Mad Bull 34

We found it! We found it! After years of searching and many lost lives, we have finally found by far the funniest anime anyone has ever seen ever. I'm not talking like Superbad funny or Dr. Strangelove funny. I'm talking Rocky Horror Picture Show and Lupan the 3rd went to a bar, went 3 digits over the legal blood alcohol content limit, started fucking on the pool table, smoked during the pregnancy and had a kid kind of fucked up funny. I'll provide a little background information.

Mad Bull 34 is a buddy cop anime that takes place in New York City. Think Bad Boys, but funny. The anime follows the adventures of two police officers; Daizaburo and Sleepy. Daizaburo is an 18 year old Japanese-American who has just graduated from the police academy with the highest grades possible. He is very old fashion and tries to be the best cop he can be in a world full of evil and hate.

Now we get to the fun part, Sleepy. A giant-of-a-man who when the first warning of "stop" does not work, will proceed to unload an entire round of shotgun shells into any law breaker all while smiling and whistling a catchy tune. Even though he is a man who has seen the color red more than any other color in his life, he only kills people that deserve it.

Ok, so now you know the basic plot. Lasting 4 hour long OVA episodes, what Mad Bull 34 lacks in plot it makes up for in...in...well...just being kind of retarded, but in the best way possible. There is just so much shit that goes on that all I can really do is to write a list of every piece of ridiculous logic that I can find in the first episode.

Side Note: This anime has gotten the closest I've ever seen to being a hentai without actually being a hentai.

- There is a rape scene within 1:40 on the first episode

- Sleepy decapitates a dude with a pistol

- Two guys in short-shorts wearing hockey masks and riding on roller skates (with pads) rob a grocery store

- Sleepy kills one of the robbers and severally injures the other with his shotgun.

- The injured robber crawls towards a startled woman and tells her to give him some action while he is bleeding out on the parking lot.

- Said girl pisses herself

- Sleepy uses his shotgun to blow away the robber's head into three equal parts.

- With the girl paralyzed in shock, Sleepy tells Daizaburo that "She'll thaw out if you stick your finger up her ass"

- When told by Daizaburo that he is a murderer, Sleepy responds, "Hey, thats bullshit. That guy was just some low life punk."

- Sleepy's comments when he sees a prostitute on the street: "Imagine putting your face between her legs." "Huh, you don't mean you're a faggot, are ya?" "Hey, you're new aren't ya. Wanna sit on my face?"

-Upon discovering that Daizaburo is a virgin, Sleepy takes him to a random apartment and hires a bunch of hookers to show him a good time. The girls proceed to flash their tits around and dog pile all over Daizaburo.

Oh damn, we're only 10 minutes into the first episode. This is gonna be a long post. I could just end it here, but what is the fun in that?

- Daizaburo and Sleepy dress up as women (wow, what a leap) to go under cover while a news reporter attempts to bait out rapists and catch them on camera.

- Rapists one liners: "We're gonna fuck the ass off of ya." "You're gonna have a sore pussy."

- When the rapists grab the woman's hair, Sleepy stops from running in Daizaburo saying, "Wait."

- Rapists tear off the woman's shirt, revealing her tits. It is then Sleepy says, "Lets move!"

- Sleepy shoots the rapists dead.

- Woman, "Murderer." Sleepy, "Police officer, actually."

- Sleepy reveals that the rapists have guns. Daizaburo's response, "It's an Uzi machine pistol!"

- Sleepy steals money from a hooker after fucking her. (Off camera)

- Sleepy steals money from a hooker after fucking her. (Off camera)

- Sleepy steals money from a hooker after fucking her. (On camera)

- Giant black man with rose tattoo fucks hooker #3 and reveals he is gonna kill Sleepy. Hookers are worried about Sleepy.

- Sleepy to Daizaburo, "WAIT! Don't touch that soap! Look at all the cracks on that soap. Doesn't it strike you odd that there are so many? Someone may have coated it with contact poison. One touch and you'll be dead in a minute."

- Black man puts hooker #3's head in between the frame of the bed and squeezes the bars shut preventing her from escaping.

- Black man places a capped bottle with blue liquid inside and explains, "That bottle contains a special Molotov Cocktail that I made special for you. Once the temperature of this room rises, it'll explode!"

