Hulu Recommendation Friday: Heavy Gear

In the spring of 1994, Dream Pod 9 released its popular Heavy Gear tactical miniatures game. The game featured a grim and gritty universe where giant humanoid shaped vehicles did battle on the battle scarred landscape of Nova Terra -- and throughout the galaxy. The game featured an easy to learn tactical game system that could be easily scaled to a companion role playing game, so players could use the same characters in both the rpg and the tactical miniatures game. The components were high quality, and the sourcebooks were -- and still are -- engaging.

Dream Pod 9, a company that started business as the creators of a licensed setting (Jovian Chronicles) for another company's role playing game (Mekton), emerged as a force of their own with the creation of Heavy Gear. Eventually, Dream Pod 9's Jovian Chronicles setting would be translated from the Mekton system into the DP9 in house Silhouette system. From small beginnings, the company became a gaming establishment whose product line diversified and whose IP became desirable commodities. Their Heavy Gear game has been licensed as video games and as an animated series. The company has also shown an ability to adapt to changing market forces and have released new editions of their game lines.

In 2001, Sony's 40 episode animated series based on the Heavy Gear IP was released worldwide -- though it seems that there was not much advertising in the American market for Heavy Gear gamers who might have wanted to watch the show. I know I certainly never saw any advertisements for the show, and I was actively looking.

The show had a similar animated style to Reboot, which should come as no surprise as both shows were produced by Canada's Mainframe Entertainment -- now Rainmaker Entertainment. Where the role playing and tactical Heavy Gear games featured a grim setting, the animated series toned down some of the darker elements and aimed a a younger audience. The gear battles at the beginning of the series take place in an arena in formalized, almost athletic, competitions. The show's tone was a far cry from the setting established in the games.

The original press release hints at what the initial concept for the show was intended to be. It appears that the initial concept was closer to the original IP than the end product. That release stated:

The animated series' storylines will focus on the soldiers who pilot the Heavy Gears combat machines, combining state-of-the-art storytelling with the fascination of heroic dogfighter pilots and the dynamics of Japanese mechanical warriors. It will also deliver a tremendously rich storyline that lies beneath the action of Heavy Gear: politics, love, religion and unexpected mysteries as well as unexpected enemies all play their part in the saga of Heavy Gear.

In the end, the show ended up focusing on a character named Marcus Steven Rover whose characterization is close to that of Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars films. Watch the opening episode with A New Hope in mind and you can see how being a Gear Pilot can be seen as analogous to going to the "Academy." The end product, as DP9's current site describes it is:

The Heavy Gear: the Animated Series followed the adventures of Marcus Steven Rover, a young Gear pilot just recruited into the Shadow Dragons, a special independent dueling squad of the Southern MILICIA. His team is pitted against the Vanguards of Justice, their counterparts from the Northern Guard. Both squads meet in a series of events and battles in the arena desert town of Trash City to determine who will take home the coveted Heavy Gear Championship cup and its associated glory. Major Alexander Wallis III, the leader of the Vanguards, will let his team do anything to secure a victory against the ragtag team of Southerners.

Gone are any mention of politics, love, or religion. All that remains is the quest for the cup and a battle against a team willing to cheat to win. As always, we are rooting for a "ragtag team" fighting against the odds.

Though the show abandoned a darker tone, which would have appealed more to the gamers who play the game, it is still an entertaining series. It just happens to be a series for a younger audience. One could look at it as a show you get your kids to watch to "prepare" them for shows like Robotech.

As always...click PLAY...then FULL SCREEN...and ENJOY.

Sporadic Geek Update (9/3/09)

Once in a while I like to imitate the excellent Morning Medieval Miscellany done by Professor Scott Nokes at Unlocked Wordhoard. Doing a daily update of all things pop culture related would be an absurd task for an amateur blogger. I much prefer doing individual posts highlighting things that interest me, at least as my "regular" post technique. But there are times when it's nice to kick out a Sporadic Geek Update featuring things that might otherwise be overlooked.

