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This month is once again time to justify the name of the column. Let's
begin . . .
If there was one thing that I was looking forward to this month, then that
would have the name of Ong Bak. I saw the trailers for this movie, and I
thought it looked pretty good -- but I also felt that they were really
pretentious for comparing Tony Jaa to Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and Bruce Lee...
until I saw the movie.
This guy is really good. The movie eschews even the most basic attempt at a
plot and romance that most martial arts movies make, and it basically seemed
like a portfolio of Mr. Jaa's skills. You know what? That was good enough
for me. If you want a more complete review, check out the one in the movie
section, but if you want to see him in action live, go here
(http://www.ongbakmovie.com/trailers/halftime.html).
If can watch this and you still don't believe that this guy is talented, then you need to come
down here and teach me martial arts.
I mostly came away with three things from that movie: I still love Thai
martial arts, the Thai language reminds me of a weird cross between Hindi
and Chinese, and great things can come in somewhat plain looking packages.
Speaking of crosses between Hindi and Chinese, I was introduced to a game
called Warlords Battlecry III by my brother-in-law. Kind of like Ong Bak,
it seems somewhat no-frills, with no fancy intro or in-game cutscenes that
I've seen. The gameplay is pretty good, and the game itself is fun. It's
as if someone played Warcraft III and said "This game is cool, but this is
how we can make it better." It's an older game with older graphics but that
doesn't really get in the way of it being fun.
It did leave me with a few questions. Dwarves as they are popularized in
modern fantasy were ripped from Norse mythology. Why do they always wear
plaid and have Irish accents? I'm just wondering . . .
Oh yeah, this is a gaming column. Let's see what I have . . .
At the risk of sounding redundant, ninjas are pretty cool. So many
roleplaying games try to integrate them in somehow, and most either fail
spectacularly or make ninjas something other than what they were. If you do
the former, that's somewhat understandable, but why call them a ninja if you
do the latter?
I recently got a chance to read the Legend of the Five Rings treatment on
Ninja ("Way of the Ninja"). In fact, I'll have a chance to read it for a
while, the friend that loaned it to me left town and forgot to get it back.
I'm sure I have some fault in all of this, but I'm writing the column and he
moved away, so I think I can lay the blame solely on him.
Anyway, I was really impressed with the whole thing. Legend of the Five
Rings did a great job capturing Japanese culture in all of the other books
that I've read in that game.
Ninja are no different, and I really appreciate the technical aspect of the
book - while they've officially converted to d20, they recognized that some
of their players might not want to convert their games, so they basically
had rules for both systems in the book.
Even if you don't play the game, if you have some cash, I recommend picking
it up just for the read. Heck, maybe you'll like it enough to give the
whole game a shot. Oh, and don't forget: Don't just be a ninja. You have
to be THE ninja.
Speaking of giving things a shot, Steven King finally finished the Dark
Tower series a bit ago. This allays my fears that he would die before he
wrapped those up, but it means that I still have to find time to finish
reading the series.
"Wizard and Glass" in that series is possibly one of King's best books, next
to Eye of the Dragon and a few things that he hasn't written yet. It's
worth reading all of the books before it, and the books after it are worth
reading just for themselves. That's a whole lot of worth, so I suggest you
stop reading this after the next paragraphand get started on it. I know I
am.
If you have iTunes, look up Collide. I don't think I need to say anything
more about this.
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