Tears in Rain

Good Thursday everyone!

This is a post that I've been thinking of writing for a while now ever since I had a chat about similar with my father and good friend Tom.

The topic at hand is the emotional attachment that we men/geeks/people feel for inanimate objects.

You see this every day everywhere, grown men naming their cars and referring to it as a she. I believe that this started back in Ye-olde days with galleons, and it is my belief that the same attitude exists with modern geeks and the use of computers, and to a lesser extent mobile phones.

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So why do we do this? Why do we feel it necessary to humanise these tools?

I can not explain for other people, only myself and with hope see if the same explanation applies to others.

You see, I'm guilty of this just like many others. My computer is named, and I refer to it as a she (and from this point on will do so in this article), and I do have an emotional tie to her. If she stopped working and needed to be replaced (note, replaced, not upgraded) then I would feel like i had lost a friend and a part of me.

But why? It's crazy isn't it?

Perhaps not...

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Hundreds of years ago knights rode a favourite horse, they often had many, but always one that was their favourite. This horse they would trust with their life, and likewise the horse would trust in the rider not to put it in unnecessary danger.

Together the rider and mount were unstoppable against all manner of foe and the armoured cavalry was a truly fearsome sight.

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I don't ride a horse, I don't own a suit of armour nor a sword to slay my enemies.

What I do have is my computer.

Together my computer and I have seen many amazing sights and done deeds that bards sing of.

We have free dived from the outer atmosphere in MDK2, brought down the Strogg Empire in Quake2+4, killed an Alien Queen with cunning and wits in virtually every AvP game made, travelled to a tropical paradise and lassoed crazies to cacti in BulletStorm, ventured into the frozen wilderness of Skyrim, grown a legion of monsters in Dungeon Keeper 2, saved the world in Mass Effect, slain the Lich King at the seat of the Icecrown Citadel and hidden from Alma in F.E.A.R.

All of these events may not have been real, but the emotions they brought out of me were real, the excitement, the awe, the courage and fear! And at every stage my computer has been there, my steed, my rifle, my sword.

None of this would have been possible if not for my computer.

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die."
- Roy Batty, Blade Runner 1982

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Alien Rage - Unlimited: A Second Opinion

Good Tuesday everyone!

So yesterday I got the opportunity to sink my teeth into the recently released game Alien Rage - Unlimited



Now for those interested in the game you may have read the review on Destructoid that seems to be doing the rounds, and I would like to add my own thoughts into the pool.

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So to start off, what is it? Well Alien Rage is a 'classic' First Person Shooter (FPS) available on PC, PS3 and 360, and the version I got to play was on PC.

Now, first and foremost, Alien Rage is pretty! It is very pretty!


I have to be honest, I can't play it with everything on full, but with a lot of settings cranked to max and some others turned down slightly it plays to a decent degree, and that's running a 5 year old graphics card!

From what I have read it is an Nvidia heavy game, and if you've got a suitable card it should run like a dream, mine is an old Radeon, so I put my minor graphic problems down to that.

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But anyway, what about gameplay? AI? Animations? Everything else the game has been criticised over?

Honestly? There are 'issues' with the AI, the aliens are far from intelligent, but that's beside the point. In fact, I believe that in tackling these issues I am doing the game a disservice.

You see there are three games that I regularly have installed on my computer that I enjoy booting up and playing every now and then, the first and least played is Unreal 2, next and middle played is Doom 3, and last but most played is the truly awesome Quake 4! Games that I believe have yet to be properly challenged in the sci-fi FPS genre. I've played the competition that's come about since, and a few (AvP, A:CM etc) have even come close to being as good, but there's always been a problem.

You see modern shooters have a habit if relying on storyline, tactics and game-mechanics, but these games, some of my favourite games ever, don't rely on anything like that, they just throw monsters at you to let you blast them up, all the while giving a pseudo storyline which has the depth of a 1990's Arnie movie.

But is that a bad thing really? No! It means that every so often I can boot up a game, blast some Strogg and feel like a dreaming bad ass!

And that is what Alien Rage does! It makes me feel like a bad ass with a trusty gun!




- You see, yes the game's weaponry is limited, sometimes very similar, but then why would you want to ditch your favourite rifle? She's been through countless battles with you, slain more monsters than you can count and you've even named her!