Following the merger between Marvel and Disney, Sony has backed off on the Spectacular Spider-Man Cartoon. Does this mean that Spidey is headed over to Toon Disney? What about the new Avengers and Iron Man cartoons?

SF Signal has a good discussion about what San Diego Comic Con can learn from Worldcon and vice-versa. With the exception of the highly predictable "pretentiously disdainful view from the old guard" by Lev Grossman, the comments are excellent. Notice the difference between his snarky anti-"common fan" rant and the insightful comments by Jeremy Lassen of Night Shade Books. Lassen presents the difference between the SF "tourist" and the SF "devotee" as a good thing and looks at each con in its proper light. Grossman, a critic for Time Magazine and best selling SF/Fantasy, slanders the unwanted popular rabble in a fashion typical for one who favors "literary" works.

Lassen's Night Shade Books is a publisher of books important to the SF/F historiography. Night Shade keeps alive brilliant writers like Manly Wade Wellman and Clark Ashton Smith by releasing beautiful editions of their works. They also promote exciting, and often overlooked, new talents like Liz Williams and her Detective Inspector Chen series.

Lassen's trying to bring in new fans and introduce them to classics. Grossman is content to denigrate those who are introduced to SF/F via Hollywood. This is ironic, because Grossman's blog at Time isn't usually so filled with venom, and his writing is engaging. One expects a little, "I wish the casual fan understood how rich the SF genre is," but one would rather not read "the rapid expansion and mainstreaming of -- for want of a better term -- nerd culture is a dangerous thing." This isn't to say there isn't room for criticism of SDCC, and how commercial it has become, just that I would have rather read it without the snark. Snark is so 90s.

Matt Tarbit has done a wonderful job in creating a visual representation, with links, to all the games featured in Green Ronin's wonderful Hobby Games: The 100 Best. If you are looking for the perfect resource as an introduction to "Hobby Gaming," you cannot do any better than this book and Tarbit's webpage gives you the pictures the book lacks.

Wolfgang Baur, and his exciting Open Design Project, have announced three new projects that are awaiting patron support. I am particularly excited about Red Eye of Azathoth, though I wish they were offering it in Gumshoe format in addition to Pathfinder and Basic Roleplaying.

Kobold Quarterly has an excellent interview with Joseph Goodman regarding the state of the role playing game industry.

Catalyst Labs, the Battletech people, have a good blog post about role playing gaming and "those kids today."

Topless Robot -- Village Voice Media -- provides us with a trailer for the next installment in the Star Blazers saga. Like the writer on that site, Star Blazers was my first anime. I eagerly awaited each new episode as a kid. I have embedded the preview below, but head on over to the website and give them some traffic.

Progressive Boink has a demonstration of the typical immature fanboy hatred of Rob Liefeld. Liefeld is certainly not among the best artists in the field, but in a field filled with talented artists who are constantly behind deadline Liefeld is a worker. I remember reading in the introduction to a Hawk and Dove trade paperback that Liefeld was one of the most tenacious "submitters" in DC Comics history. He was constantly submitting work and had a huge productivity level. He is also one of those who expanded artist's rights within the industry, took on powerhouse Marvel, and was one of the founders of Image Comics. Image is to this day one of the shining lights of the industry and promotes a number of excellent titles -- books like Invincible, or a number of other titles. Sometimes an artist's legacy isn't in the work itself, but in what that artist has done for the field as a whole. He still cannot draw feet, but he certainly didn't deserve the treatment he received from "Yellow Hat Guy."

Bill Plaschke Eats Penis

I cannot tell you how many times, as a Trojan fan, I have wanted to say something similar to that post title. What has kept me from it is the realization that while Plaschke may frustrate me from time to time as a USC fan, he is an engaging writer. But I had to use that title after seeing this.

Kevin Eats at the Beijing Penis Restaurant from KevinP1468 on Vimeo.

