2old2play News Feed

2old2type Ep 102: Feeling Minnesota

Posted by DSmooth — 2009-11-06T07:23:38-05:00

2old2type Radio Episode 102, the official podcast of 2old2play.com, has been posted and is ready for your listening pleasure. Read on for more information.

DSmooth and Codemonkey got together this week despite hellish traffic that put the podcast off to a 2-hour lates start. The boys cover a huge number of new multiplatform releases, the hot gaming news stories of the week, and a bunch of listener feedback. Overall, an awesome episode...

If you'd like to post comments on this episode, or questions for the next one, feel free to use this forum post.

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PR: The Resources

Posted by Drost — 2009-11-05T16:39:27-05:00

The Plastic Rockers are back with knowledge for the dumb masses. This time, it's every link you could ever want to enhance your plastic rocking experience.

As you might imagine we get asked tons of questions here at Plastic Rockers. Our wealth of knowledge and passion for all things plastic and rocking can overwhelm our inboxes. We're constantly being written to, called and stopped on the streets to find out where to get the best drum silencer or how to track one's scores. All right, all right... I may be overstating that just a bit, but we really do get asked these questions from time to time and we figured we'd do an article that lists the best sites we've found to help get your pretend band performing at top form and with the best gear.

Now, we're not going to waste your time by mentioning sites like RockBand.com or GuitarHero.com. I mean that would just be obvious and unnecessary. You've come here looking for those cool sites that you'd hoped existed but never knew where to find. Linking to forums on Guitar Hero's site or Harmonix is one of those things that would just make you go duh! and probably cause you to click away. Well, our advertisers hate when people click away from us, so we promise we won't mention obvious sites like RockBand.com or GuitarHero.com in this article.

2old2play.com: If you'd like to have your question answered by a semi-mature, half-intelligent beings similar to yourself, 2old2play.com is a pretty good place to start.� Other forum sites can be an adventure in flame wars and name calling but the guys and gals on the Guitar Hero / Rock Band forum at 2old2play are very helpful and usually aren't even douches about it.� A quick search through this board will generally yield an answer for whatever perplexes you, but if not, ask away.� Someone's always checking the boards and the accumulated knowledge of some of the site's hardest core rock gamers can be tapped.� There, we've plugged his site, now maybe Doodi will love us or at the very least grant SCC access.

Drum Mods & Drum Gear Forum's Guide & FAQ: This page on the Rock Band Modifications and Gear Tuning site has been indispensable to me. There is a wealth of information there -- everything from finding out what aftermarket drum heads will work with your Ion Drum Rocker to building your own E drum kit. The site is great for modding out any equipment you can get for a rhythm based game but we've used the drum guide often and have it bookmarked for quick reference.�

RockBandKickBox.com: While we're on the topic of drums, check out this site if you have an Ion Drum Rocker kit. This site sells the KickBox device you'll need in order to run a double bass pedal with your Ion Kit and a standard Kick Trigger drum pad. They also have cool devices that allow you to turn your existing Ion drum into a real E drum kit. If you are so cool that you already have a nice E drum, you can get a conversion box to use it with your Xbox and play along with the Rock Band game on your existing kit.

RockBandParts.com: This site has an amazing selection of parts to upgrade anything you can play with Rock Band or Guitar Hero. They are a one-stop shop for everything from drum silencers and aftermarket pedals to parts for your strum bar and adapters that will let you convert a standard mic into a USB mic. We haven't purchased anything directly from these guys so we won't vouch for them in that regard. But, we have read good things about them on third party sites and if nothing else they have a great place to see some of the customization options available to you.

Rock Band 2: The Complete Song Book: Ryan McKanna and Jennifer Putzier have put together a nicely formatted book of every song available in Rock Band.� They use a Karaoke style presentation and the look is clean and easy to read.� It's available as a .pdf file so you can use it online or print it off to take with you to your next RB party.� I can tell you first hand this is really handy to have.� They update the list fairly frequently though you may not see it changed every week.� The only draw back is that they list EVERYTHING, so narrowing down your particular songs can be a pain.� Which is were this guy comes in...

Rock Band Book by SheepStampede: An ambitious fellow over on the forums at RockBand.com has built upon the idea of the songbook Ryan and Jennifer created and "open sourced" it. In other words, he's created a similar-styled book and uploaded the Excel and Access files needed so that you can customize your own songbook any way you'd like it. Of course for dumbasses like me who can't use Access, it's only marginally cool, but for the rest of you this is really awesome.�

MyRockBandSongs.com: This is one of our personal favorites. At myrockbandsongs.com you can create a list of every song you have for Rock Band and print out booklets based on what you own and sorted how you'd like. Not only that, but you can become "friends" with others on the site and compare your songs to theirs and find new friends by doing a search for others with similar song lists. Rob also just added a more robust print option for members who donate to the site and a new Facebook Connect option so you can further expand your Rock Band connections.

