A to Z Challenge: Frogger

 Frogger was one of those games that became a hit early on with arcades and the Atari 2600.  And like a lot of games then, it had a silly concept:  you have to guide a frog across a road and then across a swamp to froggy heaven or whatever.  If you did it like 5 times or something you got to the next level.

Of course each level got more difficult with more lanes of traffic, faster cars, snakes, alligators, logs going really fast, and so on.  With the logs, some you could wrap around the screen but others wouldn't, so you'd have to jump or get dumped into the water.  Which for some reason kills the amphibious frog.  But you did get to mate with a white frog sometimes, so there's that.  

My family had Frogger for the 2600 so I played it a bit.  I don't remember how far I got but I don't think it was really one with an ending.  The game was of course memorialized in an episode of Seinfeld where George buys an arcade version of it to try to preserve his high score, but of course fails at doing so.  There was a brilliant bit where you watch overhead as he basically reenacts the game while pushing the cabinet only to get stuck at the curb--something that isn't really a problem in the game itself.

You can probably get versions of Frogger for your phone or in various Atari or maybe even NES revivals and knockoffs.

Ribbit!

A to Z Challenge: Elevator Action

Picture it: the late 1980s in a pizza parlor in Auburn, Michigan.  My brother and I were probably in town for a basketball game my dad was coaching and we would sometimes play in only when it was a rout one way or the other.  Anyway, the pizza parlor had the arcade version of Elevator Action and we played it for a little bit.

The game is kind of silly like a lot of games back then.  You play as a secret agent who starts at the top of a building.  You have to find hidden documents in specially marked rooms with red doors and get them to the bottom.  Along the way there are bad guys who look sort of like the black Spy vs. Spy guy.  You have to shoot them and avoid their bullets by ducking or jumping or going into a room.  You can shoot out light fixtures to make it dark to help you escape sometimes.  The most grisly way to kill the evil spies is to crush them with the elevators if they're under them.  You can also get crushed if you're under an elevator when it comes down or if you perch on top of one when it reaches the top of the shaft.

The levels get more and more difficult as you go with more bad guys, more elevators (and escalators), and more stuff to find.  I'm not sure if it's one of those games with an end level because I've never gotten really far on it.

Elevator Action was not on the Atari systems but there was a version for NES, though I don't think we ever got it.  Probably just as well as it would have probably cost like $50 for a game that while fun would only be amusing for a little while.

A few years ago from Amazon Vine I got a knockoff Gameboy thing that came preloaded with a bunch of Japanese games.  Elevator Action was one of them.  So I got the chance to play it again and still haven't gotten farther than two or three buildings.  You can probably get one of those knockoff game systems for pretty cheap on Amazon, Wish, or Temu.  

The game does have a really catchy theme song that if you start playing you probably won't get out of your head for a little while.

A to Z Challenge: Doom

 The original Doom came a couple years after id Software's popular first-person shooter Wolfenstein 3D.  This screenshot is from one of the console versions where they pixelated a lot of the Nazi stuff and showed less blood:

While that game was set in Nazi Germany, Doom was set in the future on Mars.  You play as a Marine who has to clear out a bunch of demons who have suddenly appeared on the planet.  The gameplay is largely the same as you choose from different weapons and go around in first-person to shoot the monsters.  And a lot of the gameplay can be just feeling around for secret doors to find keys to open other doors or maybe other treasures.  It can be a real pain.

You start with a pistol and hand spike and then can get a chainsaw, shotgun, Gatling gun, rocket launcher, plasma rifle, and the BFG:  Big Fucking Gun!  The BFG shoots a green energy ball that kills or does major damage to a large area, but the downside is it needs time to recharge and has limited ammo and isn't something you can really use up-close, so most of the time you'd want to use the plasma rifle or the Gatling gun or the shotgun, though the latter has less ammo.

The final level can be kind of nerve-wracking as there's an anteroom and then this big room with a giant cyborg Minotaur who shoots missiles.  The nerve-wracking thing is unless you cheat, you have to kind of dance around and sometimes go back into the anteroom to find more ammo or health packs and then you have to worry where the cyborg Minotaur went; sometimes you'd just hear the shrieking and clanking of his robotic joints getting closer and closer...

Though really I think you could just slip past that dude, shoot the heads hanging up in the next room, and jump into the warp gate or whatever to end the game if you want to be a chicken.  If you aren't quick enough or the Minotaur isn't far enough away, he could come back to blow the hell out of you with missiles.  If you use the "god code" to cheat you don't really have to worry as you're invulnerable and can get unlimited ammo to just go up to him and blast him with BFG or ion bursts or rockets until he dies.

The sequel Doom II:  Hell on Earth takes you to Earth, though there's really nothing that recognizable as being on Earth.  You go around to more levels and fight more enemies.  I don't think you really even got new weapons or anything so it was more of an expansion pack than a whole new game.

One of the neat things was you could create "WAD" files that let you customize the weapons and stuff in the game.  If you were a really good artist/programmer you could probably do all sorts of neat things, but I just customized the weapons slightly to correspond to some Transformers fanfics I did.

The first one I did corresponded with Transformers: Xenophobia and an original character I created called Ambush.  He was basically a Special Forces type who turned into a Hummer or something like that.  His weapon of choice was a shotgun, so I recolored the shotgun to go with his green paint scheme.  I'm not sure I changed the other weapons all that much.  

I did another one for The Skyfire Adventures where in the first story the Maximal Skyfire, formerly the Autobot Jetfire, fights demons on some planet.  I forget which weapon I made Skyfire's; it might have been the plasma rifle. 

The other one I did was a Beast Wars one for a character I created called Outfox who was, of course, a fox.  His tail would have popped off to become a gun.  I think again I used the shotgun as the model for it.  I think I did a little customizing to make the Gatling gun like Rhinox's and the missile launcher like Optimus Primal's.  If I'd really had any skills for drawing and stuff, I probably could have made the chainsaw Dinobot's sword, the pistol Rattrap's gun, the plasma rifle Cheetor/Tigatron's gut gun, and maybe done something with the BFG.

I have no idea if I have any of those files saved anywhere or if I could still use them somehow.

I got Wolfenstein, Doom, and Doom II in a bundle from GOG.com a few years ago and found they weren't as exciting as I remembered.  Wolfenstein especially there's a lot of wandering around feeling for doors to find keys and treasure.  And a couple of spots in each game it can be confusing to know what you're supposed to do so I wound up wandering around and around until I had to go look up a video on YouTube to find out what I needed to do.  Shooter games are a lot more fun when you're, you know, shooting stuff.

A to Z Challenge: Conflict

Conflict is kind of an obscure game and a relic of Cold War times.  Even when it came out about 1990 it was sort of an anachronism.  It was also pretty damned fun.

The game was a strategy game that like a role-playing game used maps made of hexagons.  You had Blue, which had American weapons, and Red, who had Soviet weapons.  The weapons came in three basic categories:  foot soldiers, armor, and air power.  Each side would have factories to build new units.  There was a factory for armor and one for airplanes, with each having the capacity for some foot soldiers--the armor one allowed you to build better foot soldiers.

Each side had a "flag tank" that was an M1A1 for Blue and a T-80 for Red.  The tank was like the king in chess that when the flag tank was destroyed, that side lost.  The flag tank did have better weapons and movement than a regular tank, so it could sometimes be useful as a weapon, but you always had to be careful not to put it in too much danger.

The maps would have a variety of terrain:  plains, hills, mountains, sea, and marshes.  The plains would only take 1 movement point while mountains were 3.  Marshes and hills might have been 2.  Planes could fly over the sea for 1 point while of course armor and foot soldiers could not move on water spaces.

