Atari's Warlords -- Then and Now

This summer Atari will be releasing a new version of the classic Arcade/Atari 2600 "Pong variant" game Warlords -- a game that was programmed for the Atari 2600 by Carla Meninsky who was one of the few women game designers of the era. The game is an example of Atari's ability to build upon the game play of prior designs and how one's perception of a game can be changed merely through the application of thematic elements.

If one were presented the graphics of the original game without the introduction of thematic/narrative elements, one might enjoy the game purely for its play but one would likely have very little emotional stake invested in success. By adding the narrative them of competing warlords destroying each others' castles, it provides the player with emotional stakes in succeeding and allows the player to project themselves into the role of a character. It also makes the player think about the computer opponents as if they have personalities. Listen to the voice over in the video describing how to succeed at Warlords, the reviewer discusses the computer opponents as if they were real opponents based on their AI behavior. This is only really possible due to the background and art provided in the instruction manual. Given the limited graphics capabilities of early Atari games, the packaging and instructions were often as important as the video game's visuals.

Now take a look at the modern variation of the game. While the inter-cutting of game play and interstitial makes it difficult to get a firm grip of game play at first, one can readily see that this is essentially a prettied up version of the original game -- with the addition that the number of players is variable. One also sees how advances in the graphics capabilities of games has added the ability to show players what they could only imagine in the past. The "floating warlord shield" of the original is purely abstract, while the newer shield is literally a shield attached to the walls of the fortress.

There is much to be said about the aesthetic appeal of the graphics for the upcoming game, they look humorous and fun, but there is also something lacking. The original graphics, while primitive from an artistic point of view, had a clean presentation that allowed for non-distracted game play. You don't have a lot of surplus imagery distracting you from the task at hand. Your mind is still imagining all of the chaos of war between you and your fellow warlords, but you don't have the very real visual distraction.

It is interesting how often modern games can forget that sometimes simpler is better and that we don't need HD cartoons for every game we play. Games like Uncharted and Assassin's Creed use increased graphics capabilities to create interactive movie experiences, and they are wonderful, but there are other kinds of playing experience that are equally fun. The new Warlords looks fun, but it also makes me long for the original. Much in the same way that modern Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Games make me appreciate the Table Top Role Playing Game experience.

Do We Really Need Airships in Our Three Musketeers?

Today I asked my inner 12 year old the following question, "We aren't really so jaded that we need Eberron-esque Airship/Zeppelins and Clockwork Assassination Weapons in our Swashbuckling Adventures...are we?"

He responded, "No, but c'mon! How awesome is that?!"

I had to concede that the Micheal York, Oliver Reed, Christopher Lee, Richard Chamberlain film almost perfectly captured the spirit of the books -- save for a few moments of slapstick -- and that Airships are indeed awesome.

Sucker Punch: Just What is Going on Here?

Many of the reviews for Sucker Punch have been scathing in their disgust for Zack Snyder's film. High on the list of many of the reviewers complaints is how the film promises to be a violent "sexploitation" film, and fails to deliver. Many of these critics accuse Snyder of presenting the audience with "near-rape fantasies and violent revenge scenarios disguised as a female-empowerment fairy tale wasn’t going to satisfy anyone but himself" or similar accusations. In a way, it is as if these critics' expectations have been "sucker punched" by what they witnessed in the theater. They expected a high concept tale of "kick ass chicks" killing Samurai, steam powered Nazi zombies, Orcs, Robots, and Dragons. They expected Buffy/Nikita/Project A-ko/Blood: The Last Vampire meets Gundam/Castle Falkenstein.

That isn't what they got, and it isn't what you should expect should you choose to go to watch this film. The movie is visually stunning, but it shares more with Scorsese's Shutter Island and del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth than it does with the expectations its advertisements create. It is a film of sorrow, hopelessness, loss, despair and the role that fantasy plays in dealing with these powerful emotions. The movie's tagline is "you will be unprepared" and I have never read a more apropos movie tagline. Most people think a tagline like that hints at a narrative twist in the movie, and there is one, but in this case the tagline is telling the viewer that the film's trailer isn't truly preparing the viewer for the experience.

