Left For Dead - Or - Why The Republicans Let McCain Loose

As an avid horror fan and skeptic of Anonymous’ ability to behave itself, I had my doubts going into Left 4 Dead (or L4D as the young people say these days). Needless to say I was there when VOIP became a part of the online gaming experience, and I was welcomed with rampant teabagging and 12 year olds singing into their mic. Needless to say when it comes time to thrust myself into a horde of undead with three other strangers I had my doubts.

I am shocked that it works so well. Left Four Dead relies on that age old law of any group of people, social Darwinism. My associate Ben enlightened me, he reminded me that if someone is a stupid dick and wanders off to get killed, then they had what was coming to them. This is true, after several games it has remained true, which is fantastic. Isn't that the way it is in those cheesy horror flicks? I think it works well.

Griefers though, those sneaky bastards and champions of the teamkill on any server that has friendly fire turned on, what about those? Well you can only take so many hits, if team killing starts it will be finished when your fellow survivors reciprocate, or simply just let a Hunter do the job for you. After an exceptionally stupid person kept crossing into people’s firing arc we just stopped healing them, and made them our lowest priority. The Director only gives us so much HP, why waste it on them?

All in all, this has been a fantastic experience right out of the zombie movies I have always loved. In one scenario I found myself swarmed, the helicopter only feet away telling my compatriots to go on without me, to live their lives! Naturally they accepted such terms, and flew away leaving me to watch my grizzly death as hordes of infected beat me into a fine mist of pixels.

All in all, the mere fact that it’s a coop game that relies on people cooperating and punishes the mavericks in the world balances everything naturally. Just like those classic horror movies if you go off alone you will die. Moments designed by the “AI Director” are not only suspenseful but make you think in new ways to get through situations. Many times though it becomes more of a Hollywood simulation and less of a Zombie flick as you realize you clearly didn’t suck enough of the Director’s cock to get where you are. This usually results in the Director thinking you are doing too well and you will simply be repeatedly raped by hordes of dead for your lack of oral generosity to the omnipresent AI.

More of a Personal Post

As someone who owns the collectors set of Indiana Jones, I am a huge fan. They are great stories, I grew up on Westerns when I was a kid. My dad and I used to just watch them together. Shows like “Have Gun Will Travel” where decidedly awesome. Yeah they are hokey but what kids shows aren’t?

Looking back I think I know why those shows were good, the stories were simple. The plot can honestly be summarized with “beginning, confrontation, resolution”. You introduce the main character, oh shit there are bad guys poisoning the water hole, kill/arrest them, end of show. There is a great deal of simple charm to that formula, and when you have a bad guy you don’t like for simple reasons it’s even better.

That’s why Nazis have always worked in Indy flicks. They are the bad guys, why you may ask, because they are Nazis. Things blow up along the way, we may see a few big names, someone’s face melts, and there are some laughs, all around good time, life is good. Kinda like beer and pretzels night with a gaming group. I know the recent OWbN podcast made fun of folks who use this formula for characters in LARP, and I agree, LARP is far too moody and "mature" for that. Nazi killing and evil mustachioed men are at the heart of beer and pretzel gaming though. When I think of beer and pretzel "role playing" I think of those old westerns. Thats the inherent charm in Indi flicks, beer and pretzels, its a beer and pretzels movie trying to capture the charm of beer and pretzel dime novels.

So after seeing these movies for the umpteen times and loving it I am excited for the new one. I am going to Kublacon this weekend and will be seeing it with some gamers there in SF hopefully. To get ready for the movie my girlfriend and I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark with the RiffTrax.com commentary of it. It was totally worth the $3.00. I shared the file with some friends who downloaded it on their machines from the Rifftrax site legally. Just like the one for 300, adding this commentary puts a whole new spin on the movie.

Seriously though, it was a pain in our ass. If you ever try these don't use their player. Its kind of a gimmick and it fucked with the dialog. I think we had an option turned on that if we would have turned off would have been fine, honestly though, just do it the old fashioned way. Its kind of confusing with this movie because they often use the fade of the production trademark as the point of reference and this movie really doesn't have that (think of the MGM Lion's roar with the Dark Side of the Rainbow trick). Once we got it work though, it was worth it.