Thanks to Matt Welch for the tip.

Remembering World War II -- Playing a Game to Better Understand the Terror of War

On September 1, 1939 the German army invaded Poland, an action which signaled the official beginning of the Second World War. A little more than a week before this invasion, on August 23rd 1939, the Soviet Union and the Nazis signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact -- also known as the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact. In addition to articulating an agreement of non-agression, the Pact included terms for the territorial and political rearrangement of the countries of Eastern Europe. To quote the relevant articles:

Article I. In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement in the areas belonging to the Baltic States (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), the northern boundary of Lithuania shall represent the boundary of the spheres of influence of Germany and U.S.S.R. In this connection the interest of Lithuania in the Vilna area is recognized by each party.

Article II. In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement of the areas belonging to the Polish state, the spheres of influence of Germany and the U.S.S.R. shall be bounded approximately by the line of the rivers Narev, Vistula and San.

The question of whether the interests of both parties make desirable the maintenance of an independent Polish States and how such a state should be bounded can only be definitely determined in the course of further political developments.

In any event both Governments will resolve this question by means of a friendly agreement.

Article III. With regard to Southeastern Europe attention is called by the Soviet side to its interest in Bessarabia. The German side declares its complete political disinteredness in these areas.

This agreement enabled the Nazis to invade Poland without fear of a Soviet reaction, so long as they kept to the pre-determined territorial rearrangements. The document's legacy extends beyond providing the Nazis the confidence to begin an attack against Poland, it created the basis for geographical lines and political struggles that would endure throughout the Cold War.

When one thinks of the Second World War, one often focuses on the struggles of the "Great Powers" engaged in the global conflict. There is a great abundance of historical resources available about the Battle of Stalingrad, The Battle of the Bulge, and the invasion at Normandy. What is often overlooked when remembering the Second World War are the struggles of weaker forces battling for independence from the larger powers. We don't often read about the Lithuanian June Uprising or the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. When it comes to games about the era, these events are almost completely overlooked. It is easy to find wargames covering The Battle of the Bulge. In fact, it is a joke that every wargame designer must at some time design a "Bulge Game" -- a fact that led Steve Jackson to design One Page Bulge. There are some excellent wargames covering the Battle of Stalingrad and the battles between the Nazis and Soviets on the Eastern Front. But even games that simulate battles on the smallest level, games like Squad Leader, often overlook these important struggles.

Thankfully, Jason Morningstar has written a game that powerfully captures the spirit of freedom and the tragic costs of war exemplified in these battles for liberation. Morningstar's Grey Ranks is a game that simulates the 63 days of the Warsaw Uprising -- in particular the actions of child soldiers. As Morningstar puts it:

In this game, you will assume the role of a young Polish partisan before, during, and after the disastrous 1944 Uprising against the Germans. Together with your friends, you'll create the story of a group of teens who fight to free their city, one of the countless Grey Ranks "crews" that take up arms. Your characters -- child soldiers -- will have all the faults and enthusiasms of youth. Across sixty days of armed rebellion, they will grow up fast -- or die.

The game uses a chapter structure which enforces an adherence to the real events of the uprising and which forces players to make increasingly difficult decisions. The game also includes several quotes from Hans Frank, the man who was the Governor General of occupied Poland. Grey Ranks is a narrative driven game system that creates powerful stories and focuses on an often overlooked part of the Second World War. Though the game focuses on the struggles of child soldiers during the 1944 Uprising, one can see how its system might be expanded to look at other similar struggles as well.

For a look at Lithuania's struggles, I recommend Darius Udrys' Road to Freedom (embedded below). His film covers more than the Second World War, but the multimedia presentation is worth the viewing.