So...if Sucker Punch isn't a high concept kick ass chick movie, and is instead a film of despair and fantasy, just what is going on here?


Sucker Punch is quite brave. In a world where critics, continually complain that no one is making "original" films. Snyder did exactly that with Sucker Punch. It is wholly his own creation, even with its obvious inspirations.

The film transitions between "dream" sequences and "reality" in a way that is unnerving and odd, but when one sees the end of the film one realizes that one watched something they didn't come in to see. The film has voice over bookends that tell viewers that angels watch over us and can be found even in the most horrific of places, and that these angels don't fight for us rather they inspire us to be able to fight even in hopeless situations. Given that despair can be viewed as the gravest of all sins, it seems justifiable that the role of angels would be to encourage us to fight rather than despair.

Sucker Punch opens with the death of "Baby Doll's" mother, an event that leaves "Baby Doll" and her sister in the care of their sinister step-father. This step-father finds out that his wife has left her not insubstantial wealth to her two daughters. The step-father responds to this news with rage and decides to take control of that wealth by physically, psychologically, and sexually abusing the girls into submission. "Baby Doll" responds by breaking out of her room, finding a gun, and arriving in time to prevent her sister from being abused. She shoots at the step-father...misses...and kills her sister by accident. She is quickly institutionalized in an asylum, where the father bribes an orderly to arrange a lobotomy for the girl. The psychiatrist who runs the asylum doesn't support the use of lobotomies, but in five days someone who does perform them will be at the asylum and the orderly will forge the psychiatrist's signature and arrange for the deal to be done.

Though Snyder spends an entire act developing this backstory, it is possible "Baby Doll" is not the "protagonist" of the film -- if the film's one twist is to be believed. I say "if the one twist is to be believed" because one could argue whether the film's "angels can be anywhere" message is the real message or whether the film is all a fantasy world created after after the lobotomy takes place.

There is something in this film, it is as brave as "Pan's Labyrinth" and shares many of the same themes, but Sucker Punch is not as good as del Toro's masterpiece.

Sucker Punch is a weird piece, and the more I contemplate the film the more I come to think that it is a strongly tragic piece. The more I analyze the structure of the film, and visual clues, the more I believe that any vengeance fantasy aspect of the film is exactly that...fantasy.

It's funny. In Pan's Labyrinth, I chose to accept the fantasy ending at the end as reality. I wanted so badly for the girl to be safe and to have succeeded in her tasks. In Sucker Punch, it doesn't matter whether the fantasy is the reality or mere fantasy, because the girl is "safe" either way.

The message is very much the same as Shutter Island. In Shutter Island a the protagonist has to deal with the twin horrors that his wife murdered his children and that her murdered her for it. He creates a fantasy world to deal with these tragedies. In the end, he despairs choosing to be lobotomized instead of facing cold reality. He asks the question, "would you rather live life a monster, or "die" a hero?" Sucker Punch asks the same question. "Baby Doll" killed her sister while trying to save her. She doesn't want this memory. She would rather be a savior that helps someone else escape a horrible situation. She has five days to do this very task and the film is about that journey...or is it?

It is possible that the film could have better met Snyder's honest intentions if it had been rated R, but I wonder if it would have reached the audience that should be watching this film.

There's something tragically humanist about this film that I think needs discussing. There is something there. I don't know that Snyder quite captured it, but I do know that one could have some genuinely interesting discussions about this picture akin to discussions I have had after Shutter Island.

It's a strange film that needs the idyllic fantasy segments to work, and I don't think the film would be better if the audience where shown Baby Doll's dances -- these dances seem to be the obsession of many critics. This is because the dances are only happening in one of the fantasy layers of the film. We never see the actual dancing because there aren't really any dances to see in the first place.

