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Burps Reunicon Games

So what games did I play that day...

Well there was a choice and I got to play the following:

EarthAD.2 - A near future post Nuclear war RPG with a great 'Alien' style adventure with creatures running around the aircon dusts in that really scary horror setup.

AD&D - A classic dungeon hack'n'slash in desert.

And to finish with a modern Call of Cthulhu Naval adventure with character with the highest stats i have every seen.

The day after BURPS Reunicon...

Waking up after the late dash back from Brighton it was time to think back to the day before (and the drinking on friday - which is a bit blurry).

I was only in BURPS for 1 academic year but it was a life changing year. The people I meet there I still see today (fairly) often.

All of the CON-goers have probably stumbled in and out of the King and Queen at some point and it was great to get the big round table in the pub. After sinking the usual pints of Guinness we all took a trip down memory lane and headed for the all-night Market Cafe where much needed fried food was consumed.

Arriving a little late to the STEAM room the games had not started but there was good choice of games and I thank the GM's for the time they put in writing and running the games.

I had the choice of systems most of which i have never played but plumped for Derek's near future post-holocast RPG, a 1st Ed Ad&D dungoen hack and CoC NOW! adventure.

The venue was great with hot drinks and a shop next door.

Next installment - the games...

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Salute Zero Six

Wandering around the web the other week I came across an advert for Salute Zero Six. Many years ago this Wargames convention was held in the Kensington Town Hall, which was a tight maze of rooms packed with stalls and gaming tables. So this year I was surprised to see that they had moved to the huge conference centre ExCel in London’s Docklands.

Wandering down the lobby of ExCel the other neighbours were the Home Show and the entry for the London Marathon so there was a real mix of fit athletes and not so fit Wargamers!

Walking into the huge hall I never thought there were so many figure manufacturers. With lots of space the usual squash of the crowd is spread. It looks like the attendance is high with the bring and buy very busy.

I have not pushed figures across a table for a few years, my Napoleonic English army is languishing in its toolbox home but it interesting to see what the current trends are in the wargame world. There seem to be a big push towards World War 2 games with a large scale demo game showing the landing at Normandy.

Also with more space it allows more live action demonstrations including the a medieval combat demo and real life cannon. Other larger than life demos included a massive Star Trek game and a ‘Black Hawk Down’ game.

GENCON � �The best 4 days of Gaming� or is it?

GENCON is for those have never been is one of the biggest gaming conventions in the UK. Which really means that it is 4 days of game playing geeks letting their hair down and playing games for 24 hours a day

My history at goes back at least 10 years to when the location at the holiday camp at Camber Sands. The games would take over the whole camp and it was not usually to see a fur clad barbarian talking to Gothic Vampire. Over the next years the convention has move around the country till this year it ended up in Bognor Regis Butlin’s holiday camp.

The convention has changed over the last few years with the change of organisation, from a committee of gamers, to being run by Wizards of the Coast (WotC) producer of the card game Magic:The Gathering and then back to a small events company. When WotC was running it, it was well funded and attracted good attendances. This year however is the smallest I have seen it with most of the action in one hall.

My attendance dropped to, I used to pack my sleeping bag and stay the whole 4 days, but now I make a day trip to see what is new and catch up with friends I only see at GENCON.

So what was new? Well I got to play the German Game of the year 2005 Niagara a game designed to send your gem carrying canoe over the edge of a waterfall – the great thing about this is that they use the box of the game to create the waterfall.

I got to play some other games and chatted to some old friends and decided finally at 2am to hit the road back home, tired but having enjoyed my day out

Sengir

Revolver � The new Guy Ritchie film

After missing all the showings during the day because we were too lazy to jump in the car for the ten minute trip to the local UCI to the watch this film. So we finally dragged ourselves to the multiplex for the late showing and found the usual empty queue at the ticket office. Looking for a seat we had a huge choice, I counted about a dozen people trying to make the rows of empty seats look full.

So onto the film. I had not seen much about the film, a few clips in the trailers but I don’t usually read any reviews because I hate to know what happens in a film. Well to me it was a film about colours; the main character was Mr. Green. Green is supposed to be in the middle of the colour spectrum or so Guy Ritchie says! The rest of film seems to have colour themes, the Japanese Gang is in red and the Mob seemed to be in gold. The strangest colouring is the Ray Liotta in animal skin speedo’s in a blue tanning room – very strange.

The first half of the film is classic Ritchie, nicely shot, tight camera work with great action and I sat there thinking great film but this began to slide in the second half when all the mind games started up. The action scenes were still great; the nerd assassin is an interesting character.

So where did it go wrong? Mind games that’s where it went wrong. Trying to make sense of someone’s screwed up mind is never easy in a film. There are a couple of scenes that REALLY don’t work in the film and leaves you wondering about Ritchie’s state of mind.

To me it was a 3 out of 5 film. Take away the mind games and it was a reasonable gangster film on par with Snatch and Lock Stock.

My last comment was the credits, not to spoil them but they were the strangest I have seen in a long while

Sengir