World of Warcraft. Second Life. Two massive multi-user virtual reality platforms with millions of people who have tried them. But which holds more appeal to different population segments on the Internet? VillainTech’s Lionel Houde took a look at both platforms, SL for two years of ups and downs and WOW for 10 days of bliss.

Content: WOW’s graphic content and layout are consistently stunning. SL, while much less of an ad farm hodge-podge, still has ugly user-built spots like overstretched terraforming, half built noob prim piles and poorly zoned worlds that encourage neighbor infighting and pissing contests. Though there are picture-perfect user-created scenes and locales in SL, and the maturing of the user base is giving rise to structures and whole sims that remain largely unchanged for years, I have to give it to WOW for jam-packing its towns, castles and dungeons with the detail its users strive to appreciate. Edge: WOW.

User Revenue Potential:

I suppose if you kept buying a new WOW software package every time you got canned for gold farming, you could still make a decent living selling WOW’s virtual currency. But with Blizzard frowning on item sales for cash, eBay backing away from virtual goods sales, and a $25 character transfer fee, it’s far easier to go into Second Life, spend about 4 cents on a texture upload, make 25 cents on a sale, and send money back to your PayPal with only pennies taken out via Mass Pay. While leveling without bots in WOW is a possibility — one recent fanboy made level 80 in 27 hours with some help from friends — and the average profit per transaction is still higher than SL’s, I like the ability to sell and make pretty much everything and anything in SL and be able to transfer the loot without large amounts of time. Plus, I can resell the content I’ve created in SL. Edge: SL.

Importability: While WOW gives you tens of thousands of character optimization options, you can’t import one single aspect of it, except your name. In SL, you can sing live, upload a napkin doodle, design a goofy dance, make practical jokes… even design a surrealist chicken farm where all the birds have your face and your girlfriend supplies all the noises. Not that I have. Yet. Edge: SL.

Free accounts: SL’s accounts, once acquired, have been free for years, and the only restrictions have been on owning land, a small limitation when you can make it worth SL’s while by paying others for land tier fees via rentals. That, and some landowners may not like to see you around if you don’t have payment info on file (think of them as virtual bluebloods). With SL’s acquisition of XSL, cashing out and buying in have become a little easier for the free account owners in-world, and some of them are the driving forces behind SL commerce.

WOW, understandably, doesn’t let you rule the roost on a free membership, and you get it for 10 days. The only thing I didn’t like was being unable to trade, or talk on public channels (“You do not have permission to speak”), but the quality of my free trial has been excellent except that my Level 15 warlock is stuck in a living death on a perma-loading zeppelin ride (that’s mainly my computer’s fault).

System performance: I spent two years trying to get SL to run smoothly on my computer. I honestly figure I’ve lost a sixth of my productive time to lag, and between asset problems, downtime, cash flow shutdowns, and diminished universal use times, it’s been a nightmare. When SL runs great, it’s a wonderful thing, but from this 3.06 GhZ, 512 MB RAM computer, I have only praise for WOW in comparison, and I will be able to achieve my in-world goals with much greater ease. Edge: WOW.

Character customization: In terms of game balance and flavor, WOW has a ninth wonder of the world. But check out a Tooter Claxton avatar in Second Life and you’ll see that a talented outfit designer/animator/scripter can rival professionally designed content, and the variety

In a lot of ways, being a World of Warcraft warlock is like being the high school dweeb everyone likes to stuff in a locker. But instead of owning a software company, having dozens of hot dates on speed dial and occasionally bullying embittered Escort-driving classmates off the road with a Hummer, a WOW warlock becomes a dynamo of offensive and defensive magic, paired with familiars that would have put Gary Gygax in a permanent good mood.

My warlock Slobberknokr is at level 14 after about a week. In that time, I’ve come to learn valuable life lessons I will somehow be able to adapt for my nieces and nephews (“Ask mom and dad for help with a big bad spider”, “Never accept a PvP challenge from a kid who shaves”).

So for anyone who’s just getting into WOW as a warlock:

1. Stack spell damage correctly. If you place spells on enemies in the wrong order, one spell may replace the effects of another. So far I’ve been able to have four different spells deal damage on the same target at once. Curse of Agony, then Immolate, are great starters, and Drain Soul is a good finisher.

2. When you start, you’ll be poor as dirt. Get the idea of earning 1000 gold a week out of your head fast; in all my leveling up I haven’t earned (or had to earn) a single gold piece. The extra income you can get from First Aid and Cooking can add value to the tons of Linens and Stringy Wolf Meats you pick up everywhere. Sell your finished products in bulk (I really haven’t had much use in combat for Bandages, except once) as soon as you get them so you can get current armor and upgrade your spells and spell ranks. Undercity has both Cooking and Fishing trainers, and Brill has First Aid. Visits to the big U and Brill’s inn early in the game can help you boost your ranks by the time you’ll really need cash at level 15.

3. Steer with Fear. Fear may not work on undead you may run into around levels 6-8, but with a few damage over time spells you can load up a beastie with some hurt and then send it running away from you in a wide arc with a Fear on the snout. Most of the time, with an imp or better helping out, the enemy will take off in a large loopy path, the Fear will wear off, and the damage over time effects will drop it dead about ten feet away from you. While this setup may be a little roundabout and you may have to hoof it to harvest your kills, you’ll at least be able to save wear and tear on your degradable armor by not having to go hand-to-hand.

4. Retrieve your body by walking to it unless you were greatly overmatched when you died. The point early on is to avoid costly armor repairs, since practically all the armor you wear is so lousy it has endurance points. If you get into a downward spiral of getting killed because you had lousy spells because you got killed and had to repair the 25% item damage penalty, take some time to hunt a few weak monsters, get some items, repair your armor, upgrade one spell, and get back into the game.

5. Visit Undercity for solid armor. The outlying towns are pretty sparse in their selections.

6. If monsters start getting difficult in general, gauge your offense and defense capabilities, and upgrade a spell rank or get a new spell accordingly. Demon Skin 2 offers comfortable protection, no matter how chuddy your armor is, in all but the most extreme circumstances. And you’ll notice the difference immediately between a beefy, fight-picking Voidspawn and a fireball-tossing imp.

7. Try to replace equivalent or worse armor with pieces that don’t require repairs. The savings you can pile up when coming back from the grave on foot can often help you get off your dependence on breakable armor piece by piece.

8. Try to mop up your low-level quests all at once. You’ll need the XP for attempting higher-level ones. Don’t get tempted by the thrill of a new countryside and swag. Much.

9. If you’re nearing the next level, hunt a few monsters, level up, and then wrap up a few quests you’ve completed when you’re at the new level. One of the worst moments in my game was when I was about 25 XP away from leveling up… and I got 850 XP for defeating Maggot Eye. 825 XP, right down the drain.

10. Don’t be afraid to team up. If you’ve taken as many pains as you can to upgrade your character, and you’re putting up a really strong fight, but losing on your own, chances are good you can complete a quest with a little help from your friends.

A lot of times, educational games wind up being so exclusionary they alienate everyone who doesn’t have mad hair, coke-bottle glasses and the ability to follow an electrical circuit through a blueprint.

Speaking of electrical circuits, Electric Box is a fun diversion that requires some minor brain-stretching while you try to rig up electricity to a generator. Electricity converts from light, steam, and magnetism across a series of increasingly convoluted or deceptively complex boards. Devices like magnets, steam detectors, and IPS batteries, and a technical layout help make would-be and veteran engineers alike feel right at home. Check out the game at http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/483818, and try out Candystand.com if you get geeky enough to make your own electrically undernourished levels.

I enjoy Newgrounds very much for the role it has played in introducing new genres of gaming. As Flash tech has progressed, there have been some great sub-schools introduced for each of NG’s main game themes: defense, puzzle, RPG, shooter, and so on. While it’s inevitable that games borrow from each other, it’s still great to enjoy a game that blends old elements in a new direction.

I didn’t think I’d like Mushroom Tower Defense because

1. It whited out my monitor, and
2. Involved shrampy-looking mushrooms like my third cousin used to draw in high school.

But MTD introduces alchemic elements into tower building, so that you can discover secret combinations that perform the old RPG standbys: splash, slow, criticals, money stealing, and so on.