Snyder has layered his fantasy world in the following way:

Act 1 takes place in the real world and presents the back story that shows viewers why "Baby Doll" has been institutionalized, establishes the hopelessness of the asylum, and introduces the other characters in the film -- the orderly, the doctor, and the fellow inmates. This act ends just as a doctor is about to perform a lobotomy on "Baby Doll."

The baseline "reality" of acts 2 - 4 take place in "The Club," a combination burlesque and brothel run by the orderly, where the girls are all prostitutes and dancers. This is where "Baby Doll" works with the other dancers to create an escape plan, and this is where "Baby Doll" dances

Every time "Baby Doll" dances in acts 2 -4, the viewer is transported into "The Dream within the Dance." This is the world of the visually fantastic sequences we have all seen in the previews. This is also where "Baby Doll" meets Scott Glenn who, in a nod to his role in The Challenge, provides "Baby Doll" with weapons and tells her she needs to fight to survive. Glenn is the first glimpse of a possible angel we receive in the film, and he is introduced in a dream within a dream.

The final act of the film "returns" us to "reality." Return and reality are in quotes because this reality may or may be nothing more than the inner thoughts of a lobotomized mind. What happens in act 5 is entirely dependent on how you choose to read of the film.

I'd like to reiterate that acts 2 - 4 alternate between "The Club" and "The Dream within the Dance" depending on what is happening at that moment. The dances are used to signify when we are transitioning from one fantasy world to the next. All dances happen at the level of "The Club" and at no time does "Baby Doll" dance in the real world. The only reality we can be certain of is that "Baby Doll" is institutionalized, that she sees a possible way to escape, she attends therapy sessions, and then she ends up in a chair about to be lobotomized. What happens after that is up to interpretation.

My interpretation is a tragic one. In my view the final act is entirely fantasy because of the use of the word Paradise and the appearance of Scott Glenn in the act. This interpretation makes the film a tragedy that, far from being exploitative of young women, shows us how the power of the human mind to create fantasy can help us deal with the greatest horrors. The fantasy world is preferable to the real world, it is a better world, it is a world where we can fight for the survival of others and succeed.

Snyder should be admired for his effort and I think this will be a film that will be watched for stylistic and visual skills for years to come. I had fun during parts of Sucker Punch, but other times I felt distinctly uncomfortable. Snyder took me far out of my comfort zone by luring me in with one kind of tale and giving me another. I expected an action fantasy and received Shutter Island. I had expected a "kick ass chick" movie, but instead got a deconstruction of the genre. I found the film to be disturbing and thought provoking, a feeling very similar to how I felt after my first viewing of The Straw Dogs.

Over the course of his career so far, I have found Snyder to be a brave and wonderful film maker. He has made everything from 300 to Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'hoole without the slightest sense of irony.

It's Official! Steve Jackson Games to Release Ogre 6th Edition This Year!

Every gamer has a game, or 12, for which he or she feels a certain nostalgia. These games have likely been out of print for some time and may not have the market cache to justify a new release. The nostalgic gamer wishes that the publisher would release a version that "gets it all right," but understands that game publishers must make profits in order to continue and thus these wonderful -- but niche -- games get left behind. It should be noted that many of these now niche games were once huge successes that launched vibrant companies -- Gettysburg, Broadsides & Boarding Parties, The Fantasy Trip, and Ogre are fine examples of this phenomenon.

And at the top of that list -- for me -- lies Ogre. The game was released in 1977 and sold a very reasonable 8000 copies at he extremely reasonable price of $2.95. The game has gone on to sell well over 100,000 copies in various editions -- with continually higher quality components and prices scaled to match the increase in component quality. My favorite two editions of the game are the Deluxe Ogre edition printed in 1987 -- a 10,000 game print run -- which featured a traditional hard mounted map and large easy to read/play with counters and the 2000 combined Ogre/GEV which included these two fantastic games in a sturdy VHS like case. These were the game at its non-miniature aesthetic pinnacle.

