Oh, Dr. Wily was just crazy due to the sun spots.

FlashMan here.

(…in which we charge our weapons to etcetera, etcetera.)

It feels really nice to get back in the groove again; it’s been a while since Break and I got to do some good old-fashioned commentary. Kind of like coming home, in a manner of speaking.

We sat down almost a month ago and recorded this discussion about recent events with Mega Man. The column was recorded before Mega Man Universe and Rockman Online had their respective trailers unveiled, so we’re just a touch behind the power curve, but the discussion is still largely relevant.

THRILL as we discuss the retro-futuristic-post-pre-during-apocalyptic-space-age Mega Man Megamix! (which has some of the best art the Mega Man series has ever been graced with)

LISTEN IN AWE to our confused ramblings about Rockman Online! (admittedly we didn’t even have the awesome trailer to go off of at the time so we can be excused for this)

TREAT YOURSELF TO SOME POPCORN IN THE LOBBY as we ramble even more confusedly about Mega Man Universe! (admittedly we only had the bizarre teaser trailer to go off of at the time so we can be excused for this, too)

PLACE YOUR BETS on who will win the debate over which doctor was the superior character while BreakMan and I debate the merits of Eddie Lebron’s Mega Man fan-film! (even though we can all agree it was Ice Man who stole the entire show)

CHEER BREAKMAN ON as we very briefly discuss the epic battle between BreakMan vs. Jewel Man! (seriously who told you to start on Jewel Man!? that person needs to have their head slammed in a door)

LAUGH OUT LOUD while we whine about the sameface Robot Master designs and half-assed plot of Mega Man 10! (while Dr. Light and Dr. Wily get the band back together to build a superweapon)

CHARGE UP YOUR Z-SABER as we touch upon Mega Man Zero Collection! (and headbang to the awesome remix of Zero’s theme)

…and yes, we even make fun of Mega Man’s retarded fanbase, too. (which I will lovingly refer to from here on out as “Sheeple Man”)

This one clocks in at just under two hours and forty-five minutes, barely missing our record for longest column yet. While it IS a long one, we had a blast recording it and hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it.

Download Eye Lazor Beams EX Episode #13 here.

FlashMan.EXE Age: Old enough The Observer Rating: 20XX-ish

FlashMan here.

It’s rare that I play many of the vridja-o-grames these days.

Between my constant juggling act of remodeling, Pokemon, keeping this site virus-free (you wouldn’t believe what we’ve been going through on the administrative backend over here), and everything else, I 1) don’t have the time, and 2) don’t have the interest.

While I’ve said this before I’ll say it again: I really don’t care what I’m missing out on. Being a casual gamer by nature anyway coupled with my innate tendency to suck horribly at anything harder than, say, Portal, I typically spend my spare cash –which itself is a limited resource these days– on things like anime, action figures, manga, trading cards, etc. before investing any of it in video games that I may or may not enjoy (much less have the time to enjoy). When I do sit down to play something, it’s typically Team Fortress 2 or some Pokemon game so that I can at least know that my time invested will net me something. (This is another reason I don’t want to touch MMORPGs, ever. I’m a completionist when I get well and truly into something. Something that never really ends wouldn’t mesh well with my personality type.)

To be honest, I’m so much “against” video games these days (shock horror!) that I’m actually paring out a ton of my collection; BreakMan is, as we speak, in the process of absorbing my NES, SNES, Genesis, 32X, and SEGA CD games and systems into his vintage game collection. I went and traded in a good ten or so games the other day at GameStop, and have been selling off the rest slowly on eBay, or as I lovingly refer to it, the Den of Thieves. My gaming philosophy has pretty much become unless it’s something I KNOW I’ll play again or REALLY REALLY enjoyed, if I haven’t touched it in over a year and a half I’m not going to be touching it now, time to pass it on to someone who will actually play it.

To that end, I won’t be contributing much to Progress Meter, but I have played a few games this week and have picked up a couple of comics recently, so I’m going to roll my traditional “anime ramblings” rant into a “this is what I’ve been doing lately, you creepy stalkers” column and call it a day. Join me after the jump so that you can see what I’ve been up to.

Team Fortress 2 (PC)

What a surprise, right?

Actually, though, I have a reasonably good justification for putting this one here: over the Labor Day weekend I sent Break a copy of The Orange Box. We spent most of the afternoon yesterday introducing him to the various classes and playing a few real life rounds of 2Fort. While I’d love to share Break’s reactions to playing on a true blue server with real people, I think it’s best that I let him speak for himself after he’s had a few more sessions to really get his feet wet in the game. Needless to say, though, we had a lot of fun, and that’s what’s important.

Limbo (XBLA)

Whoo boy. Where do I start with this one?

If you’re not familiar with it, Limbo is an indie platforming game that can basically be summed up as “boy goes on adventure to save girl, solves puzzles”. Of course, that’s like summing up Code Geass as “prince goes on journey to defeat evil emperor, plays chess occasionally”.

Limbo is a really, REALLY dark, really gritty platformer. The whole world is in black and white, and kind of out of focus, like looking through an old-timey camera. The puzzles in the game are pretty hard without a walkthrough and require a lot of lateral thinking and precision maneuvers. The gameplay can be summarized as trial-and-error; you will screw up a lot on your first run through it. If you aren’t good at platform games, the game is actually surprisingly friendly to you, more than anything it’s timing jumps and stage gimmicks rather than actual “skill” like a traditional platformer such as the Mega Man or Sonic games. When you do miss a jump or die in a trap, you restart just a few seconds back at the start of whatever puzzle you’re on and there are infinite lives, so the only thing holding you back from progressing through the game is the limits of your patience.

The one thing I wasn’t crazy about and yet was simultaneously impressed by is the sheer brutality of this game. Despite its minimalistic style, it’s actually fairly gory (there is an option to turn this off, and the game gives you fair warning at the start). Considering you’re playing as a shadowy outline of a small boy, it’s pretty hard to tell what’s going on, and yet, there are plenty of ways to die– I got impaled on the first “boss” of the game at least a good dozen times before I really figured out the timing on what I was supposed to do, and I can’t tell you how many times I screwed myself over on the various “dodge the boulder” puzzles.

