Mr Ryan Goes To PAX 2011

Last weekend my wonderful wife and I took a bus south across the border to the city of Seattle for the best gaming convention in he world, Penny Arcade eXpo, or PAX. We headed down on Thursday and met up with some friends, one of whom lives in Seattle now and the other two traveled up from New Mexico for the convention as well! Our charming company was a welcome bonus!

This was our second time at PAX, the first being in 2008 at the end of our Epic Holiday[TM]. I never did get around to a write-up of that stop, but you can safely assume that it was incredible, and we couldn't wait to get back. This year I decided to step things up a bit by going in costume. Thanks to my amazing mum, I was able to get my Rocketeer helmet brought over from Ireland, and I already had the jacket with me. And so, for most of Friday and Saturday at PAX 2011, I could be seen wandering the many areas, slowly sweating to death in a heavy leather jacket, carrying a heavy, metal helmet[1].

A lot of the guests and exhibitors fist bump rather than shaking hands in order to avoid picking up nasty infections. This year I even saw the more extreme version, elbow bump, used by many. It certainly worked for me. I have not come down with any PAX crud as of yet, apart from being utterly exhausted for a few days after!

The whole event was awesome. We met so many incredibly nice people, and I got to talk to people I never expected, about interests I never expected to share with them. I got to meet AJ LoCascio, the voice of Marty McFly in the TellTale Games episodic Back to the Future video game! Not only was he probably the most down-to-earth, nice, honest-to-goodness coolest guy I met at PAX, but he's also a huge Rocketeer fan[2]! He was able to recognize that I was holding a Disney Master Replicas version of the helmet from across the booth, and he recognized the Wested jacket as well! If you can imagine how blown away I was by that much, I almost collapsed when he told me that he made his own Rocketeer helmet from fiberglass. We spent about ten minutes geeking out about the movie, the props and the awesomeness of the Replica Prop Forum.

The weekend was just chock full of amazing stories, though rather like Empire Strikes Back, I feel I opened on the best of them. My costume was a huge success, and I got stopped everywhere I went by other attendees, exhibitors and even a VIP or two as they gushed over the character and took photos. It was heart warming to see so many fans of Dave Stevens creation in attendance. For me, one of the things I enjoyed most was watching peoples eyes widen as I let them hold the helmet and even try it on. Unlike the more accurate fiberglass versions available, the metal Master Replica I have is far from fragile. It was nice to be a part of fullfilling a small number of peoples dreams to hold or wear such an iconic piece from a much loved classic.

Even queuing was a fun experience. Apart from playing games on iPads, Enforcers (the PAX volunteer force that help make everything run smoothly) were handing out bits and pieces to help us pass the time. While queuing for the Saturday night concert, we all got given brightly coloured pipe cleaners and instructions to "Be creative". This resulted in hats, flowers, Portal-themed wrist bracelets, stick figures fighting, a sniper with gun, and even a helicopter with rotating blades! From pipe cleaners, people!

But of course, PAX is ultimately all about the games. And we got to try loads of them!

Welcome to Serra.
Gears of War 3 is due for release on September 20th, and it had a large presence in the Xbox area. I expected longer lines, but compared to others games on display, the Gears line was tiny. I got to try out the updated Horde 2.0 on Friday and the brand new to the franchise Beast Mode on Saturday.

Horde: My biggest worry about Horde 2.0 was that they had gone and messed with a good thing. Horde is still the best of the endless-wave styles of game modes because it is so clean and simple. It threw out customization in favour of accessibility. Horde 2.0 adds to the basics by bringing in a cash-for-kills system for that can be used to buy stuff during a small window between waves, from ammo to laser defenses and beyond. And it works fantastically! It's fast, fun and doesn't stop the games flow. We got to play waves 8 to 10 allowing us a peek at what surprises the tenth waves hold. I'm not going to spoil it, but after the terrifying horror of seeing your first bloodmount in Gears 2, they've really outdone themselves for Gears 3. It's awesome!

Beast: This is a whole other kettle of fish. Trying Horde, I knew the basics. Waves of alien monsters that I need to kill before they kill me. Beast is a set number of COGs per level and you have a very tight time limit. You start with one minute on the clock and get more for every kill. You can play as a variety of Locust, starting as low as tickers or wretches, and going up from there. I'm not going to tell you what I saw or played as, but you can assume it was fun! The gameplay is very different, and I sucked during my quick trial. This is not Reverse Horde, it requires a totally new set of skills.

The Boardgame: Not on display at the Xbox booth, this was instead being demoed on a different floor, but I've included it here for completions sake. This looked very nice. Fantasy Flight Games were running demos all weekend long and the whole thing looked impressive. I didn't play myself, but I heard lots of good things from people that were trying it out. As expected from an FFG game, the production quality was through the roof. Cards, tokens and figure pieces were beautiful. The figure pieces were especially impressive, and looked like they should be a lot of fun to paint up.

But Gears was only a tiny area in a huge, multilevel convention. I got to see and play games that are coming out as soon as this month and as late as next year.

The Gunstringer is the first retail game from Twisted Pixel, the company behind Comic Jumper and 'Splosion Man. It's a Kinect game that makes clevel use of the technology and, more importantly, it's a load of fun to play. I don't own a Kinect. Yet. There was no reason to before I went to PAX. Now I'm tempted. I might even get one for this alone.

I got up on stage with three others and had a four-player dance-off in front of a large crowd playing Dance Central 2, also for Kinect. I found that it had very good motion tracking, more impressive for being able to track four uncoordinated male players gyrating wildly. I came first, despite never playing any of the dance games before, though that probably says more about how bad the others were than how good I was.

From the ridiculous length of the line all weekend long, it was clear that there was a lot of interest in the latest game in the Elder Scrolls series, Skyrim, but I could not have cared less. Not that I have anything against it, I'm just not interested in fantasy games. One of our friends stood in line for 3.5 hours to play the 15 minute demo and got a fuzzy hat for her troubles[3]. At one point while I was talking to her in the line, I looked up at a clip of a dragon in the trailer and jokingly said "Oh. Nice graphics. What's this game?" and 40 angry nerd heads swiveled in my direction.

