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So the only thing that we really know about the upcoming pre-Earth Transformers game, “War for Cybertron”, is that it will play like “Gears of War”. But what if you’ve never played Gears of War?  Don’t worry, I’ve played it to death, and it’s a lot of fun.  Take a look at some of the game play footage from early in the game:

Be sure to boost it up to 480 dpi for some higher res goodness, like you would see it on a PC (I played at 1200 dpi, so it was sweet).  Pretty much everything that you can do is outlined here in this short clip.  It’s fairly simple, but here are the main game mechanics demonstrated:

• Running vs Walking: Running eats up stamina and you can’t do it for long. And you can’t shoot while you run, because you’re kind of ducked down.
• Taking Cover: You can hide behind almost anything. While you’re under cover, the enemies are advancing, but you can pop up and aim (which zooms in on targets) or just blind fire around cover (low chance to hit).
• Tuck And Roll: You can dive forward, back, or side to side. It helps you evade gunfire or get to cover quickly.
• Health: Your health bar is the red Gear that appears around the targeting reticule. The redder it gets, the more dead you are. Ducking behind cover will make it go away so that you can fight some more.
• Weapons: You have three to chose from any given time, so carry the ones that suit your play style or the mission objectives. You can also fling grenades to kill enemies or crush their emergence holes. In this video, the player plugs the holes quickly, but up to six enemies come out if you don’t.
• Reloading: Ammo burns quickly, so you have to constantly pick up more when you find it (or from dead enemies). Also, you have to replace your clip quickly when your weapon runs out.
• Chainsaw Bayonet: That enemy get too close?  You can always melee fight with your chainsaw!

There’s a lot to love here.  The backgrounds are beautiful, and it really looks like you’re making your way through the ruined husk of a modern city.  The cut scenes flow fluidly in and out of the action, giving everything a movie quality.  The pacing is frenetic, and it only lets up when you hit a save point.  And then there is the blood, yes there’s a lot of it, especially if you enjoy chainsaw dancing.

I also dig the chatter.  Enemies throw taunts at you, and your AI-controlled squadmates taunt back.  Your buddies tell you where the enemies are coming from (“To your left!”) and sometimes call for help.  When you can take a breath, they talk about their lives before the war.  This really brings out the personalities of your team mates, making the story more interesting.

So, now that you’re up to speed, imagine this same concept with Transformers on Cybertron.  We’ve already seen footage of Bumblebee taking cover behind steel slabs that pop out of the ground (cover on demand?).  Converting to vehicle mode might be similar to running, fast but lacking an ability to return fire.  Each playable character will have two special abilities, which might equate to the limited number of weapons available to the Gears.

I can see the similarities here, which could be awesome when coupled with the established personalities and abilities of the core set of Transformers.  If Cybertron is rendered nearly as nicely as the locations in Gears of War, we could be in for a real treat.  Imaging small teams of Autobots, mowing down waves of enemy drones through the ruins of metal cities that go up for miles.  Or melee fighting with energon axes and glowing maces.  I see the potential.

The only downside is for people who enjoy first-person shooters, open-ended game play, or role playing aspects.  There’s none of that here.  You’re on a rail, stopping every so often to kill things and possibly watch a cut scene to advance the story.  One of the things that I liked best about the Transformers Armada game was the ability to backtrack to previous locations for new items and adjust your weapons/skills in inventory accordingly.  Despite the limitations, I played all the way through Gears about five times.

This is all speculative, however.  The game designers merely mentioned that the game would play like Gears of War, and we’ve only seen one trailer for the game.  But a lot of this does make sense, when seen in light of existing Gears footage.  This really makes me anxious to play this game.  It might be too derivative to the Best Game Ever, but it just might be the Best Transformers Game Ever.  I’ll hold my opinions until I see the online play.  Let me fight against player-controlled Decepticons!

The Kevorkian Scarf has claimed its latest victim!  Long neglected by Aiden, the doctor’s kit has resurfaced and Gavin has discovered it.  He loves to play with the plastic band-aid and stethoscope.  Better still, he’s just big enough to velcro the fake blood pressure cuff around his neck.  Because it’s a scarf…  that kills people.

It’s just a toy, so there’s no danger of him actually being asphyxiated (worst. dad. ever.), but it does have an air bulb that spins a little meter on the cuff.  He digs it, on or off his neck.  Unlike Aiden, Gavin likes the Kevorkian Scarf so much that he’ll bring it to us to put on his neck.  Not sure what light this shines on us as parents, however…

Guess who tamed the wild vacuum cleaner?  Gavin’s antics were terribly cute, so we were quick to get it on video.  This reminded me of the online video where the cat rides around on top of a Roomba.  Except this was a little boy on a Kirby.