Keldon.net: With the release of the latest Rock Band patch, this site may seem less necessary. However, we find the reporting data to be much more robust than just the star tracking available in Rock Band. This site will tell you how many stars you've earned on any song you've played, if you've improved on a song since you last played it, and where you are ranked for every song you play. It also works if you're playing on a 360, PS3 and/or Wii system. You can compare your scores with other Gamertags and find other players based on your DLC matches. There's even a list of the current most popular DLC available. All the lists are highly sortable and being able to see your scores and your best songs in one easy to use site is awesome.

Compatibility Chart: This is probably the most important link of any listed so far. Take this link, memorize it and ink it into your chest like a prison tat. Without a doubt, this link provides the answer to the most often asked and most annoying question we get. It's not that it's an invalid question or anything, it's just one of those basic things that any 3-year-old with access to Google could find out in less than a minute. Yet the question comes up over and over. So, the next time someone asks you if their GHIII guitar will work with the new Beatles: Rock Band, write down the web address, laminate it, and then take a four-penny nail and pin it to their forehead.

That's it for now. As more games are released and new plastic instruments come to marketplace I'm sure we'll see more creative people tweaking our "instruments" and finding new ways for rock gamers to get together. As they do, be sure we'll do our best to keep you up to date.� If you have a special spot on the web that has been useful for you and we missed it, post up! We love checking out new plastic rock sites. Particularly if it involves naked midgets playing Guitar Hero drums. NoGame can't get enough of those sites.

Review: Borderlands

Posted by Drost — 2009-11-05T16:19:49-05:00

Shoot, loot, shoot, loot, loot, and more loot. If you like to do the former and love to find the latter, then Borderlands is the game for you.

On the planet of Pandora, a vault said to contain powerful alien technology is waiting to be found, and so your group of four mercenaries comes to the planet in the hopes of discovering this legendary treasure.

Borderlands styles itself as a science fiction first-person shooter with RPG (role playing game) elements. A lot like Mass Effect? Hell no! Mass Effect moves at a snail's pace compared to Borderlands. Closer to a mix of gameplay elements from Fallout 3 and the graphics of Crackdown.

When you first start the game, you get to choose from four characters: The Soldier, Roland, The Siren (think stealth role), Lilith; The Hunter (sniper),Mordecai; and Brick (beserker). Each character has its strengths and weaknesses. Each character also has a special "active ability." Roland deploys a turret, Lilith can phasewalk, Mordecai can release a special pet "bloodwing" that deals damage to enemies, and Brick... well, let's just say that Brick utterly destroys... everything.

On top of that, each character has a skill tree from which three different branches can have points assigned to them which affects various aspects of that character's gameplay.

Once you've chosen your character, you meet a robot named CL4P-TP; AKA - Claptrap. This is your guide during your initiation stage on Pandora. Once you leave the town called FyreStone, you'll encounter Claptraps at various locations. ("Look at me I'm dancing, I'm dancing!").

Once you gain the trust of the locals (various missions) you start expanding the locations available to you to explore and complete different missions. And once you start, you easily get hooked hunting for loot. The harder the mission, the better the loot that is dropped or found in special chests. Loot can range from weapons to ammo, modifiers to grenades.

But enough about the storyline. I'll be honest. It's weak. What makes this game fun, is the four-player co-op.

Players can jump in and out of friend's games. With each additional player, the foes of Pandora grow stronger. However, the strength of the opponents on Pandora depends on the level of the game's host. i.e. If the game host is a level 20, then the game opponents will be around level 20. Players joining the game will fight against that level of opponents. So, if you are a level 30, and join a level 20 game, you'll be destroying opponents with one shot, but getting very little experience. Conversely, if a level 20 joins a level 30 game, they will find it almost impossible to contribute any firepower to the group and will likely die... a lot. (But the experience you earn will be huge).

Money and experience are distributed evenly between all the players. But guns and ammo are usually a first come, first serve deal. Watch out for the loot whores.

What about the guns? 17.5 million. Say that again. 17.5 million. That's how many unique weapon combinations are possible within Borderlands. Pistols? Check. Shotguns? Check. Machine guns? Check. Rocket launchers? Check. Add in such elemental variations such as fire, acid, lightning, and explosions, and you've got the mix for some serious running and gunning.