I finished Limbo in a single sitting and really, really enjoyed it. My major complaint seems to be the same as everyone else’s for the most part; the game is entirely way too short and I really, REALLY want to play more. It gives your brain a good workout and the lack of story and plot in the game only serve to immerse you in its incredible world; there’s no obnoxious HUD to remind you that you’re playing a video game, no distracting visual elements to take your eyes off of the experience apart from the occasional “achievement unlocked” (which in and of itself is quite sporadic, since it IS an XBLA game meaning you’re going to get a whopping 200 gamerscore if you get every single achievement in the game).

All in all, Limbo is well worth the purchase; it’s good, solid fun, albeit a little spooky. Play it with the lights off, though; it really adds to the experience.

Scott Pilgrim (graphic novel series)

Man oh man.

I saw the movie trailer for Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, and was immediately turned off by Michael Cera. Sorry, buddy; I haven’t been impressed by anything you’ve been in. A couple days later, though, I was in the manga section of Barnes and Noble and noticed that it was a graphic novel, so I did a little research and found out that the graphic novels predated the movie rather than being an adaptation of the movie (instantly attracting my attention; I’m a pathetic sucker for comic book movies).

Nonetheless, I filed it away as “alright, I’ll check this out later”. Of course, BreakMan went and saw it a few weeks ago and told me it was well worth the watch, particularly highlighting that it was highly relevant to our interests. At that point, I knew it was time to get on the bandwagon, so last Friday I started looking all over for the graphic novels and after about five stores I was able to find the set of six at a local comic book shop (all hail Bedrock City). I read the first one while waiting for people to show up at league, and finished the next five over the course of Saturday.

Hnnnnnnngh. <3

This series, man.

With regards to all of the crap we’ve dished out at Mega Man 9 (which I actually didn’t hate, just wasn’t obsessed with) and Mega Man 10 (which I will admit I didn’t care for), you’d think we here at Eye Lazor Beams hate retro games, but that couldn’t possibly be further from the truth.

We hate everything. No, no, no.

We aren’t fond of “retraux” games being the only games we get in a long-running franchise we’ve spent years toiling over. We have nothing against retro itself, though.

Scott Pilgrim as a comic book series is absolutely fantastic. I don’t really want to spoil anything and I’m sure you’re familiar with the plot by now (the hero, Scott, has to defeat his new girlfriend’s seven evil ex-boyfriends exes to win her love in a world that’s HEAVILY influenced by and makes gratuitous reference to 80s and 90s video games), and I’m absolutely positive that other, far better reviewers have given these books the in-depth articles they deserve, so I’m just going to plug them for being absolutely hysterical with great art, likable characters and solid writing that doesn’t take itself too seriously while still making itself out to be Serious Business ™.

I loved every single reference to all of the games I grew up playing (“WE ARE SONIC AND KNUCKLES ONE-TWO-THREE-FOUR” had me in stitches, the creepy disembodied 1Up head was comedy gold, and the color splash page in Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together was hnnnnnnnnggghhh mmm-mmm good), and the art style is kind of reminiscent of Mega Man itself here and there especially in the character face proportions (though I don’t know if that’s intentional or not), so yeah, instant classic.

This is exactly what I want to see out of indie comics; well worth the cover price.

Bryan Lee O’Malley, you sir are a gentleman and a scholar.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (XBLA)

On that SP-related note, I want to plug the video game real quick, since this was also recommended to me by Break.

Despite only having played the first level (Limbo comprised most of my evening last night) I’m having a blast with this one. The retro-game aesthetic isn’t boring– in fact, despite the pixelated art style, it’s not actually “8-bit” but more like playing an old arcade game, which is a huge blast.

I’m actually pretty decent at beat-em-ups (it’s not my preferred genre, but I can hold my own). The music’s really catchy and the sprites are adorably well-animated. The gameplay’s all there, playing kind of like a River City Ransom/Streets of Rage sorta hybrid, which I’m surprisingly alright with. It’s a little hard (I’m playing on the easiest difficulty setting and I’m still getting a real workout) but that’s predominately because I’m a complete button-masher and suck at combos and the like, so I just get in someone’s face and beat them with whatever’s nearby until they go down.

So far I’ve only tried Scott so I’m not familiar with the other characters’ playstyles, but I like the game’s RPG elements (you can upgrade and level up your characters through playing, and spend your money on stat-boosting items and stuff) so it gives you a motivator to play beyond just “go from point to point and own as much face as possible before dying for a high score”.

I’ll hold off on any more of an in-depth review until I’ve had a chance to actually finish the game, so I’ll let MegaMatt and Break go off on this one with their own takes on it since I know they’ve both played it.

That said, time’s running short over here, so I’m going to go ahead and wrap up this edition of Progress Meter with the assurance that I will likely never do one of these again since I have enough columns of my own to write.

tl;dr It was actually pretty alright, thanks for listening.

kthxbai

Wherein Square Enix commits a cardinal gaming sin...

Carda here.

Most of my gaming this past week has been of the demo variety, so I’ll do some quick thoughts on each.  Let’s go!

Global Agenda — At first glance, this seemed like a no-brainer.  An MMO with elements of class-based shooters similar to TF2?  Hey, sign me up!  …That particular honeymoon didn’t last long.  The tutorial is excellent; it really sells you that this is an action game, a third person shooter that just happens to have the persistent world of an MMO. Then you finish the tutorial, head to the first town, and discover that it’s all the same MMO stuff you’ve done a zillion times over.  Go here, collect eight robot parts there, talk to So-And-So.  Bleh.  I’ll stick with WoW, thanks; at least in Azeroth my low-end laptop’s latency doesn’t throw off my aim.

Zero Gear — A cute little kart racer, with a focus on customization.  The game doesn’t really have any training wheels, though, which steepens the learning curve.  I had to scan the settings menu to figure out what exactly I was capable of doing, much less how to do it.  The soccer arena was a clever touch, and implemented relatively well.

Worms Reloaded — I’ll be honest; this is the first game in the entire series I’ve ever played.  And personally, I think I’ll stick with its classic DOS granddaddy, Scorched Earth.  Same tactical artillery gameplay, with less irritation at yourself when you accidentally nuke your own tank.

