Joe Gamer

Watching television recently I caught a movie that I personally had not seen in over thirty years. In this story the protagonist is trying to live free when he has a run in with a crooked law man. The movie is the 1978 story of Western Ruggedness, Convoy.

While watching the film I was struck by how the protagonist, Martin ‘Rubber Duck’ Penwald, was a very reluctant leader and hero. Rubber Duck simply wanted to live his life doing what he loved. When the antagonist, Arizona Sheriff Lyle ‘Cottonmouth’ Wallace, entraps Duck and his friends, the truckers haul tail for New Mexico to avoid a wrongful prosecution.

One might ask why I’m talking about a 70′s trucker film in a gaming blog, and that’s a valid question. Rubber Duck struck me as an archetypal Chaotic Good character. Duck is a genuinely good guy that typically follows the rules of the land, but when those rules are used unjustly he has no qualms about ignoring the rules or those that attempt to enforce them. Duck has no dreams of being a leader or messiah even though others want to thrust such a mantle upon him. Even as others fall in line with him, following him almost blindly, he’s simply driving to be free.

Cottenmouth similarly strikes me as very Lawful Neutral, perhaps even Lawful Evil, but I don’t really think he is evil. Cottenmouth does have a bit of a sadistic streak when it comes to truckers, and he uses his authority to his own ends in these regards. Never during the course of the film did I consider him evil however, though I must admit that right at the very end as Cottenmouth is firing a military machine gun mounted on a Texas State Riot Police tank directly into the Rubber Duck’s truck, Cottenmouth had a bit of a sadistic grin going. I also have to admit that Rubber Duck really pushed all of Cottenmouth’s buttons simply by ignoring the sheriff and everyone gets a little extra sadistic as he or she finally gets to swat at that really annoying bug once and for all. Ignore the fact that it was Cottenmouth that riled up that bug to begin with.

There is one quote that really outlines the two characters and their representations of Chaotic Good and Lawful Neutral. It is:
Sheriff Lyle Wallace aka Cottonmouth: I am the law. Don’t you understand, I represent the law.
Rubber Duck: Well piss on ya, and piss on your law.

Check out Convoy. It’s a fun, if slow, movie. It nicely illustrates how you can have real conflict with very little in the way of violence and between adversaries neither of whom are evil. Also notice how as the conflict escalates so does the violence to the point where I don’t think either of the characters would have seen themselves capable of committing in the beginning of the movie.

© 2011, admin. All rights reserved.

I’ve been a longtime fan of The Knights of the Dinner Table comics from way back in the days when the comic appeared in Shadis magazine. Shadis! That was a while back. For a while the comic appeared in Dragon magazine (DRAGON!) and eventually found its way to comic book format. The guys at Kenzer & Co. STUFF the pages of KoDT and Jolly Blackburn is the writer / artist. Let me tell you KoDT is FUNNY stuff. Actually you don’t have to believe me, the guys at Kenzer are GIVING AWAY a comic in PDF form. Go ahead, download that, read it and come back. I’ll wait.

…

Funny stuff right?! If you said “no” stop reading now and go away, I have no use for you. Philistine!

Anyway, for a while I visited the Kenzer&Co forums pretty regularly. Jolly often posted during those times and you just get to know folks … or at least know what they want you to know about them, but then again that’s all we really know about most folks anyway. Let me just say Jolly is VERY likable and much loved by my wife and I as well as a great many other fans.

So what does this have to do with AEG?

Recently Jolly and his wife Barbara lost their daughter Amber. I can’t imagine their pain. BoardGameGeek (another industry class act) started a drive to raise money for the Blackburn family, and AEG stepped in with some really significant donations. I can’t afford a single one, but I strongly encourage folks to go over to BBG, register, and bid on something neat. Also take the time to look at all the companies and individuals donating items for this family’s cause. Gaming is filled with some really excellent people.

When you are done go hug your kids, kiss your spouse, and remember to let the ones you love know it. You never know how much longer they will be with you, so make every moment count. Now if you don’t mind I’m wrapping this one up to go read a book to my little girl. Hopefully I won’t choke up.

© 2011, Joseph Little. All rights reserved.

So today is kind of a slow news day.  There’s just a few quick bullets I want to hit to keep my readership updated on the world of games:

1) Guitar Hero is no longer in production.  Activision is thinking about axing its team and franchise because… who cares really?  I mean, who bought Warriors of Rock?  I did, but that’s because I wanted Muse’s Uprising.