- It does

- Man working for black man poses as a gas station attendant and does "something" to their car. Something to do with oil.

- Sleepy trying to control his car spinning at over 60mph "Shit, he cut the oil line! The engine is fucked!"

- Car catches on fire and explodes

- Sleepy concludes "When the engine fucked up it knocked out the transmission and put us in a skid."

- Sleepy and Daizaburo decide to fake their death in order to catch black man off guard. They attend their own funeral disguised as nuns.

There is still about 1/4th of the episode left and all ready I've called an ambulance cause my sides hurt too bad from laughing so hard. Each episode just gets crazier and crazier as Sleepy and Daizaburo encounter various New York crime villains and mob lords, each with their own unique quirk that you can only get out of an episode of A-Team.

Even after all of this stuff I've described above, nothing beats the fact that every episode is on Youtube and is uncensored. Seriously, this thing is buried in the darkest reaches of the internet. It was made in 1991 and I still can't believe no one has heard of this anime before.

NOTE: I did not discover this, my friend Adam showed it to me about a week ago.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkngMdECPC0&feature=related

Anime Rant: Loud Misunderstandings

Well kids, its 3:55 AM. You know what that means, right? Yup! That means its time for Kurly to rant about anime! [Happy cheers]

Today, I am going to point out a very common trend/plot device for anime these days. If you read the title, you no doubt have came to the conclusion that this trope is called Loud Misunderstandings. What is this you ask? Its a very simple concept really.

A loud misunderstanding occurs when the main character, more often than naught a teenage virgin boy, has performed an action that yielded the results he did not intend. These intentions are usually very innocent and legitimate but end up blown out of proportion from the point of view of others and the main character is unable to explain himself. This causes an episode long conflict between the main character and just about everyone else.

For example: Jimmy (I shall refer to the male protagonist as Jimmy for now on) wants to give a girl in his class a high five because she had just done something worthy of praise. While he is swinging his hand forward to intercept hers, a random classmate accidentally bumps into Jimmy. This in turn causes Jimmy to completely miss is gender neutral target and forces him to send his hand into hostile territory. Now, only several layers of clothing stand between Jimmy's hand and 2nd base.

Now, lets stop here for a second. What would you do in this situation? Would you...

A) Immediately take your hand off of this girl's breast and apologize for the slip.

or

B) Keep your hand on her tit for several seconds while you and her just stare blankly at the situation waiting for something else to happen.

To date, I have yet to see a single anime that goes for answer A. Lets go back to our friend Jimmy.

It has been 5 whole seconds and Jimmy's hand is still on his classmate's chest. Several "Ahh"s, "Uhhh"s and maybe an "Ehh Tou" have been exchanged. Now this is where it gets fun. Because the new couple has remained frozen in time, the entire classroom consisting of several very skinny, perky girls with Skittles colored hair have put everything they were doing on hold to partake in a collective "NANI?!?" Cherry Skittles hair girl now has leapt towards Jimmy and smacked his hand away from her friend's headlights. Depending on the anime, she may also use high level sorcery to bind poor Jimmy to the corner of the room with no hope of escape.

Our brave hero is now in a situation where every color of the rainbow is yelling/pummeling at him for his perverted actions in such high volume that the background starts to portray intense flames. Most of these loud noises can be translated as "You are such a pervert", "I'm gonna kill you for doing that to my friend", "You're the worst!", "I loved you, you jerk!".

In a real world situation, Jimmy would have 3 options:

1) Stay quiet because he cannot overcome his shyness and lack of testicles.

2) Attempt to explain the situation in a calm but embarrassed manner.

3) Take a page out of Wayne Brady'sbook and start choking some bitches (Or just telling them to shut the fuck up, either or).

Unfortunately for Jimmy, option 3 does not exist in the world of anime, so he is stuck with two options. Cower in fear to the wrath of the female horde or to try and be honest about the slip up. These days in anime, Jimmy chooses the latter. I mean wouldn't you in this situation? I'm sure that once you explain the situation as an honest slip up, no one will think anymore of it and everyone can move on with their lives.