Final Fantasy XIV (Open Beta) — Open my FOOT.  I only managed to snag a key because I was on at a crazy early hour Friday morning, and then the stupid patcher refuses to run.  Period.  As in, it crashes the instant it starts running.  For that matter, so does the benchmark program intended to measure your in-game performance.  I know my laptop isn’t that great for graphics, but I believe that it doesn’t matter how good-looking a video game is if it forces you to upgrade your hardware.  Especially since “upgrading a laptop’s graphics card” is an ugly euphemism for “buy a new laptop”.  Seriously, Squeenix, you’re limiting your audience if you don’t make it so your game will run on older machines like mine. Final Fantasy XI runs just fine on this thing, and I don’t even play that but once every six years.  As much as I’d love to play a Miqo’te or however you spell it, if you can’t get the beta to behave you sure as heck won’t be getting my money. And let’s not even get started on how unprepared you seem to have been for the demand on your registration servers an open beta would cause…

Torchlight — This Diablo clone is the best game I tried all week.  The controls are simple enough to understand, the game helps you without holding your hand for too long, and there’s plenty to do outside the main quest.  Heck, I was playing the demo and found an epic-level item.  That’s pretty sweet.  This game has that popcorn feel to it; once you start you want to keep going just one more level…

Well, that’s it for this week.  I’ll be spending the weekend getting settled into a new D&D campaign.  In the meantime, try before you buy.  You just might save yourself twenty bucks and a headache.

...

FlashMan here.

This isn’t an easy decision for me to make, so I’m not going to beat around the bush.

THRP is permanently canceled.

While working with this party led to its fair share of technical difficulties (the vast majority of which are the fault of the inexperienced GM trying to run a serious game with a system he’s unfamiliar with over an instant messaging client) the process was really enjoyable. My party’s characters were really entertaining to watch as they interacted with each other, ZUN’s characters were heaps of fun to write for, and the experience I gained from the whole thing was invaluable.

That said, I had initially put THRP on hiatus about a month or two ago (right before Carda went on his unplanned internet vacation) and as I’ve spent the last few weeks puzzling out the future of the story, I’ve just decided to end it prematurely. I have several reasons for doing so, and this is not a decision I take lightly– believe me, after the amount of time I’ve poured into this, I really hate to see it go unfinished. Still, I believe this is the best for all parties involved.

If you’re still interested in following our exploits, MegaMatt is working on an unrelated campaign of his own. The group has kicked around possible meeting times to participate. We’re not really sure if we’re going to actually run with it yet, but it’s a possibility.

Thanks to everyone who read about our adventures; new ELB EX coming soon.

–FlashMan

Get it? Sorcerer? Wizard? Ah, never mind.

Carda here.

No Progress Meter this week, due to the fact that with the beginning of the fall semester I’ve been too busy to do much more than replay Halo 3′s campaign back up to the same point I left off at the first time I played it.

Instead, I’m going to take another look at D&D, particularly how well I think the brand is being handled since 4th Edition’s glorious release.

4th Edition was a huge overhaul of the game mechanics for Dungeons and Dragons.  It did away with many systems that seemed to be intended for a more simulation-like experience and distilled it into a game of tactical combat involving endlessly customizable fantasy characters.  Plenty of guidelines were included for non-combat encounters, but the system’s ideal goal, to make the game easier to run and more streamlined to play, was evident.

Whether or not it succeeded in that goal is a matter of opinion.  Whether or not said goal was what the game “needed” is also debated.  Rather hotly, I might add.  (To anyone who champions any side of the Edition Wars: it’s a game.  If you don’t like the new/old version, don’t play it.  Duh.)

Me?  I really like 4e.  In fact, if not for 4e I’d probably still be struggling to wrap my brain around d20 Modern and the Big Eyes Small Mouth d20 conversion.  So I’m considerably irked by the way Wizards of the Coast has handled the brand since 4e launched.

The Insider connection

While switching to digital distribution for Dragon and Dungeon magazines was actually a reasonable move, given the proliferation of laptops and other PDF-capable computers such as iPhones, tying it to their Insider subscription plan was an unwise move in hindsight. When Insider was first announced, WotC had several digital tools in the works: the Character Builder, the Monster Builder, the online Compendium, the Character Visualizer, the Dungeon Builder, and the online Game Table.  So far, only the first three of those tools have been released, one of which is still considered beta, and little to nothing has been said about the other items officially for well over two years.  This wouldn’t be as much of a problem if the full suite of tools had been released shortly after they began to charge subscriptions for it all.  It feels unfinished and sloppy on WotC’s part.

Essential materials

And then along came the Essentials line.

Honestly, I really don’t understand the point of these products.  It’s a set of books with new builds for the existing “core” classes, builds which honestly feel more like an attempt at recapturing an “old-school” feel.  While WotC continues to point out that these new builds are totally compatible with the preceding materials and that the Essentials line is not “4.5 edition”, I remain skeptical.  Especially given that some of these builds have major mechanical differences: the new fighter and rogue builds, for example, have no daily powers.  How would you explain to a player who got his start with the new “essentials” products the existence of daily powers that are incredibly powerful, and reconcile that with his batch of powers that don’t have any of these limited but powerful attacks?  While these builds do have mechanics designed to counter the apparent nerf, from everything I’ve seen so far, it’s not enough.

If you don’t like it…

So of course the age-old counter-argument rears its head here.  I even said it myself earlier in this very column: “If you don’t like it, don’t use it.”  And I probably won’t use the Essentials books except to supplement the characters I already have.  It’s not that I don’t like the new material; the problem here lies in the fact that these are the books that are being advertised as the products every store should always have in stock.  Wait, what?  They’re taking a small handful of classes, half as many as were featured in the first 4e Player’s Handbook, creating new builds for them that are arguably MORE confusing than “pick 2 at-will, 1 encounter, and 1 daily at first level” which every PHB1 class had…  I wonder if the nostalgia of creating “old-school” builds for the “classic” D&D archetypes factored more heavily into these books than they should have.  It certainly feels like they’re changing things up for the sake of change, not necessarily for the benefit of the game.

Granted, this is all one man’s opinion, and I’m no expert on the franchise by any means.  But why, I must ask, couldn’t they have repackaged the original Player’s Handbook, with all the necessary errata, and called THAT the “essential” product? It already has everything a player needs to start playing, not counting dice and a miniature for his character (and don’t even get me started on their decision to replace the minis in Game Day kits with cardboard tokens).