Last, but by no means least, one of the booths that immediately caught my attention was the TellTale Games Jurassic Park area. Not only did they have a nice small-scale replica of the entrance gates into the park, and fencing with little flashing lights on top, but they had a fan-made reproduction of one of the park jeeps! I was a child all over again standing beside it. Instead of just reading my thoughts on this however, take a break from the text and look at a video blog TellTale Games staff did during the convention. Check out the eejit at the 1:25 mark, and again at the 2:30 mark. Yeesh. Fanboys. They were everywhere at PAX.




PAX wouldn't be PAX without free stuff. We came home with tonnes and tonnes of swag. I think I got 8 t-shirts, of which I only paid for one. Baseball hats, avatar items, lanyards, pins, even a very high quality hoodie! The whole weekend paid for itself in free stuff. Claire and our friends even got themselves free OnLive consoles! FREE. CONSOLES!!![4] Insane.

If we're still here next year we'll be going again, so I'll let people know in case anyone is interested in joining us for a crazy weekend of video games, boardgames, demos, t-shirts, freebies, music, costumes, celebrities and more in 2012! I honestly cannot recommend it enough. It's the best, friendliest, most community orientated convention I've ever been to.

Hopefully you can join us and share in the love that is PAX 2012.

[1]- On Saturday morning I woke up complains of an unusual pain in my right arm. I put it down to sleeping badly in the hotel bed, as I had no recollection of having injured it the day before. It wasn't until later that same day that I realised that the weight of the helmet was causing strain on my arm muscles! I didn't feel it while I was enjoying the convention. It was only once I relaxed that it all hit me!
[2]- The earlier part of this sentence should probably be noted as biased based on the latter part. But even then, AJ was very, very cool.
[3]- She did also get to meet and have her photo taken with Todd Howard while in the queue, which she excitedly told me later in the day. She was much distraught when I shrugged and told her I had no idea who that was. Still, that first 3.5 hours at PAX in a queue was pretty much the high point of her convention, I'm led to believe. 
[4]- The catch of course is that OnLive is a subscription based service, so they're happy to give you the console for free to let you try out the service and hopefully sign up.

San Francisco: Zombie Mob

One of the very, very cool things that was happening during our trip to San Francisco was a zombie mob. Karen asked if we were interested in going, and of course, we jumped at the chance. This is one of those things that we've heard about before, but never thought we'd get to see ourselves. Things like this don't happen in Ireland.

Unfortunately, we had no idea just how awesome it was going to be, and being cautious, when Karen asked if we wanted to dress up for it, we decided not to, instead just going along to observe. Knowing what I know now, I really wish I'd worn old clothes and duct tape.

Instead, realising how much fun this was, I started to make my own fun, and ensure I stayed in the middle of the mob. I began to film little reports using my digital camera, along with taking a bunch of photographs. These can be now found on my YouTube page and Flickr page, respectively. The videos need editing together and cleaning up somewhat, but for now, they are available raw. Better than nothing, right?

Check out EatBrains.Com for more about this extraordinary event.

SDCC- Video Games Live

One of the big events we booked months in advance was Video Games Live, a full symphony orchestra and choir playing video game music. Because we booked and paid for the tickets well in advance, I splashed out and got the best tickets available, which turned out to be pretty damned good!! Front row, dead centre! We got dinner served, and free drinks! Amazing.

But nothing on the music itself. This trip has been incredible already for Claire and I, and it seems that there is some greater force ensuring things just... work out in our favour. We spend all Thursday meeting the nicest people, getting amazing sketches, spending real time talking to people I only ever dreamed of meeting before, and then, Thursday evening, VGL seemed to choose it's pieces and guests only for Claire and I.

Here's how te night went:

• Opening Medley
• Metal Gear Solid- Incredible! An amazing piece to kick the show off with! And everyone loved the guard and box wandering around on-stage. The box stayed on=stage for the whole piece, and the following one, before revealing VGL creator Tommy Tallarico, who joked that he was the only one short enough to fit inside!
• Metroid Medley- They covered the entire series, but got the biggest reaction to the Super Metroid piece.
• Civilisation IV- Beautiful and powerful.
• Tron- Got a huge reaction! Great piece.
• Legend of Zelda Medley- as with Metroid, they covered the entire series, but as soon as Ocarina of Time appeared onscreen, the crowd went wild! This was introduced via recorded video by the original composer of the Mario and Zelda themes, Koji Kondo.
• Kingdom Hearts- I was blown away! Disney kindly allowed the video playing to use the cartoon footage instead of game footage. It was spectacular.
• World of WarCraft- Seriously. Playing just for us! Claire nearly died. And they had the original composers on-stage... who we knew we could meet later, as we had back-stage passes! You can only image how Claire felt about this.
• StarCraft II- The perfect follow-up to the WarCraft stuff. They played a new piece, introduced by it's composer, as well as playing the piece used in the trailer, while the trailer played! Nice. I loved this one.
• Super Mario Brothers Medley- This started with Martin Leung playing the Mario Brothers theme on piano, blindfolded!! Awe-inspiring stuff.
• Guitar Hero Competition- Before the show there had been a Guitar Hero competition, and the winner was brought up on stage to play Sweet Emotion on the game, with the symphony backing him, and Tommy Tallarico on guitar assisting. It was incredible. The guy was amazing, and when we met him back-stage later, he told us that he doesn't own Guitar Hero, and had never played Sweet Emotion before! Regardless, he managed to play it on Expert, and score over 200,000 points, winning a tonne of stuff!
• Halo- The crowd went ballistic! Everyone loved this. A girl in Cortana costume came on-stage to do some of the voice bits, and they played my favourite Halo piece, the teaser for Halo 3. As the piece ended and Cortana said "This is the way the world ends", Master Chief arrived on-stage!
• Final Fantasy VII: Sephiroths Theme- Halo was the final piece, with this standing as the encore. Once again, the choir blew everyone away with the power and beauty.
• Castlevania- I don't know if they always do a two song encore, but they did for us, wrapping up the night with this. What a way to end!