Jimmy then remembers that he is a main character in an anime with more than 2 female characters. This means that he is a fairly socially awkward person, much like the viewers of said anime, so he is unable to explain the situation in a way that will pacify the situation. Instead he rambles on about how he was pushed by the classmate which caused the whole mishap in the first place. Once again, because this is an anime, every girl with a hair color corresponding to their favorite snow cone flavor perceived Jimmy's plea as "My classmate egged me on to try and violate your sweet and innocent friend over there and I like to kick adorable kittens." This causes Jimmy to be chased all over the school for several hours. Most likely there will be a part where sour apple girl is stomping his face in and he is able to catch a small glimpse of her blue and white stripped panties. For Jimmy, its a small peek. For the viewers at home, its at an angle where it would be easier to tell you what you couldn't see. Thinking that Jimmy is at his perverted semantics again, she continues to stomp him to the ground to a point where the school needs to hire people to fix the Jimmy face imprint on the floor.

This whole scene takes up about 5-8 minutes of the anime. Oh but it doesn't end there.

Later that night, after getting the feeling in his legs back, Jimmy decides to go apologize to the girl in person. Lucky for him, he knows her address and its about a 5 min walk. Shouldn't be too much trouble. Jimmy walks to her house to find that the door is locked and no one is answering the door. He sees that the top left window is lit up. Apparently in quite a few animes students aren't that connected to each other via cell phones and text messaging, which is very strange considering that every kid in Japan has a cell phone 20 years more advance than ours. Because of Jimmy's burning desire to apologize and his lack of wireless communications, he decides to scale the house and knock on the window.

Low and behold that this is a window to the Hitomi's (girl student's new name) bathroom. And oh look! she is inside taking a shower without the curtain blocking the tub. Jimmy, who has never kissed a girl, is frozen solid at the sight of this 13 year old's naked body (She is 17, but because this is an anime, all girls look like they are 13. Or its the opposite where they look 22 when they are 15). Having stared long enough, Hitomi glances over to the window and sees our peeping tom staring at her naughty parts. With a loud scream and a yell of "HENTAI!!", Hitomi rushes out of the bathroom, forever labeling Jimmy as a creeper.

Oh hey, look at the time, we are 24 minutes into the anime! Time for the ending song!

Loud Misunderstandings seem to be the major plot point, running gag for several animes these days. Mostly in harems, the main character is always a victim to his natural male thoughts and pays for it with beatings from girls who are quick to jump to every bad conclusion they can think of. I dunno about you all, but this kind of freshmen at high school level of comedy just gets boring.

Street Fighter: Legacy

Normally I like to summarize all my thoughts about amazing things into once sentence. Unfortunately I cannot do so for Street Fighter: Legacy, so i'm just going to rabble endlessly.

Costumes:

For the first time in Street Fighter history, the costumes for Ryu, Ken, and even Akuma are so incredible yet simple, you wonder how the hell everyone else managed to fuck it up so bad. Ryu's gi looks tattered and worn. He has fought dozens of battles in the very same clothes he wears to sleep on the ground at night. He lives like a hobo and dresses like one too. They even got the correct kanji on his belt.

This is by far the best Ken interpretation I have ever seen. The gi is pristine to reflect his ability to purchase one after it gets tattered a bit. His hair looks real. I know this may not seem like a big deal, but NO ONE has gotten it right up until now, and for that I am thankful. Oh, and the eyebrows are ridiculous like in the game. Props to the creators for putting that in.

Choreography:

Strait the fuck up, EVERY punch or kick thrown is one from SFIV.

Ken: jump in heavy kick -> crouching heavy kick -> standing heavy kick -> standing light punch -> standing medium punch -> target combo -> grab -> (ryu's move) forward medium punch -> taunt

Ryu: jump in heavy kick -> crouching light punch -> crouching medium punch -> crouching heavy punch -> standing heavy kick -> joudan-sokutou-geri (Third Strike/TvC move) -> Tatsumaki -> medium punch

Ken: Focus attack (absorbs ryu's medium punch)

Ryu: Focus attack (absorbs ken's focus attack) -> Hadouken -> Hadouken

Ken: Fierce Shoryuken

Ken & Ryu: jump in heavy kick.

Thats right, you can just about re enact the entire fight on your Xbox. That is beyond god like

CGI and Special Effects

They were very above average, which is good. The hadoukens looks believable and the shoryuken looks ridiculous, in a good way. The rain and wind effects were very good and the dream sequence in the beginning was well done.