There were 16 different maps, 15 regular ones that at the end would give you a letter to unlock the 16th map, The Final Conflict.  Each map had different terrain that would provide different challenges.  There was one map with essentially two different continents separated by a stretch of water and islands, so the only way to destroy the enemy was to use planes.  Some of the islands had air bases so you could refuel your planes or you could build a tanker.  The challenge with that level is you can only defeat the flag tank with air power, so if you lose your air factory and your bombers, you're pretty well screwed.  You'd have to hope the red flag tank didn't park on a city and you could chip away at it with fighters until it blew up.  That would take a long time.

The way the weapons worked is you start only being able to make foot soldiers or the M151, which is a jeep with a missile launcher.  The next tier are Vietnam-era weapons like the M-60 tank, A-7 bomber, and F-4 fighter.  The next tier is more modern weapons like the M1A1 tank, F-16 fighter, and A-10 bomber.  In some levels then each side got a really expensive futuristic fighter, the F-23 (which doesn't look like the actual F-23 that never went into production) or the MiG-33, which probably didn't exist.

There were also helicopters in some of the levels that you made in the air factory.  Each side got two gunship types:  the Vietnam-era AH-1 Cobra and modern AH-64 Apache for Blue and the Mi-24 Hind and Mi-28 Havoc for Red.  The helicopters were usually cheaper than bombers but easier for enemy fighters to shoot down.  In a weird bit of censorship the "Hellfire" missiles for the Apache were changed to "Fire Dart" missiles.

Unfortunately for me, there were only a couple of levels where you could get the AV-8 Harrier jumpjet.  I think Harriers are neat and they're weird, which is part of why I like them.  They didn't really have a lot of use in the game except in those couple of levels as light bombers--and usually by the time you could build them, you didn't really need them anymore.  I would have liked to use them more often.  Red gets the crummy Soviet equivalent:  the Yak-38 that was used on their crummy "aircraft carriers."  But since the cost difference between that and a Su-25 "Frogfoot" bomber is so minimal, it's unlikely the computer would ever make any.

Another level was shaped like a snake with Blue in the tail and Red in the head.  The idea there was you'd have to bring any ground forces all the way around the snake to attack the other side.  Fuel would become a problem unless you have a supply truck to refuel your tanks.

The best way to cripple an enemy would be to destroy his factories.  One level in particular, my brother and I found a way to sneak a jeep in a couple of moves to attack the enemy's air factory.  You had to be really careful with how you moved it or else the AI would take notice and blow it up with a bomber or tank.  But when it worked, you could sneak up to the factory in a few turns and blow up the commandoes guarding it.  Then the computer would have to rely on tanks because you can't rebuild factories or make new ones.  That would give us enough time to build up our forces to attack.

The way you got points was by destroying the other team's units or claiming the city hexagons and airfield hexagons on the board.  All you had to do was park a plane or ground unit on it and it would change to your color.  If you move, though, the enemy can claim it and steal the points.  So it's best if you can park something on it and leave it there.  That also lets you refuel and repair damage to the unit.

The fighting in the game was kind of goofy.  If you selected to attack a unit, the screen would change to where half shows your unit and gives you options to Attack, Defend, or Retreat.  Under each one of those were sub-options that depended on the type of unit.  Airplanes would have things like "Accelerate" or "Roll" while armor units had options like "Turn" and "Adjust" and the foot soldiers had something like "Drop" where they'd just fall on their bellies.  

So if I have a bomber attack some foot soldiers, I could choose to drop a bomb or strafe them with my cannon.  The bomb does a lot of damage, but you only get a certain number while the cannon has unlimited ammo but does less damage.  Each unit had like 15 points.  If a bomb hit foot soldiers, the damage was usually something catastrophic, so no worries.  With a tank it might only do 10 points to a first-tier tank like an M-60 or it might do only 5 points to a more modern M1 or only 3 points to a head tank.  So you'd need to use a few bombs and if the target only has one or two points, you might just use the gun.

The game had text to go with each option and sometimes there'd be these silly paragraphs talking about how the pilots or drivers "glare into each other's eyes."  There was often one combination where if an enemy plane fires a gun, you Accelerate and then it'll miss and go on about how the G-Forces overtook the pilot's body but allows him to get behind the other plane.  An inordinate amount of time in each battle is spent "Look"ing for the enemy.

Sometimes the text would say "Engine Hit!" or "Pilot Hit!" to instantly destroy the unit.  The funniest was when it would say "Soldiers Hit!" and wipe out the foot soldiers.  Well of course the soldiers were hit; what else could you hit?

There were a couple of little goofs like where it'd say soldiers "droped down."  Or it would say a helicopter went over a ground unit "with a sonic roar" which would be impossible.  (The same for Harriers and A-10s that are subsonic.)  With M1 tanks there's sometimes a glitch where if you keep using the Defend/Smoke option the plane or tank attacking you will only use its machine gun instead of a bomb/tank gun.  It doesn't work all the time, but when it does, it can bail you out by limiting the damage the other side does.

Anyway, it was a really fun game for the NES that would have been more fun in a PC version where you could have expansion packs for more maps or weapons or even customize things.  

A few years after the original they made "Super Conflict" for the SNES.  It was as disappointing as Age of Empires II.  Super Conflict added navies and some different air and ground units.  But the combat style changed to where it was pretty boring.  Basically each side just hammered the other.  There was none of the artistry of in the previous game where you had all the different options and goofy text.  You could do a shortened mode even where it just shows each side fire once and then tallies up the damage and ammo used (or shows one side or the other explode).  That shortens the game but takes most of the skill and luck out of it. 

There were some other annoying things too.  They made the "flag tank" about as useful as a commando unit.  The factories took longer to build things and destroying an enemy factory was all but impossible without a ton of firepower.  You only lose like 300 points for each loss, so it's really hard to drain an opponent of points.  Antiaircraft guns were really puny against aircraft.  And so on.

That made it a lot harder for an underdog to win.  So it never really won our hearts like the first game.

Replaying all 55 levels, it was kind of fun though not really difficult.  One time where because neither side had a factory, I just had all my units run to the top of the map and hide in the mountains.  The computer ran his units out of ammo and gas in pursuit so then we could pick off his flag tank to win.  Another time he stupidly ran his remaining T-80 out of gas and didn't reclaim the airport when he had the chance so his Hind helicopter (that I really had no way of downing) was stranded.  So they didn't really make the AI much smarter.

As the levels progress, you start to get factories and then planes and then navies--including the "flag ship" that was like the flag tank only on the ocean.  It could do some damage to planes and weak units but not a lot.  The computer's strategy was generally to wipe out your weak units like commandos, M1901 APCs, or Sheridan light tanks.  And then attack your factories.  If I left any planes or helicopters out in range of his fighters, he might attack those.  Generally I could just keep my bombers in the airport or aircraft carrier for the first two turns, after which he'd need to refuel his fighters.  And by then I might have destroyed most of them with my fighters, SAMs, or cruiser.

So most levels the computer had the upper hand the first couple of turns but usually by the third and fourth turns I'd have begun my counterattack that in a couple more turns would have the computer all but wiped out.  In all 55 levels I don't think there were many times I was really on the ropes, except maybe the first couple where you have such finite resources.  

There were a couple of better things vs the original game, like having an aircraft carrier lets you have a mobile base for your planes.  And it's kind of nice that stronger units like M1 tanks had more hit points than puny infantry.  It was kind of neat to have some different planes like the F-14, F-5, and F-18 fighters and A-6 bomber.  Red had the MiG-21 "Fishbed" and MiG-23 "Flogger" added. The addition of the "flag ship" made things more interesting as you had two options to end the game--or lose the game.

