the few photographs of her. She will die a few years later, the victim of a genocidal pogrom.

Thrum thrum thrum. Thrum thrum thrum.

Your grandfather is teaching you how to twirl a gun. His enormous hands effortless spin an antique Colt while yours struggle with a cheap, tin pop-gun. You are four years old. He will soon die, and this will be your only memory of him.

Gently the child bobs in the water, bouyed by an air-filled vest. She smiles and gurgles as she learns to swim.

Every time a baby is born in the ward, the nurse presses a little button, and strains of Brahms are heard through the floor.

The tangy smell of cordite fills the air as the deranged assassin finds his mark. The musician dies, bleeding into the gutter. His widow cries over his body.

He is furiously stabbing at the tree where he had carved their initials together inside of a heart. Tears blind him, and he cuts his hand.

The cat is in pain. It does not know how to communicate this to its mother. Instead it sets down, glassy-eyed, barely moving.

Thrum thrum thrum. Thrum thrum thrum. Thrum thrum thrum.

Several thousand miles away, an unsung poet dies.

Set Three:

Thrum thrum thrum. Thrum thrum thrum.

She touches his hand, accidentally, electrically. "I'm sorry," she says, but doesn't mean it, not really, he is so handsome. Her name is Hannah; his Francis. One day, in the future, she will bear him a son who will become a president.

You sit at the edge of the lake. Your fishing rod is a simple thing: just a stick with a nylon line tied the end and a bright orange bobber above the hook. Father has a *real* fishing rod, with a reel and everything. There is a metal bucket filled with small trout; he caught them. You will never be happier than this moment, being a son in the moment of your father, who loves you more than you can know. Eventually, you will drift apart, and then together.

He said, "We shouldn't tell anyone about this," as he touched her. She sighs.

I have to let you go. You are no longer mine.

Her name is Tatinana. She likes playing with her doll. Her father is important somehow but she doesn't quite understand. Someday, in the future, she will help to hold down a soldier while a surgeon violently removes a bullet from his chest.

Thrum thrum thrum. Thrum thrum thrum.

She doesn't understand. The boy pushed her in the sand; she just wanted to go down the slide. Mother wipes away tears with a cheap tissue. There will be ice cream.

OHGOD OHGOD OHGOD DON'T FUCKING DIE ON ME YOU BITCH. ohfuck you're overdosing. don'tyoufuckingdieplease. Here, take some speed; maybe that will make you well until the ambulance comes.

Things have never been so swell.

The knives! The knives! Once, twice, five, twelve, twenty, they stab and stab. The pain, the pain - my cloak, my hands, the floor, they are painted crimson, this cannot be my blood. That cannot be my son...

I watch the fireflies swarm in the heat. They twist and dance among the eddies of the late summer night; I think of the girl I am crushing on and wish she could experience this with me.

Thrum thrum thrum. Thrum thrum thrum.

He is a gentle boy. He loves creatures; he loves the world. Nervously, he tells his parents that he thinks he is gay. "You're no son of mine," father says. "I didn't raise no faggot." There are bruises the next day.

I read your fucking book. Did you hear me? I READ YOUR FUCKING BOOK.

The blood washes down, mixing with the dirt, collecting in the cracks of the soles of my shoes. "I'll have to scrub that out", I think.

She lifts the bowl of soup to her mouth. She thinks of a man she used to love. He boarded a ship one day and she never saw him again.

Thrum thrum thrum.

Thrum thrum thrum.


Set Four:

Thrum, thrum, thrum.

That girl, the one with dishwater hair, the one over there...

"Faggot! Faggot!" They scream this at me as they beat me but I'm not gay! I'm not! Stop! The gravel sticks into my skin, my skull lifted and pounded into it. Jesus, jesus, jesus, STOP.

Here sings the sun. It shines yellow upon the trees. They are golden in its light. I step across a broken branch and take her hand. Her touch is electric, like a jellyfish.

There is a burbling sound as he tries to breathe. Bubbles of blood collect around his mouth; ohgod it hurtssobad. The wrecked motorcycle lies five meters ahead; the car drives off.

"I want a divorce," she says. "I never really thought we had a future together." There is a flash of patience, then a flash of rage. There is a crunching sound as you punch the wall, bloodying your knuckles. "THEN WHY DID YOU FUCKING AGREE TO MARRY ME IN THE FIRST PLACE?" you scream. The wall will bear the mark for two years before it is cleaned.

Thrum thrum thrum. Thrum thrum thrum.

The monitors sing. deet. deet. deet. deet. deeeeeeeeeeeet. My friend dies from cancer, unknown, alone, in a hospital in New York. His parents are informed of his illness when they are called upon to claim his corpse.

"I do this for her," he thinks. "She'll love me when it's done." Finger pulses on the trigger: once, twice, thrice, four times. Secret Service tackles him, but the hornets find their marks.

As he lays to rest, her cat settles on his chest and purrs. He is accepted. Once he sleeps, she will slink away, her purpose complete.

"I've seen you around," she says. "You're noticable. 'Hey, whose that rockin' dude, there?'" Stunned, no words, the event passes without notice.

This is your world. This is your life.

Live in it now or be a spectator forever.

Thrum thrum thrum. Thrum thrum thrum.

Set Five:

Thrum thrum thrum. Thrum thrum thrum.

It is July 2nd, 1961. The voices say, "take the pills! Take the pills!" Do it, papa. Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it. Best of all he loved the fall / The leaves yellow on the cottonwoods / Leaves floating on the trout stream / And above the hills / The high blue windless skies / Now he will be a part of them forever

Christ, she is so beautiful, and I'll never. . . I'll never be able to talk to her again.

"I want you to listen to this," she says. "I think you'll like it." It's a trip-hop drum-and-bass cd. He listens attentively because she is hot and he likes her. He tries not to think that the lyrics mean anything.

A small voice in the back of my skull says "no, stop" but I keep hitting him. He's down, done, drawn - I keep punching. Wet meat, broken bone, my knuckles. Someone grabs my shoulders, pulls me off him; he coughs blood. Someone says, "Cops are comin'". I wake up the next day with damaged hands and no memory of who he was.

"You know, I thought you were going to ask me if we could get another cat," she says. He had asked her to marry him. She said 'yes'.

Thrum, thrum, thrum.

"I didn't know it was like this," he said. "I had no idea, I was so scared." He kisses the other boy. "I'm so scared; I don't know what to do, everyone will hate me."

Click, click, click. The bullets go click, click, click as they are slotted into the magazine. Click, click, click. The Ambassador Hotel. He'll be there.

She coughs for the last time. A small amount of blood seeps into the tube. Her family sighs, collectively.

"You know. . . You know that I love you, right?"

Thrum, thrum, thrum.

Set Five:

Thrum, thrum, thrum.

Thrum, thrum, thrum.

To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under the sun.
A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill and a time to heal, a time to weep and a time to laugh;A time to mourn and a time to dance.
A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to lose and a time to seek; A time to rend and a time to sew;
A time to keep silent and a time to speak; A time to love and a time to hate;
A time for war and a time for peace.

Thrum, thrum, thrum.

Thrum, thrum, thrum.

My favorite quote is by an American author, John Steinbeck. "A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean question: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well - or ill?"

Do your best to do good things because the time when you must ask those questions comes all too soon.

I have enjoyed our time together.

Thank you.