I have to admit that the rules (or at least the procedural flow) isn't being made explicit.  

Two new tanks are rolling out to the field of battle in Warhammer Online during a two-week long Heavy Metal event that began yesterday.  The Empire Knights of the Blazing Sun are the veritable poster children for WAR, while the Dark Elf Black Guards have enough spikes on their armor to serve shishkabab at a Chaos warhost high school reunion.  But to be fair, both look downright gaudy in their peacock-plumage of overlapping metal plates, curvy spikes, and thickened feathers.

But how you get your hands on one of these bad boys, exactly -- that's what's not being made explicit.  The press release simply instructs people to "successfully complete the quests associated with the Heavy Metal event" to be given week-early access to the two new classes.  Well, after logging in this evening, I found no further instructions on how to unlock this new class.  I'll admit, I'm still having too much fun setting the roof on fire with my Bright Wizard, Pitchfork, but that doesn't mean I don't want a peek at these two guys that are crashing the party in such a high-profile manner.

Trashing enemy players at the Reikland Factory -- a new realm vs. realm scenario opened up especially for this Heavy Metal event -- is the only breadcrumb I've stumbled across.  And after playing through Reikland Factory a few times with Pitchfork (scoring 3rd, 4th, and 7th in number of kills -- not bad for being 5th level when 10th level players are on the field, and doubly not bad when there's about 25 people duking it out), I'm still feeling no closer to completing the "quests associated with the Heavy Metal event." 

I'll keep eyes and ears (not to mention a few scalps) peeled. 

EDIT:  A-ha.  I guess when it comes to the Warhammer Online site, I'm not so much with the reading.  Here's what I've found to answer my own question:

"When the Heavy Metal live event begins on November 18th, players who log into WAR will see a new tab in the Tome of Knowledge. Clicking on this tab will open the Live Events page, where each day we'll place a new daily task. Completing these daily tasks earns influence, just like you'd earn in a public quest. There are rewards for Basic, Advanced and Elite influence, culminating in the ultimate prize: the chance to play WAR's new classes a full week before they're released to the public! This last reward won't be easy to earn, and players who want to get to the Elite level will need to log in each day and complete on the daily event."

Very well then.  Question answered.  Crisis averted.

War?  War is everywhere.

All this talk about Wrath of the Lich King made me pine for some good ol' massively-multiplayer online action.  So I picked up Warhammer Online.  I ain't got time to level to 70 in World of Warcraft in order to enjoy the new expansion, and I'm digging my fingernails into my skin -- itching for something fresh.  And all I can manage to disclose from my first infantile steps into the world WAR is that -- wow -- this bad boy is deep.

I went into the character creation screen blindfolded.  I haven't read a novel, haven't watched a trailer, and haven't rolled a single die in the name of Games Workshop's tabletop-to-online role-playing game.  But the introductory video had me at "Hello! Who's that crazy Johnny Blaze dude breathing fire on everyone?!"  So it was love (and immolation) at first sight.  They're called Bright Wizards, eh?  I like the play on words, because I bet they're really smart, too.

I prepare to step for the first time into the Age of Reckoning.  I reckon that I've already got the torches, so I name him "Pitchfork" and get ready to riot.  And even though Pitchfork the Incredibly Smart and Bright Wizard is on the side of Order (vs. Chaos), I bet there's some disorderly conduct I can throw at an enemy that's just dying for some crispy critter time. 

Now everything looks all jim dandy from a high-fantasy perspective, but I hear explosions slamming into the hillsides the second I appear in the gameworld.  The Chaos warhost has arrived pretty much just now and the small hamlet I spawned into is getting pummelled with zipping cannonfire.  I'm pretty sure I can hear the debris raining down where I stand as well.

So while I'm much more naturally an explorer and one who takes their time jaunting through the countryside at a leisurely Hobbit's pace, I'm suddenly feeling like, y'know, I might be in the middle of a serious conflict here.  The starting missions aren't neccessarily any more complex in nature than any other MMO, but they feel unmistakably relevant to the war effort.  I'm saving people from burning cottages.  I'm rallying farmers that have long since turned their swords into plowshares.  I'm stiffening the weak spines of militia members that are suddenly taking on tougher baddies than the town drunk.