While Armor Games’ Gemcraft hybrid towers give you watered-down combo effects, MTD’s give you a whole new ability. Like Gemcraft, if you make towers from the same components, their powers are focused along a single purpose. In MTD, a mushroom that has the same elements can do up to double damage against a certain type of elemental enemy. While this is important in fending off dozens of waves over time, it’s not really that exciting a game concept in the short run.

What does make MTD worth playing are the customizable elements of each tower and the oversized playing fields. Though it’s a little bit of a chore dragging over the whole playing field to set up, a la Plurk, it’s nice not to have yet another gaming universe crammed into one small screen.

As for upgrading, you can pay for only one type: elements (fire, thunder, earth, air and water). Other attachable accessories, which you have to earn at random, have unique effects that you can tack on to any tower. Some will better combine with others; for example, a Slow tower can have its effect endurance increased, while a pure elemental tower won’t be affected by such an accessory. You will also be able to pay money to upgrade each tower’s level, which reduces firing time and increases damage and range.

One of the coolest original features is that you can pay money (earned from defeating monsters) to clear the terrain for extra towers. In the first level, you can pay $75 for every tree that you want to chop down.

I’ve just discovered MTD tonight, but it’s a richly balanced, easy-going defense game. I’m looking forward to purchasing the permanent powerups offered on the world map.

Gameplay: A-. With an option to adjust the speed to three levels, the ability to move to the areas you need without getting beaten silly, and the fun of discovering different unit types, everything meshes well for M:TD. The money curve isn’t Scroogey in the beginning, either.

Graphics: C+. A little simplistic and grade-schooly, but they never get in the way of the gameplay.

Sound/Music: B. Pretty relaxing, and not obnoxious. Nothing especially memorable, but nothing that makes you want to stop playing and do real work.

Replay Value: B+. Getting all the permanent powerups will take some time.

Originality: B. Yet another defense game, true, but a smooth re-stacking of the defense game platform, with a few original elements on top for added flavor.

Overall: B+. It won’t reshape the world, but it will encourage you to battle 45 waves at a time, for starters.

Mushroom Tower Defense can be found at http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/481618.

When it comes to investing a lot of well-deserved goofing-off time into a game that offers extra upgrades only at its parent site, I often drop the inferior version without even trying it and head over for the extra in-game swag.

Sin Mark, a 2-D RPG side-scroller by Armor Games, is the first game I made an exception for. The gameplay is hard but fair, and does a fine job of recreating the bloodiness of medieval and fantasy terrain battles. I was never really much of a fan of the archer class, but Sin Mark comes through in a big way. By adding 2-D terrain, combining a rune-gathering, spell-making system to accompany the repetitive draw-fire of bow combat, and adding in some allies from time to time, the game avoids being a yawnfest.

When you begin, you’re an an archer babe in the woods. Well, actually you’re a burly guy. Anyhoo you’re about as empowered as a kid lost in a Wal-Mart back room the way the monsters swarming from the portals replace their fallen ranks as you fire generic arrow after generic arrow. If you can aim over the heads of the monsters charging at you, you can chip away at the portals’ life bars. If you’re standing on a hill, it may or may not be easier; a higher spot may be farther away than a ground shot. Either way, they make sure you have your work cut out for you. Have you ever tried to destroy a dimensional portal with a few pointy twigs? It just ain’t easy.

The one downside to the gameplay is a lack of documentation that tells you to just tap the space bar to start digging up rune piles scattered throughout the level. Apparently if you hold the space bar down, it doesn’t do anything until you let go. This caused me a few minutes of frustration. When you do let go, a progress bar begins to fill up, and then you get runes. Of course, since you’re out on the battlefield, you don’t really have much time to invoke your spell-making arts, so you have to survive until the end of the level. This is done by destroying all the portals and monsters. To add a little variety to the game, portals will appear on either side of you, sometimes letting monsters use a pincer movement to beat on you when you’re finally surrounded.

Should you defeat all your enemies as a puny beginning bowman, the level will fade to black and martial music will play in the background as you go over your spellcrafting options. A 4-page spellbook (5 pages at ArmorGames.com) shows you the many rune combinations you will need to create permanent spells. This isn’t your granddad’s wussy earth-air-fire-water crap. No sir, you get to mix up runes like Bone, Chaos, Storm, Destruction… and okay, Earth and Fire. Though you’ve probably seen the spells in other games countless times, the fact a lone archer can use them makes the experience original. Basics like Earth Arrow, Fire Arrow, Freeze and Slow give way to assorted nastiness like Decay Armor, Thorns, Storm Strike and the antacid-sponsored Bloat. ArmorGames.com withholds only three goodies: Arrow Storm, Warrior of Chaos, and BoneStorm. True to good RPG style, the final components are hidden.

Other considerations are which spells you want to add to your bow (you can only stock 5 at a time), how much mana each spell uses, and which of 6 trinkets you want to wear. While the idea of an arrow-spraying he-man doesn’t mesh that well with the image of wearing a pretty bauble, they’re still pretty badass, at least as far as trinkets go. One lets you fire faster; another lets you pierce armor; another protects you; another lets you dodge easily; and the last I’ve found (there seems to be one more) helps you find rarer runes more easily for the more complex spells.

Once you’re back on the battlefield, and armed with magic this time, the fight gets intense fast. Armor Games has made sure that once you have some spells down, the fight will be furious. Often you will be fighting Hamburger Hill style to protect your terrain, or at least keep from getting marched all the way back to the left edge of the battleground and then gang-beaten. If this does happen, it’s not an automatic cheese-out loss; even if you have no spells it’s not too tough to sink a few in your nearest foes and begin reclaiming the battleground again.

The game does a great job of rezzing some really annoying random unit combinations. Smaller demihumans can often run interference for larger armored units, and the goblin mages do a very good job singeing your lifebar away dropping one aerial fireball at a time.

I’ve only gotten half the spells as of this writing. The Fire Arrow is pretty weak, even though it does splash damage and wrecks portals faster, but I’ve come to find that this game’s version of Fear is about as kick-ass as you can get. Whether fired near or far, even the big armored units will give you the elbow room you need to conserve your health and mana (both of which are displayed Diablo-style in red and blue punchbowls).

There aren’t any crazy objectives like “capture the flag” and I haven’t really seen any magic-resistant creatures, but if you like a fight for the sake of fighting, Sin Mark will help you get that bad day at the office out of your system pretty quick.

Gameplay: A. A little repetitive in the beginning, but that’s the way most good RPGs have it: so you can enjoy the good stuff later. Solid collision detection, some PG-13 effects (arrows sticking in enemies and enemies exploding from inside), and a lot of mix-and-match customization, along with some pot luck from random runes, makes discovery fun.

Graphics: A+. Just about photorealistic, from a distance, in the combat section, and the options screen is on a par with Talesworth Arena.

Sound/Music: A. Whether the soothing music of the options screen or the hack-o-rama of the combat, Sin Mark delivers without being overbearing.

Replay Value: B. Once I’m done with this, I probably won’t be doing much with it, as it is such a thumb-buster, but I’ll see what the extra spells do on the Armor site.

Originality: B+. A hybrid, but a hybrid so good it deserves its own tax credit.
Overall: A. Not a bad game at all, with sharp production values, varied backgrounds, a fun synthesis system, and plenty of hack-and-… uh… shoot.

Play Sin Mark at Newgrounds or Armor Games.

Playing the marginally villainous Lionel Oliva and Saunders Baxton in Second Life, I’ve come to develop some rather condescending habits when traveling across the grid.

First of all, when I see an X-shaped mockup of some badly edited flowers on some snoddy alpha textures, it’s all I can do to keep from doing a /snickerinsleeve.   And when I see a pipe-cleaner orgy of 2 to 4 sculpted prims passing themselves off as “low prim furniture” (instead of the more apt “high-prim amoebas”),  it shakes my belief in market forces to its core.  How do people keep selling this virtual vomitus?