Movies Christian Loves, But Shouldn't #2: Trancers

In the mid-90s, my roommate Rich Berman introduced me to a number of wonderful geek entertainments I might otherwise have overlooked. It is because of him that I am such a big Wing Commander (the video games) fan and it is because of him that I am buying the reprint editions of the Lone Wolf Books that Mongoose Publishing is slowly but surely getting out the door. These products have provided me with untold hours of entertainment and continue to do so years after they were initially released.

For the most part, if Rich recommended it then it was worth the time and effort. As much as I trusted Rich's recommendations, there was one recommendation I had ignored for almost fifteen years. There was a series of movies that Rich enjoyed that I just couldn't quite talk myself into watching. That series was the Trancers series of films by Full Moon Video. I don't know if it was anti-D2Video snobbishness or Full Moon's association with the Puppet Master series that prevented me from listening to my friend's advice and plopping the film in the VCR to enjoy the ride. More than likely it was the Puppet Master, since any anti-D2Video bias I might have didn't prevent me from watching, and enjoying, classics like Full Eclipse starring Mario Van Peebles. It wasn't until last week that I finally got around to watching Trancers and found yet another one of Rich's recommendation's to be enjoyable.

The film's plot is simple enough. Jack Deth (Tim Thomerson) is an Angel City (Los Angeles) police officer -- they are called Troopers in the future -- in the year 2247 who is obsessively hunting down and "singe-ing" Trancers. As Jack's opening film noir-esque monologue put's it:

"Last January, I finally singed Martin Whistler out on one of the rim planets. Since then, I've been hunting down the last of his murdering cult. We call them 'Trancers:' slaves to Whistler's psychic power. Not really alive, not dead enough. It's July now, and I'm tired. Real tired."

Just when Jack thinks he's defeated the last of the Trancers, he discovers that Martin Whistler -- the psionic head of the Trancer cult -- is still alive. Whistler has traveled back in time to 1985 where he is murdering the ancestors of those who opposed his rise to power in the 23rd century. By eliminating the ancestors Whistler is eliminating all of his enemies as well. It is up to Jack Deth to travel back in time, eliminate Whistler, and prevent all of Angel City from becoming members of the Trancer cult.

The film has noir elements, a psionic powered mastermind, psionically influenced "zombies" who spontaneously combust after they die, time travel, a future Los Angeles completely submerged under water, and a young Helen Hunt. The film is an enjoyable romp that spawned a number of sequels, but it is a film that oughtn't have its narrative scrutinized to closely. It really falls apart under the microscope.

Here are some examples of the "ragged edges" of the film:

• When told he has to go back in time to stop Whistler by the Council. The Council openly talks about the one Council member Whistler has already eliminated. Given that that Council member has now -- at this point in the plot -- never existed, that is quite a feat of metatemporal memory.
• Your physical body cannot travel back through time -- your consciousness must possess that of an ancestor -- but physical objects can be sent back for your use.
• Jack Deth killed Whistler on one of the "rim planets," but there is no other mention of planetary travel.
• Time travel is a "condition" that can be given an antidote vaccine which brings the person back to the future.

One could probably write an entire book about the flaws of the film, or write a snarky "better than thou" review of it. Such efforts would be misguided though. Trancers is one of those movies that if you watched it on Mystery Science Theater, you would want the guys to shut up because you were having a fun enough time without the snark.

Trancers doesn't pretend to be something it isn't. It doesn't put on airs or quote philosophy. The movie is a straight forward action romp where a future cop hunts down psionically controlled zombies in "modern day" Los Angeles -- a city he only knows about because of his frequent scuba diving excursions.

Can you really ask for more than psionically controlled zombies? I can't -- especially when one of those zombies is a "mall Santa."

Hulu Recommendation Friday: Journeyman

When NBC released Journeyman for the fall 2007 schedule, I was a bit skeptical. It was hard for me to imagine a "lost in time" television series without thinking of it as a derivative of either Quantum Leap or Time Tunnel.