What it comes down to is that this short film was made by Street Fighter's fans with great talent and a great love to make this the best it could possibly be. We all should strive to create excellency such as this.

Anime Yeller.

Those who know me know that I love anime, but in a different way. It has been apart of my life and has had a major role in my upbringing since 3rd grade when I would run home from school to catch the monster of the week for that day's Pokemon episode. I have bought anime, I have sold anime, I have stolen anime, I have attended anime conventions, I have dressed up as anime characters, I have watched my fair share of hentai, I have even edited anime from time to time. I would go as far as to say that I would be a far less interesting person if it was not for anime.

Other people that share my hobby believe that anime has raised them like a third (or second) parent. However, I have discovered that most of these people do not realize that, like their parents, anime is far from perfect. It can be disappointing, repetitive and just plain bad. This kind of ignorance can have very negative effects on a person's capability to understand what is good and bad in terms of social encounters and comedy. Very similarly to a child who believes his parents are good when in fact they are abusive, watching a modern anime fan is like watching someone who was not brought up right.

Many of those who are around me that share my interest in anime have a hard time accepting that just about every single piece of anime that has been released in the past decade has been complete and utter trash. I will not name names because this is not that kind of discussion. Anime has been plagued with over used characters, trends and stereotypes that it has gotten to the point where people watch anime like they shoot up crack. They watch these obviously terrible shows because they need their fix.

Japan knows this. They do not try to fix this. They fill every single time slot with fan service and moe. They do this because anime don't realize that they saw this same show 10 years ago, but with less panties.

Anime has become nothing but a trope. A one word explanation about what you can expect from the show. This makes my job hard because I try my hardest to defend anime. I try to defend anime because it has in the past to show magnificent story and character development that very few "real" TV shows/movies could do as well. I defend anime because it is the physical manifestation of potential. Unfortunately, anime does very little to make my job easy.

I have explained this to several people that "Anime, some of it is good, all of it is bad." Now, if I were to say "the rest of it is bad." or "most of it is bad", you would get the idea that the ratio from bad anime to good anime is about 1:5 or so. This is incorrect. A more accurate ratio is 1:100 at least. Therefor, the first quote "all of it is bad" is a far truer explanation than the others.

Among my large group of friends, only two will go out of our way to sit down and watch an anime. The rest of our group waits for us to watch it so we can tell them if its worth their time. A perfect example is when my friend Tony tried to recommend Rumbling Hearts to ALL of our friends. Of course, only my friend Eric and I took the time to see what all the fuss Tony was giving was about. Being 14 episodes long, I took an afternoon and marathoned the entire series. When my friend John, who is not into anime that much, inquired about said anime, I simply responded "Watch the first four episodes then I'll tell you how it ends."

Rumbling Hearts is a serious romantic drama for the first four episodes with a heart breaking plot twist at the end of the 4th. The anime then spends the next 10 episodes to tell what it could in four. Thats right, they spend the equivalent of six episodes, that is haft a season, on random anime shit that contributes little to nothing to the plot. Why do they do this? Cause anime fans love it when they see a "17" year old girl in a maid outfit yell at people telling them to step in cat poop...

It was from this anime that I coined the term, "It would be a great anime if it wasn't for the fact that it was an anime."

Luckily, my friends enjoy watching anime with me. This is only because I see through their eyes and recognize when bad things are bad. In fact, I fucking call out when the bad is bad. If you are ever in the same room as me and I am watching an anime that I do not consider to be good, you will get an endless amount of entertainment from said anime solely on the fact that I am non stop tearing it a new one. This is the only way I can get my friends to watch Bleach past episode 15.

Thus I have coined the term Anime Yeller. I believe this best describes what kind of anime fan I am. I yell at bad anime while watching it because making fun of it is the only way I can get enjoyment out of bad anime, and since all anime is bad, I tend to yell at every anime I watch.

I love and respect anime to death, but god damn it is it hard to defend it.

Powerglove

For those who don't know who these guys are, Powerglove is a heavy metal band that focuses on retro video game and Saturday morning cartoon music. These guys will perform anything from Tetris to the old X-Men intro from the 90's. Needless to say these guys fucking rock, but not because they play VG Metal.

