Shadowrunning in the neon-lights of Neo Tokyo and other stuff.

On saturday we got our monthly game in so I'll just give my thoughts on it and what we did. But first lets start with a recap of the party.

Jess - Aki (female elf physical adept/ ronin samurai / elemental fire spirit slayer)

Brian - Grey (human shaman/party band aid (healer) / master of the stun-ball spell)

Evil Brian - Sanzo (male elf ranged adept/gun slinger/ has warrants out for him in Japan)

Jack - Jumpstart (orc rigger/wheel man / has alot of drones)

Thya - Dot (ogre brawler/fashion diva / super bodyguard)

Me - 8-Bit (human technomancer/squatter with no I.D. in the system / apparently the man with the plans)

Matt - GM (guy behind the screen making our lives difficult/alpha Shadowrun weenie/ hater of the stun-ball)

So our favorite Johnson contacted us for a 'apology' mission. He apparently recognized our talent and that we are valuable assets to have around and to keep 'happy'. After the screw jobs we've been doing he offered up a trip to Japan as his bodyguards. Our job descriptions were to enjoy ourselves, drink, have fun, and stay at a 5 star hotel while he is at a conference. Upon arrival and check in we split up to do what ever. Aki went shopping, Sanzo went to the movies to watch anime (though some other players were claiming it was hentai....it wasn't but that didn't stop the tentacle jokes for the evening), Jumpstart went drinking, Grey went to a meta human bathhouse for a traditional bath (happy ending jokes abound), Dot did something (Thya couldn't make it so she was off doing stuff), and I disappeared into the orgasmic bliss of Akihabara district to play video games. This was like letting Charlie Sheen into a Colombian cocaine field. And I stayed there for a few days. I blew off offers to hang out with the Johnson at nice restaurants so I could hang with the otakus, eat real ramen, play games and party in the digital bliss.

Naturally as a player (and to some degree as 8-Bit) I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Where is the danger part of this mission. That came on day 5 when Mr. Johnson got a call from a friend who needed help for another friend and we got recommended. Dot stayed behind to guard Mr. J while we set the meeting with the new client.

A holo-feed displayed a woman asking us to track down a person broadcasting into the web as a long departed friend of hers. Jokingly I blurted out "Who are we looking for? Captain Chaos?" and the new Ms. Johnson replied 'Yes'. Captain Chaos is a legend in the Shadowrun universe. A unbelievable hacker (possibly better than FastJack). He died during Crash 2.0 and is buried yet someone has been going onto Jackpoint and other boards as him. He's also a personal hero to people of the hacking persuasion including 8-Bit.

Then another realization happened. We were getting a job from NetCat. Another hacker of renown (and fellow technomancer). So with these two parts of the equation now out in the open I definitely wanted to take this detective work. Hell I told NetCat (via private message) to keep the fee. If Captain Chaos was alive I get to meet a personal hero. If someone is pretending to be him though.....then I'm going to dumpshock that frakking jackhole into being permanently brain dead. NetCat sent us the last known location of the most recent transmission and a dead drop for us to keep her posted through.

We rented some vehicles (a van and 2 motorcycles....damn elves and their need to look fashionable) and off we went on the trek. The town we needed to hit was a suburb of Neo-Tokyo so it was easy to get there and after some net scans we determined a strange RV was parked outside of a warehouse for a while before going on its way. Good as any place to start.

When we got there the place was now inhabited by some gangers that belonged to a very notorious gang. Psycho thrill kill addicts is a good way to describe them. So we came up with a plan to take them on, incapacitate them, question one, trash their rides so they can't follow and go about our way. That was the plan until Aki decided to use some kind of magical sensing on one of the bikes and saw a vision of all kinds of atrocities the gangers have done....especially to elves.

Now on the count of 3, Grey lobbed a stun-ball and knocked out 4 of the 6 gangers and then put down the other 2 on his next turn. They were searched, bound up, and then while Aki & Sanzo still had their full bike helmets on they woke one up and the 'questioning' began. I was outside with Jumpstart watching his Doberman drone tear the bikes apart.

Aki finds out that they chased off the RV with a bunch of kids in it two days back and they were heading to the next town. Dammit! It was poseurs after all! Dumpshock ahoy in their futures. As Aki was leaving the building she tells Sanzo what she saw in her vision and lets him know to do what he has to. Sanzo puts down all the gangers in a fit of cold rage (he's a Japanese elf) then leaves. Off to the next town where we find out that they already drove through but were heading 'that-a-way'. Following a few more clues we tracked the RV to a fleabag motel. We rented some rooms to make it look like we were passing through then set up surveillance. I hacked into the security cameras and focused on seeing who was coming & going out of the van. Saving the pics I sent them to NetCat via the dead drop. And then while in the motel's network I noticed another hacker within. And he didn't notice me.