But it wasn't the end for Claire and I. We got to then head back to the VIP Area and meet Jason Hayes, composer of World of WarCraft, Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall themselves, Martin Leung, and some of the special guests, including the girl dressed as Cortana! We also talked to the guy that played Guitar Hero, who was visibly shaking still, some 30 minutes after his performance! Nice guy. And, we got to meet Dee Baker!! He had been up on-stage earlier and did a live voicing of the monster for Gears of War, the blind one that you have to orbital strike. He voiced it in-game, and recreated and matched the scenes as the game played! But more importantly for us, he voiced Appa and Momo in Avatar: The Last Airbender, and it was a real honor and pleasure to meet and talk to him. While wandering the VIP area, we even got a copy of the just released Video Games Live CD!! Woo!!

After all that, we grabbed a taxi and headed home. This was our first day at SCDD, and we thought it couldn't get any better. We were wrong. So very, very wrong.

SDCC- The Good Times Don't End

Let me update you guys on some of the stuff we've done or seen so far!

• The sketch-book I brought over for the entire trip, including all the amazing people I'm sure I'll meet at PAX, is, with a day still to go in Comic Con, full. Completely! And I can't find a suitable replacement for tomorrow.
• We have already met and held conversations with, among others, Seth Green, Breckin Meyer, Jackson Publick, Ben TenNapel, Gabe and Tyco, Peter David, Orson Scott Card, Raymond E. Feist, Larry Hama, Wil Wheaton, Rob Liefeld, Greg Pak and countless more I'll try to mention once I'm not using a tiny keyboard and touch pad instead of a mouse. We've met and got autographs or more from Hideo Kojima, Gerard Way, James Stewart & Gabriel Ba, as well as many more.
• I've bought way to many books already!
• I'm very proud of how few action figures I've bought!
• We have, so far, attended a total of one panel, and even then, it was because we met the guys it was all about outside and spent ages talking to them... also, it was the Marvel/Hasbro Action Figure Panel... so, you know. Some interest there...
• We have met and exchanged email address' with the most incredible people, making friends with folks from all over the world!
• So many photos. So, so many photos.
• San Diego is beautiful and friendly.
• My feet hurt.
• Good (or even passable) tea does not seem to exist here.
• Everyone wants to visit Ireland, particularly the writers and artists.
• Dear Joss Whedon: You are awesome. You are a funny guy, and seem very natural and honest. But I am not willing to queue for six hours just to sit in a room with 6,000 others and listen to you talk. Sorry. There are far to many things to do at SDCC than to make that worth considering.
• Claire got a drawing of herself by Yoshitaka Amano! It is as incredible as you think it could be, and more. She nearly cried. He drew it without prompt. Apparently he liked the hat she was wearing.
  
• By 1pm, sitting down for ten minutes becomes more important that seeing the next line of writers or artists.
• Skype is a wonderful invention.
• People recognised and complimented me on my t-shirt (which is meaningless to most readers until I post pictures!!)

More updates soon, but nothing detailed until I have a real keyboard with a mouse. Also, photos may take a little while, but I have lots!! And no Picasa to run them through.

SDCC- 24:1

What does the title ratio refer to I hear you ask? Well, it means that, after one day, I can safely proclaim that so far, for every one hour spent awake and active in San Diego, twentyfour incredible things have happened to us!

From getting amazing sketches for free, to meeting the most incredible people face-to-face, to just constantly talking to nice, genuine locals always happy to help dazed looking strangers, this trip has been nothing short of spectacular!! And I haven't even gotten to the part where we not only attended Video Games Live (front row seats, dead centre!), but also got to meet the creators and chat to them and the various special guests in the VIP area!! Or that on the way back, we actually met and talked to Ryan and Dorkman of Ryan Vrs Dorkman 1 and 2!! Amazing, nice, cool guys.

Typing on Claire's new tiny laptop is going to take some more getting used to, thus the lack of links, or any of my usual touches. I'll try to update properly soon, with photos! Oh, so many photos!!

What Is Worse Than One Of Me?

Six of me! In one room!! Crazy!


Lots of Photoshopping here, obviously! Not very well done, just took lots of photos of me in various places around the room using the tripod, then used the lasso tool to carefully cut each of the clones out and paste them into a single image. It shouldn't be hard to work out which clone belongs to the full background. Things look great until you blow it up and start looking closer. But I'm just nit-picking! For a first attempt, self taught, with no masking or other neat PS trickery, it's not bad at all!

Where The Hell Is He Now?

Continuing my limited series of cheap posts with yet another YouTube video. I've been following Matts exploits for some time now, having seen his original video a few years back. This new one is awesome!

I Love Discovery Channel And xkcd

Why Do You Need A Testing Facility That Far Into The Desert?

Session Four: Stop That Train!!

Available: Maurice LeBec, Sir Alistair Montgomery, Chloe M, Ares Astral, Hank Scorpio
Guest Starring: Agent Smith, Agent Johnson

The morning after the events at Carnegie Hall, the group were contacted by Atlantic Philanthropies and told to meet at a building in the city. Once there, they were met by two agents from the Department Of Investigation. Someone had stolen a piece of valuable technology and the DOI requested the assistance of AP in it's recovery. The agents were "not at liberty" to discuss the details of the stolen technology, but assured the party that it was in their best interests to help.

And so, off to San Francisco!

They knew that the stolen goods were being transported by train, and the agents had leads as to which one. They arrived at the train depot and began investigating the container storage area. Chloe had to turn on the heat to help get passed the guards at the gates, one or two decided to sneak in, and soon everyone was snooping around. Maurice found a long, office-like building toward the back of the area and ducked in, just in time to see some shady characters handing a thick envelope to a plain-clothes youth. Maurice waited for the courier to leave and managed to pickpocket the envelope, open it and return it to the young man all without being seen. Inside he found and took blue-prints for a one-man jet propulsion device, a rocket-pack!

Meanwhile, the rest of the group had managed to dramatically disable all the Mafia thugs in the depot, even finding a few more on the street behind the offices and interrogating them. Learning that the container with the stolen goods was already well on it's was to Salt Lake City, they quickly decided to give chase.