An entire review could be written about the weapons by themselves. Each one has an accuracy rating, rire rate, and damage dealt. Include in that the elemental variations which can deal damage in multiples from x1 to x4.

And then there are the weapon levels. It goes something like this. White > Green > Blue > Purple > Orange. Orange weapons are the "legendary" weapons. They deal extrodinary amounts of damage and also include an extra modifier expressed by red text. There are also three tiers of orange weapons.

Borderlands is a fun, sometimes challenging game, that is best played while in co-op mode. The level cap on your character is 50, and you will not reach that level on your first play through. Thankfully, on the 2nd play through, the opponents are leveled with you, and starting out again seems to be more of a challenge.

I'd rate Borderlands at an 8.7 out of 10. The positives are a great co-op experience, nice graphics, lots of guns, lots of loot and many hours to get your character to level 50. The negatives are the weak storyline, and even weaker ending.

But fear not, DLC is on the horizon (ZOMBIES!) and it's sure to have the same co-op experience and gameplay.

Caesar's 3D Model of the M6D Pistol from Halo: CE

Posted by doodirock — 2009-11-04T13:51:17-05:00

Our very own Caesar mocks up and models the M6D Pistol from Halo: CE in all its detail. The results are an almost graspable Halo weapon. Check out this sweet render.

About 3 weeks ago I started working on a futuristic bullet in CAD for the Halo 3 team I'm on called; Vulgarity from 2old2play.com. Ive been a Sr Designer for automotive & aerospace going on 10 years and I've been into graphic design for about 8 yrs, so I felt this project would just be something simple and fun to mix and meld my skills from my real job to my fun graphic design side. Once I started the bullet i figured i needed a case to house the futuristic bullets in. It didn't take very long before I started to add more and more detail. After about a week i had completed the futuristic bullet and case concept, and i thought it came out great, but was still missing something. So I got the bright idea that i needed a gun to tie it all together. My first thought was a 357 COP Derringer, but while it looked cool, it wasn't futuristic enough.

Eventually, I turned my attention to the Halo CE Pistol. I figured a model like this would fit better with an already Halo theme. As O began my work, i had tons of images for reference and thought this should be easy, but soon realized how wrong i was. I had no dimensions just images, so everything I modeled I had to do visually by looking at, and then trying to scale by guessing. I wanted to add a little flair to the gun in certain spots as i was modeling as well.

The gun itself was fun to do, but very time consuming. The program I use to render my 3D CAD is called Hypershot, and in order to apply colors and materials to things, they each need to be a separate part. So I basically had to build every single piece in a giant assembly in order to be able to apply the materials and colors correctly. This ended up taking a lot of time on the gun.

I had to model the trigger, the rubber grip, the gun stock, the magazine, the screws, lights, laser site, the slide on top that's connected to the laser site, and the bullet ejection cover plate. In the end it was a lot to do and in order to put detail into every little piece.

My final task this week was finishing up the gun stock, the main part of the gun. In my early renders my edges were very hard and Mrs Doublefire suggested i put a break edge to smooth it out (basically radii or fillet's). This actually worked to my benefit as i wanted to blend the front handle of the gun into the nose anyway, but would need it to be blended. The blending task took about 2 days, just a very time consuming task trying to get them to look right at the intersection.

So 3 weeks later I have finally finished my little project. What started out a simple futuristic bullet project turned into the massive renders you see below. The 3D CAD software I used to create my models is: Pro-E Wildfire 3 while the 3D Rendering Software is called: Hypershot.

Unrendered CAD Screen Shots

Final Renders

So You Think You Can Q and A?

Posted by Drost — 2009-11-02T17:24:21-05:00

Wherein the mostly absent lackass poet laureate of 2o2p finally gets around to answering your questions, though not before he writes a thesis on language and the common forum troll.

Why I write for 2o2p

Anyone that took Honors English in high school is familiar with the concept that voluntary constraints of style and form can have a liberating effect on the creative process. While free verse and prose have their attraction there is nothing as liberating as accepting the Shakespearean sonnet as a template and torturing the language into a thought and metaphor that transcends the limits of the rhyming couplet.

Hell, even the window-lickers in my high school got to try their hand at haiku�

Prom night came and went
I was promised some bare tit
Shit on cockteases

Note how the kirej (or �cutting word�) �cockteases� is placed as the last on of the third metrical phrase. It defines and shapes the purpose of the poem.

Pure magic.

When the Legislative Assembly of 1791 came together in Paris they unwittingly mirrored this literary truism. The form, the actual arrangement of progressives and liberals to the left of the chamber and the conservatives and nationalists to the right, defined the shape of the debate between them. In the middle the masses (the proletariat (1) if you will) created from whole cloth the dialectical (2) space for the debate to settle. For the compromise that lent order to the chaos, for the coming together of ideas and dreams. From constraint and chaos came the shape of a mighty republic that French have been fucking up ever since.