The other night I saw these guys live at Jaxx Nightclub in West Springfield, VA on their tour with Mutiny Within and Sonata Arctica. Yes, Sonata Arctica was beyond godlike, but thats a fact of life and I don't like writing posts about things people already know.

To say the least, Powerglove's stage presence is absolutely phenomenal. Two of the four members sported shoulder pads that resembled those fucking blue shells (it is illegal to mention the fucking blue shells without a curse word, true fact) while the drummer had two samurai banners mounted to his back. For their Mortal Kombat song, they threw inflatable bats into the crowd and demanded moshing. If that wasn't enough, right before their cover of Storm Eagle from Megaman X, the lead singer went on a small tangent about said level.

"Now, the next song is Storm Eagle from Megaman X. I don't know how many of you have played it, but in the very beginning of the level the first enemy was a mechanical bird that would grab you and drag you into a pit. I died to this bird many times and it made me sad."

He then proceeds to pull out a bird hand puppet.

"I, along with the rest of us here, really fucking hate that bird. So when the song starts on the count of 2, I want each and everyone of you to shout out "FUCK THAT BIRD!""

The entire room followed their request and began to express their deep seeded hatred for that fucking bird for the entirety of the song.

Unfortunately I was with my friend John who was in the bar section in the back side of the room during their entire performance, but from what my other friend Dom was saying, their drummer was absolutely ridiculous.

If these guys are ever in your town, do not hesitate to attend their show. No matter how much money they are charging, it will be worth every single penny.

Oh, and if I haven't sold you already, they sell their album in a PS2 case, nuff' said.

Sim Terra Part 5: Lvl 1 Prot Warrior LFG Onyxia's Lair, PST!

I got to role play as a gecko minion. With a flail and dagger in hand I ran around with a raspy voice getting owned by player characters. By far the most fun I had at the event.

The player characters drove off the geckos and there was talk going around that the war had ended. Many player characters were dressed in formal attire and celebrating. About an hour into the festivities Micha gathered everyone around.

She informed everyone that those who had ANY sort of adaptation in magic felt a great disturbance in the force. Not long after the feeling of trillions of voices yelling in agony then suddenly going quiet passed, every player character felt a sudden burst in heat and loud crashing from outside the gate getting louder and louder.

From the distance we can only see a giant ball of fire. Soon we are able to make out that a giant...no that doesn't give it justice...a gargantuan komodo dragon covered in flames is marching towards the city with no signs of slowing down. We are informed that the geckos have summon their god, or rather what they believe to be their god to come in to our home and wreck up the place. The deity crashes through the city walls which have protected Venthos for countless years and begins to have a field day. The cities greatest are soon to react as the monster is rooted to the ground by group of powerful dryads to prevent it from getting farther into the city. Geckos are seen at the feet of the dragon trying to un-root it.

The players are then given two options; repel the geckos trying to release the dragon or to attack the head to kill the thing. Deciding to only fight with my penis lance because I did not get a chance to use it yet, I choose to fight the geckos because it seemed that I would be of more use there. BOY WAS I WRONG!

The geckos attempting to free the dragon on average swung for 3. 3! On AVERAGE! Which means they were often times throwing 4! After about 5 minutes into the battle my spear was destroyed and the only player character that went to fight the geckos who could repair was killed much sooner. Having been given a buff before the encounter that allowed me to see things in the ethereal realm, I pulled out my knife and stuck with the healers and tried to spot out potential sneak attacks.

And then a TIMEOUT was called...and it wasn't from the players. It was from the NPCs near the leg.

"OK, THE TAIL OF THE DRAGON IS SWINGING! WHEN TIME IN IS CALLED, GLOBAL TRIP AND BODY 3!"

Body 3, for those who are unfamiliar, is damage that armor does not mitigate, and if you are keeping score at home, this means that is kills me...instantly.

Luckily, a healer who survived the tail swipe was able to heal me back up to full. I continued to be a useless raid member for another 5 minutes or so when another TIMEOUT was called.

"OK! FIRE SPEWS FROM THE DRAGON'S BACK AND LANDS ALL AROUND HIM! GLOBAL FIRE 4!"

Needless to say I died again, and once again being at the right place at the right time I was healed by someone who had spell blocked the effect. Need to pick that up at some point.