I've shown up on a front line that doesn't even fully realize the breadth and depth of the enemy forces on its doorstep.  My actions feel like they are making a difference in the war effort; and making a difference is typically a farce that MMO players are used to swallowing.  But I'll be darned if WAR didn't take the battlefield mentality of Tabula Rasa and make it even more integral to the gameplay from the get-go.  No time to admire that vista of the windmill, or the lakeside, or the pine-scented trees, laddy.  Because war?  Apparently it's everywhere.

Three full run-throughs of the Mirror’s Edge demo and I’m finally making a positive contribution to Faith’s “flow” across the urban environment.  It will take a seriously dialed-in player to make the most of developer Dice’s action-oriented non-shooter.  Faith’s movements require a mental remapping of what you’ve come to know and expect of your controller/character movements – even more so than the stellar parkour introduced in Assassin’s Creed.  But nobody ever said this would be like anything I’ve ever played before.

As the protagonist’s name implies, I took many, many leaps of faith across a cityscape that looked starved for de Blob to come along and enliven the pallet with his bouncy, paint-filled body.  The city is physically and culturally drained by the closed-circuit television of big government keeping the street level militantly supervised.  But, through the eyes of the “runners” – couriers like Faith – the city is seen differently.  Instead of pollution and traffic and overpopulation, it’s gleaming towers and sterile geometry and lonely jumps.  Though these runners keep a seemingly regrettable but peaceful existence with the rooftops, their feet never touch ground level.

The whitewashed city is a metaphorical portrayal of what “runner vision” is to couriers like Faith.  Runners don’t necessarily focus on non-essential details.  They focus on ramps, pipes, walkways, railing, billboards, doorways, and crates that get them from A to B.  And the world is painted in varying threat levels.  Safe but accurate routes are blue.  Riskier but typically non-fatal undertakings are swathed in yellow.  Evel Knieval antics are a brilliant red, whose risk and reward are equally yoked.

In the brutally-paced tutorial, Faith has to quickly regain her legs after recovering from an unseen fall during an unmentioned prologue.  On the Xbox 360, taking the high road versus taking the low road when it comes to obstacles is mapped to the left shoulder button and left trigger, respectively.  If the nervous system is to be believed, the left hand’s actions are dictated by the right brain.  And if brain mapping is to be believed, the right brain is able to register random and intuitive movements with relative acuity.  This indelibly taps into the “flow” that the tutorial pings on.  This flow coerces you to not over-think your movements:  To take a holistic approach to the environment, quickly assert fast-moving and otherwise random objects in your path, and intuitively pick a clean racing line up, over, around, and across the rooftops.

The right trigger is an attack.  Based on Faith’s posture it could be a high or low punch, a sliding-into-second-base kick, or a flying kick.  Following brain-mapping logic, the right finger naturally talks to the left brain.  The left brain, giving the instruction to attack, excels at logical, sequential, and analytical thinking.  The left brain is better at looking at parts, as opposed to the whole picture.  So you’ve decided that it‘s a logically stronger move to punch through this law enforcement officer rather than get riddled with bullets.  Your left brain – via your right hand – decides during the approach whether to attack low, high, or from the air, all three options converging onto a singular target.  Or you could hit the X button (with your right thumb), slowing time (giving your left brain the split second it needs to analyze the situation fully), before you hit the Y button (again, with your right thumb) in order to turn the tables on your antagonist with an exactingly-timed disarm maneuver.  He can’t shoot you if he doesn’t have a gun, and he probably – at this early stage anyway – doesn’t have the free-running skills that Faith has.  Threat neutralized.  Good thinking.

Or, perhaps your right brain took over at the last second, scanned the entire rooftop, and synthesized an escape route that would avoid the “blues” (the authorities) altogether.

For a game that requires some strenuous retraining of your hand-eye coordination regarding a videogame controller, it looks – and feels – like Dice has taken the right (and left) approach under full consideration.