I realize that this makes me sound like one of “those” people, the kind who engage in endless arguments over which version is better.  Maybe so, but I simply don’t see a valid reason to create brand new material within the same version and call that the “essential” product when WotC already has a perfectly good book on the shelves that can be updated for the same purpose.  And why the focus on bringing in new players when the player base they have is still clamoring for the online game table so they can play long-distance.

Come on, Wizards of the Coast.  You’re doing so well reinventing Magic: the Gathering.  Don’t fail your other flagship franchise like this.

Can something really be creepy AND cute?

Carda here.

I don’t know how I pulled it off, but I actually managed to sell off my old desktop this past week.  How I managed to get more than a nickel for a six-year-old homebuilt rig is a mystery.  …Well, okay, maybe not a complete mystery.

My local game shop has been running their tournament reporting software an this relic of a machine that’s arguably slower than the first Windows box I ever owned (not really, but it sure feels that way when it takes ten minutes to load up the D&D Character Builder on the thing).  I offered my old box, since I’m laptop-only these days, and they were interested, so I cleaned the hard drive off and hauled it in.  Helped to pay up a good chunk of my internet bill, too, so I’m back in action after a week of hoofing it to McDonalds for wifi.

Ahem.  Anyway.  Enough about my life, onto the games!

Halo 3: ODST — My final report from ODST is as follows:

• Campaign Complete: Normal — achievement unlocked
• all Campaign-specific achievements, including Good Samaritan, Naughty Naughty, and Audiophile unlocked
• Vidmaster Challenge: Brainpan achievement unlocked
• Vidmaster Challenge: Classic achievement unlocked

Next goal: Halo 3 campaign, including collecting all skulls in a single pass.

Plants vs. Zombies — I updated my copy to the Game of the Year edition last week.  (And it was free, too; a nice bonus considering most other developers probably would have charged for a new copy.)  I initially had misgivings about it, since they replaced the Michael Jackson-inspired zombie with a generic Saturday Night Fever model (I happened to like the original MJ homage, personally), but the addition of the iPhone version’s achievements and a make-your-own-zombie builder (which shows up in-game as the flag carrier) convinced me to take the plunge.  I’ve recently started a fresh save, since my original save had everything already unlocked except for a bunch of the new achievements, and I wanted to start anew so I could actually work towards a set goal again.

machinarium — My brother-in-law handed me a USB stick containing this game and said, “It’s awesome, but it’s HARD.”  I agree.  This adventure game has a fairly creepy ambient vibe to it, but the story and characterization are incredibly cute.  The visuals look hand-drawn, and everything oozes personality.  Each screen gives you one hint (unless you’ve already accomplished that hint’s goal on your own), and there’s n in-game walkthrough to help you through the more obscure puzzles… but not so fast.  The walkthrough is kept in a locked book, and you have to play a mini-game to unlock it each and every time you want to look at it, even if you haven’t left the screen you’re on.  Also, one scene may factor into multiple puzzles, and while the walkthrough does cover everything you need to do in a scene, it only covers that particular screen.  Meaning that if you have to leave that screen and come back later with something to finish a scene’s last puzzle, it won’t show you anything that you need to do elsewhere on that particular page.  So while it can be tricky to piece together the puzzles, it’s totally worth it.  Oh, and one last thing: don’t be afraid to sit idle for a couple of minutes every now and then; you’ll get little flashback scenes from your character’s memory, which are always cute and even funny at times.  If you enjoy adventure games, this is a winner.

The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition — Speaking of adventure games, I finally completed the first game in the Monkey Island series for the first time.  I’ve beaten Curse, Escape, and the entire Tales series, but I’ve never played the second game and never beaten the first until last week.  Now I just need to pick up LeChuck’s Revenge and complete the saga.

That’s it for this week; keep filling those progress bars and unlocking those achievements!

It begins.

Eye Lazor Beams proudly presents…

A Less Than Three Studios production…

The SpaceTime Legacy

a novel by Ryan and Kessie Carroll

Chapter One: A Night At the Races

Carda swung his book bag over one shoulder and left the classroom with the other students. Around him, the other students mumbled things like, “I’m totally failing this class.”

“Why are you taking it?”

“I thought learning Old English would be fun!”

Carda hid a grin. He hated this class, too, but it was part of his major, and he had to take it. It was reassuring to know that other people had trouble, too.

Thank goodness it was lunch break. His stomach growled as he turned down a hallway that led to the exit nearest the parking lot. He had just enough time to grab a hamburger before Ancient History at two o’clock. Halfway to the door, someone called, “Wait up, Carda!”

He turned. A girl his own age was jogging toward him, her book bag bouncing on her shoulder. She was slightly shorter than him, and aside from wearing her red hair longer than his, looked exactly like him: green eyes, lanky build, fair complexion. “Hi Michelle,” he called.

She slowed down to walk beside him, panting. “I thought I’d missed you, your class got out early today.”

“No idea why,” said Carda. “Finals are in a few weeks and you should see my homework.”

“Ugh, mine too,” said Michelle. “I always used to like science, but Biology is killing it for me.”

Carda pushed open the door and held it for his sister. She stepped outside, saying, “The trouble is, I think the Biology and Anatomy teachers compare notes, because the stuff we’re learning is so close and–Oh, excuse me.”

She had nearly bumped into a tall man in a business suit and sunglasses. Carda held the door open for the man, but the man said, “Hello James. I would like a word, if you please.”

Carda stepped outside into the blinding sunlight and felt himself begin to sweat at once. It was the end of April and already the weather was flirting with triple digits. The stranger walked off a short distance to a patch of shade under a tree. Michelle lingered uncertainly. Carda waved a hand at her. “Go ahead and hit up Gary’s, I’ll catch up in a few.”

She nodded, frowning at the stranger, and walked off across the parking lot.

Carda joined the stranger under the tree and felt the momentary relief of escaping the sun. The stranger extended a hand. “I am Dimetrius,” he said.