This is why in games like this, I always have my trusty rifle, be it assault, pulse or plasma, and together we stick through thick or thin. Countless demons, aliens and rogue mercs have fallen before my barrage of fire power, and those words have never been more true in this game:

This is my rifle, there are many like it, but this one is mine. Without me my rifle is nothing, without my rifle I am nothing!

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So my friends, what should you take from this review?

As always I can't tell you to play this game, because I don't know your tastes, and you may be reading this thinking "Quake4 sucked balls!" But if like me you loved those games, then give this game a shot. It's only about £15 on Steam and is one hell of a ride!




- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

A Second Attempt

Good Friday everyone!

So yesterday I wrote a post, but forgot to save a draft before posting, and sadly after pressing 'post' it was lost into the nether.

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CRYPTS
Anyway, so things are starting to move forward with the CRYPTS beta! Yesterday two more people signed up, and feedback ideas are starting to come in, so thanks for that, and as always if you are reading this and would like to join in the beta, just drop me your email and I'll send you the files.

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Hell Dorado
So I've decided that I'm going to take the plunge into this game, ever since I started reading about it, it's been eating away in the back of my head and just won't let go.

I'm still struggling to find a player or two who I can play regularly, but I'm sure I can wrangle one up, at the very least I can create a force myself and have an awesome time painting them, which for me is ultimately what I enjoy the most.

In fact, I might even try to make a display base for them (after the models themselves, which I've yet to actually do).

Anyway, that's pretty much all from me today. Short and sweet, but hey...

So on that note, stay safe and I'll see you Cryptside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

CRYPTS plans, The Malifaux 1.5 Initiative & Hell Dorado

Good Tuesday everyone!

I hope you are all in good health!

So last night I had a plan, first I was to create a present list for my wife so she knows what she can buy me for birthday and Xmas (both in December of course). This I had no problem with!

My next plan was to add more info into the CRYPTS QuickStart rules. This of course never happened.

It is with hope that I will be doing this tonight instead, and will be emailing the revised .pdf to my lovely beta testers.

- Again if you want to be in the CRYPTS beta test, just let me know your email and I'll forward the info to you!

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Also, yesterday on the way home I was listening to the latest Malifools episode where I noticed a brief mention of my 1.5 Malufaux Initiative as mentioned in a recent post.

What was interesting was reaction that the few talking about it had, talking about what they think my aim is behind all of this.

I'm not able to reveal yet what the aim is fully at this point, but closing for the Initiative will be at the end of this week, when I edit the first post to include the details of everyone who is willing to play v1.5 (currently sat at 4 including myself).

Next week I'll be promoting the interest for an international 1.5 League, played out via the table top or Vassel, whichever is best for the players, and at the end of next week I'll be closing down the interest in that and announcing whether or not the league will be going ahead.

As an added note, if you place top in the league I will send you the grand prize in the form of the Warhamster Scheme & Strat deck!


- Massive props to Mr Awesome for donating these!

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Going back to my present list, I realised that three bits of my list were models for CRYPTS:



First is the Hell Dorado Infernal Horde for my Lesser Demons.



Next up is the Hell Dorado Zaaxan for my Greater Demon



Last but not least, the Great Damned One of Wrath for The Butcher.

It occurred to me while writing this, as I hope to get some demons anyway then I should probably grab myself a Demon Force for the game, so I got started reading up on starter boxes:


I must say, while this would be an almost pure gaming purchase, it's one I think could be very fun as after downloading the QuickStart rules there are a lot of things I like.

It seems to be very similar to Malifaux in a way; areas of control, alternating activations, character cards and abilities that require constant referring back to in order to use properly!

In fact reading through these rules actually helps to answer a question I've had for CRYPTS, and that's how I deal with locking people into melee and stopping people using ranged weapons when locked in combat. These rules have given me the ideas needed!

The only problem as always is finding opponents, but no worries about that.

Anyway, that rather random posting is all from me today, other than a quick update on how my recent Wyrd models are coming:


And on that note, stay safe and I'll see you Cryptside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

The Malifaux 1.5 Initiative - An Explanation

Greetings everyone!

Today I created a thread on the Wyrd v1.5 Malifaux Subforum: http://www.wyrd-games.net/showthread.php?46894-The-Malifaux-1-5-Initiative

For those who are curious, I'd like to explain exactly why I have done this.

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So for starters there was before a big discussion about the creation of this forum and the need for the 1.5 community to 'get organised'.

Well the subforum was created, and almost instantly everything fell silent. No posts, nothing.