Ogre's game play is simple and fun. It was the game that introduced me to the Wargaming hobby with its tiny chits and arcane rules formulations (e.g. rule 1.1.9 "Set Up") and showed me that abstract images on small pieces of cardboard could represent epic struggles against extreme odds.

Earlier this Month, Steve Jackson announced that a 6th edition of the game would be released this year -- even though market forces don't demand it -- and that the edition would be the game that players always dreamed of playing. Steve Jackson promises this new edition will include well designed counters and constructable Ogre miniatures. To quote the man himself:

Why? Because I want to. Ogre was my first design, and the boardgame version hasn’t been available for years. And people keep asking me for it. So some of our Munchkin money is going back to support the people who bought my very first game, by bringing them an edition with the best possible components.

It won’t be “Euro” style. No meeples, no plastic. This will be the kind of hex wargame that we dreamed about 30 years ago, back when our heroes were SPI and Avalon Hill. HUGE double-sided map boards. HUGE full-color counters with HUGE type. A HUGE box to hold them in. And giant constructible Ogres!

The first images of the prototypes were very impressive, but looking at the sales package that SJG put together for the GAMA Trade show are mind-blowing to me.

The unit counters are intuitive and elegant in their design.

But the Ogres...oh, the Ogres...

They are beautiful.

I must have this game!

Captain America: First Avenger...In Context

There are going to be those in the interwebs who watch the preview below with something less than excitement. They will bemoan how cheezy the special effects and the lighting look, or complain that Chris Evans isn't right for the part. They are wrong on all counts, and they likely need to be reminded of the history of the Captain America franchise when it comes to visual entertainment.

Take a few seconds to watch the most recent preview.



Now...compare this to moments from the 1990 Columbia Tri-Star production.



And...the 1979 television movie.


Captain America (1979) - Opening by Internapse

Given the history of the franchise, the new version looks like it was crafted by the hand of God. My inner child, my nostalgic gen-Xer subconscious, and my hyper critical comic geek super-ego are all in agreement. We will love the new movie, because it will be the best Captain America film produced to date.

Coming Soon -- Villains and Vigilantes Customizable Card Game

Superhuman Games will be releasing the Villains and Vigilantes Card Game this summer -- likely coinciding with the convention season. Superhuman Games entered into a licensing agreement with Monkey House Games to use the iconic cast of characters from Jeff Dee and Jack Herman's classic super hero role playing game. Superhuman games claims that the game will feature "the full comic book experience" in game play.

Based on the description of their market plan, Superhuman Games will be following the example of Fantasy Flight Games and offering the game as a customizable and "living" card game that features regular updates which allow players to create new decks with new strategies.

It's an intriguing concept. V&V has a rich catalog of characters to draw from, and the role playing game is gaining popularity since it was re-released in the past year.

My only concern is with the art work. In the modern card game marketplace, consumers will punish artwork that they deal to be amateurish. Dee's artwork has a nice cartoony style, and if they are able to replicate that then they will be able to appeal to the core fanbase. The company is looking for artists, let's hope they connect with the right ones. Companies like Fantasy Flight are successful partly because of the depth of their artist bullpen and the strength of their graphic designers.

What Should a Television Wonder Woman Look Like?

With the news that David E. Kelley is planning a new Wonder Woman series for NBC, and the fact that the internet geek subculture is abuzz with chatter about the first look of the costume in this series, it seems time to ask just what exactly the costume should look like in a weekly television program.

A generation of television viewers grew up with the Silver Age comic book inspired costume worn by Lynda Carter. If those same viewers are honest with themselves, they'll admit that while Lynda Carter looks fantastic -- the outfit itself is a tad campy. It adheres honestly to the Silver Age costume, it isn't intentionally overly campy, but its mere adherence to the comic book imagery means that Lynda Carter looks good, but she doesn't look like she can "kick ass." The focus on the outfit is on the "Princess" and not on the "Power" to borrow a few terms from Marvel's analogue to Wonder Woman.