Language creates ideas and gives birth to new language and expression which creates ideas ad infinitum.

There are those that decry the internet as the slayer of literacy. That say that 1337 speak and txt msg will rob us of the magical legacy of the Bard and kill language. To them I say forget not that language is as ever our servant and master. While it binds us, it also lifts us above the beasts of the field. It provides us with a doorway to the souls of our fellows and while we may wrack, twist and reshape it, as long as men think and dream it will leap ahead of us lighting the way to a horizon undreamt of.

Not chicks though... they just want to talk till your ears bleed.

So here we are on the dawn of a new literary horizon. While the internet is young, it safe to say that it is past its BBS infancy and chat-room toddlerhood. Growing from them is a new consciousness and gestalt.(3) The online community is lifting itself from the crucible (4) of creation and is shaping the way men think and speak and write. In its brash new adolescence it has developed a new tool to carve us a space in the wilderness of the mind for ideas to come together -- a new watering hole where the hunter and prey play out their eternal battle of survival.

The �forum thread.�

It�s true that it has its faults. That it can become mired in tiresome repetition and endless lol cats. However its brash call-and-response rhythm evokes comparison to the Negro work songs of old and raises images of the sea chanty ringing out on storm-tossed decks. Whoever girds their loins and toes the line of the (just say for instance �Off-Topic�) forum must not just consider their own thoughts and feelings, not just the impending judgment of the ubiquitous grammar-nazi but also the inevitable and lightning-swift response of cultures so far removed from their own. At the pace of a speeding electron we are forced to make decisions that will cement forever our position in the newest community of men -- the online community. Take for instance the following exchange�

Dastard wrote�

�and while I�m not trying to bash those with firmly held beliefs, I honestly think that most Democrats are Democrats of convenience. That rather than answer the tough questions that mean the difference between whose sides gets the most bullets pumped into their young men they are hiding behind a na�ve and dangerous fa�ade of relativism and feel-goodery.

Dahji responds�

Eat a dick.

In a word, a world.

Note the elegance and clarity of the thesis. Note the subtle deprecation (5) of the antithesis. And watch now as from them both is born a synthesis of wonder. A world of questions and possibility born from the form of call and response. Should Dastard eat a dick? Of course it�s obvious that Dahji loves the dick, but does that mean Dastard should not eat the dick? Whose dick are we talking about here anyway? Weren�t there mods here a minute ago?

I can stay away for a while, but always the siren call of an instant audience draws me back. I can put my words out there and they will be loved and hated, laughed at or laughed with. I can find those I have things in common with and those who are worlds away. No matter how I ignore it while I am gone, it lives and breathes its own life.

I owe big apologies to people I befriended and abandoned, hopefully they�ll see that while I am a fair weather friend, most of the time the skies are clear in Bubbaland. It�s fun to write for 2old2play but it�s more fun to write with 2old2play. If you are reading this then you are one of the few that knows we have a front page and you might even be aware that it doesn�t just appear out of nowhere. Drost and J-Cat and Caesar and lbsutke and No Game and Begonia and Waterborne and an assload of volunteers I�m too lame to mention do the heavy lifiting. They need help. They need editors and writers and artists who can spare a few hours a week and help them do what they love. Make this place a more fun and interesting place for us all to laugh and fight and play games. If you want to be the one that casts the deciding vote to kick me out of the P&W again then PM doodi and tell him to get off his lazy, gold-bricking ass and let you into the Magic Kingdom.

We get cake in the P&W.

I swear.

Now onto the questions�

Snuphy (who is seriously starting to creep me out) asks:

If I piss excellence, does something special happen when I dribble excellence on the tops of my shoes?

If I could piss excellence, would it smell like pee?

If someone passes gas while pissing excellence, does it smell excellent, or does it just smell like ass?

In order to piss excellence, what sort of suppository does one need to stuff? Is it larger or smaller than a bread box?

Hypothetically speaking, if I found a woman half my age who liked to �catch� or �wear� excellence, would it be wrong of me to provide her this sort of enjoyment? Or, also hypothetically speaking, if such a rare and highly prized woman could not be located, or in the event I couldn�t muster actual excellence, would it be inappropriate to instead �apply� my version of excellence to my wife as she sleeps?

While afflicted with morning wood, is it easier to piss excellence than it is to piss standard issue fluids?

If I could piss excellence, would my wife once again notice my now frequently neglected morning wood?