“I’m James Carda,” said Carda, “but I guess you already know that.” His smile faded as Dimetrius’s face remained unmoved. The man’s suit covered him from from neck to foot, yet his hand was quite cool. His sunglasses were the silver reflective sort, and all Carda could see of Dimetrius’s eyes were double reflections of himself.

“My organization has been observing you,” said Dimetrius. “You show promise. Your grades show persistence and dedication.”

Carda was taken aback. “You do know that I got all B’s last semester, right?”

“Yes,” said Dimetrius. “Your subjects and teachers are difficult ones. Few students ever recieve A grades. Even your parents.”

Carda felt sweat trickle down his back. “Um, who are you working with? How do you know all this?”

“I work for the government,” said Dimetrius. “I have my own methods of obtaining information. We are interested in you, James. We want to offer you a position.”

“In what?” asked Carda, glancing at the man’s suit. “The CIA?”

Dimetrius reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a business card. Handing it to Carda, he said, “Think about it. If you want more information, call the number on the card. I’m sure we will see each other again.” He turned and walked away along the side of the building, making for visitor parking, Carda guessed.

Carda looked at the business card. All it said was, “Dimetrius, Strider,” and a phone number. He slipped it into his pocket and hurried across the lot toward his car, craving air conditioning and food … and a chance to talk things over with Michelle.

***

Michelle was intrigued, as was Carda himself. She urged him to show the card to their parents when they got home that night, but Carda was reluctant. Something about Dimetrius made him uneasy. He didn’t want anybody else to know about their meeting.

As they walked back into school after lunch, Carda said, “Hey Mish, don’t tell Mom and Dad about what happened today, okay?”

“Why not?” she asked.

Carda hesitated. He didn’t know how to explain his unsettled feeling. “I just need to think about it some more, okay? I won’t call the number without consulting you guys first, don’t worry.”

“Okay,” said Michelle, mollified. “I just think it’s really weird, that’s all. See you tonight!”

“Bye,” said Carda, as they parted ways in the hall. He wrenched his mind away from Dimetrius and tried to focus on his Ancient History notes as he stepped into class.

***

That evening, Carda and Michelle sat down to dinner with their parents, David and Abigail Carda. “How was your day?” Abigail asked.

Carda met Michelle’s eye as a reminder not to tell about Dimetrius. She widened her eyes a bit to show she understood, and said to their mother, “Not much, really. Just class all day. I can’t wait for summer vacation.”

“You’re going to get a job, right Michelle?” asked David, spearing several green beans on his fork.

“Yeah,” said Michelle with a sigh. “I applied down at the coffee place. I figure if I have to work somewhere, it might as well smell nice.”

“How about you, James?” asked Abigail, turning to Carda.

“Mom, you know I’d rather go by my last name,” said Carda.

Abigail rolled her eyes. “We go through this all the time, dear. Are you applying for a job this summer?”

“Yeah, I thought I’d work down at the track,” said Carda. “I’m going to drop my resume off with Rick when I go down there Saturday night.”

“Gonna be a mechanic?” asked David, smirking as if he found his son’s interests cute.

“Why not learn?” said Carda. “As much work as I do on my car, I might as well do it and get paid–”

“Hey,” Michelle interrupted, “if he gets to work at the track, can I apply to the dance studio downtown?”

“You can’t make money dancing, dear,” said Abigail, looking sternly at her daughter. “You’ll learn better job skills working at a customer service job.”

“But they have a position open for a receptionist!” said Michelle. “I can answer phones and greet people–”

“Your mother said no,” said David.

An icy silence fell over the table as everyone concentrated on their plates. Michelle’s cheeks were flushed, and she stabbed her meatloaf with unnecessary violence. Carda wondered what his parents would have said if he had mentioned that a government agent had contacted him. Probably better not find out.

Michelle finished eating a few minutes later and left the table without a word. Carda finished and excused himself soon afterwards. Abigail stopped him as he headed for the hall. “James dear, don’t make the track the only thing you do this summer. When you graduate, you could go into archaeology, or teach as a professor … don’t waste your talent on cars.”

“Mechanics make a lot of money,” said Carda with a shrug, and went to his room. He flopped on his bed and stared at his ceiling fan. That’s what it all boiled down to. How much money they could make.

He waited until he heard the clink of dishes in the kitchen, then jumped up and headed out to the garage. He wanted to mess with his car.

Ffteen minutes later, Carda was deep under the hood of his Roadster, cleaning his spark plugs. He heard the garage door open stealthily, and peered around the hood to see Michelle slip out and ease the door shut. “Mom thinks I’m doing homework,” she whispered. Carda nodded.

Michelle crossed the garage to the toolbench, turned on a small radio there, found her favorite station, and began to dance and twirl to the music. Carda ignored her and continued to work on his car. Michelle always snuck out to dance in the garage when their parents were home. She had a stash of dance-training videos in her closet that she put on in the living room when their parents were out of town, which was once or twice a month.

After a while the radio cut to a commercial, and Michelle arrived, panting, at Carda’s side. “Know what?” she whispered. “I applied to the dance studio already.”

He raised an eyebrow at her.

“My phone’s on vibrate,” she said, grinning. “If they call back, I’m going in for an interview. If I don’t tell about the FBI guy, then you don’t tell on me about this, okay?”

“Okay,” said Carda, grinning back. “It’s shameless the way we conspire against our own parents.”

“Isn’t it?” said Michelle, as another song came on. She returned to her dancing, and Carda returned to his engine.

***

Carda had a race on Saturday night. He pushed the odd Dimetrius situation to the back of his mind as he prepped his car, and practiced drifting the turns every night as soon as his homework was done.

Michelle usually came to see his races, and occassionally, so did his parents. However, this weekend his parents had a dinner to attend Saturday afternoon, and they couldn’t make it to the track. This was fine with Carda. After a race his dad usually sat him down and discussed how dangerous racing was, and asked if Carda would try something else.

Four o’clock Saturday. The bleachers already had a few hardcore race fans camped out in them, their territory marked by ice chests and beach towels.

Carda sat on a corner of the bleachers just outside the garage, sucking on a soda and watching the other drivers practice. There were some new guys out there, including a white Pontiac Firebird with a gold bird emblem on the hood. The driver handled it well, and Carda watched the Firebird hug the turns with admiration.

