Ice Hockey in Post-Apocalyptia

by

Love it or hate it, Bethesda Softwork‘s decision to have every line of non-player character (NPC) dialogue in Fallout 3 accompanied by voice acting leads to a certain degree of immersion. From random townsperson to monomaniacal despot, everyone speaks. Even the two-headed mutated cows make noise.

Given the cast of hundreds, actors invariably voice multiple NPCs, often noticeably so. Too, the reliance on recorded dialogue means that once the dialogue is recorded, no late changes are feasible, and there are points in the game where I wish one NPC would acknowledge some huge event that took place in his or her life that was directly affected by my character’s actions. Even on big budget title like Fallout 3, there’s a limit to the voice acting funds, and I’m sure they had to decide to cut off dialogue trees at some point, where a non-voice acted title would have been able to add additional text branches to cover more permutations and outcomes.

Don't quit your day job. Because it's cool.

Still, imagine my surprise learning that the voice actor for an early antagonist (or protagonist, depending on your character’s moral inclinations) is…the announcer at Verizon Center for the Washington Capitals.

(Only the most minor of Fallout 3 spoilers follow.)

Read more

LIFE Goes to War(games)

by

Google’s searchable archive of LIFE magazine images provides a few images of board, or paper, wargames, as opposed to field exercises:

Image from Google LIFE Magazine archive.

Dated 1915, the image is captioned:

Group of English gentlemen and soldiers of the 25th London Cyclist Regiment playing the newest form of wargame strategy simulation called “Bellum” at the regimental HQ.

One battalion of the 25th shipped off to India during World War I and later served in the 3rd Afghan War—though sadly, without their bicycles.

Read more

Perfect Start Syndrome: Or, Why I Haven’t Gotten Very Far in Fallout 3

by

Bethesda Softworks released Fallout 3 about two weeks ago, and I really haven’t gotten very far at all in this post-apocalyptic role playing game.

The view, not new, from the Vault

It’s not that the game is difficult or perplexing, especially for a grizzled Wastelander like myself—I cut my teeth on Fallout’s spiritual progenitor, Wasteland, on my trusty Commodore 128. (Never could save that darn dog in the well, but I did clear out Base Cochise.) And the game runs quite well on my Mac Pro booted into XP, so it’s not any technical issue that has hindered my progress.

No, I haven’t gotten very far at all because I keep starting over. And I doubt that I’m the only one afflicted by this malady of free-form gaming: Perfect Start Syndrome.

(Only the most minor of Fallout 3 spoilers follow.)

Read more

Bill Lyon on the Phillies

by

If ever a city had its Boswell, Bill Lyon serves that role for Philadelphia, encapsulating something of that city’s soul in print. The retired Inquirer columnist tends to re-appear at junctions of great moment in the city’s emotional life, and after the Phillies captured the World Series title last night, ending Philadelphia’s 25 years without a major sports title, he returns to help us make sense of it all:

And thus ended one of the most bizarre and controversial games ever played in the World Series, complete with a 46-hour wait between innings, and how fitting that was, for this is Philadelphia, after all, cradle of liberty, acid reflux, angst, anxiety and the sure and certain belief that we are doomed forever to walk along the Boulevard of Busted Dreams.

But not now. Not this time. No, you can go ice skating in Hades now. The Phillies have broken the Hundred Season Drought. The franchise of 10,000 losses is a winner.

The air already smells cleaner. The women are beautiful. Food tastes better. The shroud of dread has been pulled away.

To be on Broad Street tomorrow for the parade will be magical, an event that might not happen again for a long time, the fates being what they are. If you’re there, savor it.
Phillies Win!, on flickr.com, by melingo wagamama, via a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial License

The boos will start again soon enough, this being Philadelphia and we being Philadelphia fans, and we’ll bemoan the Flyers’ goaltending and the Eagles’ offensive line and the Sixers’ poor rebounding and, eventually, the lack of a winger with pace on the new soccer team, but for now, we’re happy, in our own way, just like Bill Lyon said.

(Image courtesy of melingo wagamama, via a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial License.)

Lost Restaurants: B.J. Strawberries at the Convair

by

It might not be quite like Proust and his madeleines, but the memory of a special restaurant can easily transport one back to childhood. One such place for me is an airplane—not airplane food, but food in an airplane, in this case one stuck on pillars near a small airfield between Boulder and Denver, Colorado.

Convair 990, Erie, Colorado, 1983 - Steve Nelson, from Modeling Madness

Formerly N5601 (and OD-AFJ), a well-travelled Convair CV-990-30A-5 Coronado, this passenger plane became, as well as I can remember, B.J. Strawberries at the Convair, a restaurant more renowned for being in an airplane than for its cuisine, but as a ten year old, the food was certainly secondary to the sight of a plane perched on stilts. Diners were given boarding passes to their seats, and I think the wait staff dressed in airline pilot and stewardess uniforms for that extra bit of authenticity. Lost to time is whether or not the menu items were airplane-themed.

(Check out Steve Nelson’s comments for updated information on this restaurant, including menu items, waitstaff uniforms, and the source of the restaurant’s name. Also in the comments is a link to a site with some history and photos of the Erie Air Park, including a scan of a newspaper article about the Convair’s demolition.)

Read more

$10k Gaming Table: Dice Not Included

by

Tired of playing on an old television box covered with discarded tablecloth? Ready to roll the dice on a table made of real wood rather than on some odd, discolored melamine surface the neighbors threw out in a rainstorm?

Well, for just shy of ten thousand dollars, The Sultan can be yours:

The Sultan gaming table, from http://www.geekchichq.com

I think every gamer, whether a role player or a wargamer—minis gamers are, of course, a different breed, just wanting as much flat surface as they can get, upon which they pile their meticulously crafted trees and mountains and crumbled building ruins—has dreamed of the ideal gaming table. When cost is no object, we conjure up tables with built-in counter trays, cat-proof covers for games in progress, and of course, drink holders, since never should a beverage have greater gravitational potential energy than easily soaked game equipment. People spend large sums on such frivolities as pool tables and ping pong tables, so why not a dedicated gaming table?

The people at Geek Chic understand that need, apparently, and seem to have thought of everything, including:

Two Dice rolling trays, lined in your choice of velvet and capped with pointed rubber to ensure randomness of throws. Rubber is removable to give you the option of using bay for storage.

At $9,650 delivered and installed, The Sultan isn’t for every gamer, or even for many, and at that price, I might opt to have a custom-built table tailored for my specific needs instead, but it’s good to have benchmarks, and to have proof that this dream, that all gamers share, can be made real.

(Image from Geek Chic)