Would being able to piss excellence make me faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, or able to leap tall buildings in a single bound?

All right, we get it. Derek�s a dork, but he�s our dork and we love him anyway.

The Esteemed Dead Dr. asks: How big can Dsmooth's head get before his tiny chicken neck can no longer support it and he has to sleep with it in a wooden cradle, like the elephant man?

See Above. And keep your chins up big guy. We�re all having a good thought for you and yours. Never let the bastards get you down.

TDrag (who apparently spends about as much time on the site as I do these days) asks: What do you do for a living? (besides volunteer your time to the site in exchange for doodi's friendship)

When I was originally tapped to try a Q&A for the site the answer to this question was �not a whole hell of a lot.� Nowadays though the answer is- �serve in thralldom to a ginormous hospital system at the whim of any of the 23, 447 employees ahead of me in the chain of command.�

My main responsibility is helping people quit smoking. My secondary responsibilities include coordinating policy and procedure for taking the acute care facilities smoke-free campus wide, managing the State and Federal grants that my position depends on, performing outreach and community advocacy work on behalf of the State entities that pay my salary and knowing at all times where the 23,447 people ahead of me in the chain of command are at all times.

The time crunch of a major project coming to a head at the same time I acclimate to the new job is a major part of why this column has not been what the site deserves. That doesn�t mean it can�t be done better. In fact, I�m nominating Snuphy (He's as worthless as you in turning in articles. -- Ed.) to take the reins moving forward and if you want to harass the shit out of him to take over (or at least come up with shit for the front page that is as funny as what he writes in the forums) then post it up in the comments below. In the mean time, you can still send questions in here and complain about me here.

I�ll get to the questions when I damn well feel like it.

(1) Proletariat: the class of wage earners, esp. those who earn their living by manual labor or who are dependent for support on daily or casual employment; the working class.

(2) Dialectical: of or characteristic of a dialect; dialectal.

(3) Gestalt: : a structure, configuration, or pattern of physical, biological, or psychological phenomena so integrated as to constitute a functional unit with properties not derivable by summation of its parts.

(4) Crucible: a container of metal or refractory material employed for heating substances to high temperatures.

(5) Deprication: to express earnest disapproval of.

Frags Away comes from Awesome Town to Xbox Live!

Posted by Drost — 2009-10-30T12:42:29-05:00

The first (of what's sure to be many) 2o2p Frags Away FFA tournament played out earlier this month. Many entered. Only one became a champion.

Two months after the Frags Away FFA hit Awesome Town (aka, the Chicago Lan), I decided we could do an Xbox Live version to allow those members who couldn�t make the trip to Chicago to partake in some Halo 3 goodness. This first Frags Away Xbox Live FFA was a tribute to the famous Halo 2 map, Midship, reborn as Heretic in Halo 3.�

In Halo 2, this was the FFA map. The remake then became a no-brainer for the battleground of our first Frags Away Xbox Live FFA.

I limited the enlistment to 32 people; any member of 2old2play at any rank was allowed to sign up. The top prize was a choice of 3200 Microsoft points or a $40 Best Buy Gift Card (way to go above and beyond, caes. -- ed.). We almost reached the 32-player limit on the first day the sign-up was posted. It took only a few more days to max out and get the party started.

Once all the players were signed up, I went through every name on the list and did my best to spread the skill levels out across the rooms by player rank and by my knowledge of the players� skill sets to make the matches as equitable as possible.

Listed below are the rooms broken down by the players that signed up (RL: Designating Room Leader):

Room 1
RL: Caesar
Kevtek17
killthrash
ripend Turmoil
Bioslayer
Ghost92
Eksessiv
Soulvoid

Room 2
RL: Fire
Risen
trizev
Boulder
Soup Nazzi
Kid Mach
Kontrolled
Legendcalledjim

Room 3
RL: Knifeman
Biorod
I6Hitman
Ladiesluvme
Gridiron Grace
Lala Calamari
Twisted Caboose
Ekattan

Room 4
RL: Killa Gorilla
Neksone
Normal Guy
Emminett
Sparhawk
CBASS
Tman
Nogame22

There were a couple changes from the way we ran the tournament in Chicago. For one, I changed the round time limit to 10 minutes in order to shorten up the games, make them more intense, and to keep us somewhat on schedule. I didn't want it to take all night. Also, It was a double elimination tournament. In Chicago, you made the cut or you didn't, but then again there were more maps in Chicago.

Everything went down on October 5. I signed on early to ensure everyone got in their rooms and had the proper settings and whatnot. One thing that threw us for a loop was the amount of no-shows: we had seven in all across the Winner Bracket Round 1, which put a kink in things for the first two rounds. But real life happens, so we forged on!