The Firebird slowed at last and drove off the track, through the open gate, and into the racer’s parking lot outside the garage. Carda squinted as the driver climbed out. He looked about Carda’s age, with a leather jacket and wrap-around orange shades.

As the newcomer walked toward the vending machine outside the garage, Carda said, “Hey, nice ride.”

“Thanks,” said the newcomer. He deposited change, retrieved his soda, and walked over to Carda. “I’m Rayn Mistral,” he said, extending a gloved hand.

Carda shook it. “James Carda, but everybody calls me Carda. You running tonight?”

“You bet,” said Rayn. “You too?”

“Yep,” said Carda. “I’m in the Mazda MX5 over there.”

Rayn looked over his shoulder and sipped his cola. “I didn’t realize those could race. Isn’t their top speed something abysmal?”

“One-twenty,” said Carda, who took this slight on his car personally. “But nothing beats it on the corners.”

“I’ve gotta have power,” said Rayn, unperterbed. “And high speeds. What you lose on the corners you gain on the straightaway.”

“Care to bet on the race?” asked Carda.

“Sure,” said Rayn with a smirk. “Easy win. Two hundred, winner takes all.”

That was a much larger bet than usual for this track; usually it was twenty dollars a lap and the loser paid for the winner’s next tank of gas. But Carda’s pride had been injured, and he didn’t like this stranger’s superior tone.

“You’re on,” he said.

***

“What am I lookin’ at, Rick?” Carda inquired.

Rick “Slicks” Planarre was the racetrack’s head mechanic.  His prices were high, but no one begrudged him that; the man was good.  “I’m worried about this one, Carda.  I think you may be in over your head.”

“Yeah, I see it too.”  They were referring to the tanks in Rayn’s trunk. Rayn was just finishing his pre-race adjustments on the valves across the garage from them. Rick and Carda had positioned themselves at just the right angle to see under his hood without appearing to spy.  “Nitrous oxide.”

“He’ll blow your doors off on the first straightaway you come to.”

Carda squeezed his soda can until the aluminum crumpled. “What about the track?  Isn’t it still set up for technical racing?”

“Yeah, but there’s still the long back stretch that they’ve been using for straight drag runs this week.”

“I’ll just have to make sure I don’t give him an opening, then.”

Rick clapped him on the shoulder. “Godspeed, man.  You just might need the extra wings this time.”

Trying to look confident, Carda walked out to the race parking lot, climbed into his car, and pulled onto the track for a practice lap, along with the five other guys racing today.

At last Rayn’s Firebird pulled out of the garage, and all the drivers parked momentarily to draw their starting numbers out of a hat, presented to them by Cate Truxler, local champion. Carda drew position 4. Not too bad. With seven cars on a four-lane track, that meant he was in the first row, on the outside lane. It could have been worse, he reflected as he watched the guys who drew 5, 6 and 7. Although it could have been better. Rayn had drawn number 2.

They muscled their cars into position, and sat idling, waiting for the light to turn green. Carda jiggled the shifter, leaving it in neutral while he kept his left foot on the brake and revved his engine with his right, prepared to dash for the lead immediately. He had to take advantage of his miata’s acceleration and take the lead, which he could hopefully hold against the guys with better top speed.

The light turned green. Engines roared, and Carda leaped down the track, shifting gears at the speed of light.

The other cars roared after him, hugging his bumper, trying to get out from behind him. Carda hugged the black line on the track that indicated the ideal race position, following it around the first hairpin turn, slamming into a drift and downshifting rather than braking. The pack spread out, some guys fishtailing, others having to brake to avoid hitting the barriers on either side of the track. Carda checked his mirror just in time to see Rayn shoot past on his left. Carda wished he had seen how Rayn had made the turn and still accelerated that fast.

They rounded the second bend, and Carda watched in grudging admiration as Rayn’s Firebird slid perfectly around the turn, straightened out without a wobble, and shot for the next turn. Carda drifted around the turn on Rayn’s bumper, mildly proud of his own ability, and tried his best to get around the Firebird before the third turn.

As they neared the third turn, Carda slid toward the outside, hoping to circle Rayn that way–and then somehow he was in front. He didn’t even notice passing Rayn, but he noticed Rayn’s look of astonishment in his rearview mirror.

Once Carda had the lead, he drove with the utmost concentration, never allowing Rayn enough space to pass him, taking each turn slightly faster than was safe.

Then they entered the straightaway. Carda entered fifth gear and floored the gas. The Firebird still inched up on his tail; it was tuned for high speed, after all.

Halfway through the straightaway, Rayn nudged his Roadster.

Before Carda knew what was happening, he flew toward the guardrail, struck it and bounced.  His lightweight car rolled through the air as Rayn boosted ahead towards victory.  Carda’s last thought before hitting the ground was a panicked prayer to a God he’d only ever read about.

And that was when everything slowed to a stop.

As Carda clung to the steering wheel, the world slowly rewound, like a movie in 3-D. His car flipped back over the guardrail and slowly toppled toward the track. As he landed back on his wheels again, he saw Rayn laughing.  He watched while Rayn’s car deliberately ricocheted off his Roadster’s left rear fender. Then both cars traveled backwards up the track a few hundred feet. Everything stopped again. Carda tightened his grip until his knuckles popped. Now everything would move forward, right?

The world slammed from pause back into full-speed ahead. Carda nearly blacked out from the sudden g-force, but he still had the presence of mind to downshift and yank the steering wheel to the left.

Rayn’s would-be bounce and boost maneuver missed entirely as Carda pulled off a 360-degree drift, swinging the back end of his Roadster out of the way of the oncoming attack.  Rayn’s car slammed into the guardrail, but since it was heavier, it merely skidded along the rail to a stop, the sound of shrieking metal piercing the eardrums of the spectators on the other side of the course.

Carda drifted sideways across the finish line and slammed his parking brake on before leaping out of his car.  He knew that he likely would have died if he hadn’t foreseen it, and he was about to bloody someone’s nose for it.  Preferably Rayn’s.

Rayn, on the other hand, was nowhere to be seen.  He hadn’t bothered crossing the finish line at all, opting instead to flee from the track through the nearest gate.

“What happened out there?” Rick asked as he ran up to Carda.