Chrissy and I are not sure how this got started.  Gavin just climbed aboard while she cleaned the house.  We suspect that her Mom showed him, but she denies it.  We won’t discourage him though.  It’s all fun and games until someone gets sucked up into the vacuum…

The new NEST Global Alliance figures have a promotional item associated with them: Recon Ravage. But you have to jump through a lot of hoops to get one. First you buy the Bumblebee/Soundwave set to get the “Mission Guide” booklet, which has spots to attach two additional stickers from other figures. The stickers are buried inside specially reinforced packaging, so it would be very hard to cheat (not that I would).

Recon Ravage is a repaint of Movie Ravage with red and chrome highlights. It’s a nice deco, but not an homage or movie accurate. I’m not a huge fan of this mold, since it has no real vehicle mode, but it’s a limited edition Ravage so I’m drawn to it. The cool thing is that it’s the first Transformers mail-away promotion in decades. I remember sending off for the Omnibots when I was little. It was a thrill to get something rare in the mail, especially at that age.

I can see why we haven’t seen many mail-away promotions in the US though. The logistics of managing all of the entries and sending out all of the figures individually would be daunting. Hasbro mitigated this by outsourcing to another company. Another problem would be the short run of figures. It costs more to produce limited run figures, as we have seen with Botcon exclusives. Recon Ravage will be mass released abroad however, so it’s only limited in the US.

I’m surprised that Hasbro didn’t go the digital route. Every booklet filled out by hand will need to be entered by hand into the fulfillment system to be processed. If they had used unique number codes on each package, then people could have entered their own data online. This might have been open to cheating though, but unique codes have been used in computer software registration for a long time (and there is a lot of software pirating).

The figure should arrive in six to eight weeks. I’m tempted to get another one to keep in the package, since mail-away packaging tends to be minimal when compared to retail packaging. However, it might be easier to just wait and pick up the Canadian retail release on eBay later than to buy another NEST Alliance two-pack for the booklet. I’m sure this won’t be the last Ravage repaint though, since this is a popular character with the G1 crowd.

Aiden has a large fire truck that he loves to push around the house.  He has made it no secret that he wants to drive a fire truck some day.  It’s like his life’s ambition now (that, and to play drums for the Imagination Movers).  He has seen real fire trucks before, and even got to sit in one on Touch-A-Truck day last year.

Aiden even told us that he wants to some day be a fireman.  He already has a fireman costume, complete with a little hat and coat.  We’re not sure if he needs to use the axe that it came with, but he recently discovered that the vacuum hose can double as a fire hose.  He tells us, “I’m putting out the fire!”  Our guy is too cute!

One of the time honored traditions of Transformers figures is the repaint.  Some people won’t collect repaints unless they’re another character entirely.  Some not at all, no matter how many identical Seekers  are produced.  I love’em.  If I already own one figure of a certain mold, I also want to own every redeco or remold of that figure.  I just like to see them side-by-side and study the contrast.

The problem that I have with repaints is when the new deco is almost identical to the older deco.  For example, I’m fine if they paint Optimus Prime purple and call him “evil”.  I think that’s cool.  I’ll buy it.  But don’t try to sell me another yellow Bumblebee with a silver stripe instead of a black stripe.  It’s not much of a repaint if you can barely tell them apart at first glance.  Such is the case with Activators Battlefield Bumblebee.

I’ve talked about my love of the Activators line before: they’re small, easy to transform, and cheap enough to collect any repaint that Hasbro cares to make.  Animated Starscream got two repaints from this line: Thundercracker and Dirge.  Both completely different color schemes and different characters.  The deluxe-sized Bumblebee got a really nice gold and brown Prowl-like repaint with Elite Guard Bumblebee, so we know that good decos are out there.

Bumblebee got a nice white deco in Patrol Bumblebee, but followed with another yellow combination with Battlefield Bumblebee.  What?!  After the pack-in figure with True Colors Shockwave got no repaint at all, this was just adding insult to injury.  There was potential here!  Maybe give him flames on the side and call him Team Rodimus Bumblebee?  Or they could have surprised us with a Japanese Animated-inspired metallic yellow deco.

Derrick Wyatt designed a number of characters with the same structure as Bumblebee for Animated, so Hasbro had many options for repaints with this mold: a blue one named Glyph (bonus for using a female Transformer), or a green one name Wasp, or a beige one named Bumper, or an homage to any of the G1 Throttlebots.  I’m just wondering how another yellow Bumblebee got the green light.

I had a few ideas for blog posts last year that never made it to the light of day.  They were either not fleshed out very well or I was just too busy to finish them at the moment.  I thought that I would spill out the raw ideas onto this post, just to give you an idea of what I’m thinking about from time to time.