All the games had really tight scores. For example, in Knifeman�s Winner Bracket Round 1 room, Phreaks and Gridiron tied for fourth at the end of the game: not only in kills, but in deaths as well, forcing us to go to assists to determine who would advance. By a small margin, Gridiron progressed to Winner Bracket Round 2. Almost all the brackets played out in similar fashion. It made for exciting times.

For the Full Brackets please click the link below:
http://www.gamer-grafix.com/2old2play/FragsAway09/ffa09results.htm

The finals played out exactly how I hoped they would: an extremely close-fought battle between eight of the site�s toughest members. The game was intense, to say the least, as each player jockeyed for position to move up the board. The end result was a spectacular finish with one kill separating placements from second to seventh. Neksone walked away victorious in the end. He lead most the game and managed to keep his lead all the way to the finish.

Congratulations to Neksone for winning the first 2old2play Frags Away FFA Xbox Live Tournament!

For the final game stats, see link below:
http://www.bungie.net/Stats/GameStatsHalo3.aspx?gameid=1390527529&player=Neks0ne

I have plans for another Frags Away FFA tournament, including more maps like Citadel, and some others. I6_Hitman is most likely going to help me run that one, so stay tuned for more info.

Thanks again to all who signed up and played!

2old2type Ep 101: Codemonkey the Seamstress

Posted by DSmooth — 2009-10-30T07:26:49-05:00

Episode 101 of 2old2type Radio, the official podcast of 2old2play.com, has been posted and is ready to please. Read on for more information.

DSmooth and Codemonkey kick out episode 101 this week in a form that can only be described as anti-climactic as compared to the epicness of episode 100. They cover some listener feedback, the new releases of the week, and some of the biggest gaming news stories. Overall, it's an awesome episode.

If you'd like to post comments on this episode, or questions for the next one, feel free to use this forum post.

Please check out our sponsors: and

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Online Magic: A History -- Part 2

Posted by Drost — 2009-10-23T14:25:48-05:00

Wherein Spidermage continues to spin the lore of the online Magic saga, this time picking up at the beginning of the Microprose era.

The Microprose Game

Part 1: Shandalar

In 1995, Wizards of the Coast entered into agreements with two different companies to produce electronic versions of Magic the Gathering. The first, Acclaim�s Battlemage, was a real-time action game that bore little resemblance to the card game[7]. The second, produced by Microprose, was directly based on the card game and was popular enough to merit two expansion packs, the second of which would be the first officially sanctioned engine for online play.

The original game[8], packaged on CD-ROM, allowed the player to travel around the world of Shandalar (located in the plane of Dominia), meeting up with various other wizards, sorcerers, dragons and the like[9], and getting into duels with them. Shandalar itself was strongly imbued with magical energy; each of its five types of terrain was home to magic-users of the appropriate color (for instance, the zombie lords hung out in swamps and used mono-black decks, while the elephant lords were found along the borders of forests and plains and used green/white decks).

As a beginning wizard, you were given a choice of a starting color and skill level. Depending on your choices you were given enough cards to start off with a 40-card deck. The more difficult the starting skill level, the more colors you�d get in your starting deck, with absolutely no color-fixing cards included. My first time through I chose to be an apprentice-level black wizard. All my non-land cards were black (except an Ornithopter or two) and all but a couple were the kind of cards that generally go 16th in a 15-card draft: Plague Rats, Scathe Zombies, Vampire Bats and the like. There may have been one Zombie Master as well. For removal, I was given a couple copies of Weakness (Terror would have to be earned). An additional handicap was that your starting life total was something like six to eight, depending on skill level. All games were for ante, and even with a life total of eight, with your starting cards you were bound to lose more duels than you won.

So how did you succeed in Shandalar? Well, obviously, there were two areas you needed to work on: your starting life total and your card pool. The only way to raise your starting life was to create what were called mana links with various towns on the continent. The map was shrouded, so the only way to find these towns was by exploring. Luckily, in addition to the towns, there were also smaller villages where you could speak to the local wiseman, who, if you were not already on some sort of quest, would give you one. One of the possible rewards for completing a quest was to create a mana link with the destination town. Others included free cards and/or clues to navigating various dungeons hidden throughout the land.

In addition to the wisemen, villages and towns had other places you could go into, including a place to buy food and a place to buy and sell cards. Food was important in that if you ran low on it, you found yourself traveling at a much slower pace; not a good position to be in when trying to outrun a particularly powerful minion whom you weren�t yet ready to face. (A town or village was a safe haven. No one could challenge you while you were in one, although they often lurked just outside waiting for you).

There were, of course, other ways to acquire cards. You could check out various places on the map (such as graveyards or arenas) that would pop into view when you came into proximity to them, then disappear again when you left. Often you would find a stash of gold or even a card or two at such places. Occasionally, if you were fortunate enough to win a duel with a more powerful foe, that foe might give you bonus cards (or a dungeon clue) as a token of respect. Eventually, you would find yourself selling off some of the higher-priced cards in colors you weren�t playing in order to buy quality cards in your own color(s).

The best cards, however, could only be acquired by visiting (and conquering) the five dungeons scattered across the land. Each dungeon would have various minions affiliated with that dungeon�s color (not all of them human) waiting in the passages to challenge you. Only by winning every duel (including the final duel with the dungeon�s master) could you claim the treasures within (a Mox and at least two other powerful cards, often including another of the Power Nine). To make it more of a challenge, losing a duel inside a dungeon would result in the dungeon itself changing locations. You would then have to acquire more dungeon clues to determine the new location.

Throughout all this you were also working against a deadline. The five uber-wizards (one for each color, natch) would periodically send out increasingly powerful minions to capture towns throughout the land. As an attack occurred, your magical sixth sense[10] would give you a news flash about what was happening. You would then have a very limited amount of time to get to that town and win a duel with that minion. If you lost or were too late to help, the town would become part of that uber-wizard�s domain, bringing him (or her) one step closer to world domination (and costing you any mana links you might have in that town in the process). Of course, attempting to re-take that town was risky. You would have to put up two cards as ante instead of one, and the minion would have certain advantages, such as a card already in play before the duel even started.

Eventually, you would have to go after the uber-wizards themselves. As the game went on their attacks became more frequent, often catching you on the opposite side of the continent (although there were ways to overcome even this handicap). Each uber-wizard resided in a castle. The same rules applied in the castles as in the dungeons, except that the various wizards in the castles were more powerful than their dungeon counterparts.

The ultimate goal was to defeat all five uber-wizards and take on the Big Cheese[11], a planeswalker with a five-color deck and 200 life. This could only be undertaken after defeating the five castle wizards. The only way I was ever able to do it was by taking advantage of a bit of stupidity programmed into the AI. Under 5th edition rules, which were the ones used by the Microprose game, one�s life total could temporarily go below zero, provided that by the end of the current phase, that total would again be positive[12]. This made Spirit Link an effective means of neutralizing an opponent�s creature. Oddly enough, even with a Spirit Link on it, the creature would continue to attack every turn, as long as I didn�t have a blocker or blockers big enough to deter it from attacking. My brilliant strategy was to put two Spirit Links on the critter, and let it attack turn after turn until I had enough extra life to feel comfortable taking on an opponent with 200 life of its own.

The important thing to remember about the Microprose Magic the Gathering game was that it had fully-automated rules enforcement and a clear, efficient interface, with easily-readable card text; all features that the Apprentice program lacked. The drawback was that it was only playable against a reasonably competent (but still somewhat deficient in some areas) AI. A second drawback was a somewhat limited card pool: The Unlimited set, (essentially the Beta set missing a few cards such as Word of Command and False Orders). That particular problem would be partially alleviated when Microprose released its first expansion pack: Spells of the Ancients.

�

Coming Next Week: Spells of the Ancients

[7] And was almost universally panned by critics and gamers alike.
[8] Incidentally the last game that Sid Meier would work on before leaving Microprose.
[9] Most of whom were actually minions of the five uber-wizards of Shandalar. More on them later.
[10] Actually a banner across the screen against a bright red background.
[11] Not his real name.

2old2type Ep 100: About time

Posted by DSmooth — 2009-10-23T07:48:06-05:00

2old2type Radio Episode 100, the official podcast of 2old2play.com, has been posted and is ready for your listening pleasure. Read on for more information.

DSmooth and Codemonkey are reunited at last. Although scheduling conflicts, cancellations, and just about everything else pushed off the pomp and circumstance of episode 100, they manage to kick it out anyway. They cover the new releases, gaming news, and listener feedback. Welcome back boys, congrats on 100, and here's to the next 100...

If you'd like to post comments on this episode, or questions for the next one, feel free to use this forum post.

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In Defense of Slow Gaming

Posted by Drost — 2009-10-22T18:00:49-05:00

Hey, you just paid $60 for that game. Why don't you slow down and enjoy it? J-Cat gives you some food for thought.

Call it being thorough if you like, but I am a slow gamer. Ah, forget it, let's be honest. I am not thorough; I have nothing resembling a 1000/1000 gamescore. I am just sloth-like. Probably one of the slowest gamers I know. Just how slow is slow?