“He tried to sideswipe me.  I saw it coming and dodged.”

“You saw it coming.”  Rick’s tone held more than a hint of disbelief.

“Yeah.”  Carda obviously didn’t want to talk about it.

Rick didn’t pursue the issue.  “Well, I’ll make sure he pays the two hundred dollars next time I see him.”

“He owes me a lot more than that… like an explanation,” Carda growled. He glanced up at the grandstands and saw Michelle jump down and run across the track toward him. Behind her stood a figure in a black suit and sunglasses, even though the sun had set an hour before. Carda felt a slight chill. Dimetrius again.

Then Michelle was hugging him, and Carda lost sight of Dimetrius. “Oh Carda, you could have been killed, spinning out like that! Did you see his car crash? Do you think he’s okay?”

“He was well enough to run for it,” said Carda. “I guess he doesn’t want track security asking too many questions or something. Yes, yes, I’m okay,” he growled. “C’mon, get in and I’ll drive us back to the garage.”

Carda and Michelle went home late that night, after the police questioned Carda about his involvement in the wreck.  Carda didn’t mention the weird time-rewind thing. They wouldn’t believe him anyway.

Rayn showed up halfway through questioning, and the police jumped on him and interrogated him about what had  happened. Rayn claimed that Carda had bumped him and knocked him into the guardrail. This held up until Carda  pointed out that Rayn had been to Carda’s left, yet somehow Rayn had smashed into the guardrail on the right side  of Carda. Then Rayn insisted that he had merely lost control of his car, and stuck to this story.

When Carda finally got in the Roadster with Michelle, his shirt was glued to his back with sweat, and he was  exhausted.

“Well,” said Michelle as they turned onto their street, “at least you have finals next week to keep you off the  track. Which is fine, because Mom and Dad are gonna ground you.”

Carda could find no words to reply to this, and made a small whimpering sound instead.

The original Fire and Awesome type

MegaMatt here.

Flash has been trying to (and, I hate to admit, succeeding at) get me back into the Pokemon TCG. So much so, in fact, that this last weekend I went to a prerelease of the latest set, Heart Gold / Soul Silver Undaunted.

How did it go? Find out behind the break.

12:30: Signups scheduled to begin 15 ago, they say “shortly”. Average age is about mine. Place is smaller than I remember, but I haven’t played srsbsns since EX Unseen Forces or whatever. And there’s a LAN room I don’t remember, so they might have walled off part.

12:40: I felt old when I saw my POP ID was a digit shorter than everyone else’s. Then I saw someone with a three-digit ID.

12:45: One of the kids is using a psychic deck that’s really good. If he designed it, I fear him. I was planning to lose all my matches to kids, but… I don’t know, these kids look good. One of the guys my age has a shirt from freaking Nationals.

12:47: Supposed to start at 1:00. I remain unconvinced. Turnout seems to be fewer and older people than I remember at the last one, but maybe that’s because there aren’t four Warhammer 40K games in the background this time.

12:49: Play along at home with this fun spotting game!
-Someone with one or more bags from a local fast food joint
-Orange chicken, egg roll, or other Chinese food
-A parent who looks deathly bored
-A parent crouched in the corner, hawk eyes locked on his/her offspring
-Someone who has to shop at Big and/or Tall
-Mountain Dew
-An unfunny T-shirt
-The one guy in the corner with the Warhammer 40K miniatures, waiting for an opponent
-Spah disguised as Engineah
-Two guys in the back playing something nobody’s ever heard of

12:55: Hm, my watch is five minutes faster than the official.

12:57: Huh, they changed the box design. From an advertising perspective, this one makes more sense, but I miss the old one.

1:00 exactly: Got my cards. Packs are up to 10 now from 9 in the early EX days? Love the package art. Also, I’m a bit surprised that the term “Prime” is canon, I thought it was a fan thing.

1:56: Opponent ran some weird three-type hybrid. I started with a Beldum with a Raticate, Metang and Togetic in my hand. Evolved Beldum turn two and smashed with the two-flip attack. Got down to one prize with a benched Togepi before it got killed, and since he had used three Sage’s Trainings, he decked himself.

Stage 1 Verdict: Win by deck out

2:03: Saw someone shuffling half of Rayquaza/Deoxys. I’m scared.

2:14: Got curbstomped by another metal deck. He got out Lairon on turn 2 and was doing 60 for three by turn 3.

Stage 2 Verdict: Loss by bench

2:25: Watched a game, he just kept sending up Eevees, evolving into Umbreon Prime, taking it back into his hand, then sending up his other Eevee, evolving… He won by deck out.

2:54: Holy crap that was close. He got out the two-attack Scyther and started sweeping, I got out my Afterimage Scyther and damaged him. At this point, I had Metagross and Metang in my hand. He used Drifblim to shuffle Scyther away, then used Cut to put 20 on my Ratatta. Ratatta bit back for the KO, and my prize was Beldum. I put 20 on the Scizor he sent up with Ratatta, then went for the kill with Metagross’s 70 for three. That left me with one prize, and nothing he had could take out Metagross.

Stage 3 Verdict: Win by prizes

2:59: My opponent is nowhere to be found. Oh well.

Stage 4 Verdict: Win by default

3:16: Traded an Energy Exchange for an Energy Signal Roserade. If he weren’t older than me, I’d feel guilty.

3:28: Went up against that guy I saw at 2:03. Turns out that was his trade pile, so I relaxed. Then I found out he’d gone 4-0 so far and I got scared again. Turns out that was mostly because he got Scizor Prime. He donked me, we played again, it swept me again.

Stage 5 Verdict: Humiliating losses, first by bench, then by prizes

Classic.

Carda here.

I’m back with another Progress Meter!  Let’s get started!

Halo 3: ODST — I finally completed the campaign!  I also managed to get the Good Samaritan achievement on my initial playthrough, which requires you to clear all the Mombasa Streets segments of the campaign without killing any Covenant Engineers.  Managing this one on my first run makes things a LOT easier, because it means I can now run through Mombasa Streets in its final, completely open version without having to start a total fresh story mode run just to get the one achievement.  This makes grabbing both Audiophile and Naughty Naughty (the latter of which is the total opposite of Good Samaritan) much easier.