Though Conflict was never a really popular game, you could still find emulators of it online a few years ago.  I think it was one called Console Classix or something that had it and I replayed a lot of the levels.  And last year I played it on RetroGames, which also had Super Confict. 

That's right, baby, build me something sweet...

I was especially happy to see the cute supply chief for the Blue side again who always made me think of Lisa Hayes from Robotech--or later Captain Lisa Shaw in my story First Contact.  The red side got some Russian dude, so it was always good most of the levels you had to play Blue unless it was two-player.

Anyway, it's still one of my favorite strategy games to play, though I usually remember pretty quick how annoying it can be when the computer rigs a battle so my SAM battery never hits his plane or his infantry destroy my tank with "engine hit" or something like that.

I think mostly I like that unlike most other games it doesn't rely on reflexes to run, jump, and punch.  You don't need long strings of buttons for special combos or anything like that.  You need brains far more than reflexes.

A to Z Challenge: BattleTech

 My brother and I had a few BattleTech games for the PC.  I think the first one might have been for the IBM PC that still used 5.25" floppies--low density only.  Or it might have been slightly newer than that.  Anyway, this first game I never played all the way through but it was more of a role-playing game.  It was also so ancient that it had robots like the "Phoenix Hawk" that was a non-transforming Robotech Veritech, the "Locust" that I think was a Zentraedi BattlePod design, and a couple of others.

In the mid-to-late 90s they came out with a new batch of games that also had novels tie-in with them, some of which I read and weren't terrible.  The basic story was human space was divided into these different factions who each had armies of robots with human pilots inside.  Some of the robots were huge, heavily-armed, and slow.  Others were small, light, and fast.  And the Centurion made slow, steady advances.

Then came "the Clans" who were rogue groups of warriors from outside known human space.  They had a strict warrior culture and their robots were better than the ones the regular humans were using.  So the Clans were winning until they took a challenge to fight on Earth's moon and lost.  A fragile truce was then forged.  Meanwhile both sides were jockeying for position with each other.

The mid-to-late 90s games let you pilot different mechs from either side and do different missions.  I think in some you could also be a non-affiliated mercenary.  You'd do missions and try to acquire new and better stuff for your mech--or just get a new mech.  It was pretty fun, like a flight simulator but without a lot of flying, though some mechs have "jump jets" that use jets to fly short distances.

Target, Maximum Firepower!

There was another game later in the 90s that was a strategy game called MechCommander.  Instead of being in the cockpit, you moved the mechs around the board.  There were different missions, some of which could be annoying like trying to protect an ambulance through heavy fighting.  

Here's the list of games from my old web page, including some cheat codes:

Crescent Hawk's Inception - an early BattleTech RPG video game, your character, Jason Youngblood, must journey around the map to find members of the elite Crescent Hawks.  Then you must crack an underground facility to find a valuable prize - a Phoenix Hawk LAM that looks like a Robotech Veritech fighter.

Crescent Hawk's Revenge - a sequel to Inception, this old strategy game pits your Crescent Hawks against the Clans, who hold your father prisoner.  The interface is bulky and makes combat difficult.

Mechwarrior - The first of these classic games, you are royalty of a small planet who must form a band of mercenaries to track down the group who killed your family and disgraced you.  You only get five years and it's harder than Hell to win.  The graphics stink, the interface leaves a lot to be desired, but it's still fun because you get Mechs you can't get in other games like Shadow Hawks, Phoenix Hawks, and Locusts.

Mechwarrior 2 - It took a long time for this sequel to come out, but when it did, it kicked ass!  In this game you are a Clan warrior (either Wolf or Falcon) fighting the Refusal War of 3057.  You fly awesome Mechs like Summoners and Timber Wolfs with cool weapons to blow the hell out of everything.  You can advance from a Mechwarrior to the Khan of your Clan, fly over a dozen of Mechs, and are free to customize your Mech almost any way you want.  My favorite Mech was a Summoner loaded with about 700 LRM-20s.  I could take out Mechs long before they even could touch me.  Of course that only works with the invincibility code (Alt+Control+BLORB) after you strip off all heat sinks and jump jets.

Mechwarrior 2:  Ghost Bear's Legacy - This expansion set allows you to play as the Ghost Bears who are out to recover the genetic materials of their founders that were stolen.  Like the original Mechwarrior this is a simulator with a story that is a lot of fun, and you get to fly new Mechs like the Kodiak and Stone Rhino.  The last mission sucks and I've never actually beaten it, I used cheats to get by it.  The Stone Rhino and Kodiak are slow, but can carry a lot of firepower.  A great close-in fighter is a Stone Rhino with a couple of autocannons (which I named the Stone Rhinox after the Beast Wars character who packs two bad-ass chainguns).

Mechwarrior 2:  Mercenaries - This isn't an expansion set, but a whole new game.  Much like Mechwarrior you form a group of Inner Sphere mercenaries.  You start in the early 3040s and the game goes right to the battle on Luthien during the Clan invasion.  This game is loads of fun, except that you have to fly the bulky, slow, poorly-armed Inner Sphere Mechs often against the Clan.  Still, the game is sweet.  It is a vast improvement over Mechwarrior, as you get better missions, more money, and better stuff even if you can't negotiate contracts.

Mechwarrior 3 - Finally, the sequel to Mechwarrior 2 has been released. The game features awesome new graphics and many new Mechs. The controls are mostly the same, but there are some changes. What annoyed me was that there isn't an Autopilot. I hate piloting the thing myself between Nav points, it's usually so dull that I'd rather just have the damned computer do it for me. The story for the game is that you are part of the Eridani Light Horse finishing off the Smoke Jaguars on some planet, not Huntress or Strana Mechty. Most of the Inner Sphere Mechs are Inner Sphere OmniMechs, Mechs that are comparable to Clan Mechs (although they still aren't as good!) and there really aren't the typical Inner Sphere Mechs like Atlases, Centurions, or Commandoes. The game takes some getting used to but it is very cool.

MechCommander - A really cool strategy game.  The interface is much, much better than the antiquated Crescent Hawk's Revenge that predates it by about 10 years.  In this game you command a company of Mechs during the invasion of a Smoke Jaguar planet:  Port Arthur.  Your end goal is to capture the starbase so reinforcements can arrive.  First you have to establish a beachhead, harass the enemy supply lines, etc.  This game is hard without cheats, but still plenty of fun.  There will hopefully be an expansion set to it with new Mechs, scenarios, and a scenario editor.

Cheats:  Hit Alt+Control while typing these in.

Mechwarrior 2 - BLORB is the invincibility code, which is all you really need.

Mechwarrior 2:  Mercenaries - superfunkycalifragisexy is the invincibility code, again that's all you really need to win.

MechCommander:  Here you just type in the codes as are.

osmiu - invincibility

lordbunny - unlimited artillery (very helpful)

deadeye - perfect accuracy

lorrie - repair and resupply

rockandrollpeople - type on the Mission Briefing screen to get unlimited drop weight (it makes the last mission especially cool)

poundofflesh - gives you a million bucks on the Mission Briefing screen.

mineeyeshaveseentheglory - reveals the map and all enemies (that way you can kill everything!)

I haven't played any of these games for a while.  I think they came out with newer versions in the 21st Century but I haven't played those either.  It was kind of disappointing that just when the books were getting good they did this whole sorta reboot thing.

Like Robotech, there have long been rumors of a live action movie--often with some recognizable name involved--but they never come to fruition.  At this point the closest we have is Pacific Rim and Robot Jox. 

A to Z Challenge: Age of Empires

 For my A to Z Challenge, I decided to focus on video games.  Mostly video games I played, except maybe where a weird letter doesn't give me many options.

While I first thought of doing console games, I remembered one of my favorite strategy games was a PC game:  Microsoft's Age of Empires.  I bought the original game in late 1997; I think it might have actually been New Year's Eve.  And soon enough I was hooked on it.