The show's premise seemed similar enough. Dan Vasser is a time traveler who jumps from point in time to point in time without being able to control his destination. At each point in time Dan has to help some person from the past achieve his or her destiny. The lack of control regarding the destination in time the time traveler ends up at in each episode is a unifying factor for shows of this kind. As a narrative device -- it is also a feature of the Gen X cult time travel show Voyagers -- the "lost in time" trope allows for almost any story to be told. It frees writers in that it allows them to write episodic narratives, with little concern for continuity. Though in the end most of these shows have tended to create an internal continuity in order to maintain audience interest. There is almost nothing devoted fans to any entertainment medium enjoy than debating the "history" of a fictional property. Just look at fans of Sherlock Holmes and how they attempt to "solve" various narrative inconsistencies, or better yet listen to comic book fans deliberate on the various timelines of pre-Crisis DC Comics.

I really had very low expectations for Journeyman, as did most of America apparently since the show never really took off. This is too bad, because Journeyman ended up being one heck of a show and this was due to two key differences between it and past time travel television shows.

Where other shows added a continuity after the show had been running for a while, Journeyman begins with continuity as a main component of its narrative structure. Dan Vasser's jumps through time are all related in some way. Dan doesn't know how they are related, but it quickly becomes apparent that they are. Added to this that Dan's travels through time occur spontaneously. Dan is a journalist, not a scientist, and he just starts jumping through time without ever wanting to. Why Dan is traveling through time, who is responsible, and to what purpose are all a part of the initial mystery underlying the series.

Additionally, a major part of the show is devoted to Dan's modern day family relationships. One could even argue that the show is really about how a person who randomly jumps through time is able to maintain a normal life and keep his family together -- especially when they think he may or may not be insane/using drugs. Dan's family has some nice character conflicts built in and the show explores them in dramatic fashion. Given Journeyman's lack of success, one wonders how well The Time Traveler's Wife will do in theaters as it has a similar conflict.

Kevin McKidd does a good job as Dan Vasser. McKidd is the kind of actor I like to call "a worker." His filmography ranges from cult horror films and video games to "respectable" roles. Any actor who is willing to do voice work after getting a role on Grey's Anatomy deserves respect for his/her work ethic. The fact that McKidd is a very good actor is icing on the cake. Gretchen Egolf and Moon Bloodgood are both good as Dan's love interests -- present and past -- and Reed Diamond is great as the brother who knows all about Dan's dark side and suspects his brother may be relapsing into some nasty behavior patterns.

Journeyman was an enjoyable show that never quite found its audience.

As always, hit PLAY...then FULL SCREEN...and enjoy.

Gaming Paper -- Do You Need It?

In the Summer of 2002, I attended GenCon in Milwaukee, WI. It was the final GenCon to be held in that wonderful city. The con had outgrown Milwaukee's accommodations. I had an amazing time at the convention, which made for wonderful tonic given that my wife's and my dog Oreo had died the week before the convention. In fact, Oreo died on the day I left town for work. She woke us up, as we anthropomorphize to this day, just to say good bye. She was a small dog, and an old one -- she was over 20 when she died. As one might expect, I was distraught and attending GenCon at the back end of a business trip was a wonderful anti-depressant.

At the convention there were myriad products for all kinds of games. The OGL boom was in full swing and the convention hall was abuzz with excitement regarding numerous new products. One of those products was the Savage Worlds roleplaying game by Pinnacle Entertainment Group another was a highly useful product manufactured by Skeleton Key Games. Skeleton Key Games, who are now a leader in PDF based game tile sales, had printed up sets of what can only be called "Cave Paper." The sheets of paper were brown and featured a textured print and a one-inch grid for use in playing D&D. DMs could cut the paper into any cave shape, a relatively easy process, and have a nice looking set of tiles which could be placed next to one another to form a cave complex. I bought a couple of packs and used them up rapidly as the textured image looked better than the vinyl surface of my battlemat as a cave complex. My gaming group enjoyed the verisimilitude the tiles offered as they ventured into the caves surrounding the Temple of Elemental Evil.