So I snuck up on him and asked "What are you doing?" and scared the crap out of him. I also checked him out and noticed he also was a child of the Resonance like myself. And the conversation with this kid began. I plainly laid out what was going on. I'm looking for Captain Chaos. Good friends of his hired myself and my associates to track them down and see if its the real deal or they are pretending. And if its pretend those same people are coming to stomp them out. It seemed to rattle the kid a bit but I was giving him time to explain before I reacted. Then he asked "So...you want to meet him?". Wait....HIM? Captain Chaos? Who is dead?!?!?? I think I said Yes faster than Matt was expecting and so off I followed this kid back to the node he came from to find a total of 7 others just like me and a graphical overlay waiting to be accessed. That changed the scene into a idyllic meditation garden and at its center, surrounded by the 7, was him.

Captain Chaos is alive.....only on the Matrix though. When talking to him he kinda explained that he got left behind from his body somehow and his students are children he helped liberate from MCT corps 'experiments' with Technomancers. Some real deranged things. And he tells me to let his friends know its about time he makes himself known and he'll be contacting them shortly.

I give him my contact info & tell the Captain to get in contact with me if he needs my help. Anytime. Then he sighs and says that MCT is sending a clean-up crew to apprehend them now. They are about 20 minutes away and they need to escape. I say we'll do it and to get going. The Captain asks if I want to go with them but I decline for now as my comrades may need me for this. And before I go I ask if I should call him Captain or (because we're in Japan) Sensei? Chaos bursts out laughing and tells me he likes me and will be in touch. I say goodbye to my 7 resonence brothers and jack out of the matrix.

Now I prep the team for an assault. I give them the skinny via private messaging and start to formulate an ambush to stop this squad from going further. I say that these corp assassins just need to be put down. No captives. No one lives. We're stopping them and leaving. And with that I jack back into the matrix and loop the security camera feeds so this fight wont be recoreded and then go onto overwatch looking for matrix signals to access and disable/hack.

Aki & Sanzo take up hiding spots outside, Jumpstart stays in his room (as do I) and has some drones to airial surveillence. Grey gets ready to stun people. And then a hitch in the play happens. Two summoned fire spirits show up first. Aki sees them on the magical plane with her special sensing sight and enters the fray with her sword. She battles both spirits while two vehicles pull into range. Grey releases a stun ball at them and knocks out both drivers causing the cars to crash. The lead car all the passangers got knocked out & Sanzo advanced and triple tapped each in the skull. When going to the second car the passangers in the back opend up with assault rifles. Sanzo fought back guns blazing, Jumpstart coded his drones to group fire and started spraying the car with lead. After a few more seconds the second car was a smoking wreck, Sanzo was hurt pretty damn bad, and Aki was finishing off the last of the spirits with Grey's help.

I was in my room. Unable to do anything as I didn't get time to before the death and carnage ended. We then disabled their comlinks, took anything we could that we could sell, yelled at the motel owner that he saw nothing (when he stepped outside after the firefight and freaked out). I think he browned his shorts after Sanzo bellowed at him while waving his gun in his direction.

And we raced back to Tokyo. Told Mr. J what went down and that we need to leave now....for safety's sake. He agreed and we were winging it back to Seattle the next morning. I also send NetCat a  message saying it IS HIM! And we need to meet cause I got a message for them. (I also found out earlier in the game that the 'smiley icon' who harrasses me online was NetCat's husband/father of her uber child Slamm-O!...and he's a total a-hole that just harasses people for shits and grins)

And thats where we ended. I can't wait to see how this wraps up as Matt needs to prep this meeting and conversation with 8-Bit and some well know JackPoint all-stars. I also want to see where this will go in the future. And now I want to see what he has in store for the other PC's as it was apparent that while Sanzo's story is deeply connected with Japan.....this was for 8-Bit. Arcades, Otakus, Captain Chaos the deus ex machina.

I also want to say this was needed too. I had a major family emergency involving my grandfather on friday. He's in the ICU at a very good hospital near where he lives and there wasn't a whole lot I could do for him while he was inabated and recooperating. I did ask my folks if they wanted me there on saturday and they said no (cause we would be sitting around doing nothing). So I was on stand-by if they needed me for anything. And this was a good stress reliever for me. On a brighter note, as of this writing he is awake and talking but he's got a long way to go before he's out of the woods. Its a day by day thing. If I vanish for awhile you'll at least know why.

Unleash the COGs of WAR!

So one of the biggest and most anticipated sequels has finally released to good sales and critical praise. But does it live up to my expectations of being fun and giving me a single player experience that I actually give a crap about?

Let's discuss.

Gears of War 3 is the conclusion to a rather muddled and poorly written story involving a race of subterranean creatures known as the Locust invading the surface world with the sole purpose of wiping out man kind off the face of the fictitious 'not earth' world. Over the past two games you follow the adventure of Marcus Fenix (the player) and Dominic Santiago (your co-op or computer controlled ally) as they kill lots of Locust in various settings (usually in perpetual shades of grey or brown). From the 1st game where you're dealing with the shock of Emergence Day and dropping a light bomb at the end down into the Locust hive (sunlight kills them) to the 2nd game where we are losing more of our cities (and now the Locust are engaging us in the daylight.....I may have missed the story reason why but if not major plot hole) so the COGs take the fight underground to the Locust themselves. Where we discover the super fuel we harvest (known as Emulsion) has other side effects like mutating the Locusts into horrible creatures called Lambient.

