High praise from legends.
It’s hard to explain just how much it means to have the immortal John Blanche say nice things about WAR. I imagine only The True Faithful can even hope to understand.
I am dying in London.
I’m in the UK doing a two day European press event. I seem to have contracted SARS while on the flight over, so any interviews you see are fueled by hefty doses of cold medication and lack of sleep. Luckily, they sell codeine over the counter here – as it’s the only thing that stops the ungodly throbbing in my head at the moment.
But enough whining!
The set up we’ve got over here is AWESOME. It’s an EA Games Label event featuring Battlefield Bad Company, Battlefield Heroes, Mass Effect PC, Left For Dead, Mercs II, Battleforge and WAR. It’s really cool to be doing a major PC-dominated show for once. EA is really dedicated to offering great games for the PC platform, which makes me happy.
We’re each set up in a section of the room, with crazy sets (we’ve got a Marshes-of-Madness set) and a GIANT rotating platform in the middle that the press sit on. The platform moves them around to look at each title in order, which is hilariously awesome to see.
Speaking of awesome. Battleforge. Seriously. You want to play this game. The Hickman came back from a corporate event a few months back absolutely RAVING about it and it did not disappoint. Sadly, their demo was not allowed to be recorded – but they let plenty of folks have hands-on time, so hopefully some bright spark will do a really detailed write up.
Also, the Mercs II guys are a hard bunch to follow when you’re doing presentations. It’s worth your time to keep an eye out for video their presentation online in the coming weeks.
Anywho, pics to follow (assuming I remember to actually take some of the venue tomorrow).
Keep your eyes peeled for even more Yurpian coverage over the next few weeks.
Stuck, stuck, stuck…
…in the airport in NYC. The con went really well. Folks had a blast at the booth, we had a lot of fun talking and hanging out with the fans and – if you don’t mind me saying – we rocked the hell out of the AM panel with a hundred screaming lunatics*.
Definitely keep your eyes peeled for videos over at Ten Ton Hammer. Speaking of whom, kudos to the TTH crew who did an absolute first-rate job setting things up. By far the smoothest large-scale presentation we’ve done in months. PLUS, Jeff, Garrett and his super-fox of a wife Padma came through with the New and Improved TTH shirts – which are (if it’s possible) EVEN BRIGHTER than the old ones. With embroidered personalization, I might add.
Ah, the perks of moderate notoriety.
Alas, we are now stuck here at the airport. Paul has disappeared. The Hickman misses his lovely wife and devoted children. Ah, the price of moderate notoriety.
Anywho, enough babbling for now.
* Dear Lunatics,You made The Hickman very happy with your awesome WAAAGHing.
The high point of my week is…
Absolutely fantastic. The Hickman loves it too!
Pssst…
The Hickman, Paul, yours truly AND the Travelin’ WAR Booth-o-Love – all appearing THIS WEEKEND at NY Comic Con. Play some WAR, enjoy some panels, ask some questions, beg The Hickman for an autograph.
Be there, true believers!
Unique Warhammer swag, ahoy!
Sanya Weathers is eBaying her old WAR staff shirts and donating the proceeds to Gamers for a Cure.
These are shirts that are only given to staff members to wear at shows, so there are maybe a hundred of them in the whole, wide world and owning one will DEFINITELY make you the bees knees in the eyes of your fellow WAR fanatics. And fellas – there’s no shame in wearing a ladies shirt. Or so I’m told.
Oh, and EA Mythic is matching the final auction price, so bid with gusto!
First loves.
What was the first video game you LOVED? Not the first one you played, but the one that REALLY convinced you that video games were For You. Arcade, PC, console – anything goes. Feel free to throw your answer into the comments or (even better) write a more detailed post on your own site and link to it in the comments.
My answer:
Growing up, my first PC was a TI-994A. It had a decent assortment of titles available and I spent a lot of time playing games on the good ol’ TI, but while they were fun for short periods of time, I never really got hooked by any of them.