Yet I have met my match: a low-prim furniture company, run by Victoria Wheeler and Octavian Muggins. The vegetation doesn’t look like escaped .gifs.  the inventory is easy to mix and match, and the  textures, especially the rugs, avoid being contrived and synthetic.  While at the time of this writing I have a bit of an issue with a reclining gesture that doesn’t quite reach to the back of my head, the luxuriantly built VOD Maroon Velour Lounger, with its poses for male and female, takes all my distractions away.

Sometimes I’m hard pressed to come up with article ideas that fit VillainTech’s mission of badass pop coolness.

But, my friend Loki (link to VT article before) played a prank on me a little while ago in Second Life.  I got an invite from a Spankenda Serpentine (yeah, ok) to an AubreTec chatroom.  As far as I knew there weren’t any chatrooms in SL, and I’m pretty paranoid about clicking on strange URLs, so I Googled AubreTec’s site.

Wow, they had an SL messenger service, and a new S:MSGR HUD.  I went back, joined the chat room, and spoke to “Strokenda”.   After I was joked around with by Loki, he tipped his hand and told me to check out the
S:MSGR HUD in detail.

I laughed when I read all the options that were available.

S:MSGR is like a piece of captured alien technology, so downright powerful and take-all-names kick-ass that you wonder how you ever came upon it in the first place.

The HUD is organized into two areas: an outer ring, which gives you six options (don’t bother clicking the HUD name at top): Identity, Chat, IM, Web, Tools, and Config.

To get going, first you need to set up your, ahem, “identity”, which means, “anyone’s name but yours”.  You can pose as Second Life, a favorite vehicle, a rapacious landbot, a prized SL possession, a nearby avatar (which AubreTec doesn’t encourage you to start trouble with — even villain tech has its limits), or any of three customizable notecard settings.  The coolest of these four is the Global setting, which gives you no identity at all in your chatting/IMing; the colon (:) doesn’t appear at all in your messages, so it’s not like you just had a zero-character name.

Chat lets you whisper, speak, or shout in your area by typing on a private channel, so people don’t know it’s you.

IM works for an avatar of your choice, avatars in a radius, a nearby avatar of your choice, or some of your notecarded favorites.  If you send a message to an offline recipient, the message will still be sent, just that you can’t use Global settings, but a substitute “offline” identiry for such a purpose.

Using the same options as IM, you can also invite your requested avatars
into an aubreTEC-hosted chatroom.  Though you can simply use this for a practical joke of epic proportions, it’s great for also bringing avatars from different groups together, or keeping uninterested avatars in the same group from having to hear all the group chatter.

Last of all, the Tools section spices up your options even more, with targetable chat bugs, spoofable email (!), and an online/offline status indicator for any avatar.

For less than two bucks, AubreTec has come out with a winner.  Even in its early release form, it works fine for me and the HUD is easy to figure out with the online manual.

The aubreTEC S:MSGR HUD can be purchased at http://xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=942275.  For in-world locations check out http://www.aubretec.com/locations/index.php.

I like to buy first-issue comics for review when I can, and when I saw the phantasmagoric Japanese art of Sandman: the Dream Hunters, I latched onto it like a small grubby child clutching a candy bar melting in the August sun.

Dream Hunters transports the reader into a world of feudal Japanese mythology, with the story of a monk accompanied by a doting, talking fox.  The lush artwork begins immediately, leading in with solos of the fox and ending its outdoor sequence with the monk, the story’s hero.

The story continues behind closed doors, chronicling a troubled but powerful onmyoji, an official diviner and summoner.  Jaded with a life many would envy, and deeply troubled, yet gifted with the ability to set demons to his bidding, the older, world-weary man journeys to a wretched house on the outskirts of town.  There he consults three weird women, a maiden (yum), mother (I would guess, looking at her robe) and crone (ew), each with some pretty freakish physical attributes.

The Oriental mage learns of the distant monk, whose soul is at peace, and the nameless mother offers to enchant the monk until the next full moon.  Until then, should the monk die, but only without violence or pain, his vibrant soul may set the onmyoji’s to rest.

At the bidding of the onmyoji, his servants threaten the monk’s life.  The progress of an evil spell enters the monk’s dreams, until a plot twist changes everything.  Afterward, a little expository material on the monk’s life yields to some rather stern traditional slapstick, and the story is set up for issue #3 in the dream world, with “The King of All Nights”, or Morpheus, the lord of the Dreaming.

Because the issue number (2 of 4) was printed on the back, I didn’t notice it till I finished. I was a little disappointed that I was jumping into the story late.  Still, the introduction was sufficient for a standalone, and artist P. Craig Russell does a fantastic job with a muted palette.  The art gets a little clunky and sparse in a minimal number of panels, paling in comparison to Lucifer’s journey through the House of Izanami, but there is a compassionate quality in the characters, both good and bad, that is sometimes hard to capture in the comic book form, and Russell does just fine throughout.

Dialogue: Minimal, but the art of Japanese storytelling is often what isn’t said.  Passable, though a little hackneyed-sounding on its own.  B-

Art: Russell takes the easy way out with no backgrounds in a few panels.  Still a very involved means of storytelling, filled with contrasts when the story calls for it.  A-

Story: A little archetypal, but after over two decades of storytelling, it’s unavoidable.  Still masterfully told, and filled with enriching details.  A-

Characters: Without that much dialogue, there’s a heavy reliance on the art to do its job, and it succeeds under minimal pressure.  The narration comes through to round everyone out and the flashback to the monk’s beloved childhood companion is a plus.  B

Originality: A bit of a dip here.  Three weird women: Macbeth.  Noble woodcutter: Little Red Riding Hood.  Enchanted talking creature: Hans Christian Andersen.  Rescuing a sleeping protagonist: Sleeping Beauty.  Peel away the small details and you’re looking at a bit of a patchwork.  C-

Overall: The comic comes together well, with the art just barely surpassing the fine (if threadworn) story.  A few artistic backgrounds, however basic, would have better captured the momentum of a few panels.  B+

I stopped reading Knights of the Dinner Table a long time ago… around 40 issues back.  In that amount of time — three years plus change — a comic book can undergo some radical plot twists, redesigns, and other changes.  By the time a long-departed reader tries to fathom what happened by deciphering a few buzzwords and cryptic references, the fun and momentum of the comic can fall by the wayside.

I worried this had happened when I bought Knights of the Dinner Table #143, a comic chronicling the barmy exploits of five friends at the occasionally flipped table of the Felton household.

Bag zones? What the heck were bag zones? In any traditional comic, reading while not knowing what a phrase is all about can gnaw at you like an evening in a cloud of gnats: it’s irritating and you can’t make out your environment well.  In an RP comic book, understanding everything is critical as a naturally rolled d20.

So I bemoaned my loss of contact with KODT… until page 12.  There, like an oasis, was “History of the Bag Wars”: a KODT story arc summary.

Then the story continued: henpecked gamemaster B.A.,  fly-off-the-handle Bob, smart, sassy, diplomatic Sarah, guileless Dave and laugh-out-loud underhanded Brian.

Then lo! A long-lost treatise from hardnose Hard Eight game designer composite Gary Jackson (Gary Gygax + Steve Jackson).  On, of all things, mega-capacity items.  And, again to bring me back to speed, bag zones.

I tell you, I have never felt more easily welcomed back to a series than I have by reading this issue, peppered with catch-you-up footnotes and memorable continuity points.

Yet the comic looks equally forward.  Columns on D&D 4th edition, a strip on Hard Eight employees going to rescue one of their own; an NPC description of a despondent pack ape who lost its master; a magic item; story hooks; even more NPC descriptions (The Good, The Bad and The Ugly); a new trap; a new monster; gamer tales; gaming tips; vintage games; web resources; convention news; software reviews (still by the same guy from 40 issues ago) and shorts.

I thought I would never pay $5.00 for a single new comic, especially when as a kid I could buy one for 50 cents.  But with KODT I gladly would.   There is content in there for everyone from the devoted gamer to the overworked professional who can only skim the gaming news. 

So, KODT, thanks for the welcome back, and I’ll be looking forward to more issues in the days to come.