2) Marvel vs. Capcom 3 comes out next week.  The first game this year I’m really super stoked about.  Normally the beginning of the year is slow, but with Dead Space 2, Little Big Planet 2 and Marvel vs. Capcom 3, I think someone forgot to remind the gaming industry.  Not that I mind, though.

3) Pokemon Black and White are the best in class in the past 5 years.  I’m a Pokemon fan, I don’t try to hide it, so I’m super excited about this.  And yes, that means I’m kind of interested in the Pokemon card game.  Sue me.

4) Look up a game called Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together if you’re into strategy RPGs.  Seriously, it’s been getting awesome reviews.

That’s all I can think of right now.  Beth is well on her way to 85 on World of Warcraft and I’m right behind her.  I attempted to start playing Mass Effect 2… and I’m excited!  Yay for year old games I haven’t even played yet.  I’ve still got Sakura Wars, Persona 4 I’m 30 hours into, Tales of Vesperia… sigh.

© 2011, Jeff Hollingsworth. All rights reserved.

Do you like violence?  Not the artsy “Sun Tsu” type war, but Jason Statham, Rambo-esque killfests?  Then hop onto Xbox Live or the Playstation Network and download Bulletstorm right now.  No.  Like, right now.  Pause reading this, log on, and download it right now.

Good.  You back now?  While it’s downloading let me tell you why: This game is nuts.  If any game claims to have all out, eye popping explosive action and they are NOT Bulletstorm… they are lying.  While games like Call of Duty are visceral and semi realistic and Halo is cool with an awesome setting and background, Bulletstorm gives you a band of swearing, violent space pirates, crashes lands them on some weird planet, and says… have at it.

The game is literally based on killing your enemies in the most creative way possible.  Sure you have guns, and you’ll be using them primarily, but you’ve got extra tools to kill fools in more ways than “simply” shooting them to death.  For example, press either the O or B button (PS3 and Xbox respectively) and you’ll put your boot in the face of your enemy, shooting them into the air for a moment.  Hit L2 or the left trigger and you’ll shoot a laser like Lash at them and pull them toward you.  I had fun booting a guy and lashing him back to me over and over again, just to be mean.  What makes it (more) interesting is your character has some temporal array thingamajig that freezes the enemy so after you boot them sky high you can pick them off easier.

The game actually ranks how creatively you kill!  You get points for every ‘unique’ way you kill.  Headshots, multiple kills and that thing, but also using the environment.  In the demo stage there are areas of the building with a lot of rebar exposed.  You can use the Lash to pull an enemy into it, gaining a big bonus.  You can even boot a guy up in the air and shoot him with a gun called the “Screamer” that fires him off into the air for the “Fireworks” bonus.  It’s really fun trying to figure up new ways to kill.

I was plenty impressed.  I told Elizabeth I was instantly in love.  It was just so… raw.  It’s very much made of testosterone and bullet casings.  Anyhow, if you’re into this sort of thing, go ahead and download it.  Heck, if you followed my lead, it may be done downloading already!  Maybe…

© 2011, Jeff Hollingsworth. All rights reserved.

So when trying to figure out what I wanted to talk about today, my mind started wandering to all the different games I play.  I could talk about the goings-on in World of Warcraft, the new Skaven models for Warhammer, or try to find some interesting bit of gaming news I could share.  However, I started thinking about it, wouldn’t it be cool to talk about some more table top games?  I think I want to post up a synopsis of our Dark Sun game, but I got kinda sad faced… some of you know, but not all, that I have a ton of RPG rule books and not nearly enough time to try them out.

So, as the rusty cogs of my brain were turning, I thought “wouldn’t it be cool to get together and just.. try some new games out?”  I mean, we could get out of our comfort zone and try Anima or Legend of the Five Rings or (forgive me for saying) New World of Darkness.  I’d love to host something like this.  I have Gamma World and Castle Ravenloft we haven’t tried either.

So what say you guys?  Anyone local be interested in, one Friday, Saturday or even Sunday getting together early in the afternoon and spending some time trying out some games we haven’t played yet?  Like I say, I’d be the one to host this.

Let me know personally or in the comments here and we can work out a date.

© 2011, Jeff Hollingsworth. All rights reserved.