Gamers Con: The First Zak Steepleman Novel by Dave Bakers Page B
Authors: Dave Bakers
Tags: Fiction
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James, and then I held the gun straight.
Stared along the sight.
15
I GOT LUCKY.
The first game that fired up was Zombie Harvester III .
Though I’d never played Zombie Harvester III on an arcade machine—not even with the gun peripheral on my Sirocco 3000 . . . did I mention that serious gamers never use peripherals?—I found my feet quickly.
We were on the final level, taking part in a customised scenario.
On the top floor of Pentwhistle Mansion , the part where you have to face off with a bunch of demented—possessed?—puppets.
The strategy is simple.
You’ve gotta shoot at the cords.
Take those down and you get a flat two or three seconds, while the puppet sprawls about on the floor, to shoot them like little baby ducklings.
Like little demon baby ducklings, make no mistake.
The only minor difference—what made this a customised edition—was that there seemed to be about twice the number of puppets as usual.
It was a bit of a mindless mod, to be honest.
But I guess that it would throw a couple of the less-experienced gamers.
As I flushed out the puppets, I thought about how there’re often message-board arguments over whether or not Zombie Harvester III is superior to its sequel, Zombie Harvester IV .
As for me?
I guess they both have their merits.
The story of Zombie Harvester IV is certainly better—a little more global in scale—and there’s that great part where you actually get to hop onto a combine harvester and mow over an entire field’s worth of zombies.
Then again, there are those who like to argue for Zombie Harvester III because of the more claustrophobic feel to the game . . . wow, look at me, maybe I’d already been spending too much time with Kate, and her extended vocabulary had begun to rub off on me.
Whatever, I was seriously donning Zombie Harvester III —just flat killing the whole thing.
I didn’t even think to glance at my points at the side of the screen till I reached the victory screen for that particular scenario.
My points had a comma in them, and a whole bunch of zeroes.
When I glanced around, getting that skin-itching sensation that somebody was looking over my shoulder, I saw Steve—clipboard in hand—clicking his tongue . . . apparently impressed.
He met my eye for the briefest second, scrawled something down on his clipboard, and then wondered along to the next player: this guy who looked like he was maybe in his mid-thirties and who was already sweating all over the place.
Another four games followed.
All of them ones that I’d played before.
I really didn’t have to think at all.
The peripheral gun just became an extension of my hand.
I lined up the shots, fired them off.
Bagged the points.
Nothing else to it.
Several times, as we finished up each of the games, I noticed Steve behind me.
Though I wouldn’t say that his features lit up, he certainly looked somewhat positive . . . which was to say not quite neutral . . . as he scrawled down the numbers beside my name.
With that done, I holstered my plastic gun and went over to where Steve was processing the results for the First Round.
As we all stood around, I noticed James come up beside me.
He clapped me on the shoulder, almost laughing.
It was funny. Looking around the rest of the faces, to the other gamers, I saw that they were pretty much all wracked with tension, some of them biting their fingernails, others pacing back and forth, only pausing to glance up at the plasma screen to see if Steve had put up the results yet.
Finally they did come.
There was a collection of gasps and swearwords.
All around.
Sitting there, right at the top, tied for first place, was me and James.
James had got the top spot because of his first name . . . because J comes before Z in the alphabet . . . but both our rankings did read first.
So that was something.
Steve read out the summary, told us just who had gone through.
The top five gamers of our group.
I looked about
Stared along the sight.
15
I GOT LUCKY.
The first game that fired up was Zombie Harvester III .
Though I’d never played Zombie Harvester III on an arcade machine—not even with the gun peripheral on my Sirocco 3000 . . . did I mention that serious gamers never use peripherals?—I found my feet quickly.
We were on the final level, taking part in a customised scenario.
On the top floor of Pentwhistle Mansion , the part where you have to face off with a bunch of demented—possessed?—puppets.
The strategy is simple.
You’ve gotta shoot at the cords.
Take those down and you get a flat two or three seconds, while the puppet sprawls about on the floor, to shoot them like little baby ducklings.
Like little demon baby ducklings, make no mistake.
The only minor difference—what made this a customised edition—was that there seemed to be about twice the number of puppets as usual.
It was a bit of a mindless mod, to be honest.
But I guess that it would throw a couple of the less-experienced gamers.
As I flushed out the puppets, I thought about how there’re often message-board arguments over whether or not Zombie Harvester III is superior to its sequel, Zombie Harvester IV .
As for me?
I guess they both have their merits.
The story of Zombie Harvester IV is certainly better—a little more global in scale—and there’s that great part where you actually get to hop onto a combine harvester and mow over an entire field’s worth of zombies.
Then again, there are those who like to argue for Zombie Harvester III because of the more claustrophobic feel to the game . . . wow, look at me, maybe I’d already been spending too much time with Kate, and her extended vocabulary had begun to rub off on me.
Whatever, I was seriously donning Zombie Harvester III —just flat killing the whole thing.
I didn’t even think to glance at my points at the side of the screen till I reached the victory screen for that particular scenario.
My points had a comma in them, and a whole bunch of zeroes.
When I glanced around, getting that skin-itching sensation that somebody was looking over my shoulder, I saw Steve—clipboard in hand—clicking his tongue . . . apparently impressed.
He met my eye for the briefest second, scrawled something down on his clipboard, and then wondered along to the next player: this guy who looked like he was maybe in his mid-thirties and who was already sweating all over the place.
Another four games followed.
All of them ones that I’d played before.
I really didn’t have to think at all.
The peripheral gun just became an extension of my hand.
I lined up the shots, fired them off.
Bagged the points.
Nothing else to it.
Several times, as we finished up each of the games, I noticed Steve behind me.
Though I wouldn’t say that his features lit up, he certainly looked somewhat positive . . . which was to say not quite neutral . . . as he scrawled down the numbers beside my name.
With that done, I holstered my plastic gun and went over to where Steve was processing the results for the First Round.
As we all stood around, I noticed James come up beside me.
He clapped me on the shoulder, almost laughing.
It was funny. Looking around the rest of the faces, to the other gamers, I saw that they were pretty much all wracked with tension, some of them biting their fingernails, others pacing back and forth, only pausing to glance up at the plasma screen to see if Steve had put up the results yet.
Finally they did come.
There was a collection of gasps and swearwords.
All around.
Sitting there, right at the top, tied for first place, was me and James.
James had got the top spot because of his first name . . . because J comes before Z in the alphabet . . . but both our rankings did read first.
So that was something.
Steve read out the summary, told us just who had gone through.
The top five gamers of our group.
I looked about
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