I can’t stand the Second Life nightclub scene. My computer, an aging eMachine, locks up when 40 maxed-out avatars focus their lag-draining abilities in a single spot while doing “V^V^V^ HOOOOOOO! ^V^V^V” gestures ad nauseam.

So when I decided to write on a business owned my someone in my group’s roster, and I picked club owner Zoe Bowie, my spirits sank.

Fortunately, Baker Street Station was one of the best clubs I’ve been to. Zoe and her coterie of entertainers made a trip out a fun hour, and I’ll be back next time I see her on. She was kind enough to provide an interview on a slow night.

At the club part of Baker Street Station.

Saunders Baxton: hello
Zoe Bowie: alrighty then
Zoe Bowie: Obviously, this is the club
Zoe Bowie: We’re a london-undeground/train themed venue
Zoe Bowie: I built it, I’m a bit of a trainspotter in RL lol

Saunders Baxton: ah.
Saunders Baxton: it’s well built.

Zoe Bowie: like our staff
Zoe Bowie: we also have a small shopping centre down here
Zoe Bowie: come and see

Baker St. Shopping.

Saunders Baxton: forgive my computer

Zoe Bowie: Is it just me or is SL really #*&^*&^@ laggy lately??
Zoe Bowie: i’ve not been about for a while…
Zoe Bowie: seems slower

Saunders Baxton: that’s the second thing i was hesitant to say.

Zoe Bowie: I used to be able to claim to be virtually lag free lol

Saunders Baxton: i guess with 70000 users it bogs a bit

Zoe Bowie: not like it was in my day lol
Zoe Bowie: I joined in March 04… v 1.2 lol

Saunders Baxton: i can imagine with havok, sculpts, zany interfaces… and now web on a prim…
Saunders Baxton: something must be giving at the seams somewhere.

Zoe Bowie: oh man, sculpts
Zoe Bowie: they still excite me
Zoe Bowie: and not just coz I finally got decent shoes lol

Zoe Bowie: you want to see the skyboxes?

Saunders Baxton: sure
Zoe Bowie: one I’m quite proud of architecturally lol

The Signal Box.

Zoe Bowie: the best built box and probably of the whole club
Zoe Bowie: is the middle one
Zoe Bowie: this is our Signal Box

Zoe Bowie: a private dance suite, we use it for parties too

Saunders Baxton: looks like a pretty happening place.

Zoe Bowie: bachelor parties etc do well up here
Zoe Bowie: it’s a replica of the one on the wall
Zoe Bowie: my friend Bob worked on this one with me
Zoe Bowie: sadly he left SL
Zoe Bowie: got married or something

Not your mama's sofa. It's the poseballiest!

Zoe Bowie: we also have two skyboxes for escorting and parties
Zoe Bowie: one designed for couples and one for groups, heheh
Zoe Bowie: want a quick peek?

Saunders Baxton: sure, thanks

Zoe Bowie: I don’t know why I let someone persuade me to fit a sex bathroom
Zoe Bowie: but it makes it feel more like an actual house I think heheheh

The Station Master's House.

Zoe Bowie: but I drew the line at a sex toilet
Zoe Bowie: this place very much reflects my standards
Zoe Bowie: my one big rule is no slavery
Zoe Bowie: it’s all pretty straightforward
Zoe Bowie: menu driven

Saunders Baxton: very well decorated.

Zoe Bowie: heheheh thanks I make all my own textures
Zoe Bowie: we call this one “the Station Master’s House”

Saunders Baxton: are the posters from local documents?

Zoe Bowie: London, yeah

Zoe Bowie: come back down and I’ll show you the waiting room

Saunders Baxton: okay.

Zoe Bowie: this next skybox locks lol
Zoe Bowie: so don’t miss the time window

Saunders Baxton: ok
Zoe Bowie: ugh there’s so much LITTER in the skies these days
Zoe Bowie: this is our waiting room
Zoe Bowie: fun for two, three or more, lol
Zoe Bowie: the bed and the middle rug have tons of animations
Zoe Bowie: and the sofa and chair set is the same as the house’s

Saunders Baxton: here’s something i’ve not seen ever, poseballs that aren’t the default pink and blue balls… lol

Zoe Bowie: We have staff meetings up here sometimes, lol

The Waiting Room.

Zoe Bowie: back down then
Zoe Bowie: well now that’s about it
Zoe Bowie: we don’t have the whole sim here, just about 8 sq km of it

Saunders Baxton: still nice and spacious, it doesn’t seem like anything to box one in.

Zoe Bowie: I’ve tried to make it interesting with texture rather than clutter

Saunders Baxton: would you or scarlette like your pictures on the blog?

Zoe Bowie: sure, I’ll hop on the pole
Zoe Bowie: this is basically a labour of love for me
Zoe Bowie: it used to be back in the day I made enough money from my fashion business to pay my tier
Zoe Bowie: but I’ve not been able to keep that up, people aren’t buying like they used to
Zoe Bowie: but I don’t mind, I love SL lol

Zoe Bowie: and it’s important to have nice clubs that aren’t the huge moneymaking efforts
Saunders Baxton: yes, true.

Zoe Bowie: this is all about having great japes, not profit

Zoe Bowie: mention in your blog, there’s a shortage of decent event hosts lol

Saunders Baxton: will do.

Zoe Bowie: trivia is our specialty here
Zoe Bowie: but I’d love to get more diversity of events
Saunders Baxton: i see… have you heard of primtionary?
Zoe Bowie: Is this the latest game fad?
Zoe Bowie: I remember Tringo, does anyone still play that? that was cool lol
Zoe Bowie: remember in SL years I’m likje a pensioner
Saunders Baxton: like a circular back and forth monopoly
Zoe Bowie: our big game here is Strip Trivia

Zoe Bowie: the Thinkers meet here too

Saunders Baxton: I’ll have to look them up…

Zoe Bowie: my original account founded the Thinkers, lol
Zoe Bowie: we were the first and still are the biggest philosophy group in SL
Zoe Bowie: I’m actually quoted by Hamlet Linden in the official SL book, pr something
Zoe Bowie: we have brains and boobs here lol

Zoe Bowie twirls round her pole with glee

Zoe Bowie: I realised pretty early on that SL sex is unique
Zoe Bowie: it’s got a comedy value to it that chat room cybersex just doesn’t have

Zoe Bowie: and you retain the privacy you lose when you cam
Zoe Bowie: long time no see guys how you been?

Landis Allen: been good thanks so much

Kessa Corvale: mmmm, fandamned tatsic, and you hun?

Zoe Bowie: Saunders is going to write about us on his blog

Landis Allen: thats cool

Zoe Bowie: have you guys heard of avatars united?
Zoe Bowie: it’s like facebook for virtual people
Zoe Bowie: that’s how Saunders heard of us

Kessa Corvale: hello Saunders

Zoe Bowie: where you from, Saunders?

Saunders Baxton: Maine

Saunders Baxton: my ex-boss ran an antique shop
Saunders Baxton: this was supposed to be her avatar

Landis Allen: i see

Saunders Baxton: i swiped it back
Saunders Baxton: her last name was saunders

Zoe Bowie: you look like someone who would have an antique shop

Landis Allen: hehehe yes he does
Landis Allen: or an appraiser off of antique road show

Saunders Baxton: hehe, thanks… for a while i was trying to hire myself out as an SL butler

Zoe Bowie: OMG you know what I forgot when I rebuilt?

Kessa Corvale: hmmmm a butler eh

Zoe Bowie: SIR JIMMY!!!

Landis Allen: omg

Zoe Bowie: how could I?????????
Zoe Bowie: I’m going to hell for that

Saunders Baxton: what did you forget?

Zoe Bowie: our patron saint
Zoe Bowie: Sir Jimmy Saville

Kessa Corvale: get off you big bloke

Landis Allen: mine….

Saunders Baxton: never heard of him….

Zoe Bowie: maybe one for the brits lol
Zoe Bowie: it’s an old advertising slogan for british rail
Zoe Bowie: sir jimmy is a bit of a legend in the uk
Zoe Bowie: he used to present this show called “jim’ll Fix it”
Zoe Bowie: in which he granted kid’s wishes and you didn’t have to be dying or anything
Zoe Bowie tucks the tip into her stocking top and grins at Saunders, “thanks!”