The original game allowed you to create a city/country based on a variety of ancient Mediterranean/Middle Eastern cultures like Egyptians, Greeks, Phoenicians, Babylonians, and so on.  Different cultures would have access to different skills and different weapons.  Some like the Greeks and Phoenicians were good at making boats.  Some of the desert ones had camels.  One had villagers who came armed.  Egyptians had chariots and things like that.

When the game starts, you only get a couple of villagers.  The villagers gather food, wood, stone, or gold and also build stuff.  You start in the "Stone Age" with a very small variety of stuff.  Basically Flintstones-looking buildings and dudes with clubs.  Then as you advance to the Bronze Age and Iron Age, you get better buildings and weapons and so on.  By the time you advance in the Iron Age, you get siege weapons like catapults and some get "juggernauts" that are ships that can launch stones.  

The game has 2 players up to 8 or 10 or something like that.  The more players means the more conflict for the limited resources on the map.  You typically want to find supplies of food, wood, and stone to get to the Bronze Age and better weapons.  At the same time you need to make more villagers to gather more stuff and build more stuff, including defenses like walls and watchtowers.

The wood, stone, and gold your villagers can chop/mine and dump into storage pits or the town center, whatever is closer.  Food you start off only being able to forage berries, fish in shallow water with spears, or hunt gazelle/deer animals.  You can try to hunt elephants but it can take a number of hits to bring one down and in the meantime, the pissed-off elephant might stomp your villagers.  Once an animal is dead, you only have a limited time before it decomposes.  After you advance, you can build farms and a dock for fishing boats.  There are spots throughout the water parts of the map that show fish jumping.  You can also try to hunt whales, though that's less reliable because they'll disappear and pop up somewhere else.  The farther you send your fishing boats out, the slower it is to get food, which can be a problem.  The farms expire after a while and need to be rebuilt, so it can be tricky to keep your food stocked.

Another tricky thing can be if another player--especially an AI-controlled player--advances faster than you.  The computer of course has an advantage over a human player in being able to micromanage all the various villagers, troops, and priests you end up with.  Other times it might be that one player is closest to a bigger supply of resources.  If the other player(s) is advancing faster they might be able to slaughter your club-carrying cavemen with cavalry--including war elephants!

The ultimate thing to build is a "wonder," which for Egyptian-type cultures is a pyramid.  Greek-type ones get a statue.  Sometimes the objective for a scenario requires building a wonder or destroying the opponents.  In more free-flowing scenarios the objective is simply to destroy everyone else.

You could play just random maps or there were some campaigns where your goals might be more limited.  I forget exactly what they were but it might be like to advance to the Bronze Age and build a fishing dock or something like that.  Or you might get only a set amount of units and have to defeat the enemy or whatever.  I was never that much into those as just playing random maps.

After a year or so they came out with the "Rise of Rome" expansion pack.  This added Rome and a couple other cultures.  I think Carthage was one where you got elephants like Hannibal.  Rome was similar to the Greek ones but had some better soldiers and I think not as good boats.  Their wonder was a colosseum.  It was pretty sweet.

What could make the game more fun is there were a slew of cheat codes.  Some were pretty useful like "pepperoni pizza" would give you 1000 food units.  Or "woodstock" I think gave you 1000 wood.  Those really helped when I was trying to manage a military campaign and didn't really have time to micromanage stupid villagers.  I never really felt bad about that because most countries (including this one) take out loans in times of war; I just considered it like getting a loan from the bank.

There were more fun things you could do like get "Photon Man" who was this dude in sort of a spacesuit with a laser gun.  There was another one who launched missiles that were a little less useful.  And there was the "Daddy Z" that was a car with missiles.  Sometimes it was fun to create some of those and go fry some cavemen or whatever.  Sometimes I'd just post a Photon Man in my village as a cheap defense so I'd have time to advance.

In the game, priests could heal guys and also sometimes convert enemy units to your side.  But the priests were really slow and weak--unless you used a cheat code.  Then they'd move like the wind and have a ton of hit points.  Since the map only shows what area you've explored, the fast priests would be helpful to quickly explore the map to locate resources--and the enemy.  And it was neat sometimes to convert things you can't build with your culture, like war elephants.  And a few times, I nearly got wiped out by the enemy and used the priest to convert some villagers and troops to stay in the game.

The danger with the priest code is sometimes the enemy would build a ton of priests and deploy them defensively.  One priest against another priest isn't likely to convert him, but when the enemy has a bunch of them, it can work a lot easier.  Then the enemy has your super-fast priest with a lot of hit points, who's almost impossible to bring down.

(Fun Fact:  When the priests would chant, to me it always sounded like they were saying, "Lemonade!  Lemonade!")

As I've mentioned before, you can build boats to fish but also to fight.  There are a couple of types of ships besides fishing ones.  Triremes shoot sort of like big darts.  They're pretty much just for attacking other ships.  Then there are the catapult ships that launch big rocks.  Those are mostly for attacking ground targets because the rocks are slow and other ships can just sail away before they hit.  There are also transports that you can stuff units into.  I think about 10 was the limit, though it might be more.  Transports could be essential if it's a map with islands and you need to land troops to take out the enemy's town.  Another use is if things aren't going great for you, you can load some units on the transport and hopefully sail away to another part of the map and start over.  Sometimes I'd take a couple of villagers and maybe a priest if I had them by then and drop them somewhere else on the map.  Or even just keep the transport in a distant corner of the map as a backup.

The Rise of Rome expansion added fire boats into the mix.  The fire boats are small, fast boats that basically have flamethrowers to set other boats on fire.  They can be devastating but they are pretty volatile so they can be destroyed fairly easily.  So you probably wouldn't want them hanging around with your main fleet or grouping a bunch together. 

I loved the original Age of Empires enough that I made a page for it back in 1998 or so.  It listed the cheat codes and some strategy and stuff.  Here are my Tips & Tricks, including the cheat codes I frequently used:

Since I’ve played Age of Empires a lot, in many situations, I thought I’d impart some wisdom to players or would-be players. As well, I’ve posted some cheat codes I found on the Net that, when used properly, can enhance the fun of the game.