And so I continue to do the same old same old. Eventually another tail swipe is called and I do not have the pleasure of having a healer in my immediate vicinity. One of the geckos walked up to me, severed my head off and "Finish Death" my ass. This means I died. On the first day! What am I, 4?

Eventually the people who attacked the head were able to kill the dragon dead and the geckos scattered for good. The surviving players went off to celebrate while the characters that died had to go through the death mod.

A death mod is a non interactive event where the player characters sit in a room with the lights out and their eyes closed while Micha narrates the events we see when in purgatory. I'm really sad that I am unable to reiterate the narration Micha gave for the death mod, but holy fuck was is amazing. She immerses you in this nightmare of pain and loss that I have never seen done before. Whats even more amazing was that she told me this was her WORST death mod ever! Apparently there have been times where people have asked her to stop the death mod because they are freaked out too much. Personally, I absolutely love deep and dark depressing stories. After being exposed to upbeat anime and mellow drama/emo shit throughout all of high school, tragedy is one of the only types of stories that REALLY get me going. Needless to say I cannot wait until I get a 1 on 1 death mod with Micha. Hopefully i'll be able to retell it here because no amount of praise and explanation can give Micha's death mods justice.

Once the player characters were either revived or permed (killed permanently and turned into a ghost) everyone helped clean up the house and put away the weapons. After that was done most of us trained over to IHOP for a much needed midnight meal.

Thus concluded the Sim Terra event for April 2010. Gotta say this was the most fun I've had probably since MAG Fest. Defiantly gonna try to come back in June for the overnight camp event.

Sim Terra Part 4: Get the Fuck Out of Dodge

When we last left our hero, Slanik (a.k.a. me) was having a very pleasant conversation with the gecko that slew him not 3 minutes ago. How is this possible, you ask? This is the result of killing time during the global TIMEOUT. No one was really sure who called it or why it was called, but everyone was stuck having idle conversation while something somewhere was getting done.

Several minutes after the TIMEOUT was called, Drew walked up and asked for everyone's attention. Drew informed us that we were being kicked out of the public park. Apparently, the local park ranger saw the +50 of us causing a loud ruckus and decided to put a stop to it. He stated that in order to have this kind of gathering/event at the park, the staff needed to contact the park people well in advance. Of course, many of the players objected to this and questioned the park ranger's authority on the matter. I believe there were even a few chants of "Roh! Roh! Fight the Power!" Regardless, no one was able to summon a 12 ft drill from their arm or wanted to get fined for trying so everyone got up from the ground and began repacking all of the equipment into their respective cars.

LATER, AT THE BASE OF OPERATIONS!

So now everyone is at the base of operation, twiddling their thumbs around while the staff run around like madmen trying to figure out how to keep the show going. In the mean time, I begin to try and flesh out my character a little more by interacting with the other characters. I get a lot of "oh, you're a Cryo, aren't you cute." and "Ah you Cryos, always making up stories." responses. Eventually, Drew and Micha gathered everyone around and we all marched to the back woods of the neighborhood. Once we were deep enough into the woods, we were told to assume our positions before the TIMEOUT was initiated.

So, back on the ground, bleeding out I continued my count from 15. Lucky, within 10 seconds a healer came and healed me to full. If I remember correctly, I didn't die for the remainder of that particular mod, which is good for a first timer. I gotta say though, running around killing gecko people while defending my allies with my shield was the most fun I've had in months. I can't describe the thrill of planting myself and my shield tower between a dying gecko and the gecko healer yelling, "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" Yeah I'm a major nerd nerding out over nerdy things. If you can't have fun doing the hobbies that enjoy, then all I have to say to you is that "You're a towel!"

Once we cleared the all the geckos in the area, the staff pulled my group aside. Now it was OUR turn to play as the geckos for the final portion of the encounter. I can already tell this is gonna be fun.

to be continued...

Sim Terra Part 3: People Don't Tell Me Things

Once Drew was done telling the story, we were told that we would be divided into three groups. Two of the groups would hold off the gecko assault while the third would march through the center to destroy the siege equipment that the geckos were bringing in. I joined the group of Commander Leonidas.