(Author’s note: TIP ZOE!)

Zoe Bowie: it was brilliant

Saunders Baxton: yw.

Zoe Bowie: I grew up with sir jim
Zoe Bowie: he’s like 100 now and he still runs marathons for charity
Zoe Bowie: maybe even 200
Zoe Bowie: was senile to begin with

Zoe Bowie: lol

scarlette Cooperstone: i have too many things

Zoe Bowie: pshaw
Zoe Bowie: you’re only a month old
Zoe Bowie: you don’t know what a cluttered inventory is

Landis Allen: ummm lol scarlette

Kessa Corvale: hmmm how many items you got Scarlette

Zoe Bowie: in MY day, lol….

Landis Allen: exactly zoe, lol

scarlette Cooperstone: still i found a lots of freebies
scarlette Cooperstone: couldnt resist

Zoe Bowie: I got over 6000 items in this inventory and this is one of five accounts, and only the third oldest

scarlette Cooperstone: 10000

Landis Allen laughs

Kessa Corvale: hmmm, back up to 41,500

scarlette Cooperstone: too much..

Zoe Bowie: lol, 10,000????
Zoe Bowie: that’s amazing for a newb
Zoe Bowie: I am in awe

scarlette Cooperstone: yey

Zoe Bowie: you’re so l33t

scarlette Cooperstone: ??

Zoe Bowie: you may have 10,000 items
Zoe Bowie: but do you have a feather duster?

Landis Allen decides to not give scarlette a new freebie LM

Zoe’s Feather Duster: Zoe whips out the tickler!

scarlette Cooperstone: hehe
scarlette Cooperstone: gimmiigimmi!!

Zoe Bowie: oh here I have something feathery you’ll like scarlette

Landis’ Feather Tickler whispers: Landis whips out the tickler!

scarlette Cooperstone: its a shopin disease

Landis Allen: hehe

Kessa Corvale: saunders needs that for the butler job

Landis’ Feather Tickler is now aimed at Zoe Bowie

Zoe Bowie: LOL Landis

Landis Allen: hahaha

Zoe’s Feather Duster is now aimed at Landis Allen

scarlette Cooperstone: whats that zoe?

Landis’ Feather Tickler whispers: Landis runs the feathers up and down Zoe Bowie’s thigh.

Zoe Bowie: it’s a kick ass dancer’s outfit, scarlette
Zoe Bowie: best feathers on the grid

scarlette Cooperstone: ty hun

Zoe’s Feather Duster: Zoe stares at Landis Allen’s body and taps the tickler against her hand.

Landis’ Feather Tickler is now aimed at Saunders Baxton
Zoe Bowie: ah it’s lazy dancing using these things
Landis’ Feather Tickler is rubbed erotically against Saunders Baxton’s ass.
Author’s note: ( o_O )
Zoe’s Feather Duster is now aimed at scarlette Cooperstone

Saunders Baxton sneezes

Landis Allen laughs

Kessa Corvale: lol

Landis Allen laughs too

Zoe’s Feather Duster: Zoe runs the tickler along the bottoms of scarlette Cooperstone’s feet.

scarlette Cooperstone: yey!!

Zoe Bowie: it’s sooo lazy

Landis Allen: no music zoe?

Zoe Bowie: I should be ashamed

Zoe Bowie: nah I wasn’t planning on being on long enough to dj

Landis Allen: kk

Zoe Bowie: lemme get some radio

Kessa Corvale: no you shouldn’t Zoe

Saunders Baxton: nice to meet you all…
Zoe Bowie: cool beans
Landis Allen: cya man
Kessa Corvale: tc Saunders
Saunders Baxton: and thanks for the dusting, i’ve been gathering a layer. lol
Zoe Bowie: man my pc is slow tonight
Teleport completed from http://slurl.com/secondlife/Baker/142/86/38

Zoe invites Second Life users to check out her Baker Street Station group.

Some comics you have to dig through to see if they’re good. No need with Comic Book Comics: Our Artists At War! The cover features a wild image of a giant flaming comic book smashing a military blimp and crushing tanks as desperate gunners look up and at the reader.

The team of Fred Van Lente and the illustrator Ryan Dunlavey (no relation to Anton) get right down to brass tacks with ribald just-the-gags-ma’am writing. Aside from the occasional full-panel art, every sentence or two is lettered with a hilarious accompanying panel that is perfectly suited to the words.

OAAW is a scholarly work on the artists of the 1930s, 40s and 50s. While solidly researched, the writing is a rare combination of eloquence and madcap humor. If you’re not getting a funny tidbit of information from the text, Dunlavey makes sure to illustrate it in an action-packed or riotous fashion.

The issue starts with the dynamics of comic writing in crowded writers’ “bullpens” and shows the seamy odds they faced, lavished with quotes from Jules Pfeiffer and Joe Kubert. A map shows how Manhattan was the birthplace of the mainstream comic scene. From there, it’s a synopsis of the big boss players of the time: Lloyd Jacquet; copycat king Martin Goodman; the shady Harry Donnenfeld; Max Fleischer; Walt Disney. Then a disillusioned young Stan Lee and Jack Kirby enter into intrigues with Jerry Siegel.

World War II arrives, setting the comic world on its ear, and the issue details the roles of Kirby, Lee, Charles Addams, and Will Eisner; we learn how Eisner’s efforts led comics for a purely propaganda-based role into training manuals.

Disney’s ugly side as a strikebuster is touched on before the comic mentions his change of focus from movies to work for the armed forces. The issue recounts unsettling anecdotes where a stressed-out executive used to hurl after every meeting with Disney and an artist knew his boss had checked his work overnight from a Chesterfield butt left in his ashtray. Then OAAW touches on Walt’s growing bunker mentality and aim toward a 3-D demesne he could keep dictatorial over: Disneyland. At the end of the WWII section, Kirby is depicted as almost losing his life to an art-related job: scouting hot zones in Europe for enemy troops and sending back sketches of anything suspicious.

Post-war, with domestic tranquility arriving hand in hand with a baby boom, the female demographic begins to have its say in the comic world as stock in superheroes plummets. The famous team of Simon and Kirby, by then battle-hardened and taking smack from no one, launches Young Romance, selling an amazing 92% of the first 500,000 issues. As an amusing side note, Martin Goodman releases a series of mediocre copycats, true to form. The humorous narrative doesn’t let up, with freelancers pranking Simon and Kirby with raunchy drawings tucked in final drafts of YR.

For a brief time, the comics industry flourishes unchecked. But then the innocence of the medium fades with the ghoulish turnaround of EC Comics and the BDSM-birthed Wonder Woman. Al Feldstein makes strides in breaking the factory mentality, letting artists introduce their own styles, as one Dr. Frederic Wertham, forensic psychiatrist, sets the stage for a colossal showdown on Capitol Hill.

What will happen? A big teaser ad for issue #3 promises R. Crumb, and Andy Warhol and more of the insidious Doctor.

I can’t wait. Comic Book Comics is a technically sound treat and would make Scott McCloud proud.

Writing/Dialogue: A rollicking “way it was” look that belies the goofy PSA movies of the time. Imagine Archie Bunker telling you all about it, no holds barred. A

Art: Things look cartoony, which is fine considering the subject matter. There are never any dull panels and there is great synergy between the words and images. A lot of the fun is that neither hogs the spotlight 100% of the time, instead sharing the pages. A

Story: A fascinating, trivia-filled walk through the world of yesterday’s pop media. Something for everyone, from the smoldering anti-authoritarian to the bag and board-fondling aficionado. A

Characters: A little heavy on the anecdotal side, but what anecdotes! A-

Originality: A well-assembled historical study of the comics that made the country go round, a grand stage filled with gritty real-life heroes and checkered founding fathers. A+

Overall: This is the most entertaining account of anything historical I’ve read. Under-the-radar text and over-the-top illustrations (wait till you see the first cover of William Gaines’s EC Comics, and the real face behind Young Romance’s advice columns), with many laugh-out-loud moments and surprising revelations from the rascally formative years of the industry. A+

Yet the novella didn’t appeal to me.  First, there was art.  No expense was spared on it, though its painstaking style, with its weak lines, made me hunt for objects of interest in each scene.  Still, early 20th-century England couldn’t be drawn much better.  The bustle of the streets is well captured, with minor steampunk elements side by side with horse-drawn carriages, much like the early automobile shared the streets with its four-legged predecessor.