I am looking forward to the new Indi flick. I am one of those people that like to make fun of the movie as we watch it with my friends. I went to go see Speed Racer and every time Racer X talked we implanted lines from Lost…

Also, happy birthday George Lucas…hopefully this year will make you much much much wiser.

For Good Or For Awesome - How To Use Google For Gaming

I like to do what they guys at Mystery Science Theatre 3000 did. When they got canceled because they couldn't afford the rights to make fun of crappy movies no one wanted to watch, they looked for new ways to do what they did better. They took technology that had very little to do with making fun of movies, and used it to make fun of movies. They created RiffTrax.com, and use their powers for good instead of evil. They used MP3s to do the job they were doing and not paying for the rights to use movies. That means they can mock big blockbusters and not have to pay for it.

Today we see gaming trying to do the same thing. There is a lot of hoopla about D&D going online. People are saying that its going to detract from the experience, others are saying it’s the next best thing since sliced bread. I say Wizards of the Coast is behind the times, they need to take a page out of Google’s book. instead of designing a show around making fun of movies, why not just take something and use it to make fun of movies. The same can be said for gaming; instead of designing a program to make it easier for your friends to kill the dragon, use a program for businesses to kill the dragon.

So, as we all know Google.com is going to one day own everything. Honestly I am more than content to go along with the ride. My day job uses Google mail, Google Docs, Google Spreadsheets, Google 3D, hell my iPhone uses Google Maps, and Google wrote a better mail webapp than Apple (and they released the damn phone). But what about those of us who like to use work related things for our definitely not work related shenanigans, say like… sending a party of evil doers into the clutches of a band of waiting PCs? Or managing a weekly LARP with 20 PCs? What about discussing what game the group will be playing this week? Google makes all these things possible…

G-Mail

Never mind that G-Mail is the key to a gateway of free apps, the way big G formats your inbox is clear and concise. Ever want to be able to discuss a topic with several people, and keep things easily formatted, say like on a forum? G-mail does that, it saves e-mails as “Conversations”, letting all parties involved click to go back and review conversations, or skip the whole lot if you don’t care to read it.

As someone who receives over 200 gaming related e-mails a day (I’m on a lot of lists) I can’t thank G-Mail enough for this!

Google Docs

Never has it been easier make sure your party is informed about the world you are playing in. Whenever I DM, I usually have my players play in one world that I have slowly been working on since I started gaming. It’s a low magic feudal world. Needless to say there is a lot of information, and history. Some PC driven, some I created. The best way to get information through? Just make a Google doc and invite your players. You can edit information on the fly and it will refresh for all viewers, there is even a chat panel to discuss on the doc.

Google Spreadsheet

Easy access to forms. Setting up a secure form on a Google spreadsheet is a breeze. E-mail the form out to your players, their input is put into a spreadsheet clearly, and concisely. Most of all the other players can’t see it! Running a vampire LARP? What better way to manage the dealings of the Kindred? If the Prince wants to manipulate the press to cover the latest Masquerade the same live update feature will show you the exact second he does. It will also show you the harpy spending actions to watch the prince.

Google Maps

Track a party’s progress over a map. Just use a real world location people have never been too. Medieval landscape? England. Dessert? Death Valley. Sweltering jungle? New Zealand! You can plot points, mark encounters and land marks as well. I ran a game with one game and two tables. There was one other DM and both parties were on the same island. We would both edit the map with the parties progress and when huge events went off we the other party thought it was NPCs. Boy were they surprised.

Google Calendar

Share your gaming schedule easily. Need to change the date of that shadow run? Waiting for a game to be released? Easy as, one, two, three, go. E-mail notifications are sent out, with RSVPs, forget about Facebook.

Google Sketchup

I stole this one from one of my friends, Heather. Need to show off that dungeon? Got multiple levels? Google Sketchup is the way to go. You can easily draw castles, houses, villages, warrens, dungeons, taverns, inns, corporate buildings. The list goes on and on, all in 3d! This works great for a tactical game. When its important for all sides of a building need to be considered.