This points to what I think should be the central component of the equation. Whatever costume Wonder Woman wears, sexploitation or classy fashionable, it should look like the woman in the suit is a Warrior -- a badass Amazonian combat machine from a warrior culture who has come to fight injustice!

There are certain elements of the Adrianne Palicki that seem to be aimed at increasing how "asskicking" David Kelley's new Wonder Woman looks. Wonder Woman's "bracelets" have been transformed into more proper bracers, and her "Golden Lasso" looks like it can serve as more than mere window dressing. But there is something incongruous about the outfit. Its glossy neoprene look makes it look more like a cosplay outfit than proper fighting gear. My good friend Bill Cunningham describes his frustration with the outfit in the following way:

I often think that it's a matter of people thinking they must make something more" important" or "sophisticated with a message" when often it's a matter of keeping it si...mple and pure and allowing the drama to come out of that. case in point: Buffy. Simple concept (girl slays vampires) that opened up the whole metaphor about "growing up."

I made my cosplay joke because that's how these TV guys seem to see Wonder Woman. It's sickening because when you look at WW and what legends and myths and strengths she represents (not only to women, but to men) then you see the possibilities of what sort of stories you can tell.

But you can't do that when your lead is dressed in rubber and has scarlet lipstick on that matches her bustier. Then she's reduced to NERD STRIPPER or even more appalling, WHORE CLOWN.

Again, the character and the actress deserve better.

His contention -- in stronger language than I am using -- is that by ignoring the "mythic" origins of Wonder Woman, the producers are limiting the narrative and visual power of the character. He would have us not forget that the character's origins are in the Greek legends of the Amazon warriors who fought alongside/against the greatest of the Greek heroes. They were a force with which to be reckoned. This glossy new outfit manages to simultaneously make Adrianne Palicki look less sexy than normal, and like she is completely lacking in physical prowess.

But how would one create a costume that harnessed classical mythology to create a costume that looks both appealing and functional. It seems that the internet has already provided an answer, back when Joss Whedon was thinking about making a WW movie.

Notice how the image, which uses photoshop to present a "Cobie Smulders as Wonder Woman" depiction, has bracers, greaves, and pteruges that all add to a sense that the person wearing them is actually a combatant and that the suit is for more than show. It still manages to adhere to the comic book depictions, but also manages to avoid camp. It bears some small resemblance to the Amazon Warrior depictions by George Perez during the "War of the Gods" storyline in the 80s.

Even if one wanted to do a more "modern" Wonder Woman character design, one could still look at older comic book designs for the character -- rather than the recent Jim Lee costume that the Kelley production seems to be using as its starting point. In the late 60s, Wonder Woman abandoned her traditional costume entirely and transformed from a "bathing suit" wearing character into one whose style more resembled the classic Diana Rigg character Emma Peel -- who was both sexy and looked like she could kick ass (if only The Avengers had legitimate martial arts choreography how magnificent the show would have been).

In this case television popular culture helped to shape the comic book representation of the character. The Wonder Woman of that era lost her "mythic" appeal, but she still had an espionage lethality appeal.

I'm not advocating that Kelley adopt the Diana Rigg version of the character, but I am wondering if he and the audience would be better served by his production looking beyond modern comics -- and the much criticized Jim Lee costume for the character -- for inspiration. I point out the Diana Rigg influenced Wonder Woman only to say that one can create images of powerful women that become so ingrained in popular culture that the comics themselves adopt the newer image. David Kelley has a chance to redefine Wonder Woman as a powerful woman of the 21st century. I'd like to see him do that and television is the perfect medium for him to achieve that goal. Kelley is a talented show creator and I have hopes for what he will be able to do with this character.

Let's home that the leaked costume gets changed soon.