Skeleton Key Games quickly expanded their offerings to include a wide variety of city, dungeon, cave, boat, and water tiles available in pdf format. You are no longer limited to buying their pre-printed packs, you buy the file and print what you need. It's useful, but can be expensive once you start adding up all those toner costs and the various stacks of cut outs can take up quite a bit of storage space if you let it. Needless to say, the "Cave Tiles" were a needed innovation that spawned a product line.

This year Gaming Paper, Inc. is offering a product they hope will be as innovative and useful as the battlemat or those pdf dungeon tiles. Their offering is called, simply enough, Gaming Paper. To help sell the product, Gaming Paper, Inc. has used YouTube viral commercials featuring Gaming Paper founder Erik Bauer demonstrating the uses of Gaming Paper. We've enjoyed the commercials and have written about them before (be sure to check out their YouTube channel).
In the commercials, Erik demonstrates many of Gaming Paper's "uses" and ways it can be abused, but we are concerned here with Gaming Paper's use as a gaming product.

To begin, Gaming Paper is exactly what it says it is. It is a lightweight, but durable, paper product with a one inch grid printed on a tan wax-coated paper stock. The basic roll supplies a good amount of Gaming Paper for a reasonable cost at $4.00 a roll.

Given the widespread use of battlemats, one my wonder if their is a market for Gaming Paper or whether it is useful to someone who already owns a battlemat. I believe there is a market and can assure you that it is useful to those who -- like me -- own battlemats. This is because Gaming Paper has three traits where it has an advantage over a standard battlemat and only one trait where it is at a disadvantage.

The first advantage is how light a roll of Gaming Paper is to carry around. The fact that Gaming Paper is lightweight makes it the perfect surface for use on the Convention circuit. Let's say you are an RPGA judge who will be running 3 different Living Forgotten Realms modules at your local con. You can pre-draw all the maps onto Gaming Paper sheets -- cut to the size you need -- roll them up, and carry them to the Con all more lightweight than the battlemat.

This brings us to our second advantage -- which also happens to be the products chief disadvantage as well. Once you draw something on Gaming Paper, it stays on Gaming Paper. You cannot draw and erase, like a battlemat, but when combined with its light weight this means that you can bring multiple sheets each with a different dungeon level on them for multiple uses during repeated con events. If you were using a battlemat, you'd have to redraw each level as you came to them -- taking time away from the session -- and redraw them again for the next session. Either that or carry multiple battlemats, which might need to be retouched if the ink smeared, which becomes more cumbersome than Gaming Paper.

The third advantage that Gaming Paper is that it can be cut to create variable sized mats. Each roll is 30 inches wide and 12 feet long. You can cut out quite a few playing surfaces at that length.

I also like that Gaming Paper has a low cost. A roll of gaming paper can go quite a long way, is reusable (make sure you keep the cardboard tube), especially if you are just using it for the grid and have physical terrain you can place on it, and is only $4.00.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Gaming Paper has a similar texture and size to Gift Wrapping paper. Erik will probably blow a gasket for me writing this, but I think that Gaming Paper also makes ideal gaming wrapping paper. Draw a map of a dungeon on the gaming paper, wrap up a copy of the new edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay inside, and it's perfect. Just make sure that your friend or loved one is careful when unwrapping and isn't one of those ravenous tearing freaks.

My one complaint about gaming paper is that it is currently only offered in a tan color. I think it would be invaluable to my gaming group to have a variety of colors, especially "grassy" and "cobblestone" for use in creating various non-dungeon maps. If I could by a $4.00 roll of cobblestone for use in my Eberron game to lay as a foundation for all my city based adventures, I'd be a happy gamer. If they wanted to go crazy, they could pre-print some medieval city cartography as well.

Gaming Paper reminds me of the Skeleton Key "Cave Tiles." It is a needed product coming out at the right time, but I'd like to see the product line expand.

One more thing...apparently Gaming Paper makes a good parachute too.