I didn’t like the story until the last few pages, but those last pages revealed why AM was filled with dialogue aping a Sherlock Holmes episode.  There were a Sax Raker and a Dr. Watcham, replete with astounding rapid-fire deductions, eccentricities, and a plot picking up after Holmes — uh, I mean Raker — went over the falls with Professor Moriarty — uh, I mean “The Man Who Was Not There”.  In fact, everything is almost totally derivative.

But… Ellis does this for a purpose, and he’s within his rights for doing so.  Strange? Yes.  Highly creative, and the mark of a writer used to crafting stories within stories? That too.  This comic takes storytelling to an art form that can easily be glossed over by someone lacking literary analytical skills.  Ellis does a decent job setting up a pseudo-Holmesian scene, complete with period dialogue. To a comic reader who’s never experienced Sherlock Holmes before, the dry dialogue will read more amusingly.   But to an Arthur Conan Doyle aficionado, the text doesn’t do more than appeal with a few distracting echoes.  Again, it’s intentional.

As for steampunk, a few terms and concepts are weakly worked in, like cavorite, and apergy, and aetheric mechanics, but as the work concludes, things travel more toward the Twilight Zone, borrowing Einstein’s street cred for a plot twist that only happens in B movies, comics, and paperbacks.  I’ll have to try dropping a PS3 in a hadron collider and see what happens sometime; maybe this is why so many people will continue to be afraid of atom smashers and their kin.

Characters: B-. Nothing we haven’t seen before until the last few pages: “Sherlock Holmes”, “Dr. Watson”, a “brassy pseudo-Victorian lady”.  True, Holmes was never the life of the fraternity, and imitating his speech is daunting for anyone, but I had hoped that the story’s premise would have been chaotic enough to allow a more schizophrenic representation of this imposter detective.  While Raker conversed with Watcham within his chambers, it seemed as if very little of the final explanation had been applied.

Art: A-. The effort and detail are there, but too undifferentiated for my tastes.  Almost everyone in the city has a hat and mustache, making it a chore to find Dr. Watcham.  Perhaps I am an ugly American for seeing it this way, but after being spoiled by the synergetic art of Lucifer, it leaves me wanting a spark of Clowes-style emotive closeups or a dash of shading.

Story & Dialogue: B. Rawther dry; it’s a comic novella about people imitating Sherlock Holmes.  Lots of flavor text geared toward the Baker Street fanman, but I find myself missing the blue-collar bite of Golly or the constant zingers of Knights of the Dinner Table.  To quote Mark Twain: “eschew surplusage”.  I appreciated the main story concept a little better few days after first reading, but I think the hints could have been a little more flamboyant.

Color: N/A (Black and white).

Originality: B+. Ellis had to copy a master work of English literature; whether the reader can forgive him or will just bore through the story is about a 25-75 proposition.  To a person who delights in having every last word in ultra-niche forums, it is likely the former; to one raised in the shallow wading pool of pop culture, the borrowed concepts will seem put through a hydraulic press and dropped out sausage style.

Excitement: D+. One extended office chat, a lot more talking, an aerial bombardment and one very cool flashback.  Things ramp up in the last few pages, enough that the book could have been just those few pages without much editing or any major loss.  Re-read it, and your rediscovery of a few glossed-over details will bring the excitement level up to a C.  Kudos to the artists who devised the one-panel steampunk nightmare.

Overall: C+. The fact it’s a “graphic novella” should have been enough warning; it tried very ambitiously to achieve critical mass, but the nature of the story hobbled the enjoyment of it till the very end.  A shame because it could have been much more.  Perhaps, given a rework, it may someday be.

After the first three Saw movies, I was very reluctant to say it is a B movie series.? It would have been a slap in the face to countless actors, production staff, and writers.? After witnessing dozens of memorable scenes from Saw I through Saw III, I’d have gladly called it an A- series.? True, it did sometimes dip here and there, but the films always left unforgettable impressions and portrayals of humanity’s deeper, blacker side.

However, after seeing the step down from Saw III to Saw IV, and the somewhat off-kilter gore tour through Saw V, I am downgrading my opinion of the series.???

Saw V leads you to think it begins like all the rest of the series has: with a victim facing death or a twisted, maiming “redemption” at the hands of Jigsaw, the architect turned tormenter and self-perceived killer-savior of many.? But this is not Jigsaw’s work.? It is a copycat’s; the trap, designed to stop after permanently disfiguring and disabling its victim with crushed hands, kills its victim after he accepts his punishment.

Who is the copycat?

It’s none other than the treacherous Lt. Hoffman, who had a part in the deaths of officers Mathews (sp) and Rigg in Saw IV.? But when did it happen?

Cut to more events just after the events in Saw III (again, just like in Saw IV).? Hoffman is seen leaving the trap-loaded warehouse just after the death of his mentor Jigsaw, and just after the lethal “testing” of Officer Rigg.? And Agent Strahm, after shooting grief-crazed Jeff Reinhart in Saw III, finds himself challenged to accept his fate in Jigsaw’s death chamber, now sealed shut by Hoffman.??? Strahm, one of the sharpest characters in the series, discovers a secret exit.? A tape placed further down a passageway offers him one last chance at salvation.? He ignores it, is attacked by an assailant wearing a pig mask, and blacks out.? He comes to in a horrifying, seeming unalterable drowning trap.? A deus ex machina allows him to escape.

It is here that, while the escape is a brilliant move on Strahm’s part, shows the sloppiness of his captor, the same bumbling fallibility that maimed the first victim of the movie.

After viewers are left hanging for an entire movie, guessing about the fate of Jeff Reinhart’s daughter, allegedly (and low-budgetedly) caught in an offscreen timed oxygen-deprivation trap, Hoffman triumphantly boosts his career, “escaping” the scene of Jigsaw’s last stand with Jeff’s daughter Corbett.? However, Strahm too manages to escape and one of the best scenes in the movie takes place: a baffled Hoffman loses his composure as he sees Strahm being carried away on a stretcher.? Hoffman has more cleanup work to do.

In yet another videotape, but this time one filmed more tenderly than those he made for his victims, Jigsaw records a final message for his alienated ex-wife, milfy, makeup-paralyzed Jill Tuck.? After all the smack talk Jigsaw gave his victims, this tape rings hollow, and instead of helping me sympathize with Jigsaw as a pained husband, it makes my skin crawl.

And the exchange between Jigsaw’s attorney and Tuck just goes awry.? It seems wooden, cliched, and Tuck’s character seems almost as lifeless as Jigsaw’s puppet Billy.? To quote Brad Pitt in Se7en, “what’s in the bawwwwx?”? Guess I’ll need to pay $10.50 to find out.

Strahm, at deceased Agent Perez’s blood-stained bedside, confronts Hoffman with Perez’s last whisper, “Hoffman” (so?).? Emotive slab of beef Costas Mandylor, as Hoffman, rattles off well-worn threats to Strahm.? It sounds like he doesn’t even believe his own words.

?Strahm then begins doing research on Hoffman’s past, leading him to the death of the Hoff’s sister at her boyfriend’s hands, and the death of her boyfriend at Hoffman’s.? Here the Saw back story begins to fill in, bridging story gaps from Saw I through Saw III.? In a nutshell, it says: Hoffman was helping too.? There seems to be absolutely no credibility in Hoffman’s conversation and conversion with Jigsaw.? With a gun barrel tucked between his legs pointed right at big H’s face through most of the conversation, it’s like Psycho meets Brokeback Mountain.? It is interesting how Jigsaw shows mercy to Hoffman above and beyond his usual hair-trigger actions, but Hoffman is so hostile and foul-mouthed it seems the only reason Jigsaw would decide to tutor him is to use him.