This was the point where I folded my arms and listened in amazement as the players took the initiative and began a whole scene that I never expected. My notes read "Players learn where train is and race to catch it. Once at the train...", fully expecting to just say "Ok, you arrive in sight of the train as it screams down the tracks..." Instead, the players all took it upon themselves to have an elaborate race to get to the prize first. Ares and Maurice took Gir, Ares' Martian tripod, Agents Smith and Johnson took their Custom Ride, a fully kitted out Stunt, Sir Alistair took his own Stunt gadget, a one-man clockwork helicopter, and Chloe and Hank simply relied on an excellent driving stat, nabbed the mafia car and took off while the others agreed on the "rules". The spontaneous action was hilarious, as all sorts of back-stabbing and shenanigans came to a head! Sir Alistair spent a while fiddling with his copter, thinking he could make it faster, but it would "Need More Cogs". Unfortunately, without Sir Alistairs player even seeing, Maurice's player rolled to pocket a few cogs in order to slow the contraption down. Because both rolled the same, I simply negated the effect of Sir Alistairs tinkering!!

Eventually things got back on track, so to speak. Everyone arrived at the train, though some were shakier than others. Gir put a foot through a passenger window and Ares had to reign it back from zapping the screaming "fleshbags" inside. They checked the containers attached, but the one they were after was nowhere to be found. Searching the rest of the train was fruitless. I threw in the old "Runaway Train" trope here as well to give them something to do onboard, but while they were solving that, Gir detected a cargo container in the mountains. Once the train was safe, they backtracked along the tracks to a split that lead upwards into the hills. Following it, they discovered an abandoned mining facility with several storage buildings and an unusually high number of armed thugs for such a dilapidated area.

Fighting and explosions later, Maurice had explored one empty building and a second with several large cargo containers. The rest of the party arrived in and helped search the containers until they found the one they were looking for. Cracking it open, they recovered the missing technology, as well as the young man wearing it, much to the surprise of everyone involved.

At this point, I threw in more mob thugs and a leader to give the players someone to question and learn more about who was in charge. As it was getting late, we left all the questioning for the next week, but they did they did learn that the vile Doctor Eternity was somehow connected!! Dun-dun-duuuuuuuun!!

Terribly Terrific Twos

Today celebrates the second birthday of this humble web log. Not only that, but entirely coincidentally, this very post happens to be my 200th!!

Two hundred posts in two years! That's a lot of writing! Of course, 200 also means I slowed down significantly over the past twelve months. On my first birthday, I was at around 120 posts, adding only 80 more since then. But while quantity has dropped, I feel that quality has increased! I have a touch of continuity in my posts, with nutshell reviews, RPG run-downs and hilarious life stories! Hahah! Funny stuff... It's also my second anniversary on Flickr! Sweet!

One of the really nice things about having a blog for two years is looking back on older posts. I've forgotten so many good times that I've posted about here, but re-reading them reminds me of some special moments with friends. I was almost abducted by aliens (they took Bob instead. Blast), I confessed my love for murder mysteries, I complained about not having enough hours in the day (a lot!), I've gone on a rant or two, I've talked about being with friends, and missing them, I've made mistakes, I've broken promises, I've shared victories, and failures, but most of all, regardless of what it's about, I've just been writing. And I'm grateful now that I have. Through all of these, I have many fond memories to look back on.

Here's to another fine year of posting ahead, and many more besides!

I Wee When I Get Excited

When I get all excited about something, I clench my fists, shake them side-to-side, and screech "weeeee" through a huge grin that spreads from ear to ear. Rather like Wallace I suppose. When I get really excited, the screech becomes audible to dogs and kids that can still register that annoying mosquito sound places use to disband hoards of emo and goth kids. What...? You thought the title meant something different?

At the moment, any time I think about my Spirit of the Century game, I find myself shaking and screeching. A lot. Looking back on the last few weeks, things have been going far better than I could ever have hoped (I'm a little behind in my summaries, but hope to post new ones soon), with everyone now rushing head-long towards the endgame. Looking forward, plots seem to be jumping out at me, coming together with very little effort, tying directly into player characters backgrounds. Next Tuesdays scenario was particularly fun to research. (Ack! Just now, even writing that last sentence, I let out a little screech!) Of course, I can't go in to detail now, as some of my players do read my blog occasionally, and I'd hate to spoil anything.

I Prefer Jazz Anyway

Session Three: Music To Calm The Soul
Note: This session was stolen from RPG.Net's Roleplaying Actual Play thread. As such, credit goes to the original author, walkerp. While I'm at it, I took inspiration from the excellent comic miniseries Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way for some modifications to the nefarious villains of the piece.

Available: Maurice LeBec, Sir Alistair Montgomery, Chloe M

After their adventure in Africa, the party were granted some down-time, and offered tickets to the opening performance of a symphony that has swept through Europe to high acclaim. Reluctantly accepting the tickets, the party were whisked away to New York, and the famous Carnegie Hall.

Arriving at the show, Sir Alistair spotted an old acquaintance of his, Doctor Deedes, and wandered off to join him in the parquet. Maurice and Chloe headed upwards to the first balcony area, but did not sit together. Chloe had spotted a well known adventurer, Jack Savage, and pointedly chose to ignore him.

As the music began, Maurice realised he was experiencing something wonderful. His knowledge of the Arts meant that he was aware that this was truly as great as the reports from Europe were claiming. The music was astonishing, and he soon found himself taken away by it all.

At the break, the party joined up briefly in the bar and discussed the show so far, as well as having time to chat to fellow attendees. But, with a mere fifteen minutes for the intermission, they learned little of value save that everyone seemed to be enjoying it in varying degrees.

The second half of the show was a little different. Very shortly after it began, Chloe noticed that people were staring more intently at the orchestra than usual, and some had their heads tilted slightly to one side, while a small few were even drooling. Looking around, she noticed that Maurice has seemingly fallen asleep!! Sir Alistair noticed his friend acting strangely, as well as an unusually strong sensation of calm. Using a handy Gadget he just so happened to have with him, he found that something was producing a frequency that mimicked and caused a state similar to REM sleep in the people who could hear it. It was clear someone was tampering with the audience.