The guy who was role playing Leonidas was nothing short of a bad ass. He sported REAL chain mail and had a chin that put Jay Leno to shame. To put it lightly, this guy had moxy and as long as this mother fucker was alive, nothing could possibly go wrong.

After some small talk within the groups, we got in our caravan and headed out to battle. That is to say everyone got in their cars and drove to the park. Once we got to the parking lot of the park, everyone gathered around for the battle plan. During this time, Leonidas assigned me to be apart of the shield wall. Not having a shield of my own, he grabbed one from the pile of staff weapons and threw me in front. Normally I'd be nervous with such responsibility, but god damn that chin invokes courage in people.

When everyone was ready, we all gathered around the camp fire to hear the awe inspiring war speech from Drew's character (I'm really bad with the names). It was at this point that we all discovered Drew's magic powers. During the speech, he spoke about the winds of battle changing. Once he finished that sentence, a massive gust came past us. This wind was so loud that Drew had to stop talking for several seconds. It was kind of awesome.

Once Drew finished his speech, the two other groups went into the forest to "scout". My group was left to wait until the "scouts" have returned. After about 5-10 minutes of waiting, one of the scouts returned with the location of the enemy. We marched for a few minutes and we encountered the geckos.

Now, at this point 20,000 thoughts are running through my head. A lot of it consisting of questions of confusion. In case you don't know or didn't figure it out, the geckos were played by the groups that were scouting. Because most LARPS are under staffed, they like to temporally recruit the players to play as NPCs. There are benefits to this like getting extra gold or exp when playing an NPC. I was unaware of this fact, so when I saw my player character allies as non-player character enemies, I thought that they were killed in battle and raised as gecko zombies...I'm not kidding. This is what happened when people forget to tell me things, I come up with my own solutions and reasons. However, I didn't have too much time to think about it cause these gecko zombie nerds are about to hit me with foam weapons and I need to make sure they don't hit the peeps behind me.

Remember how I said Leonidas was a bad ass and that if he was alive everything would be hunky dory? Yeah about that...he died...a lot. It wasn't till later that I found out that Leonidas' has been around for years and has ONLY spent points into HP. That's right, his ENTIRE strategy for battle is to run into the enemy's line, take out 5-10 of em, die, wait for the line to move forward so the healers can revive him so he can repeat the process all over again. Once again, I was not informed of this, so when I saw Leonidas die after pulling a Leeroy, my moral took a pretty big hit.

After about 5 minutes of battle, my character got hit enough that I started to bleed out, meaning I was at no HP and needed a healer to heal me within 30 seconds if I were to continue to fight. After 15 seconds of lying on the ground playing dead, a global "TIMEOUT" was called. Usually this happens when someone loses their glasses and needs to pick them up. Unfortunately, the timeout was called for something a little more serious.

to be continued...

Sim Terra Part 2: Base of Operations

After a quick stop at the near by Subway, we arrived at the base of operations for Sim Terra. It was there we were greeted by many of the other players and game staff. Before I could go out and hit people, I had to register with the game staff. What I did not know is that people who have pre-reg'd/RSVP'd to the event get to cut in front of the people who have not, a.k.a.: me. After about 5 minutes of having folks cutting in front of me I decided to just wait out the line on the couch.

It was during this time that I though up of a character for myself. A little background info about the world of Sim Terra. Sim Terra takes place in a post apocalyptic world set in the future. If you think Fallout, then you are on the right track. Guns are very few and far between, it is a lost technology. Even the people of highest intelligence barely know how a cannon work, let alone a jet airplane. The world is filled with elves, trolls, goblins, lizard-men and pretty much any sort of were-[insert animal here]. Oh and there is magic, don't ask me how or why. It's just there and anyone can learn it.

One of the great things about Sim Terra is that it is set up so that new people can play characters called "Cryos". If you think Fry from Futurama, then you have the basic idea of what a Cryo is. A person with a terminal illness who has been preserved in time in a Cryo-chamber. The idea is that in the future they will have developed a cure for your said illness. Again, think 80's Guy from Futurama.

For my character, I took elements from previous characters that I've RP'd in the past. I recycled the name Slanik, which is the name I give any character that is/acts like a Dwarf. I also gave him my high pitched Irish voice. Think leper con but without the pot of gold and the 2 ft tallness. A quick background story of osteoporosis (Boneitus) and I was set to interact with the rest of the world.