My next PC was an IBM PCjr. While the PCjr was market failure, it DID come with a well-ahead-of-its-time wireless keyboard AND was responsible for the development of the original King’s Quest which IBM had commissioned to show off the PCjr’s graphical and sound capabilities. King’s Quest was fun, but still failed to really capture my attention.
Years passed, our PCs started being used – more and more – for things like homework and keeping track of bills. For a few years, I wound up not playing any new games at all. When I did play them, it was always over at my friend Bill’s house (he had the most tricked-out rig in the neighborhood, so we’d pool money to buy new games to play on his PC).
We played a LOT of duds. We played a lot of decent games as well. But Space Quest IV absolutely blew us away. It was gorgeous – with hand-painted environments that really pushed the limits of what PC graphics could do at the time. It was smart and funny and challenging and a little bit subversive. We started playing it on a Friday afternoon and it became clear that I needed to stay at his house until we were finished. Luckily, Bill and I tore through it over the course of the weekend.
From that point forward, I was hooked on PC games. I still have a particular soft spot for Sierra adventure games (Full Throttle remains one of my favorite games ever) and I was really sad when it became clear that the market had shifted so much that those types of games were going to be harder and harder to develop successfully.
Dear Jon Stewart,
I love you:
Blame The Hickman.
So… as it turns out, there’s a BIT more to the “Bonus Story” from Paris than I initially offered. I excluded it in the interest of my own sanity and to protect the good, decent folk of The Internet from potential mental anguish. Nevertheless, The Hickman wants the Whole Truth to be known and – as we all know – what The Hickman Wants, The Hickman Gets.
Continue reading at your own risk:
What is Warhammer?
At times, its tough to explain exactly WHAT Warhammer is. We can run you through the hard data – army lists, stories from the Old World, poop jokes, etc. – but that only helps a little bit. In the end, you really either know it or you don’t. That being said, there ARE things that can help point you in the right direction.
The good Ms. Flack sent this along earlier today, to help refresh the minds and hearts of The Faithful:
The post was created in 1154 by King Henry II as the chief official in the Exchequer Court, whose purpose was to put the Lord Treasurer and the Barons of Court in remembrance of such things as were to be called upon and dealt with for the benefit of the Crown, a primary duty being to keep records of the taxes, paid and unpaid.
The Exchequer Court is reconstituted every year for the ancient ceremonies of the Rendering of the Quit Rents to the Crown by the City of London at the Royal Courts of Justice. There are three of these; the oldest dating from 1211. In this ceremony, the City of London pays service for two pieces of land: The Moors near Bridgnorth in Shropshire, for which the City must pay two knives, one blunt and one sharp.
The second oldest has been made, entered in the Great Roll of the Exchequer, since 1235. This is for The Forge (forge) in Tweezers Alley, just south of St Clements Dane, near the Strand in London, for which the City must pay six horseshoes and 61 horseshoe nails.
These two Quits are paid together as one ceremony. During the ceremony, a black-and-white-chequered cloth is spread out — it is from this that the word Exchequer derives. These two events are combined with the introduction to the Remembrancer of the City’s newly elected Sheriffs.
The six horseshoes and the sixty-one Nails are themselves over 550 years old, since after being rendered to the Queen’s Remembrancer, they are preserved in his Office and with the permission of the Crown, they are loaned to the Corporation of London to be rendered again the following year.
The Solicitor & Comptroller of the City of London presents the horseshoes and nails and counts them out to the Remembrancer who then pronounces “Good number.” The knives are tested by the Queen’s Remembrancer by taking a hazel stick, one cubit in length, and bending it over the blunt knife and leaving a mark, and the stick is split in two with the sharp knife. This practice stems from the creation of tally sticks where a mark was made in a stick with a blunt knife for each payment counted. When payment was complete the stick was split down the middle, leaving each party with half of the marked stick and creating a receipt (or foil and counter-foil). After the knives are tested the Remembrancer pronounces “Good service”.