Wyrd gave the community exactly what they asked for and nothing has been done with it.

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So today I thought that it would be a good idea for me to throw my oar in and see if I can make a difference.

As you know I still love old edition Malifaux, it's still my favourite table top game, and while I have no problem with the community either dying off or moving to new edition, I can't stand by and do nothing, like almost everyone else is - emphasis on the word 'almost'.

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So this is the reason behind the initiative. It will probably go no where and no one will care, and honestly that's what I'm expecting will happen, but at least if it does and the 1.5 subforum is shut down due to lack of activity, then I can rest assured that i tried to do... something.

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So dear reader, I would ask you to ask yourself, do you still want to play v1.5 Malifaux? Regardless of your opinion on v2, then please post your details and show your support.

If not, then no worries, no hard feelings and I hope to play you either in Wave2 or in another game.

Stay safe everyone! And I'll see you Cryptside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Maybe I'm Seeing Things Differently...

Good (Thursday? Is it Thursday today? Really? Awesome!) Good Thursday everyone!

Today I would like to talk to you about something I have observed within the Malifaux/Wyrd community.

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So I've read some interesting comments recently regarding EricJ's blog: http://www.ericjgames.com and it seems like quite a few members of the 'anti v2' crowd dislike his writing.

Now maybe this is because I'm not actually part of the 'anti' crowd, and come Wave 2 I can see myself picking up at least 1 crew - and depending on how my exam goes in early October, I'm hoping to pick up the v2 book! But my comments on this blog has put me squarely in a lot of people's eyes as a member of the 'anti' crowd.

But I can't help but disagree, i love reading his blog!

Don't get me wrong, back when he was calling people liars and stuff I was right there in the picket lines saying that it was wrong and we shouldn't stand for that. But ever since he has adjusted his writing style and now I really really enjoy it.

I feel like his previous 'ego' has gone from the posts, and been replaced with observations, that quite often are biased and unbalanced, but you have to remember we are talking about someone's blog.

Are my posts unbiased and 100% balanced? Of course not! And if I can't do it, why should I expect others to do the same?

So to the nay-sayers, my advice is to make a note of what your problems with it are, start your own blog, and after a few months go back and read your work, and I'm pretty sure you'll find you are just as guilty of that as he is.

- of course I am only talking about everything post 21st August. If you haven't read anything after this, then I suggest you go back and read more, it's very very different.

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Anyway, I promised a more positive post, and I hope this delivers!

Enjoy, stay safe and I'll see you Cryptside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Juxtaposed Against Myself

Just a quick one today.

I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place.

I've made it pretty clear that other than for special occasions I am not making the transition from Malifaux v1.5 to 2.0 (yes sorry it's one of these posts).

But I have an issue, one of my favourite podcasts, The Malifools, really enjoy v2 (nothing wrong with that) and now the Wyrd Boards have moved properly from 1.5 to 2 (again, nothing wrong, a logical move).

My problem however, is that every so often I am either listening/reading rule discussions and disparities between cards are raised, such as the discussion the other week on the Malifools about Hannah mimicking Nurses and the difference between abilities that say "you must declare a trigger" vs "you must declare a trigger if able".

I am seeing similar things on the boards, such as the differences between the Void Wretches and Nothing Beast and a shared ability they have with different wording, or the standardisation of weapons so Ronin and Punk Zombies can not both have Katanas with different stats.

The issue here is that I distinctly remember both Wyrd and many high profile v2 players quoting that one of the GREAT things about v2 compared to v1.5 is the removal of "those" rules, such as the difference between "within" and "completely within".

Don't get me wrong, I think these things are great, making everything "within" is a great change. The problem is for me, as long as you have the disparities between abilities and how some are usable but others are not because one uses the phrase "if able" is not standardisation.

It feels to me like this is the age old "we'll tell you one thing but do another" and every time I hear/read a discussion about how streamlined and standardised the rules are, while seeing these disparities and/or typos I can't help but feel the v2 end result was not what it should have been and was either a rush job or not as unified and standardised as everyone claims.

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But this is where my real problem begins, I know all of this could be fixed if I just stopped listening to those casts and reading the boards. The issue? For the casts at least, I really don't want to stop listening to them.

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I know, I know, this is one of those emotional reactions that EricJ was talking about, but I just had to put it out there as part of the 'healing process' in the hope that now I can just get over it and stop nit picking at every little detail.

Sorry for being a but if a downer on this Wednesday morning.

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley