In the United States, the last Monday in May is Memorial Day, a national holiday set aside to remember and recognize fallen military personnel.

Originally Decoration Day, the holiday came into being to celebrate Union soldiers that sacrificed their lives to preserve the country. First celebrations were actually held by freed slaves in the South to celebrate their emancipation. The name was not officially changed to Memorial Day until 1967.

The day was so synonymous with the Civil War that veterans of the First World War received their own day of recognition, Armistice Day (now Veterans Day). It has since grown to not only recognize the dead but to thank the living who still serve. Many cities and towns hold parades, dedicate streets in a person’s honor (Boston has 1,230 “hero squares”), hang wreathes, and plant flags at cemeteries.

If you don’t see these kinds of things in your area, perhaps you should consider beginning the effort yourself. Remember those who fell so you might stand.

Civil War: 625,000 dead, 281,881 wounded (Union only)
World War 1: 116,516 dead, 2004,002 wounded
World War 2: 405,399 dead, 670,846 wounded
Korean Conflict: 53,686 dead, 92,134 wounded
Vietnam Conflict: 58,209 dead, 153,303
First Iraq Conflict: 382 dead, 849 wounded
Current Conflicts: 5,491 dead, 37,865 wounded

Crogan’s Vengeance by Chris Schweizer

The concept behind Schweizer’s The Crogan Adventures is simple enough. Each volume contains a story of a member of the Crogan family. The tale of adventure is used by a present-day Crogan as a means to entertain and teach his kids. This first volume covers “Catfoot” Crogan, a pirate in the Caribbean at the start of the 18th century…

Catfoot is a seaman aboard a merchanter, with a cruel and petty captain who holds a grudge from Cromwell’s day against the Crogans. In fact the pirates that attack come just as Catfoot is being hung on false charges of mutiny. So young Crogan is more than willing to sign on with the pirates alongside the rest of his crew. After that its clever plans to sieze a treasure ship, sword fights and desperate battles. Good stuff…

PART ONE

Hey, Alex the Producer here. Luke from the Podgecast and I have been wanting to blog about our ongoing Solium Infernum game for a while now and figured we’d give it a go. Don’t expect a post very often; if we get one done every week or so, I’ll be more than happy.

Okay, what is Solium Infernum? It’s a PBEM turn-based game made by Vic Davis of Cryptic Comet in which the players take on the roles of devils in Hell. The infernal throne is vacant due to mysterious circumstances, and it’s up to the remaining devils to war over the inferno to determine the next big man.

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After a stunning cliffhanger ending in Episode 23, will we finally learn The Jackal’s Top Ten?  Or will Alex and David continue to argue while Jonathan just sits back and shakes his head?  The quick answer: Yes.

There’s not a lot more to add here, but it may be worth noting that Jonathan has picked up Red Dead Redemption for the 360.  While we’ll no doubt be talking about that in Episode 25, if you want to posse up with The Holmberg, his gamertag is StingRayO2.

Enjoy!

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Killraven written and drawn by Alan Davis, inks by Mark Farmer, colors by Gregory Wright, letters by Pat Prentice

Killraven was a 70s-era character from Marvel’s Amazing Adventures whose concept involved a world conquered by Wells’ Martian invaders. When Davis was asked by then Marvel EiC what character he’d like to work on he responded with John Carter. But since Burroughs’ properties were owned by another company Davis was asked if he’d be willing to use a different sword-swinging human who fought Martians…

Davis’ art is, as always, spectacular. Ex-slave rebels in near fetish gear, mutants, costumed bandits or alien war machines. Alan Davis makes them all jump off the page. The story is a fun call-back to old-school post-apocalyptic sci-fi stories…

Gotta hand it to those people at Google. This is a great idea for celebrating the Pac’s 30th anniversary. Here’s my score after one play through. See if you can beat it!

As the final project in one of my classes I chose to do a multi-part, multi-genre exploration on Games & Art. Where do they intersect? Do they intersect at all? What ramifications emerge? I decided this on Tuesday, April 13th.

Three days later, Roger Ebert made a proclamation that video games, no matter how they try, can never be art. The Internet exploded, as the Internet is wont to do.

I initially thought, “Great! Plenty of research material.” Then I realized that my space in the discussion was quickly shrinking. With so many people writing about, responding to, rebutting and rebuking Ebert, where could my voice fit in? Where would I be able to carve out a niche that wasn’t just a repetition of someone’s already published opinion?

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We open up the show with some talk about the in-house changes at the Way of the Game.  The brief rundown has been covered in a few different places.  I’ll just write here that if you’re subscribed via the gamelocus.net feed, you’ll want to transition over to http://thewayofthegame.net/ as the June 30 WotG will be the last episode released on the GLN feed.  We’ll drop reminders in the show and the feed as time goes on.

Next up, games this week:  Alex plays some FFXIII, Jonathan finally cracks open Heavy Rain, and David talks about his newfound love for Halo: ODST.

And that’s right, David is back with us.  Our discussion in episode 22 ran longer than intended, and we didn’t get the opportunity to grill David on his Top Ten.  Due to time constraints, we still don’t grill him on his Top Ten, but David does have some great honorable mentions we get into.  Next week we’ll have his Top Ten (for real this time), and you can also head over to our forums for a sneak peek and to contribute your own.

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I Kill Giants written by Joe Kelly, art & design by JM Ken Niimura

Barbara Thorson is a champion. She kills giants and keeps everyone safe. Or she’s a young girl who’s going crazy from avoiding the horror that lives in her home…

I Kill Giants is about grief and avoidance and desperation wrapped in childhood. It’s a morose fairy tale that still manages a happy ending. And giants…

We have a special guest this episode: The Great Mr. Chibi!  David has been a guest on a few different podcasts, most recently the Up! episode of Back Seat Producers.  He’s an art student, and we’ve brought him on to help us discuss the Games As Art issue, such as it is.

We talk about a ton of stuff, and Jonathan (who’s writing these show notes) is swamped with finals, so the show notes are going to be a bit light, even if the show is full of topics.

Here’s some of the inspiration for this episode:

• Venezuela
• Switzerland
• Australia
  • Zombie Protest
  • Atkinson steps down
• “Conclusively” proven study about game violence being bad for children
• Roger Ebert strikes again
• Supreme Court takes on video game regulation case.

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