Also of note: I managed to earn my second Vidmaster achievement!  I did some research on Vidmaster Challenge: Classic and discovered that the easiest level to get a Legendary pacifist run done in ODST is on Uplift Reserve.  No shots fired, no grenades thrown?  Just hop in a vehicle and book it.  It’s still not that easy unless you’ve got a lot of practice, though.  Sometimes just getting in the first Warthog you see is a challenge on Legendary.  Once you can clear the first couple of Wraiths, you can hop in a Ghost and boost your way to victory.  The hardest area to blitz through is a narrow path where you absolutely need to move as fast as possible because you’ve got two Wraiths, a Chopper, and a Turret all shooting at you, but you also need to steer, which is nigh impossible while boosting.  If you’re going for this one, just keep at it until you’re about to chuck your controller at the screen, then take a break.  Sometimes a fresh attempt is all you need to pull it off.

Getting Classic puts me at 2 of 7 towards unlocking Recon armor in Halo 3 multiplayer.  Of course, with Reach coming out soon, that may not be as big of a deal anymore, but hey.  It’ll still be an accomplishment.  The hard part is going to be finding three other people to help me with the other five achievements over Xbox Live…  At any rate my next goal is to make a complete run through Halo 3′s campaign, which I never finished.

That’s pretty much it for my gaming for the week.  I’ve been working on getting set up for fall classes, so that’s taken up a lot of my time.  With the exception of Progress Meter and the first chapter of The SpaceTime Legacy, I’ll be pretty much “dark” until the beginning of September, but don’t worry, MegaMatt’s been keeping a solid run of LoL going, and I’m sure FlashMan has something up his sleeve…

Anyway, until next week, may all your pacifist runs be painless.

The Pillar of AWESOME, more like!

MegaMatt here.

Yep, if you thought I knew when to leave well enough alone, you clearly don’t know who I am.

Behind the break: a point by point rebuttal of Carda’s reply and more of my usual insanity. Huzzah!

I will grant the first Halo two major points: it standardized control schemes for console FPSes, and it set a high bar for storytelling in games that normally wouldn’t. I mean, let’s face it, up until that point, FPSes didn’t usually have a significant story beyond “they r bad go kill them lolk”. As I said before, I love the story of Halo, and the universe Bungie built is really fascinating.

My memories of Halo 2 are fuzzy, but then I didn’t experience the series the way it was meant to. My first exposure to Halo was Halo 2 online multiplayer. (Anyone care to guess why I have such a hate of snipers?) I beat the campaign of Halo 1 on PC first, then Halo 3, then Halo 2, and so it’s taken me far longer than it should have to piece together what the heck happened in the plot of the games.

And so we come to Reach.

*dramatic sigh*

The multiplayer, from what I’ve seen, looks spectacular.

Clearly, you haven’t played it. It’s Halo multiplayer. If you’re expecting something different, better or worse, you’re not going to get it.

There’s something for everyone: for the creative types, there’s the improved Forge tools and a massive canvas to use it on.  For those who want the co-op experience without all the story, there’s Firefight.  For objective-based team battles, you’ve got Firefight Versus or Invasion to try.  For the Hardcore Stop Having Fun Guys, there’s The Arena.

I’ll admit, as a massive fan of said objective-based team battles, I had a blast with Invasion in the beta, but my problem is that the Halo playerbase is full of I Wanna Be The Guys who charge out to go get the most kills. If people actually cooperated, it’d be ten times more fun.

Also, for the record, if you wanted to really create, you’d learn something like the Source SDK, but then I suppose I’m making the “gtfo of Guitar Hero and learn a real instrument” argument here.

And any one of those will grant you credits towards unlocking new features for your armor so you can customize your appearance beyond a simple color scheme.  Brilliant.

My problem with the customization is that it all looks to me like the same helmets from Halo 3 with big blocks in different positions on the helmet. There’s nothing that you can unlock that screams “holy crap, this guy’s awesome” like the Hayabusa did, at least right after launch.

The new weaponry is more than just a renamed Battle Rifle.  There’s a grenade launcher (that isn’t a Brute Shot, finally), a needle rifle, a target painter that causes Orbital Laser Death to rain down on your foes…

That one I’ll give to you, I didn’t know about that. Although I question the usefulness of an Orbital Death Laser when I can’t even hit anyone with the handheld version…

and of course the armor abilities.

Oh boy, here we go.

Active Camo isn’t relegated to a power-up anymore,

Yes, but you still have the issue of being forced to throw down the equivalent of a Radar Jammer when you trigger it. The invisibility is useless because it instantly alerts anyone clever enough to watch their radar that there’s an invisible person somewhere nearby.

you can have a solid few seconds of invulnerability, . . . Armor Lock can serve as a convenient way to get some shield recharge time in without getting interrupted by a stray bullet.

Protip: did you know you can melee someone in the back as they’re coming out of the Armor Lock animation for an instant kill? For that matter, even at it’s longest, Armor Lock lasts about six seconds, which at least when I played the beta, wasn’t long enough to get my shields charging back up.

you can even play medic with the drop shield, which combines the functions of a couple of the old Halo 3 equipment pieces.

Riiight, because deployable cover is the same thing as a medic. Remind me to carry around some chest-high walls for you next time you’re playing Heavy and mashing that “Activate Charge!” voice clip.

And of course, jet packs. . . . The jetpack alone opens up quite a few tactical options, since you no longer need a vehicle to break gravity’s hold.  This can change an objective game like CTF in a hurry, as the verticality opens up new routes that previously didn’t exist.

You never have played the beta, have you. The instant your feet leave the ground, everyone on the map turns to face you with a bloodthirsty glint in their eyes. Oh, and by the way, in Bungie’s words: “If you have hold of the flag, using an Armor Ability will cause you to drop it instantly.” So much for those new routes!

Overall, these features can be much more game-changing than some might think.

You’re not writing an essay for the SAT, you can say me if you mean me. XD

Believe me when I say that this is much more than an “expansion pack”.  This is Bungie’s love letter to the fans; they wanted their last game in the series before Microsoft hands it off to another studio to be memorable.

I hope so. I hope everything I’ve said turns out to be completely untrue and this game ends up being good enough to cure cancer on contact.

But I sure as hell doubt it.