Anyhoo, enter the meat and potatoes of the movie: five seemingly unacquainted people begin a harrowing journey through four lethal trapped rooms.? There’s a cute and fluffy fire inspector (Ashley), a washed-out playboy (Mallick), an improbably chesty city planner (Luba), a cold, calculating real estate company owner (Brit), and a bitchy, scene-stealing journalist (Charles) who could be the scourge of any Starbucks.? Only Charles manages to stand out; the rest may as well be Jigsaw’s mannequins, with boring officespeak and random bits of overacting to punctuate things.?

Here, by turns, are some of the nastiest, most ingenious, visually different traps in the series.?? Surrounded by gorgeous, deeply grim industrial settings, these traps are second only to those in Saw III.? This time, there’s a perverse team motif to each trap, with a vicious lesson taught by the last trap.

I usually miss problems in the script, but there were a few in this section of the movie.? One of the traps was based on an arcane bit of electrical know-how.? Why would the characters, more comfortable sipping lattes than talking wiring, have the slightest inkling of how the trap could work properly?? And the final trap could have been overcome by, of all things, peeing in it.? There is a bathtub in the next to last room, filled with water.? With all the hyperventilation in the first two rooms, I would have thought the characters would have grabbed some water to drink, leaving them with full bladders, and one of them with the means to get it where it had to be in the trap.??

The cinematography through the rooms begins well, gets intense in the second room, winds down in the third room, and by the fourth room, everything is resolved with an irritating series of choppy strobes back and forth across the trap.? At the same time, the chemistry, or lack of, between the survivors hurts the viewing experience like the slow, dull throb of a recent hammer blow to the thumb.?

As the people navigate through the traps, or try to, Agent Strahm plays sneak ‘n’ peek with Hoffman’s files.? Hoffman begins a counterattack, leading him to deceive Strahm’s superior.? A lot of it is pretty dull and cliche, the ol’ framing routine.? Zzzzz.?

Hoffman just isn’t enough of an interesting character to base a movie around.? He lurks and skulks like Mr. Horse from Ren and Stimpy, with lines barely more interesting than “Mmmmmmmm”,”Ohhhhhhhhh”, and “No sir, I don’t like it.”? Where Jigsaw was powerfully bitter in his words and brutal in his ideas and deeds, Hoffman is an order-taker who lost his boss two movies ago.? All his nefarious deeds, including his dull taped messages, were all done better by Jigsaw.?

The movie manages to squeeze in one last trap at the end, but its activation and purpose are absurd and campy.? The trap bucks up at the end with a horrid, explicit payoff, but chances are the first half of the sequence will leave you with a bad foretaste.? And worst of all, the movie, aside from a lot of extra corpses, basically leaves off where it began.

Paging Tobin Bell and a ton of script doctoring…

After seeing Jacob’s Ladder, playing Silent Hill, and reading the Lucifer comic series, I’ve become a bit spoiled.  If a story doesn’t yield solid writing before and after the BOO! moments, I look for something better.  It’s been a while since these creepy cultural cornerstones were built, and I’ve been hard pressed to find new releases as good.

I went to Nellie Woe’s Comics to get caught up, and asked the counterculture behind the counter what the best disturbing and/or surreal titles were.  After passing up a title I can’t mention in polite company, I settled for the dubiously named Golly!, by Image.  The cover featured a gen Y-er glumly working on an engine as angels and demons battled in the background.  Oh boy, I thought.  I must be in for a treat.

The comic begins with a sideshow Satan, a Ron Jeremy type in a red devil’s hood and jeans, puffing on a cigarette.  The crowd of teens, as teens can often be, is skeptical and cynical to the point of bratty nastiness.  But after some carnie banter, the supernatural enters play: “Satan” rips his skin off, revealing a dry skeleton, puffs his cigarette, and asks, “How’s that?”  At this point, four kids simultaneously burst into puking the fakest-looking hurl stew ever.

The illustration is technically sound, with circus noir elements like a trail of cigarette smoke, low lighting, and the intriguing circus attraction sign.  Angles and perspectives travel all around the scene.  The payoff is decent, but could have done better without the “SSSSHRRRIIIPPP!” and the “SKLORTCH!” lettering; the images speak well enough not to need it.

So, okay, a carnie’s ripped his skin up.  Good expository work.  Next.  Cut to a glaring blue sky, points for contrast, and a subtle dig at fried food with a heavyset lady working at a booth labeled “FRIED”.  Here is our mulleted anti-hero, Golly Mulhollen, cussing up a storm on his back as he tries fixing the Octopus ride.  This presents a point of entry for a timeless circus stereotype, the brow-mopping Colonel, and his sidekick Miguel, a small wolfman.  Here the dialogue establishes Golly’s low status as a carnie go-to guy, and flings such amusing lines as “Ah, my hirsute little calculator, you’ve crystallized my thoughts precisely” and “Remember to clean the crevices of the folding chairs this time, lad.  The stench abides in them crevices.”
From there, the Colonel departs to answer a constable’s questions about missing livestock, and darkly advises Golly not to mention last night’s communal hog roast.  Golly storms off.

Then it’s a cynical look at modern insensibilities, as the Tattooed Man banters with a visibly annoyed Golly, who has to clean Satan’s mess and is jonesing for a chew.  A coarse laugh comes when T.M. apologizes for his language in front of a tender tyke, who rejoins, “**** if I care.  How’s my SpongeBob look?” Current, this comic is.  PC, refreshingly, it’s not.

A minor intrigue further cements Gully’s low-man status when, for $5 in chewing tobacco money, he agrees to grab Pig’s butt in the next 24 hours, or else pay $20.  Who is Pig? A good comic doesn’t give everything away immediately.

Segue to Golly spraying down the chairs in the revival tent; a Brother Dare offers new twists on the tried-and-true half-mad fundamentalist preacher.

More sharp, hilarious banter ensues as Golly, with a whole can of chew in his mouth, works on a van.  This time, Tattooed Man meets up with Pig, the fearsome fat lady.  Only thing is, she’s now a buff arm-wrestling amazon with balls to bust and attitude to spare.  Golly’s bet will be difficult to win.

He gets his chance in the next sequence, a mad figure-8 demolition derby announced in classic carnie style.  The comic does well to capture the chaos of a derby, and surprisingly Golly comes through in a laugh-out-loud case of easy come, easy go.  “Winning” the bet plays a large part of it, and through a strange chain of events Golly’s true calling is issued.

It’s during this sequence that the comic’s writing sinks in its hook, and takes on a deadly serious “save the world” air.  Well, as serious as you can get with a potty-mouthed carnie mechanic punctuating everything with profanity, “dude”, and references to “The Omen”.  It doesn’t turn out to be a total cliched wash.  Golly shows himself not to be a total chump by matching wits with a somewhat distracted holy emissary, and winning a concession should he complete a task: the emissary will answer a question of his choosing.  The writers make a wise choice not spending the series’ arsenal of fireworks all at once here:

“What about my super powers?”

“Done.  Good-bye.”

And that’s all.

After, one last side plot involves Golly’s determination to escape his surroundings, and “Satan”‘s offer to reveal why he’s struggling… for a price, of course.  This exchange has teaser written all over it, but hey, I’ll be buying issue #2 to see if anything happens.

The final confrontation of the first issue gives Golly a mildly bizarre first supernatural enemy to fight.  Despite some adequate trash talk, the presentation is a little underwhelming and there is no combat until issue 2.  Not a dramatic punch, charge, gunshot, evil superpower, or wall-busting hero throw in sight.  But the way Golly! is written, and the way the pacing eventually comes through, I’m cheering enough for our slacker turned savior to bust some heads in issue #2.

In many ways, this comic is put together like the carnival attractions it portrays.  Slapped together and pounded into the ground, its structure, like a carnival tent, does provide the necessary backdrop around a story that has been told in comics for many a year.  Eventually, it gets so you’re watching the main attraction and forgetting about the staging.