After about an hour or so of idle in game chit chat, the GMs, Micha and Drew, gathered everyone around to tell us the story thus far.

Before I get into the story, i'm gonna talk about Micha and Drew for a bit. These two are the brain child of Sim Terra. From what I heard from second hand stories, Micha and Drew met each other at a different LARP, got together, had some nice brain on brain action and some time later they birthed a new LARP and called it Sim Terra. Both Micha and Drew are fantastic RPers and terrific people and I have nothing but good things to day about them. And I'm not just saying that cause they have access to this website. Oh, and Micha is possibly the hottest nerd I have ever met and I want one.

Anyway, back to the story.

The city of Venthos has been under siege by the Sera Kera (Gecko People) for over a year now. The war has been long and brutal and there have been many casualties. However, the Sera are starting to become desperate. They have never in their entire history have a war last this long. They are running out of resources and soldiers. They will not be able to survive another year if this continues. Scouts have reported that the geckos are assembling for a final assault on Venthos. They are gathering every single unit they have for this last act of desperation. The entire war will be decided on this final day. Today is that day.

to be continued...

Sim Terra Part 1: Nerds With Foam Weapons

Last Saturday, I, along with my friends Mark, Scotty and Thompson, drove out to participate in the Sim Terra event. Sim Terra, for those of you who don't know, is a LARP. Thats right, LARP, LIVE ACTION ROLE PLAYING. The shit that you only hear about from your geekiest of geek friends. Nerds getting together, dawning their elf ears and foam axes in order to do battle against what ever mythical evil threatens the world. I would be joining them for the next 12 hours or so.

The week before the event, Mark helped me craft myself a "spear" for the battles to come. After about 3 hours of work, 5-6 ft of 1/2 inch PVC pipe, some foam covering and A LOT of duck tape, I had myself a spear that looked like a giant penis....I'm not kidding. It wasn't silly enough that I was hitting people with a large foam object. No, I had the luxury of yelling at people during combat, "Watch out for my penis." "Better dodge my penis." "Get your hands off my penis." I was getting a lot more entertainment out of then than I think I should have.

Every Friday afternoon at GMU, several people at the table who have LARPed before and have a plethora of weapons bring them for people to spar with. This has been going on since the Fall 09 semester and has been fairly popular among the people at The Table (The Table is an area on the bottom level of Student Union Building 1 where nerd people like myself go to hang out). For this week, I would be testing out Ron Jeremy's Trident. At 5.5 ft long with 1/2 in PVC pipe as the core the thing wiggles around like no tomorrow, which makes for some interesting combat tricks (and penis jokes). After about half an hour of playing with foam weapons I had a good feeling about my ability to use my penis in combat and was getting hype for the next day. Before I went to bed, I realized I had to do SOMETHING about the fact that my spear looked like a giant shlong. Grabbing my yellow acrylic paint, I slapped on a smiley face on the head of the weapon so people will notice that rather then the shape of my weapon.

On the car ride over to the GM's house where the base of operations was, I got to see Thompson's weapon for the first time. Strait the fuck up, he uses King Dedede's hammer. The thing was as long as my spear but 6 times as heavy and probably was constructed with 20 times as much duck tape. It is the most unwieldy thing you will ever see. How Thompson uses it is rather unique, much like everything he does. He has developed his character to be able to channel a magic enchant to his weapon that allows it to break other weapons on contact. This means Thompson's ENTIRE fighting style is to just stand there, hold his hammer and egg you on to hit the hammer. DON'T HIT THE HAMMER!!!

(The lobster is his dagger weapon...Told ya Thompson is unique)

to be continued...

Marvel vs Capcom 3!

GET HYPE!

Capcom has just announced that they will release Marvel vs Capcom 3 next spring for the Xbox 360 and PS3. From the trailer, it looks like it will look near identical to Tatsunoko Vs Capcom for the Wii, which is a pretty awesome fighting game.

Hopefully they'll put more time into the balancing the characters this time around. No more of these Magneto infinites and teams only consisting of Magneto, Storm, Psylock, Cable and Sentinal.

Full page of info at iplaywinner:

http://iplaywinner.com/news/2010/4/20/captivate-2010-marvel-vs-capcom-3-game-details-and-artwork.html