Sir Toppem Hat’s Cult Of Personality (3/5/09)

Like the “family” of Charles Manson, the locomotives of Sodor require the affection of their appointed leader.  To gain that affection, each has been brainwashed to believe that salvation comes at the expense of being “Really Useful”.  Never-ending servitude is a small price to pay to be praised by God on his own island paradise.  Just don’t drink the Kool-Aid!

The Neurosis Of Lofty The Crane (5/18/09)

Aiden loves Bob The Builder.  He just can’t get enough of the construction vehicles.  Each one has its own personality, and in some cases, neuroses.  Lofty the Crane, for instance, absolutely refuses to give a confident answer to anything.

Can we do it, Lofty?  Lofty says, “Um, yeah, I think so”.  This shows a lack of self confidence.  Instead of just ignoring the obvious warning signs, Bob and his friends should stage an intervention.  Maybe put Lofty on some anti-anxiety medication.  Can you do that for trucks?

Remind Me Not To Push Cars Up Hills (11/9/09)

Cassie got a new car!  Well, new in the sense that she never owned it before.  It doesn’t actually run, so we had to tow it to her house and then push it into the garage.  About 50 feet.

“Oh, this car is light! I could push this car all day!”  I was down in front, hunkered over the hood, helping to push the car back.  Then, once the car was up past the curb, it hit me.  My legs were burning from the knees up.  They still are.  Ow ow ow!

In retrospect, I can kind of see why I never finished these.  I probably could have squeezed out a couple of paragraphs on each one, but I only provide quality blog posts to you, my faithful readers.  All three of you (you know who you are).  I’ve actually got one more old one in disrepair, but I really want to finish that one.  Watch this space!

Swavek got me a copy of Borderlands for an early Christmas present.  He also got a copy for himself, since we like to compare notes over time while we play the same game.  He started off playing a Sniper character, while I chose to start with a Siren.  We talked a lot about the game.

I’ve compiled the emails that I sent out below, along with hindsight commentary in brackets.  I’ve already beaten the single-player game twice, but Swavek and I have yet to play cooperative mode.  If you’re at all interested in information about Borderlands gameplay or links to cool Borderlands stuff, then read on.

Continue Reading »

It’s a new year, and we’re off to a great start.  Aiden is talking more than ever, and we’re already seeing Gavin’s first few words.  Gavin is really asserting his own little personality!  We’ll probably be upgrading him from the crib to his own bed this year too.  Both of our boys are growing up so quickly!

We’ve also finalized plans to go to Disney World in June.  Grandma and Aunt Cassie will be going with us to help wrangle the boys, since we’re taking both of them this year.  We hadn’t planned to go back for another couple of years, but Botcon 2010 will be held in Orlando.  It should be a lot of fun!

Chrissy and I have both made New Year’s resolutions to lose weight this year, so we’ll see where that takes us.  I’m shooting for twenty pounds.  I also want to start up my language studies again.  It was nice to talk a little with some Japanese people at the last AUTM meeting, but my vocabulary is extremely limited.

As an aside, this New Year’s Eve was almost an exact repeat of last year’s.  Hopefully, I’ll have better luck with my resolutions this time around (since they’re pretty much the same this year).  Wish me luck!  Anyway, have a great new year!  Let’s make the most of 2010!

I was watching the Charlie Brown Christmas special with my son Aiden last week, and I can’t help but feel that I was missing something.  I used to watch it every season as a kid, but I hadn’t seen it in the last fifteen or so years.  Now that I have kids of my own (and a copy of the movie on DVD), I thought that I would start up the tradition again.

But had something changed since I was younger?  The whole thing seemed to be about the commercialism of the holiday.  Charlie Brown complains about his dog who’s only in it for the money, and his sister who’s only in it for the gifts and the cash (despite not being old enough to write her own Christmas list), and the implication that you can’t have a good Christmas without a gaudy aluminum tree.

I wondered if the Christmas marketing blitz (and subsequent merchandising) started the day after Halloween in 1957 like it does now.  A lot of things were different back when the show first aired.  Maybe I was just too old to get it now?  Aiden liked it, however, and he helped me to remember what I had loved most about the show: Snoopy.

Snoopy, snagging Linus’s blanket on the skating pond and sending Charlie Brown into a tree.  Snoopy, decorating his house with tons of lights and stuff.  Snoopy, dancing at the play with everyone else while they all ignore Charlie Brown’s direction.  Snoopy, laughing at Charlie Brown’s ridiculous tree.  Yes, I still love Snoopy to this day.

Although I’m older now and have a firmer grasp of the anti-capitalist agenda of the show, I still find myself drawn in.  Railing against a cash-driven society is just a means to close with a reminder of the reason for the season.  And that’s a lesson that I’ll gladly pass on to my boys.  So I’ll probably watch Charlie Brown Christmas every year from now on, or at least until my youngest son goes off to college.