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Tips

• Your first priority should always be to gather resources in a random map game. Build a lot of villagers and have them gather food and wood in the Stone and Tool ages, then have them gather food and gold in the Bronze Age. Once you're to the Iron Age you'll need to amass a large army, so work on food, wood, and gold.
• Don't worry about an army early on. Keep a small force on hand to repel an invasion, but just work on gathering resources and building the buildings you'll need.
• On any map with a lot of water, fishing boats are vital. They can get a lot of food and you don't have to sacrifice some of your existing food to build them, which is definitely a good deal. Just be sure to keep warships nearby in case the enemy decides to try and interdict your fishing operations.
• On an island or coastal map, naval supremacy is key. Upgrade your warships as soon as possible and build a lot of them. You can use them to disrupt the enemy's fishing, destroy targets on the shore, and to help stop invasions by land or sea. As well, warships can serve as excellent scouts and since they have higher resistance to conversion they can help rid you of pesky priests.
• If you have Monotheism, then you can drop priests behind the lines to wreak havoc on the enemy by converting guard towers or other buildings. Capturing a military target like a stable, archery range, or dock may also allow you to produce some units to cause the enemy some pain. Of course your units usually get destroyed, but in the meantime the enemy had to expend time and resources on dealing with the threat. If your enemy has Monotheism then things can get tricky, as your priest can get converted. This plan works best by using the cheat code to upgrade your priests described below.
• The best kind of troops to have are heavy cavalry, cataphracts, chariots, and other faster troops to begin your assault. Slower foot units like phalanxes, centurions, swordsmen, or legions take longer to get to the target and can be picked off easier by guard towers, ballistae, ships, or catapults. Elephants are slow, but have enough hit points so they can often whether the storm better.
• Whether on the offense or defense, numbers count more than the quality of troops. A swarm of axmen can take down a cataphract or legion. If the enemy starts an invasion or when you're ready to launch an offensive, build troops like crazy, as many as you can get. If you're in dire straits with the enemy inside your walls, then it might be smarter to produce axmen, archers, or scouts because they take less time to produce. Also have a few priests on hand to convert enemy troops and heal yours. Massed fire in the form of a group of archers, catapults, or ballistae can work great in repelling the enemy.
• It's best to fortify your city as soon as possible. You should have a villager or two get stone so you can build walls and guard towers to protect your city from attack. A good city plan is to group your buildings near each other, but so that your troops have plenty of room to maneuver. Spreading out only makes it harder to defend the city from attack. Put storage pits outside the walls close to resources, but leave military and other buildings inside the walls.
• A good trick to help defend your city while you are building up resources is to create a perimeter far outside the walls. Guard towers, warships, or scouts can help alert you to an invasion so you can be ready long before it gets to your walls. Another trick is if there are swamps that link islands or land masses, place guard towers and walls there to block them off. That way the enemy has to blast them before he can get to you and you'll have notice of how many and what kind of units are on the march. It also keeps the enemy from leeching off your resources by sending villagers into your territory to mine resources.
• Whenever possible, upgrade your abilities through the market, storage pits, and government center. Ballistics and Alchemy are two key upgrades from the government center that give you flaming arrows and cannonballs as well as ballista towers (if possible). Engineering, Nobility, and Architecture are also a great help, so build a government center as quickly as possible.
• Typically I strive to win through conquest, but you can take the easy route and build a wonder. If you want to do that, make a lot of villagers to gather resources and then construct the thing. You'll need to put it in a fortified location, away from the sea, so it will be harder for the enemy to destroy. Have troops nearby to put down an incursions, because the enemy will have to make an attempt to destroy the wonder or they'll lose. If ruins and artifacts are in the game, you probably won't be able to get all of them, but just make sure to have one under your control or else your enemy can beat you by controlling them. Walling an artifact with fortifications can keep enemies from making off with it and putting a guard tower at a ruin can keep the enemy from controlling it.

Tricks

Here are some codes that I find extremely useful. I'll also explain how best to use them, because if you cheat rampantly then it ruins the game, but using codes in moderation can make the game better and more interesting. I'll also give you a few codes that I don't use much, but you may want to if you're into victory at any and all costs. To use the codes, just hit Enter and type the code in as indicated, then hit Enter again.

Code	Best Way to Use
pepperoni pizza	Gives you 1000 food. Use when you're under heavy attack or deep into an offensive when you need food to build troops or villagers.
woodstock	Gives you 1000 wood. Use when you're under heavy attack or deep into an offensive when you need wood to build troops, buildings, or ships.
quarry	Gives you 1000 stone. Build to quickly get materials for walls and guard towers.
coinage	Gives you 1000 gold. Use when you're under heavy attack or deep into an offensive to build troops, priests, or ships.
big bertha	Upgrades catapults to super-powerful Big Berthas. Great for when you can't get catapults or just as a shortcut to upgrading your catapults. Berthas cause a lot of damage around where the rock hits, so keep your troops away from where it fires at.
flying dutchman	Upgrades juggernauts to flying dutchmen that can go over land. It's fun to use and allows you to upgrade to juggernauts without wasting a lot of resources.
medusa	Makes it so villagers become Black Riders when they die. Black Riders then become heavy catapults. It's a great way to get troops quickly. However, the code only works on villagers who haven't ever been signed as a builder, repairman, etc.
photon man	Photon man is a great way to easily defend your city from a heavy attack. His powerful weapon and long range allow him to quickly wipe out an invading force. I only use him on defense.
reveal map	Reveals the map so you can see all the terrain. Doesn't show enemy positions, though.
hoyohoyo	One of the most useful codes. Your priests get 600 hit points and move like the wind. Always use this since priests are so weak and slow otherwise.

Other Codes

bigdaddy	Creates a missile car that can quickly wipe out everything. It's so powerful that it really tips the scales in your favor. I don't recommend it unless you really want to cheat.
E=mc2 trooper	Creates a photon man who launches ICBMs. Can easily wipe out any enemy buildings. He's very powerful, so don't use him unless you want to cheat.
icbm	Gives ballistae and nuke trooper longer range so they can hit just about anything. Allows you to take out anything without taking damage, so it really lets you cheat.
hari kari	Kills all your forces. It's kind of pointless.

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To me, using the resource codes really isn't cheating. In wars, nations always borrow heavily, so why should your war be different? As well, when you're out on an offensive, it's hard to control the gathering of resources. Any general in the field assigns someone else to supervise things at home, so if you're running a war in the field, it's easier to use the codes then trying to run both fronts.

Flying dutchman is a really fun code if you want to pretend you're fighting in some kind of weird fantasy universe where ships can fly. Big berthas are cool to easily get some land-based firepower, but they're a danger to your own troops because they cause so much damage around the target that if they hit close to your guys they can wipe them out too. Photon man is a last resort if the enemy is close to wiping you out. He can easily dispose of enemy troops to defend your home. Like I said, it's a last resort. Reveal map just lets you see the terrain so you can plan attacks. What general doesn't know the terrain before they launch an offensive? Medusa gives you troops really fast, so if you're under attack, it's a good way to go.

 The hoyohoyo code is great. Your priests can do far more, especially harassing the enemy behind the lines. A cool combination is to use the code and then go to the temple and buy the upgrade to double your priest's hit points. Then they get 1200 points, making them almost unbeatable. Just don't let them be converted by the enemy, because they're really hard to destroy.

With these tips and tricks, hopefully you can easily beat Age of Empires and have a lot of fun. This really is a great game with lots of possibility for game play. The campaigns can be fun, but sometimes the codes don't work so they're more challenging.

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When Age of Empires II came out, I was excited to play it.  Then disappointed.  The sequel takes place in the Middle Ages and there were some tweaks to the gameplay.  After a few times of playing it, I found I just didn't really like it and went back to the original game.

I never bothered with Age of Empires III, which was in colonial times.

Eventually they came out with Age of Mythology, which was more like the original game.  Except in addition to "wonders" you could make a Titan, who was basically a kaiju.  There were Greek, Egyptian, Norse, and some other cultures.  The Egyptian ones had an eagle-headed dude, the Greeks had a Cerberus, and then there was one other one.  The kaiju could do a lot of damage, but they weren't invincible and making one took a lot of resources--unless you cheat.

Besides the Titans, you'd also get magic spells, or blessing from the gods or whatever.  You could call down meteor showers and things like that.  Those spells could be limited--unless you cheat.  Even more than the original game, cheating could be fun just to rain meteors down on an enemy or have a swarm of Titans stomp all over them.

I guess they came out with an Age of Empires IV last year or so.  Like the second one it takes place in the Middle Ages but covers most of the major civilizations of Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa.  It's not really something I would care about.

I might still be able to play Age of Mythology or Age of Empires.  It might be streaming somewhere or on Steam or whatever.  I don't think my old discs would still work, though I'm pretty sure I have both games somewhere.

Maybe some snobs would sneer and say it's a bastardized version of Civilization or something like that, but I had a lot of fun with it.

A Little Something For The Grammar Nazis

 About three weeks ago I saw this post and reading it made me kinda do a double-take:

The sentence reads like something in a paranormal story query.  When I first read it, I thought the person mentioned was a witch or something like that who's centuries old.  Because it says "After centuries..." and then the subject is this Andrea Campbell person.  Obviously that's not the intent, but that is how it reads.