Dialogue: Some sharp zingers divvied up among all the cast members.  Still not that much you can do sometimes with a guy who says “dude” a lot.  A-/B+

Art: Signs look photoshopped with poor contrast.    Characters vary a little too much from angle to angle, but the ink detail is competent and the coloring, while it shows effort, is overstated and monolithic at times.  And dig that salvaged cover art with Golly slapped on over it.  C

Story: Um, okay.  I want to believe though. C+

Characters: A bit of wisecracking in the place of character exposition, but a lot of times the two do dovetail.  A-

Originality: True, the issue starts with classic carnival stereotypes.  But twists set the series up well enough and leave the reader wanting more.  A-

Overall: A passably enjoyable read for something alternately gritty and grim, with a touch of otherworldly triangles.  I bet the series will be just fine once it starts running. B.

Long before The Golden Compass, an old friend from Second Life opened my eyes to steampunk, an evolution of medieval fantasy with a heavy emphasis on ornate, steam- and gear-driven machinery, flawlessly integrated into the environment.

Talesworth Arena takes the Flash game to its greatests heights.  It features a striking medieval-steampunk graphic design and theme, with sharp writing, lots of extra quests, inventory and teasers.  Its ergonomic but varied interface, and a tried-and-true combat menu are upgraded with some clever and downright nasty tricks on both sides of the combat.

When you first come into Talesworth, you have the choice of an Engineer, Psionic, or Juggernaut.  The combat mechanics break down along the lines of old-school rogues, mages and fighters — physical trickery, magic, and brute force — but the ferocious creativity in this game blurs class lines and adds versatile but balanced outside skills and spells to each class.

You don’t get anything at the beginning of the game.  Zip, except 10 gold pieces, a hilarious snotty goblin who makes you sign your life away, and a friendly introduction from the local captain of the guard.  The Training area is the typical RPG weapons market.  But you don’t buy weapons per se; you buy offensive and defensive options.  The meager money lets you buy two cheap combat options.  The first one cuts your teeth on the joys of instant damage, and the second demonstrates Damage over Time (DoT).  The beginning options seem the same for all classes, but even the most basic items have their own perks and tweaks, and the designers have dutifully changed the basic item descriptions for each class to keep the role-playing flavor alive.  You won’t be able to afford anything in the Bazaar, the equipment market, once you leave Training, but it’s good enough; the moment your step out Grog, the Arena Overseer is already snorting, talking trash, and marching your butt toward the competition.

When I headed into the Arena for the first time, I thought Talesworth would have such a simple interface I wouldn’t need a second combat option.  I mean, games were always balanced early on so a guy could win with his favored weapon, right?

Wrong.  Talesworth may pit you against a puny goblin or desperate wretch in the beginning, but it also says “Hey, I didn’t spend all this time on this innovative interface for nothing!”  The interface begins every fight with helpful tips for the first few rounds, and a cautionary “Know Thy Enemy”.  It’s here you mouse over the enemy’s combat options and get an understanding of what he or she’ll be up to.  After that, you click to get going and a timer counts down.  It’s on!
Each combatant has a classic red hit point bar, and may or may not have a special resource bar (mana for Psionics, gas for Engineers, and so on) for spells and certain skills.  Once the opponent’s hit points are reduced to 0, the round is over, and gold, XP and maybe an item are awarded.

During combat you’re in a deadly race, but not to mash as many buttons as you can.  Talesworth’s ingenious setup lets you stack one combat option on top of the other as they take time to launch.  But, whether you really should or not, you can override what you’ve already chosen by clicking a third combat option.  If the first combat option has resolved, good for you: your patient planning will give you an advantage.  But if you panic and start getting ahead of yourself, you lose the equivalent of a turn by canceling out an attack on the stack.

In a mediocre game, Talesworth’s stacking mechanic might prove a decent standalone effort.  But the designers have ramped up the stakes with another mechanic: two levels of interruption.  The first level takes some time to execute, like the Groin Kick; after the Kick goes on standby, it still takes a few seconds to use.  And that, in itself, can be interrupted.  The second level, like the Spring Fist, instantly cancels the opponent’s action, which is crucial in later combats.

The designers illustrate the interruption mechanic handily in a combat against a healer with limited mana.  With unlimited mana, an opponent can heal himself later in the game whenever he’s down on hit points, which is a major threat if you’re fighting with no way of healing yourself.  In this trial combat, you can either put a Groin Kick, Psychic Blast or Gentle Uppercut (we all start somewhere) to work early on, and prevent the healer from drawing out the combat, or you can learn the hard way, but still win after he heals back a huge chunk of hit points.  Learning interruption proves dually useful in later rounds, when you can prevent either nasty offensive moves from harming you or cheesy defensive moves from, well, eventually harming you.

By the time you defeat the healer, you’ll have enough for your first item in the Bazaar.  For now it will be like picking through the remnants of a yard sale, but unlike many games, Talesworth will put them to use soon.  The shoddy items you buy will come in handy, because you’ve got your first Arena boss, Pepe le Tank, breathing down your neck and waiting for you in the next few fights.

Another tip of the hat to the designers though: if you still reek as a noob, you can go on an occasional side quest at the Arena gates and fight more basic combatants for more gold for more equipment and training.  But like a wise bartender who’s seen you’ve had enough, the game will eventually shut your gold flow 5% after 10 fights, and send you a friendly warning from a “gold farmer” while you’re at it.  I love this game… they’ve thought of everything!

Once you’ve gotten a few bosses under your belt, taken on a few side quests and pimped out your inventory, Talesworth will really begin to shine.  Most side quests are easy, but the Tavern will let you revisit difficult ones.  Skills will branch out along class lines, inventory will let you change up for different situations, and monsters will develop their own intimidating styles.  I’ll let you find about what the Runes do…

As a Level 4 Engineer I’m having the fight of my life against a Black Pudding whose skills include melting my armor, puncturing my gas tank, disabling my devices, spraying acid, and swallowing me whole.  Golly, I sure hope my Mechanical Gnat helps. 

At Marrowstone Island in Second Life, it’s the darker side of Halloween year round.  The grim and occasionally gruesome are focused through owner Loki’s Ball’s SL lens, dropped into a bucket of blood and grime, and slathered over stone, flesh and rusted metal skeletons.

Loki’s creations are all shapes and sizes, from burning piles of you-know-what and crows picking at half-finished meals to massive churches, warehouses, jails, morgues, mausoleums, asylums, and sweatshops.  Loki’s sim is a sinister ecosystem on a grand scale: it’s chock full of interactivity and you will rarely if ever see a gap in the action in the main area.  The buildings for sale are all connected by power lines (don’t touch that high voltage box), a system of crumbling roads allows easy navigation, and the ground is littered with things to test out.  I was able to warm my hands at a burning barrel, see how I’d look as discarded parts in a garbage can with a clever sit animation, and dig my own grave in the space of 20 meters.

Earlier builds tend to be more sedate, like the sweatshop (“I’m just a small sweatshop owner… larger sweatshop owners would charge 10 times less”) and warehouses, but everything has its own scripted personality, and as of late his work has taken on a fiendishly fun interactivity.  His motel is the ultimate in Psycho-style roleplaying, with ominous guest rooms and a tub I wouldn’t be caught dead in.  The unsettling front desk, with a phone receiver knocked off its cradle, holds a trio of disturbing s– AAHH! I just checked in the safe for the first time.  Okay, four disturbing secrets.  Maybe more.  For now I’ll just say the manager’s computer lets him or her keep an easy eye on the guests, and he’s got plenty of food stashed away for when he’s hungry.

Two other recent builds of note are his swimming pool, a tribute to litter and pollution, and his “I Gots Gas” garage, which shows some amusing gas prices and rezzes two of Loki’s vehicles in the vehicle bay.   Under construction, and sure to promise more demented detail and interaction, is a massive jail.

For those more faint or kind of heart, Loki also has a barn, trees, and animals for sale in the approximate center of the sim.  You can easily forget everything you’ve seen in his dismal urban nightmares by watching the animals graze, walking through the farmhouse (complete with beds and loft), or having a seat on the working swing.  Um, just don’t check out the fires too closely.  Or peek behind that tree in the corner.  Trust me.

So, whenever you’re in a Halloween mood, whatever time of year it is, Fluid Creations welcomes you.  For a leaden, fearful atmosphere, with just enough black humor so as not to be too serious, you’ll be hard pressed to find a better sim than Marrowstone Island.