It a campaign takes a "typical" 2old2player six hours, I am taking 12-15 at the very least. This slowness has been smacked in my face. I have been playing Batman Arkham Asylum as often as I can, and I am not done.

A couple of weeks ago, I sent my buddy a message about one of the bosses via XBL: "Bane!? WTF?"

The reply?

"Bane? Ha! Welcome to 3 days ago." And this was early on in the release schedule. Three days was an enternity.

It still isn't finished. Caesar picked up, played, completed and found all the Riddler puzzles in the time it took me to finish one or two levels. I'm still not done, but I am onto something new: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2.

Just Go With the Flow
Maybe that's the issue here: my own personal flakiness. I am not a committed gamer. I play what I feel like, when I feel like it. I don't feel the need to push through a game, either to get all those achieves, or to even finish it.

And since I play what I want when I want, I will often "ditch" an amazing game if the mood doesn't strike me to play it. I often find I will toss aside a major title for XBL Arcade games if I am tired or sick. Keep in mind I have a toddler in daycare. Tired and sick is the order of the day.

Example: Ditching Batman Arkham Alliance for Magic The Gathering: Duel of the Plainswalkers on XBLA.

Huh: Look at THAT!
While I don't necessarily hunt for all those achievements, I find I'm a reader and a watcher. I read descriptions of people, places and things. In RPGs the developers often have a library of information. I often wonder if anyone besides myself actually reads all of the stuff the devs stick into the game. I also want to look at all the stats, and try out each and every character. When I play an FPS, I want to be able to pick up each weapon and/pr perk and try it out for a bit. But then I get shot.

Recently I played MUA2 with some buddies of mine on line. I found it frustrating that I couldn't take a good long look at each character, figure out how they worked. I couldn't mix up a new team a few times. Dammit, they wanted to actually play the game, and I wanted to mess around with it for a good long while.

Example: Reading the books in the Elder Scrolls: Oblivion or reading the dossiers in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. Mixing/matching teams/weapons/perks.

Time -- It's (not) on My Side!
Let's look at the stats, shall we? Up at 6:45AM (if I am lucky) off to work by 7:30. At work until 3:20PM. Pick up kid, playtime, dinner, evening stuff with family. Kid's bedtime is at 7:30PM, and that is when my when my work day effectively ends. So I can't even think of putting the disk in until then. And it's usually later. Eleven is my beddy-bye time. So if I don't want to actually do anything like... clean, that means I have possibly three hours a night to game. Which is a TON for most people. But not much for the hardcore gamer, especially when you look at my entire week.

I have also committed to having a healthy relationship with my husband. That means we spend couple time together on the weekend nights, which means no gaming Friday or Saturday nights. If you don't have these "Date Nights" with your spouse, start them now. Yeah, I don't get to game, but my man is happy, I am happy, we have a solid marriage, and he can't bitch at me when I want to take the occasional Friday night to be involved in Community Playdates. And when I DO get to game it's very sweet indeed.

Example: all day, everyday.

Sometimes the best defence is being good at gaming
I suck. I know it. And so I go slow. I save often. I take defensive "power-ups" first, which means I can't be a powerhouse and motor through.

I haven't been gaming for very long, so everything is a little bit new. Things a seasoned gamer may have seen time and time again are all new to me. I usually take a while to figure out how to beat a boss. I am getting better. I am "getting" certain gaming stand-bys, which does speed up my game. Also, now that I am gaining confidence in my abilities, I now know when I am just not "getting the trick" behind the level and that my skill isn't necessarily to blame. I will get past the boss once I figure out how to do it.

Examples: Powered up Batman's health meter first in Batman Arkham Asylum. Understanding boss fight and special level "tropes" (giant bosses, bosses with exposed weak spot, vehicle levels)

I Love it When a Plan Comes Together
Love of reading "stuff" + general suckage = lotsa planning. Generally, for RPGs, I will get the Brady cheat .. um hint book and go through the offical write ups on the powerups, levelling strategies. For a major RPG: this prep work will take up 1/3 of my gaming time. I love it that much. But it sure slows me down.

The Downside and the Upside
I am always behind. You guys are on to bigger and better and I am just scratching the surface. You guys have unlocked all the cool weapons have gone prestige a few times and I am still on the campaign. It sucks in a way, always being that kid running to catch up. And so that's why I have decided to not try to catch up.

Gaming ain't a race. I stop and smell the roses. I enjoy what I do, and I enjoy it in my own sweet time.

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2old2type Ep 100: About time

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In Defense of Slow Gaming

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