This is an issue that's pretty common in writing stories and also queries.  It's something writers have to be careful about because it creates a meaning other than what's intended.  At the very least your reader might have to stop to consider what you really meant and you don't want normal readers or especially agents/editors to do that.

I don't remember all the exact terms for stuff, but in cases like this, when you have an introductory clause then the first person or place you mention should be what that's referring to or else it won't read correctly.  So...

"After centuries of not seeing someone who looks like her, Andrea Campbell is making history in the Massachusetts AG's office."

Should be more like:

"For centuries there's been no one who looks like Andrea Campbell in the Massachusetts AG's office.  Now she's making history and tackling the issues that matter to most Americans."

Not to shame whoever wrote this, here's something I did that was sorta similar:

"The figure stumbles to land on the floor, but even with a blindfold and gag on, I can recognize Nat’s pink hair, piercings, and tattoos."

I changed it slightly to:

"The figure stumbles to land on the floor, but even with a blindfold and gag on the figure’s face, I can recognize Nat’s pink hair, piercings, and tattoos."

If I wasn't really paying attention I might not have even noticed this.  The meaning is probably clear and yet if I say, "with a blindfold and gag on, I..." it might read to some people like the narrator is the one with a blindfold and gag on.  So adding a reference to the actual subject (the figure) makes it more clear.

So there you go.  Watch out for that kind of stuff in your own writing so you don't say something other than what you mean. 

Maybe by now some doofus has said, "It's just social media, bruh" but really, it is someone's job to write this stuff; they probably should try to not make it confusing or weird.  It was to me just a strange way to write that in the first place.

Monday begins the A to Z Challenge!  I have already announced my topic; if you missed the announcement, you can go back and read it.  Or just wait until Monday...if you dare.

Comics I Read Since Last Fall

 I don't remember how long it's been since I did one of these.  I don't take a lot of time to read comics, but sometimes I get around to it, like if I don't feel like doing anything else.  So here we go:

Sword of Azrael by Dan Watters
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I've been a fan of Azrael since the 90s but DC has never really been able to make the character stick. This doesn't change that. It's not as bad as Curse of the White Knight, but it's not really great. It gets bogged down too much in all the religious stuff and doesn't really focus on Jean-Paul Valley as a person.

Also, the art isn't very good. It's so crude that often it's hard to even tell what's happening. That certainly doesn't do this any favors.

They should just use my ideas for Azrael.  Or they should let Tom King write the character.  He'd actually get the character since so many of his stories focus on characters who have suffered trauma from war.

Speaking of...

Batman/Catwoman by Tom King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This series was basically DC's consolation present for Tom King and fans of his Batman run after cutting it from 100 issues to only 85. After the initial attempt to marry Batman and Catwoman was scuttled, this provides a do-over. It's sort of a "How It Should Have Ended" since it wasn't in continuity.

The story is mostly told from Catwoman's POV. It mixes past, present, and future. The past is during the first time Bat and Cat were together and trying to make things work. The Joker doesn't make this easy because Catwoman considers him a friend and doesn't like having to side between him and Batman. The present features the return of Phantasm from Mask of the Phantasm. She's come to Gotham to find the Joker, who killed her son, and starts killing a lot of people connected to Joker. Catwoman and Batman have married for real and yet she's still reluctant to turn on Joker. In the future, Bruce has died, his and Cat's daughter Helena is Batman, and Dick Grayson is the commissioner. When Catwoman tracks down the Joker and kills him, she becomes wanted for his murder by Dick and Helena.

It can be a little confusing sometimes to know which is present and past, but Catwoman's costume is mostly black in the past and gray in the present. The heart of the story is the conflict Catwoman feels between her criminal nature and her love for Bruce--and then Helena. As much as she wants to think she's still the independent alley cat who can't be trapped, her love does kinda trap her.

The main story is good though it feels a bit long. The "Tales" included afterwards are what really makes it worth reading. The short stories color in a lot of the details like how Bruce died, where/how the second wedding occurred, and Helena's childhood. A couple of the stories about older Bruce and Selina nearly brought a tear to my eye.

A lot of comics "fans" wouldn't like this because it's not slugfests, team-ups, and stuff like that. What King really does so well is to de-mythologize these characters so they seem human. Immature people who want simple characters, who want epic gods and goddesses, aren't going to like this--or most anything else King has done. But I love it because it is down-to-Earth and yet still entertaining.

The art is pretty typical DC stuff, which is better than typical Marvel stuff these days.  My one nitpick is in the future parts they make Commissioner Grayson just look like his present day self with a beard.  By this point he should be close to his 50s so he really should look older.

It's definitely worth reading to show us what could have been.

(Fun Fact: Pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths, the Huntress of Earth-2 was Helena Wayne, the daughter of Batman and Catwoman. While I think they got rid of that Post-Crisis, the concept was used again in the WB series Birds of Prey that ran for one season in 2002-2003.)

Batman: Killing Time by Tom King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A mysterious McGuffin is stolen from Bruce Wayne's safe deposit box by the Riddler and Catwoman and then just about everyone--Penguin, Batman, the US government--are trying to get it. The history of the object and a Greek tragedy that has some relevance are also mixed into the narrative.

If you liked King's run on Batman and most of his other comics then you'll like this. If you're looking for lots of slugfests and team-ups and typical comic book stuff like that, then you'd be disappointed. Not an essential addition to the Batman mythos but it's still a good story.

Batman: Fortress (2022-) Vol. 1 by Gary Whitta
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The world is blacked out by aliens seeming to use Kryptonian tech and Superman is nowhere to be found, so Batman assembles a ragtag team to find the Fortress of Solitude and get inside. For the most part it's a fun Elseworlds story with decent characterization. Besides Batman there's D'Ayl the Green Lantern who looks like a squirrel, Jackson aka Aqualad, President Luthor, and Emiko the Green Arrow's sister...or something. Emiko gets probably the least setup but the other characters are done pretty well.

Getting into the Fortress is a labyrinth that reminds me of Galaxy Quest when they're trying to get to the core of the ship and there are all these elaborate traps that seem like they'd be pretty inconvenient for Superman whenever he wants to get inside.

My only beef is the end is kind of silly. Kind of wish the author had found a better way.

(Fun Fact: the aliens wanting to try Superman for crimes his planet committed is like something I did in my book Girl Power #3: League of Evil when the Supergirl character is abducted by the Green Lantern-type group to stand trial. That was about 10 years before this. So there.  In my story the whole arrest and trial was just to get her off Earth so a Galactus-type thing could destroy the planet; there was no clever twist like that here.  Really they should have done one more issue for the trial and ending.)

Birds of Prey Vol. 1: Endrun by Gail Simone
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Not really a consequential volume since this was wiped out in a little while by the "New 52" reboot that let Barbara Gordon become Batgirl again but for a little while it got the band back together: Oracle, Black Canary, and Huntress plus Hawk, Dove, and Lady Blackhawk. When someone threatens to expose their secrets, they have to find who it is and take her and her co-conspirators down.

It's good for what it is. Plenty of action and some banter and a little love that some snowflakes might find unsettling. There's no Harley Quinn to mess things up either, unlike that movie a few years ago.  The art is normal stuff for that time period so it looks fine but nothing really spectacular--good or bad. Not recommended reading but if you're looking for something to while away an hour or two and catch up on this period of DC history then it's a good time.

 
Blue & Gold by Dan Jurgens
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The original "Blue & Gold" came together in the late 80s in Justice League International. The new character of Booster Gold and the second Blue Beetle (recently acquired from the defunct Charlton Comics) became a great comedy duo that has appeared on-and-off for about 35 years, though sometimes they've been split apart or been "killed" or disappeared or whatever.