Now in the 3rd game mankind is on its last legs. And so is my patience with the story. Fortunately Epic brought on the author of the Gears novels to help bridge the crap....er....gap in storytelling and successfully smoothed it out. They also managed to *actually* flesh out the personalities of the walking meat slabs you control and make you want to see them live to the end.

For example: Cole Train. I HATED Cole in the first two games. He was an obnoxiously and unnecessarily loud and brain dead character that yelled 'WHOOOO!' alot (Rick Flair should sue). In Gears 3 you will actually care for him as you play a chunk of the first act as Cole on a mission for supplies in his former hometown where he was a Thrashball champion (think football on Gears of War steroids). There is a particular scene in the stadium where you see Cole remembering his glory days only to have him realize that they are past. I believe the quote was "Did you ever feel like you were dead and nobody told you?".

So in conclusion the story for the campaign is pretty decent. Its not particularly memorable but it does tie up the loose ends from the series and it feels cool playing through this desperate last act. But we don't care about story do we? How does it play?

It plays perfectly. After three games Epic Games has perfected the controls for this cover based shooter. Its totally smooth and responsive. I had no problems just picking up and playing. Everything felt second nature and I was leveling the Lambient and Locust hordes with ease.

Graphically the Unreal 3 engine has never looked better. I'm amazed just how much they can push out of this graphic engine. And the best part of the look of this game is that it takes place outdoors alot and Epic decided to use more colors than brown and grey. And the look is stunning. Everything thing feels alive and its vibrant in its post-world war look. There are some occasions where there is some minor graphical tearing but its a minor nuisance. I've seen it mostly in tighter quarters (like inside buildings) and it only happens briefly.

The AI for the baddies isn't bad but I've ran into numerous occasions where you can actually walk right around them, in their line of sight, and start shooting them and they don't react. I wasn't playing this on casual either. I played on the normal setting and sometimes the enemies just stand there and derp. I wanted to not shoot them but give each of them a padded helmet to wear so they wouldn't hurt themselves (poor things). Alas I had no helmets so it was Lancer chainsaw assassination  to them.

I also for a change decided to try out the multi player aspect of this game. Yeah it has the staples like team death match, king of the hill, etc. But my favorites are Horde (where you play as COG soldiers against waves of enemies) and Beast mode (its like Horde but you play as the Locust going against the COGs). And they are awesome! I could play these modes all the damn time. All I need is more people to friend me on Xbox Live so we can get together and do this instead of playing with strangers all the time.

My only bitch about online play is that Live kept dropping out at points. And it pissed me off as it usually happened during a very intense match. But lag issues really were not present (even with my lovely broadband connection....blah). But I still enjoyed playing.

So is it "Game of the Year"? Well to some folk it will be. It is an achievement in production and scope. I wanted to finish the trilogy to see where the hell it would end up and if it would be better than Gears 2 which I loathed. I'm happy with the purchase. And I want to stress I didn't pay full price for it either (God bless my $20 Best Buy Rewards coupon). It was worth playing. Its fun.

Now....bring on my picks for Game of the Year: Dark Souls, Uncharted 3 and Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim.

In honor of the Castle season premiere....

 A fictitious author from an ABC TV series that 'writes' successful novels such as Heat Wave and Naked Heat that are also shown on the show now has an adaptation of one of his first big faux novels. And its just a totally fun ride from ABC & (Disney's) Marvel Comics.

Co-written by comics guru Brian Michael Bendis and Kelly Sue Deconnick and illustrated by artist Lan Medina. It captures the feel that the TV series writer projects, has all the wit, sarcasm, action and fun of the show as well. And I would have liked this even if I wasn't a Castle fan.

STOP. LAUGHING. PLEASE. I'm a fan of Castle. So what. Its excellent TV and the best thing on Monday nights.

This is the origin story of the titular hero Derrick Storm the private investigator who stumbles upon a missing CIA operative wanted for going rogue. Afterwards he is contacted by the CIA to assist in tracking down others in an ongoing investigation of rogue agents. This journey spans from the New Jersey-esque trailer parks to New York City and then out into Nicaragua for the tense and bloody finale. People die, lives get irrevocably altered, and opportunities appear in a pseudo-pulp fashion. All with a knowing wink & smile to the reader that says 'just enjoy the ride'.

The artwork is good too. All the characters are well defined in their looks, the action is well drawn out and the facial expressions given really help sell the mood and tone of voice for the dialogue. Like I said, good stuff. I only had a problem or two with how some of the comic panels were displayed. There was a time
that I jumped to the wrong panel and lost my spot but found it quickly and in the correct order. A nitpick for comic lay outs but it didn't diminish my enjoyment at all.

So for a Castle fan such as I and others I know its a definite buy. For others just testing the waters of the show and its universe I still recommend it heartily. For those with no idea what I'm talking about but like espionage and cheesy dialogue borrow it and if you like it.....start watching Castle and then buy your own copy of Deadly Storm.