Chloe woke Maurice, who proceeded to scale the walls and head along the drapes and balcony boxes towards the stage. Sir Alistair attempted to awaken Doctor Deedes and some others, but was met with resistance. The music changed and all the hypnotised people began to crowd around him chanting in a monotonous voice "Don't stop the music. Don't stop the music..." At the same time, Chloe spotted men moving through the crowd, hold large sacks. They were dressed in impeccable tuxedos and every one of them wore a small domino mask. As they passed through the zombiefied high society of New York, they simply held out the bags and people put wallets, jewelery and anything else of value willingly into them.

Despite drifting off to sleep again while clinging to some drapes, Maurice reached the stage and leaped down to attack the conductor. Sir Alistair fended off zombies, trying desperately not to hurt anyone, but pushing to get towards the men in the domino masks. Chloe raced down the back stairs to try to get to the stage, and almost ran into some more domino masks who were on the way up.

After dropping the curtains and various other items on the orchestra, Maurice managed to stop the symphony long enough to pound on the conductor. The violinists were firing bows using their instruments like bow and arrows, and the orchestra proved themselves capable of a fight. Chloe spotted someone in the rigging about the stage, and climbed the ladder to investigate, but was almost blasted away by an ear piercing sound. Sir Alistair took down one of the men in domino masks before the hypnotic effects wore off and people began to press towards the exits. He caught a brief glimpse of one of them reaching to remove his mask, and then they vanished into the crowd!

With the conductor beaten and bruised, and himself not much better, Maurice pulled the conductor through the trapdoor in the stage for questioning. Getting only babbling, incoherent phrases and the odd unexplainable apology to an unnamed someone. Heading back up to the stage, Maurice spotted Chloe dangling off the ladder and went to help. Sir Alistair was determined to examine the instruments immediately. Up on the catwalk, Chloe and Maurice confronted a shadowy figure. He was wearing a cape with a high collar, and over his mouth was a piece of grated metal. He roared at the two adventurers, sending them rolling back alone the catwalk, and Chloe almost fell. "You ruined this symphony", he said. "But our Apocalypse Suite goes on! This shall not be the last time we meet!", and with that, he seemed to drop from the far end of the catwalk.

Chloe and Maurice raced back down, but neither could see the enemy, and Sir Alistair seemed to have not noticed anyone moving. Rushing down below the stage, they discovered the body of the conductor, blood weeping from his eyes, nose and ears. Frozen on his face is a look of unnatural horror. Sir Alistair's cursory examination revealed that he was most likely killed by a sonic device bursting blood vessels in his head. Investigating the area reveals a simple pulley lift shaft that runs from the catwalk to under the stage. Going up, a skylight is open, letting in the cool New York night air.

A round of questioning the captured domino masked man, as well as a few of the orchestra, revealed some interesting facts about the symphony and it's creator, though nothing to help track him now. Sir Alistair was intrigued by the devices he found in the instruments that allowed them to be attuned to the frequencies of the human mind, putting it into a trance-like state. Naturally, he pocketed one for further study. Handing all the captives over to the police and spending some time relaying their own findings, the party then called it a night and headed back to their hotel rooms for some well deserved sleep.

Not a bad night at all this one. Everyone got to do lots, and had a ball of a time. The session ran on just enough for the night, feeling neither rushed, nor dragged out. It was interesting to put the PCs up against a non-physical threat, making them role Rapport, Resolve and Arts more than Guns, Might and Athletics. Fun, and funny, and while the original author pointed out that it ran late for him, I found it to be a nicely paced, enjoyably session with just the right mix of action and investigation for my group.

Truth And The Nile

Session Two: Welcome to the Jungle

Available: Maurice LeBec, Hank Scopio, Sir Alistair Montgomery, Chloe M

Called to the Society again, the party were brought up to speed on some missing members, two of the original founding members of AP, Reginald and Sarah, who had been searching for the True Source of the Nile. On Donald Fairfaxs information, the party were instructed to travel to the National History Museum in Cairo, retrieve an artifact, and then travel on to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, to pick up Reginald and Sarah's trail.

Arriving in Egypt the party questioned the museum curator, and noticed that some of the shadows in the exhibition hall were unexplainably "off", but the huge overhead skylight washed the room in harsh African sunlight, so further investigation proved pointless.

The following morning, the party boarded a zeppelin bound for Kigali with the required artifact, an ancient Egyptian urn. While relaxing on board, they noticed the headline on a newspaper: "History Museum Attacked. Priceless Artifacts Stolen" and discovered that robed attackers broke into the museum late last night and made off with random artifacts. Most interesting was that they came in through the skylight in the room that had contained the urn! Dun, dun, duuuuuunnnnnnn...

The discussions on the implications of this were cut short as robed assailants attacked the zeppelin, arriving on board via bi-plane. Getting up into the main body of the zeppelin, the party discovered two dead crew members on the walkway that circles the gasbags. Before they even had time to investigate, they were attacked by the robed figures, who flung knives across great distance with stunning force. One acrobatically enriched combat scene later and the attackers were defeated and revealed as (unsurprising to everyone at the table) gorillas!!

In Kigali, they spent some time investigating the disappearance of Reginald and Sarah. In fact, they spent longer than I had anticipated, but came up with lots of ways to track an impossible trail and they discovered that the missing members had been in the company of a pygmy tribe before they disappeared.

While investigating the hotel room Reginald and Sarah had been using, the group were quick to note a lack of any sign of a struggle or forced entry. Questioning the staff, they learned that the missing couple had gone to their room, but were not seen leaving. Only a single burn mark on the carpet hinted at anything unusual. Sir Alistair questioned the nature of the mark, and upon closer examination discovered it was created by a high energy electrical discharge. Stupidly, I made Ray role for this, but when he questioned it, he had the puzzle solved already, even naming his nemesis, Doctor Eternity, as being involved. I should have just thrown him one, if not two Fate Points straight away without a role and confirmed his suspicions, instead he wasted a bunch of Points on rerolls as he just kept rolling minus'!! Ah well. I learned for the future.

Resting over night, the party proceeded into the thick jungle in the morning light and followed Reginald and Sarah's trail toward the Source of the Nile. Before they knew it they were surrounded by a large tribe of pygmy's, bows and spears pointed at the adventurers. After leaving the team to sweat for a little bit, an English speaking voice told everyone to calm down.

A tall figure dressed entirely in purple, with a black domino mask stepped out into view to address the PCs. After some introductions, the Phantom admitted to having met Reginald and Sarah, as well as offering the assistance of some of the native people to safely return to Kigali. After expositing some plot, and answering all he could, regretted that he had other business to attend to for now and vanished into the jungle once more, taking the tribe with him.

Proceeding on to the temple, the party discovered evidence of movement all around the site, as well as evidence of recent movement into and out of the temple itself. Moving into the temple, they were tricked into a trap room. Behind a metal grate in the high ceiling, the imposing face of a bespectacled gorilla looked down on the group. "Give me the urn."

A Brief Tangent: This is the first, and so far only time that I have done something that I completely regret in hindsight. In my haste to wrap up the adventure for the night, as the investigating in Kigali went on far longer than I expected, I had the lead gorilla talk, and express his desire. Looking back, there was no need for him to speak. He could have grunted and groaned, pointed and flailed. The party already knew what he was after. Plus, having him talk made him just another villain, but in a primate suit. Leaving him with just the Language of the Primates would have added something unique to his character. Besides, nothing he actually ended up saying was vital or required.

The party refused to relinquish the urn, and the room began to flood quickly to drown the characters. I had planned on the Phantom showing up at the Last Possible Second to rescue the team, but instead they came up with a great escape plan of their own, and I decided to let them enjoy the fruits of their teamwork. Bursting into the upper room, the party found themselves in a cylindrical room with a domed ceiling, an unopened sarcophagus with a pedestal at the head and beyond that was a finely carved stone chair, upon which the head gorilla was awkwardly seated, surrounded by minions.

Combat wrapped up with the lead gorilla leaping for Hank, getting shot in the chest, crashing into the Unsteady Floor (a Sticky Aspect placed on the room by one of the PCs!) and falling through, into the Flooded Room below. Once things had settled, the body of the gorilla was nowhere to be found! This, of course, lead to chants of You Thought I was Dead, Not All Gorillas Are Poor Swimmers, and Hardly the Last Time We'll See Him from the players. Honestly, I was just writing him off as dead at the time. I was far too tired to be clever, but when my players did the work for me, I knew what had to be done. Oh yes! He will return!!

Only one thing remained. The urn, and the not-at-all-obviously-placed pedestal! Cracking open the sarcophagus first, they found an undisturbed Pharaoh's body, mummified in the traditional manner. Placing the urn on the pedestal, a mechanism activated, opening a small window in the ceiling allowing light to pass through some crystal directing it straight down on the pedestal. Originating from the urn, light shone out onto the cylindrical walls, showing a surprisingly detailed map of the eastern half of the African continent, the flow of the Nile, and the location of the temple. Sir Alistair took some photographs of the strange phenomenon, then, after some further investigations and questioning the GM about various factors, the urn was removed from the pedestal and the party made their way back to Kigali.

In this session, the players used Fate Points far more, and benefited from them as well. I messed up once or twice, as I pointed out above, but over all, I was once again happy with how things went. This game ran a little late, and I had to cut some content to get it done in the session, but the players had a blast, and everyone seemed pleased with the outcome. The urn is important to the overarching plot, while still being an interesting discussion point for that session. After mutated shrewmen and intelligent gorillas, I promised regular humans for session three, and almost lived up to that promise...

Should We Just Call The FF?

Session One: Adventuring 101- Thrilling Tales and Monstrous Creatures

Available: Sir Alistair, Ares Astral, Maurice LeBec

The groups contact at Atlantic Philanthropy (AP), Donald Fairfax, informed the attending members of trouble in Chicago. Reports were coming through of unusual disappearances and large holes around the city. The party was to travel to Chicago immediately and make contact with an associate of the Society, Professor Harvey Dale.

On arriving at Chicago they were greeted by a Friendly and Talkative taxi driver who filled them in on the large science labs overlooking the city, what little he knew of the Professor and the rumours that were spreading through every district about what might be really going on. Suspicions were firmly on the labs, but there was no time to think them out, as another car slammed into the side of the taxi, putting both through a shop window!

An Elephant Sized badger stood between the party and the remains of the entrance to a hospital. Obviously Bad Tempered and Out of Control, it was thrashing and causing chaos! Two Japanese tourists raced past the shop window screaming something about a mutant dinosaur. After being driven into, set on fire and generally shot at, the monstrous creature was lured up onto a building and onto the tracks of an elevated train, frying itself and shorting out the line! Ares investigated the remains, with the assistance of Sir Alistair, before both clambered down the ruins and headed toward Maurice, who had made it into the hospital.

Maurice had discovered that the creature had come up through the hospital floor with some more unnatural friends, and was seemingly lead by a small, grotesque man who, according to one hysterical nurse, referred to himself as "The Mushroomoid". The hole they came up was already filled in, and the creature dealt with.

As Chicago's finest arrived on the scene, the party chose to beat a hasty retreat instead of having to stand around answering questions. The ventured on to the labs, using a car Maurice appropriated.

Greeted warmly by the staff at the labs, the party was immediately brought down an elevator into a large, advanced lab, and was met by Prof. Dale, who showed them an interesting goo that had been discovered and delivered to his labs some months ago. Only in the last few days have they made any progress with it, as running an electrical current through the goo causes it to move, shift and reach out tiny fingers of goo. However, they discovered too late that their experiments were coinciding with the strange occurrences in the city, and fear there may be a connection.

After some brief talking, the lab began to shake and rumble, and the party, after making successful Alertness rolls, felt as though they were back in the elevator again. The lights went out, and everything and everyone was plunged into darkness. Maurice's excellent night vision allowed him to see strange creatures moving in the shadows, and over the din of the chaos, he heard a high-pitched voice command "The gir*crash*! Take *crash, bang*rl! Pretty girl. So commands the Migh*crash, bang, wallop*manoid!!"

Lights come up, and a hole leading out of the base of the lab into a cavern is found. Once in the cavern, it becomes clear that the labs have been Sunken Into the Ground, and now only the top floor of the building remains above ground. Following some tunnels leading down and towards the city, the party ended up in a huge, deep chasm with a spiral walkway leading all the way down, and several dodgy looking bridges criss-crossing the cavern. Wandering downwards they hear scratching and scraping noises from several of the tunnels leading off this central area. Below, a blue glow illuminates the floor of the cavern from a side tunnel, and strange creatures can be seen scurrying around. Reaching the floor, the creatures turn out to be blind Naked Mole Rats! Huge, blind, naked mole rats! Everyone made Stealth checks, Maurice blending seamlessly into the shadows, while Ares trips on a rock and stumbles into Sir Alistair, both falling loudly onto the cold rock floor. Some mole rats wandered over to investigate, but a quick bright flash of a torch into their faces caused them to reel back in horror and flee.

Investigating the blue glow, the party discovered a smaller cave with a Tesla Coil, a Mysterious Contraption, made of bits and pieces of various stolen things from the city, a pedestal with the goo positioned between the Tesla Coil pylons, and a badger in front of it. Just the regular kind! And finally, to one side of the cave was an impish, ugly man, siting on a rough stone throne, with a female lab technician chained to the wall, as all good Damsel In Distress' should be!

The small figure gestured dramatically, and complained loudly about surface dwellers invading his Subterranean Empire, sacred home of "The Mighty Shrewmanoid"!! Yup. Turns out, the nurse has misheard him, much to his annoyance once the party explained questioned it. This brought howls of laughter from all three players who had been quizzing everyone in the labs earlier about intelligent fungus, and discussing among themselves how to defeat a plant-based opponent!

Combat ensued, someone shot the Mysterious Contraption, Maurice used the shadows to get to behind the Shrewmanoid, Sir Alistair was horrified by a Star Faced Mole, and Ares tussled with a large, but not elephant sized badger! Once the dust cleared, Maurice had a wire around the Shrewmanoids neck and a few rounds of combat was brought to a dignified conclusion. Dragging the villain to the labs, with the rescued lab assistant in tow. Questioning him got all the answers they needed, before handing him over to the authorities.

Overall, the first session went well. Most importantly, everyone had a blast, there were lots of fun moments and laughter, and the players got right into the spirit of the game! None of us really made much use of Fate Points, and I needed to reread combat before the next week. Also, I learnt that I need to be harsher in combat. Characters can take a lot, and don't go down easily. I tend to be cautious in dealing damage as I don't want to remove players from the game. Mechanically, though, that's a rather difficult thing to do, so I need to be more ruthless with what my NPCs can do!!

Let's Get This Party Started

Session Zero: Character Generation
Note: While this first session was going to be CharGen and the start of an adventure to get everyone going, CharGen ran on longer than expected.

Spirit of the Century, for anyone reading that hasn't played it is an awesome experience in and of itself. Rather like the City of Heroes character generator, you can have tonnes and tonnes of fun just throwing up characters and playing with ideas. And that is what happened for this group. Two of the five players were familiar with the rules, while the other three's experiences of role-playing were mostly limited to White Wolf's World of Darkness. It took them a long time to wrap their heads around the freedom SotC's CharGen system gave them, particularly in relation to creating Aspects.

A brief word on the CharGen system for SotC in case you're unfamiliar with it. As it's a pulp style game, character names usually include dramatic, short descriptions, such as Doc Savage, Man of Bronze. Aspects are character traits illustrated through phrases or character quotes, like "First on the Scene", or "Where Did You Come From?" They are completely up to the player to invent. Players tag them by saying things like "Ah! But perhaps Jet arrives early and is "First on the Scene"?!?" gaining additional successes to the role, or affecting the flow of the story. Interesting Aspects should be ones that the GM can compel to put the PC in harms way, by saying "Ah! But Jet arrives early and is "First on the Scene"", before throwing him early into a conflict, now horribly outnumbered and awaiting back-up!

As well as aspects, you then get to choose from a list of Skills. You get one Superb, two Great, three Good, four Fair and five Average, with everything you didn't pick considered at Mediocre. These are things like Athletics, Drive, Pilot, Fists, Science and so on. I'll include the top three each player choose in the character descriptions below. Players then get five Stunts, special abilities related to their Skills.

One of the most interesting parts of SotC CharGen is the concept of Novels. As everyone is essentially a pulp hero, they each have their own novel, the story that outlines their background. However, they also guest star in two other PC's novels, allowing the game to start with everyone knowing some others in the group, if not all of them! This is really handy, as it eliminates the "Why are we all here?" problem most stories have to deal with. There is already a connection between the PC's, and the game starts with them all working for Atlantic Philanthropy, operating out of Boston. The novels all contribute to Aspects that the PC has.

Other than any interesting background they care to create for themselves, they're done. Sounds simple, but the freedom involved leads to hilariously difficult choices to be made and interesting co-operative character development among the group.

So, without further ado, the party as it stands is as follows:

Maurice LeBec, Retired Gentleman Thief (Gar)
Novel: The Man In The Fog
Sample Aspects: The Man in the Fog; The Style Justifies the Means; So, Your Plan Requires my Death?; Your (Chloe, see below) Sister Stole my Heart
Skills: Burglary, Stealth, Sleight of Hand
Guest Staring In: The Chrono Catastrophe; Lipstick on a Shattered Mirror

Sir Alistair Montgomery, Inventor to His Majesty King George V of England (Ray)
Novel: The Chrono Catastrophe
Sample Aspects: If Wishes Were Horses; Never Enough Cogs; Pull it out of my Hat; For King and Country; The Evil Dr. Eternity!
Skills: Engineering, Academics, Science
Guest Starring In: The Man In The Fog; Areas Astral Vs. The Ice Queen of Mars

Chloe "The Siren" M (Stephanie)
Novel: Lipstick on a Shattered Mirror
Sample Aspects: Old Flame; Exit, Stage Right; Where Did That Come From?; At the Last Possible Second
Skills: Deceit, Rapport, Alertness
Guest Starring In: The Chrono Catastrophe; Hank Scorpio in The Mystery of the Blood Medallion

Hank Scopio, P.I. (Tom)
Novel: Hank Scorpio in The Mystery of the Blood Medallion
Sample Aspects: Don't Lie to Me!; And it all went Dark; Of all the Gin Joints; Dames...
Skills: Investigation, Rapport, Drive
Guest Starring In: The Man In The Fog; Lipstick on a Shattered Mirror

Ares Astral, Prince of Mars (Brian)
Novel: Areas Astral Vs. The Ice Queen of Mars
Sample Aspects: Things Man was not Meant to Know; Stranger in a Strange Land; I Never Suspected my own Brother!; Ares, my Friend! My Camel is your Camel!; If Only we had More Time
Skills: Mysteries, Resolve, Guns
Guest Starring In: The Man In The Fog; The Chrono Catastrophe

And there we have it! An interesting bunch that have given me food for thought! They are a great group to game with, and everyone is really getting into the pulp swing of things! Hopefully I'll have some time to write about each of the adventures they've been on so far soon. I'd like to keep a record of how things go, and where I feel I could have improved on it.

For now, though, don't touch that dial! Keep watching for further updates, and more thrilling adventures!

Spitfires Rule!

Need proof?





I'm playing Blazing Angels II: Secret Missions of WWII on the 360, and the Spitfire is so freaking awesome, I want one. Now. What organs do I need to sell, and to who, to get me one? And then who do I need to sleep with to learn to fly it? And then who do I pay for a flying license?

Innovation Upon Innovation

It is said that the greatest inventors in human history were merely working on the backs of those that came before them. It's true. Very little is genuinely new. Nothing is born into the world that doesn't have an ancestry that reaches back to decades, especially technology.

As much as I love Nintendos motion sensitive controls on the Wii, it's not entirely new. People have been trying it out for ages now. Heck, the PS2 had controllerless controllers with the EyeToy, which worked surprisingly well.

Keeping in that tradition, check out these amazing videos that use the Wii Remote in clever and innovative ways. They are all from Carnegie Mellon University Ph.D. Graduate Student, Johnny Chung Lee. His website, JohnnyLee.net is a treasure trove of genius proportions!! And better yet, he posts a bunch of the programmes that he uses to create the videos that follow! Seriously, check it out. It's amazing. I really, really want to see a game using some of these ideas.

First up, using the Wii remote for head tracking on desktop VR displays. Stunning.


Next, using a Wii remote to create low-cost multi-touch whiteboard. This is something I'm really tempted to try out. It would be fun even just to show off and play around with.


And finally, for embedded video anyway, using Minority Report style finger tracking with the Wii remote.


Also worth checking out is Johnny's "Moveable Projected Displays using Projector Based Tracking" from 2003 and, after you've seen that one, find out where that builds to after four years with his video titled "Foldable Displays". It's worth noting, before I get any complaints, that I'm well aware that it is far from a foldable display, and more just a development of his projector technology. It's still freaking awesome! This guy is going to go really, really far if he keeps up this level of inventiveness! I wish I was half as computer savvy and inventive as him.

How To Blow €15Million And Look Good

Imagine the cost if they filmed it in Ireland!

Watch Out America!

This summer I really did do very little bar work and sit around at home bored. Oh sure, I spent three days in London with Claire and my family, which was simply awesome from start to finish. Even Spider-Man got to enjoy it! But other than that, I've spent the summer broke and bored, looking forward more and more to getting back to work in the preschool.

Worse, everyone else seemed to be travelling to far off lands in search of adventure and comic stores!! Cian spent a few weeks in Seattle (on business, but still awesome!), Jp hit the Big Apple and a variety of comic megasuperstores, Noel and Hazel visited Bob and Sinead in the gloriously futuristic city of Toronto, Colin saw NY and Boston, and Brian spent three months all over the United States. And they all seemed to get back around the same time, regaling me with their tales of wonder and mirth.

Well, I've had enough! Next year shall be my year of epic adventuring!! I shall start saving now, and embark on a journey northwards along Americas Pacific coast that will be truly legend- wait for it- dary!! Oh, and Claire is coming too.

The plan is to start just north of the Mexican border, flying in to San Diego and spending a few days seeing the sights and attending San Diego Comic Con, or SDCC for those in the know! We're not sure how long we'll have there, because we need to be in LA the following weekend to go to Blizzcon. Being a huge World Of Warcraft fan, this is one of Claire's life dreams, so I guess I have to put-up and shut-up! Heh. No. I'll have a blast there too, even if I just never leave the StarCraft 2 stands!

After that, things get really interesting, as we head further north to the great city of San Fransisco, and the bestest American we know; Karen!! Yay! We'll get to spend a week to ten days in the beautiful Bay area and hopefully get to see some of the sights.

The final leg of our journey brings us just south of the Canadian border, nicely mirroring out starting point, as we end everything in Seattle. As well as being home to our favourite comedy series, Frasier, Seattle is the location of Microsofts head office and, most importantly, PAX! Yes, Penny Arcade Expo is held close to the end of August, and next year, we intend to be there! Also, conveniently, Cian might be living there by then... hint, hint...

And as much fun as this stellar road-trip sounds, it's made all the more exciting by the friends we'll have along the way. Some, like Colin, will be meeting us for SDCC, some for PAX, like Jp, and of course we'll have Karen in SF, so while we'll have lots of time to ourselves (Blizzcon. Who would have guessed only Claire would be interested in that one?!?!), we'll also have lots of shared adventures with people we know and love!

So watch out America! Claire and Denis are on their way, and they expect a party, a celebration, a legendary five(ish) week epic adventure across three States and three conventions, over 1,292 miles, four (possibly five) important stops, two great friends that we won't have seen in such a long time, thousands upon thousands of photo opportunities, and infinite possibilities to make new and exciting friends!

It's going to be the kind of summer they make movies about, and we're the stars!

The Buffalo: New King Of The Savanna

Unlike my last video, this is awesomely cool! Not only can I say "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" and have a complete grammatically accurate sentance, but it would appear that they have recently taken their rightful place as Kings of the Savana! The following video is about 8m30s long, but worth every second. It has about fours "acts", all over a single incident, each one topping the last for amazingness. After the first minute or so the footage is a single, uncut shot.