Some might say that my “fright reactions” are often at an elevated state.  I’m easily startled by people rounding cubicle corners, I overreact to drivers inching towards my lane in the road, and static electricity in particular makes me jump back inordinate and embarrassing distances.  Those things may all be true, but I prefer to re-label “fright reactions” as “anti-predatory mechanisms.”  I mean, my ancestors didn’t survive billions of years just so that I would suffer cardiac arrest from a fast-moving cubicle farmer balling out of control for the laser printer.

We all like to think that games release some intangible level of endorphins or adrenaline into our bloodstream, relaxing or exciting us in controllable doses.  But Dead Space?  EA’s just-released sci-fi horror game is certainly “exciting,” but in more of an “alarmed response” way than I’m used to drinking up during a videogame.  Onboard the USG Ishimura, I’m experiencing sensory overload – ironically – through sensory deprivation.  Trying desperately to dig through the dark, my pupils are dilating like I’m high on THC.  Straining to categorize between innocuous versus dangerous sounds, I can practically feel my cochlea throbbing in my inner ear.  My mouth is going dry, presumably to keep my unblinking eyes from drying up and perma-gluing my contacts to my cornea.

Gee, other than that, I’m great.  While I’m feeling the chemical reaction from being “thrilled” from the expected cat-jumping-out-of-the-closet tricks, the auditory frights are on par with anything being thrown at me visually on the screen.  Perhaps the audio is so frightening because I have so little control over it.  In the game, when a violently-disfigured Necromorph is plodding towards me, I can (sometimes, definitely not always) fall back, rapidly assess the situation, hone my target, and saw off a limb with a prize-winning gunshot.  And I could do this with far less panic if I decided to cheat myself, mute the volume, and nullify the $60 I just dropped at Software Etc, sure.  But it’s that volume.  The volume that pours horrible ambient sounds into my ears.  And the volume of darkness poured into the set pieces making the blood pulse through my ocular veins.

Dead Space is, and already has, set off a disturbing number of dormant anti-predatory mechanisms in my brain.  This, coming from a guy that’s already beset with daily elevated fright reactions.

[Sean Nack's a good guy.  He doesn't mean to show me up as much as he does.  But when I came out with "Alternative Theme Songs For Winter Games" (two of which was eaten by internet ether) he devised a Top 5 list of his own.  Here it is. - Randy]

There are a lot of lists. Especially in our community, everyone has their "Top 5" lists, or their "Best Ever" lists. All that's well and good, but how many times can you read "Top 5 Hottest Characters" or "Most Influential", or the ever popular "Coolest"?

I have nothing against lists in general, but what about we try a list that might actually help you out a little bit? How about a list that might change your perspectives, alter your perceptions, and maybe, just maybe, help you get in the proper frame-of-mind for a few of the most anticipated games of the year? Prepare yourself for the next contender for the "Best Lists List": the Top 5 Books to Get You In The Mood…wait for it…For New Games.

Yes, you read that correctly. I said books. I'm an old-fashioned guy, ladies and gentlemen, and I firmly believe in the power of the written word to transform a person, and even to prepare you for the types of situations you'll encounter in the next few months. So grab a book (they're square-ish, made largely of paper, you may be familiar), curl up on the couch (honestly, what else do you have to do this month?) and get your literature on:

1. Game: Far Cry 2

    Book: The Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad

With as much remorseless violence as you've no doubt dealt out throughout your  videogame career, you surely consider yourself a hardened killer, completely prepared for whatever the African savannah has to dish out. My friends, I  encourage you to e-shoot and e-burn and e-bomb to your heart's content, but  know this: in the real world, violence not only has physical consequences, it  corrodes the soul. In Joseph Conrad's classic tale, based on his actual adventures  in the then-Belgian Congo, the author demonstrates the incredible toll that  violence and the degradation of humanity takes on a man, when his boat is  assigned to head hundreds of miles up-river to retrieve a company rubber  collector who has gone completely insane and set himself up as a god-king in the  African jungle. When  the man is finally overcome by his illnesses, both mental  and physical, his final words are a reflection of his actions, and his own  heart:  all he can see is "the horror…the horror." You may also recognize this plot,  modified quite a bit, in the classic film "Apocalypse Now." After you read this  book, you may find yourself questioning your own actions in the game: how far  into your own heart of darkness are you willing to go?