This lets Dan Jurgens (creator of Booster) bring them back together for a fun series. Having not been accepted in the Justice League, they decide to form their own "hero for hire" business. But it gets complicated when an alien princess lays claim to Earth and Black Beetle shows up. There are cameos by the Justice League, Guy Gardner, Rip Hunter, and Batman.

For anyone who wants a fun superhero comic, this is good reading. It's funny and light without being stupid. I'd read more if that was possible. The art is mostly pretty standard DC though it's lower quality (more like Marvel) for issue 7. I'm not sure why.

That is all.

 
Nightwing, Vol. 1: Leaping into the Light by Tom Taylor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is I guess the re-re-re-(however many times) reboot. After Dick got shot in the head during Tom King's Batman run and had amnesia where he thought he was someone named Ric or something like that. But of course now he's back to normal--only now he inherits billions from Alfred's will--again see Tom King's Batman run.

This volume really just starts laying the groundwork for Dick's new status quo. He meets a new relative, there's a new villain called "Heartless" who takes hearts to keep in jars, and Blockbuster (basically Kingpin with hair) is still around. Plus Barbara Gordon is around. Dick sets out to embark on a socialist plan that even Bernie Sanders might think is too ambitious. And he gets a dog.

Overall it's pretty fun. A little heaviness in the story of his new relative and people's hearts being ripped out, but not enough to weigh it down. Tim Drake Robin, Titans, Superman, and of course Batman have cameos. The art is pretty typical DC stuff so it's not crude sketches like a lot of Marvel junk. Overall it's decent and a good foundation for the future that I think is new enough it hasn't been rebooted yet.

Fun Fact: In "The Hazards of Love" (Tales of the Scarlet Knight #3) back in 2009 I had a killer cutting out hearts though for a more specific reason. So there.  Though I think "Heartless" is a better name than mine.  So there.

 
Blue Beetle, Vol. 1: Metamorphosis by Tony Bedard
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If you read the original origin of Jaime Reyes's Blue Beetle in the 2000s then this "reboot" for the New 52 is pretty redundant. It's mostly the same story, only the way he finds the "scarab" is a little different and there's more about the aliens known as "the Reach" who use the Scarabs sort of the way Galactus uses the Silver Surfer. Otherwise pretty much the same thing as Jaime is a high school kid in El Paso who likes a girl named Brenda, whose aunt is a crime lord who collects artifacts and can do magic--like real magic. Jaime is bonded to the Beetle, which has some alien name, and has to escape from the aunt and some low-level supervillains and also battle another scarab that he used to save his best friend.

It's OK for the most part but like I said it feels mostly redundant if you already read the original. Both are still better than the movie though.

The Crow: Special Edition by James O'Barr
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My literary hero John Irving has often talked about "writing as therapy" and suggested authors not do it, though he has not taken that advice several times himself. When you read the background of the making of "The Crow" you can very clearly see that this is writing as therapy. O'Barr's girlfriend was killed by a drunk driver and there was probably very little he could do to get revenge, so he created this elaborate fantasy where a man comes back from the dead to kill the killers. It's a story that since this was first created has been used many times in Hollywood for movies like Robocop and Darkman and even been used by me in my novel "Chance of a Lifetime." So it's almost become a trope by now where some innocent person is somehow revived to get revenge. I wouldn't say this is where it began, but it put a new spin on it.

This was the first time I'd ever read the comics but I've been a big fan of the movie since its release. I watch it every Devil's Night because that's when most of the story takes place. The movie and comic are very, very different. In some ways the movie is better as it defines a lot of things better like who Eric and Shelly are and the rules for the crow bringing Eric back to life. It's a lot murkier in the comics and without having seen the movie about 50 times I really wouldn't have known much about Eric except he can apparently fix cars or about Shelly except that she's pretty. The crow is just kind of around (and talks!) but there's not really any definition of its power. Even the scenario of how they die is a little murkier in the comics. Their car breaks down and these bad guys happen to drive by and murder them. Strangely it says this happened on I-75, which is a major highway, not some little country backroad. You'd think in the late 70s there'd be enough traffic that someone else would have passed by.

So I definitely think the movie is stronger for the most part, which then gives me a sinking feeling for a reboot that's based more on the book--supposedly. But you really have to admire O'Barr's passion poured into this therapy project. I think it's on the 10th anniversary DVD that I have of the movie where there's an interview with him and in talking about the background of the comics, O'Barr just seemed so sad that I wanted to give him a hug. Anyway, I hope he's doing better by now.

 
DC vs. Vampires, Vol. 1 by James Tynion IV
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This seemed like a pretty obvious move for DC, especially after the success of DCeased, which was essentially a zombie story set in the DC Universe. From the company that had two "I, Vampire" series and three Batman: Vampire Elseworlds stories is this out-of-continuity story where superheroes and villains are turned into vampires.

Overall it's pretty...blah. I mean I didn't hate it because it gives you pretty much what you expect. But a lot of stuff seems rigged so the bad guys can win and justify a second volume. Early on is like a less competent "Watchmen" where a couple of heroes die and that sets Batman and others into motion trying to figure out what's going on. The beginning features Andrew Bennett of "I, Vampire" delivering a dire warning. But he's basically too late.

Anyway, there are superheroes and villains and people being turned into vampires and others just being turned into corpses. If that's what you want, it's what you get and not really any more than that.

Like the story, the art is pretty basic.  Most of it is on the more cartoony side, except the parts featuring the Suicide Squad.  For some reason those are drawn and colored with much better quality.  I don't know why that is.

One thing I don't get:  if Hal Jordan or another Green Lantern turns into a vampire, wouldn't the ring notify the Guardians?  You'd think they wouldn't want their Lanterns turning into bloodsucking fiends murdering innocent people.  I suppose Tynion would handwave this by saying their will overrode it or whatever but it seems like a plot hole--one of several.  

And it's probably just me but since it's out of continuity, couldn't they have used a better Batgirl costume? I hate that gray one with the tiny mask. Just saying.

DC vs. Vampires, Vol. 2 by James Tynion IV
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The first volume of this was pretty meh. It basically set up the idea that superheroes and villains were becoming vampires and taking over the world. This volume takes place years after that with vampires in total charge of the world. There are still heroes like Green Arrow, Black Canary, Constantine, Batgirl, and a lot of the Bat-Family un-turned.

These six issues focus on three plans: one to rescue humans on a "farm" in Smallville, one to get Supergirl her powers back after vampires blotted out the sun, and one to get into Gotham to kill the "king." And some stuff happens and then...there's no satisfying conclusion at all. Is there more to this? Maybe an upcoming sequel? Not that I desperately want one but this ended with not much actual resolution. And while Batgirl has a better costume this time, her role in this stinks.

For whatever reason, Superman barely gets used after being turned into a vampire in the first book.  Seems like you'd want to use him more if you're the vampire "king," but what do I know?

The art this time is pretty meh. It's still as cartoony and middling as the first volume only there's no better style stuck in there for...reasons like the first time. Some stuff that happened was hard to understand with how weak the artwork was. Almost as weak as the story.

DCeased was a lot better because it did more with the characters. This doesn't really do a lot except turn some into vampires and kill others. It was nice that some lesser-used characters like Frankenstein and the Wonder Twins got into it. Overall though a pretty mediocre "event" for DC.

DCeased: War of the Undead Gods by Tom Taylor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I liked the first two volumes of DCeased a lot more than I thought I would. It was even better than similar events like Marvel Zombies or Blackest Night. What I really liked was the new "Trinity" of Batman (Damian Wayne), Superman (Jon Kent), and Wonder Woman (Cassie...something). In the first book they're just young sidekicks but in the second book they grow up.

Unfortunately until the end this doesn't give them a lot to do. Instead because the disease has spread throughout the galaxy thanks to Darkseid there's a lot going on with "New Gods" and Darkseid destroying planets and adding those to their numbers. There's also the revival of Kal-El from the sun so he comes back and is involved a lot along with Green Arrow, Green Lantern Canary (formerly Black Canary), and Guy Gardner. Really I wanted the new Trinity to take charge, which they don't do until the final issue. There's also a lot of Alfred, who gains a new identity.

Still, it's an action-packed book and the story mostly makes sense, especially if you're more familiar than me with all the New Gods and cosmic stuff. The art is pretty standard for DC but it's clean and neat so you can tell what's happening and who's who, unlike some other comics.

The only thing that really ruined it for me was killing the greatest Green Lantern of all. Stupid poozers. While it says "the end" I'm sure they could do more, though I don't know how it could get any bigger than this. I'd just like to see more of what happens to this new universe as it tries to recover. That's always a sign of a good story when you don't want it to end.

 
Batman: Broken City New Edition by Brian Azzarello
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When Batman finds a mother and father dead and a child who's catatonic, he tries to find out who did it, which leads to a lot of red herrings involving another case. Azzarello worked on Dark Knight Returns III with Frank Miller and you can see Miller's influence in his Batman. There's no Alfred, Robin, the rest of the "family," or even Commissioner Gordon, just one detective. There are also some of the traditional villains like Killer Croc, Penguin, Scarface, and Penguin.

Overall it's fine if you like that Miller-inspired Dark Knight. A lot of punching and blood and tough guy talk like it wants to be a film noir. I didn't really love it and the art didn't help for me. It's that more primitive stuff I don't really like that much. The story and art aren't really bad either. Just didn't work that much for me. You might feel differently.


And there you have it.

Sometimes It's Better Not to Be Original

 This entry is sure to be as popular as a sweater made out of pubic hair.  First it's about writing.  Second it involves a movie I watched on Rifftrax.  Third I'm going to use some sports metaphors.  And fourth I led with a tasteless joke.  But I need one more entry before the A to Z Challenge so I'm just gonna do it anyway.

So I bought one of the newer Rifftrax movies, this 1995 kung-fu disasterpiece called For Life or Death.  The basic premise was actually pretty marketable.  This kung-fu master is in LA and after fighting bad guys, transfers his consciousness into a white homeless guy.  So you think the movie is going to be like Robocop, Darkman, The Crow, or Chance of a Lifetime where there's a guy who dies (or almost so) and miraculously comes back to life to take revenge with his new power--or her new power in the case of the last one.  It's kind of a cliché at this point but it's a solid cliché, especially for a low-budget kung-fu movie in the 90s.

Unfortunately the movie makes a couple of bad decisions to steer away from the standard tropes.  A bad guy kills the homeless guy for...reasons and then the good guy transfers his consciousness into the homeless guy for...reasons.  At first I thought the kung-fu guy did it because the bad guys had sort of a psychic link with him and transferring to the homeless guy might break that.  Then he can come back and kill them all without them suspecting anything, right?  Well, no, because somehow the bad guys know he's in the homeless guy.  And then a lot of confusing bullshit happens and the whole thing becomes a mess when it could have been pretty straightforward if they'd just tried to be a little less original.

Writers are of course told to avoid clichés, and yet that's not strictly true.  Cliché phrases can be especially annoying if overused.  Cliché plots are often less so to most people.  I mean look how many times the one I've referenced has been used.  Or how many Marvel movies have the same basic Iron Man-type plot.  But hey, we've seen with more recent Marvel movies what happens when they get away from that, right?  Just like that crappy kung-fu movie they end up making a mess; a much more expensive mess.

In sports there's the idea of "take what they give you."  In football, if a defense is jamming up the line of scrimmage to stop the run then you throw the ball.  If the defense is focused on defending the deep pass then you throw the ball short or run.  If all the receivers are covered but no one is watching the quarterback, he might decide to take off running.

It's true in other sports as well.  If a pitcher is throwing inside then the batter might adjust his stance and swing.  Or the same if the pitcher is working the outside corner.  If the pitcher throws mostly fastballs then you look to hit one of those.  In basketball the defense might be protecting the 3-point shot or trying to keep the offense from going inside for a layup or dunk.  Even in golf there's the idea that you don't necessarily want to just hit the ball as hard as you can all the time; sometimes the golfer will hit it a lot softer to avoid a sand or water trap.  Or instead of trying a really long putt, the golfer might just try to get the ball somewhat close to the hole to make it easy to get in two shots.

And no one but an idiot would criticize a team or athlete in any of those situations.  It would just be dumb to keep running the ball if the other team is defending that--unless you're just trying to run out the clock.  It'd be dumb for a golfer to mash the ball right into the water instead of hitting it a little softer to stay on the green.

Sometimes writers (and filmmakers) need to just take what the story gives you.  I can appreciate creativity or at least trying to be less like a cliché.  Like how Batman v Superman tried not to be a Marvel movie.  The result was not great but I appreciated the attempt.  Most of the time, though, it just winds up a mess that would have been better off with less attempting to be original.  Not that original is necessarily bad; it's just a lot harder to do properly.

Next time you worry about your plot being cliché, just tell yourself that you're taking what the story is giving you.  As long as you're not directly plagiarizing like "AI" then the story will still be your story.  I mean Chance of a Lifetime uses the same basic story as those movies I mentioned and yet it is definitely its own thing and most people liked it.  So what if it uses a cliché plot?

Playing it safe isn't always such a bad idea--especially when you're trying to sell books.  I suppose I could mention that sometimes when I've gotten away from the usual gender swap-type story it most of the time doesn't go that well.  The audience wants what it wants and they vote with their dollars.  You want those dollars then give them what they want.  Now wait for the comments to not come rolling in.

Is Everyone Doing Alien Invasion Stories Wrong?

 Recently for no real reason I rewatched the first 4 seasons of Earth Final Conflict on Tubi.  The overall premise for the show is in the near future an alien race called the Taelons show up and make contact with Earth.  The aliens seem benevolent, but really they're hiding secrets, like that they're losing a war against another race called the Jaridians.  A human liberation resistance tries to uncover their secrets and expose them.

It basically follows the pattern of shows like V, Dark Skies, Invasion, and of course the classic War of the Worlds where aliens show up and try to enslave humanity.  Movies like Arrival, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Contact the aliens are benign and almost unknowable.  And then in movies like The Day the Earth Stood Still and Plan 9 From Outer Space, the aliens try to destroy us as sort of a preemptive strike.

Anyway, I was thinking of a different spin on the old tropes that far better reflects our current world.  The premise is:  what if the aliens really are benign, but humans refuse to believe it?  Like in EFC or some of those others, an alien race shows up and offers to help cure diseases and feed people and solve climate change and all that.  Instead of being welcomed with open arms, they're met with hostility by fascists, religious extremists, and rich assholes who want to hold on to their power.  And also the conspiracy nuts and other whackos who wouldn't wear masks or get vaccinations and cling to their guns.

So even though the aliens don't have a hidden agenda, they're met with hostility and their attempts to help us are rebuffed or sabotaged.  The "resistance" would actually be people trying to help the aliens, people like scientists who think the aliens can solve a lot of our problems and move humanity forward.  Maybe some anti-alien group stages a bombing or something to make it look like the aliens did it and the resistance has to find proof that they didn't--not that people believe them.

I haven't really thought it out in terms of characters and such.  I don't really have time to actually write it, and no people like Offutt I'm not going to try getting "AI" to write it either.  Maybe someone else could run with the idea.  Just give me a cut is what I always say; don't be like "AI" and just steal from me.