2. Game: Spore

    Book: Origin of Species, Charles Darwin.

While obviously not as inspired as the previous selection, and certainly tougher to  read, where better to get a strategy for creating and leading your own organism to success than from the man who is most closely associated with evolution? This  book may have ushered in some morally-questionable science, such as that old misconception about "nature, red in tooth and claw", but if reading about  Galapagos finches gives you that one great idea for your creature that makes you  the dominant force in the universe…like I've always said, as of about right now,  there's no place for a great fictional idea than the real world. 

3. Game: Fable 2

    Book: The Black Cauldron, Lloyd Alexander

Thought you saw LOTR coming, didn't you? This one is a personal choice for me,  because, well, I'll put it this way: I hate sword and sorcerer crap. I'm way more interested in the sci-fi end of the business, for one thing, but for another, I read  this book when I was about seven years old, and nothing ever stacked up against  it. What I should say is that this is actually the second of a five part series, and  that the Cauldron creates armies of the undead, blah-blah, but what caused me to  pair the two is the series inimitable hero: Taran, Assistant Pig-Keeper. Much like  your faceless, nameless hero, he was nothing until adventure came along and  claimed him. The tenor of the series is also much different from LOTR, as it takes  itself far, far less seriously, though is still inspired by Welsh mythology, and it's  this mix of the grand and the humorous that makes it a perfect lead-in to Fable 2.

4. Game: Left 4 Dead

    Book: Zombie Survival Guide, Max Brooks.

Ok, so this one is pretty much a gimme. Max Brooks' equally fantastic World War Z is also a valid choice, but the survival guide makes you think  strategically, question the efficacy of your surroundings, and most importantly in  a zombie apocalypse scenario, act defensively. As a person who is actively and  seriously preparing for the zombie apocalypse, the defensive considerations  are paramount in the initial stages, and while you can't change Valve's plan or  weapon load-outs, you can learn to manage your surroundings to your  advantage. Attacked in a two story house? Run up the stairs, create a choke-point,  and plink away. Learn which weapons are most effective in what environments,  and most importantly, take away from your time spent in the imaginary  apocalypse some lessons for the real world.

5. Game: Fallout 3

    Book: Lord of the Flies, William Golding.

I know what you're thinking: where're the nukes, the zombies, the irradiated  monstrosities? Where's my apocalypse? All those things are important to the  scenario, but the theme is paramount, and Lord of the Flies is thematically about  as apocalyptic as anything ever written. William Golding's tale of British  schoolboys trapped on a desert island illustrates perfectly how that most delicate  construction of man, society, fails in the face of our greatest enemy: man. What  keeps us from killing and eating each other, what element is removed when you  have such infamous incidents as Rwanda, the Holocaust, or My Lai? Society's  restrictions on killing. Society and the fickle goodwill of your neighbors are the  only things that keep us recognizably human. What better definition of apocalypse  is there, on a small scale like Lord or a large scale like a post-nuclear wasteland,  than mankind's' loss of humanity?

If I asked you to recall that one Gears of War trailer whereMarcus Phenix runs down a narrow street and shoots at an alien withspidery eyes, you might not have any idea of what I'm talking about. But if I asked you to recall that one trailer with the Donnie Darko version of "Mad World" playing, then I bet you'd know.

If I asked you to remember that one Assassin's Creedvideo where Altair is flicking out his wrist dagger and leaping acrosssome rooftops in slow motion ... that could be anybody's guess.  But ifI asked you to remember that one video scored by UNKLE's "God Knows Your Lonely Souls," then I bet you'd know that one too.

Akiller soundtrack can go a long ways -- longer than its typical 3minutes and 30 seconds during some fleeting cinematic presentation. Here's five games coming out in the next several weeks that couldbenefit from having a memorable song scoring a GameTrailers video. These recommendations are probably only half as apt as Assassin's Creed's, and nowhere even close to as brilliant as Gears of War's.  Nevertheless:

Spore -- "Into the Ocean" from Foiled, by Blue October

Samplelyrics:  "With envy for the solid ground // I'm reaching for the lifewithin me // How can one man stop his ending // I thought of just yourface // Relaxed, and floated into space."

Starting off withpresumably a lightning flash in a mud puddle, your little spore will"flOw" its way up the food chain, eating and evading its way throughthe evolutionary cycle.  Blue October's "Into The Ocean" draws onimagery reaching from the ocean depths to outer space, carrying yourspore from one cradle of life to the next.

Fallout 3 -- "Consoler Of The Lonely" from Consolers Of The Lonely, by The Raconteurs

Samplelyrics:  "Haven't seen the sun in weeks // My skin is getting pale //Haven't got a mind left to speak // And I'm skinny as a rail // Lightbulbs are getting dim // My interests are starting to wane // I'm toldit's everything a man could want // And  I shouldn't complain."

Withmankind bombed back into the Stone Age -- or at least the 1950s -- yourcharacter will emerge from Valut 101 into a Wild West stage setting. The Raconteurs' "Consolers Of The Lonely" has an eagle-eye fortumbleweed details, sung from a bone-dry throat choked withclaustrophobia.

 Left 4 Dead -- "Believe [Moon Version]" from The Sun And The Moon Complete, by The Bravery

Samplelyrics:  "The faces all around me they don't smile they just crack //Waiting for our ship to come but our ship's not coming back // ...Something's always coming you can hear it in the ground // It swellsinto the air with the rising, rising sound // And never comes butshakes the boards and rattles all the doors // What are we waiting for?"

"Believe"engages minor tonalities that stretch heavy-hearted shadows across theground, while the vampiric organ pulls undead clouds across a groaningsky.  And the Bravery's metaphorical tie-ins with the sedentary and thezombified can't be ignored.  Left 4 Dead looks mighty grim, alone inthe dark.

[EDIT:  Urk.  Due to technical difficulties, the Far Cry 2 entry has been chewed up and spit out into the internet ether.  I dunno either.] 

October is going to be difficult for me.  Three games (all, strangely, beginning with the letter "F") are conspiring to turn my head into a Scanners reference.  Fable 2 is out October 21st.  So is Far Cry 2.  And Fallout 3 is out seven days later.  Bollocks!  And money isn't the problem.  Unless you consider the fact that time is money.  Then yeah, money is a big freaking problem.

What a problem to have, I know.  Too many good games on the calendar in the next few months.  Not like this year's that far removed from any other, so I'm trying not to complain too loudly.  2007 was The Best Year Ever^TM in the eyes of so many critics.  And while everyone seems burnt on the whole discussion -- not even wanting to touch the argument whether 2008 is even better (it is) -- I know that I can at least get a solid month out of Spore before my Triple-F game series grabs me by the wrists and, like your brother used to do to you, start slapping you around with your own hands.  ("Why you hittin' yourself, Randy?  Why you hittin' yourself?")

But after messing around with the Spore Creature Creator all afternoon in preparation for Spore's September 7th launch, I think I've come up with the race that's going to populate my seas, savannahs, cities, and outer spaces.  And, with a little luck, somebody else's too, if they like and download the design.  Meet the Minohorse:

Nope, he has no legs.  Since the Creature Creator can animate the Minohorse's movements like a snake, he can amble about just fine though, thank you very much.  And the ram horns are certifiably cool in my personal estimation, while lending a tentacle-fetishized-looking branch to his ancestry.  I had more decorative plates running up his chest and over his shoulders trying to simulate Byzantine armor, but I removed them since that ended up looking like he was wearing a blocky, rectangular bra.  Relegating that plated look to his stomach, waist, and wrists proved sufficient.  I painted him with the shiny, scaley, purply skin in order to hint at a sea-going gene somewhere in the mix, and because purple was a leftover sentiment from wanting to give him a vaguely Roman feel of royalty.  I also stuck him with oversized hands, a too-large head, and not-so-scary eyes so that other Spore players hopefully won't find the Minohorse so intimidating that they won't invite him into their world.  He's herbivorous, by the way, so you'll only know him by the trail of munched fruits and veggies.