Unit creation is a very important aspect of the game, but it is suprisingly simple.
1. Create 4 characters, including 1, and only 1 leader.
2. Write down their names and classes on the unit creation sheet(Downloadable
Here)
3. Go throughout the countryside, wreaking havoc and being overall annoying(Within mission
parameters, at the narrator's discretion).
That's all there is to it. However, this is an amazingly short section, so as a result,
the rest of this page is a shrine to Barry Manilow.
Nice shirt, dude! Barry Manilow has been on the music scene since the early 70's. His
first album was named Barry Manilow, which was later re-named Barry Manilow I
two years later in the 1975 re-issue. Though it was his first album, it still was remarkably
good. Between slow love songs like Could It Be Magic?(Inspired by Chopin's Prelude
in C Minor), Seven More Years, and Oh My Lady, and fast-paced uplifting songs
like Sweetwater Jones, Cloudburst, and Friends, the album easily holds
my interest, and is one of my favorite Manilow albums.
Barry Manilow II was, interestingly enough, his second album. It has several
good songs on it, like the enormous hit Mandy, along with a few lesser-known songs
such as Avenue C and I Want To Be Somebody's Baby. However, the entire album
doesn't seem to have as good a transition between songs as Barry Manilow I. It's
pretty good, but not his best.
Then, along came Barry Manilow:Tryin' To Get the Feelin', his third album,
with a bunch of amazing songs on it. From the melancholy Tryin' To Get the Feelin',
Lay Me Down, and You're Leavin' Too Soon, to the upbeat and amazing
New York City Rhythm, Why Don't We Live Together?, and Beautiful Music
and the slightly bragadocious I Write The Songs, the album knows how to deliver with
great songs. However, like the second album, the transition between songs isn't the smoothest.
Still, a worthwhile buy for anyone interested.
This One's For You was Barry's 4th album. Recently I shelled out the fourteen
bucks to get it on CD, and found it to be a very good use of the money. This One's For You
has just a few of Barry's superbly amazing songs like Riders to the Stars and
Daybreak, but also has several slow-but-enjoyable songs like This One's For You
and Weekend in New England. Interestingly enough, Say the Words on this album
is quite similar to Talk to Me on Here At the Mayflower. Very interesting.
From here we go directly to Barry Manilow LIVE. The cover can be seen below.
I also took the liberty of re-creating the cover using a Lite-Brite
The main reason he has partially-green pants is because I ran out of blue pegs halfway
down the legs. It looks better lighted, but my digital camera didn't like the extra light it
provided, giving Barry an effect better seen on Touched by an Angel.
Anyway, back to the album. As Barry's first "Greatest Hits"-type album, LIVE
only has a couple new songs, which are only on this one album. One of the new songs is called
the Very Strange Medley, and is a medley of a bunch of commercial jingles that he worked
on in some way. The other new song is Just Another New Year's Eve, a song he did special
for people who attended his New Year's Eve concert. The song transition on this album is MUCH
smoother than most of his others. A caveat to those of you buying the album on CD instead of
LP or 8-track(I have both versions):Beautiful Music doesn't show up on the CD.
The next album I have is Barry Manilow-Greatest Hits, which is comprised of
Barry Manilow's Greatest Hits. While most of the songs are quite good, one of the most
over-rated Manilow songs of all time is on this album too:Copacabana. The plot of the
song is something to the effect of the following:
A showgirl named Lola and her bartender boyfriend Tony work at a place known as The
Copacabana. A rich fella' named Rico(Who wears a diamond) calls Lola over to his table.
Tony finds Rico's a bit too interested in Lola, goes to defend her, and gets in
a fight with Rico. While wrestling in the mud and the blood and the beer, one of them pulls
a gun, and shoots the other("But just who shot who?"). After the chorus is repeated three or
four times, we discover that Tony died that night thirty years ago. Lola goes crazy, and
drinks herself half-blind every night at the CopacaDisco. The song ends with the warning "Don't
fall in love".
Very un-Manilow-like, but for some reason is the most popular Manilow song ever. Go
figure. There is also one minor problem in the wording of the song. The line "...But just
who shot who?" is actually grammatically incorrect. Because "Who" is the nominative
form of the relative/interogative pronoun, it shouldn't be used as the direct object, but
rather, as a predicate pronoun, as seen in diagram 1 below.
However, this makes little sense unless either Tony or Rico shot themselves. Instead,
"Whom" should be used, since it is in the objective case. "Whom" could then be used as a direct
object, as seen in the next diagram.
Ah, this makes more sense. Nonetheless, there is one more possibility. If Hooloovoo,
or Hoo for short, of Hooloovoo.com was shot while in the
fray, then it could properly be diagrammed as below.
Of course, changing that one little relative pronoun would result in having to re-write
the verse, to be something like this:
...Rico went a bit too far, and Tony sailed across the bar
Whacked Rico with a broom
Then people heard a "Boom"
There was blood and a single gunshot but just who-shot-whom?
Now let's fast-forward a little bit to 1980, and the album Barry. With all new
songs, this is quite the album. It has several amazing songs, like Bermuda Triangle,
I Made It Through the Rain, and The Last Duet, with Lily Tomlin. A very good
album, with amazing liner notes on the LP version.
Here Comes the Night was released in 1982, and is...shall we say, not his best.
Barry is amazingly talented, but some of his songwriters don't seem to have the same gift
that he has. With only two fifths of the songs on the album written by him, it doesn't
pack the same punch as some of his earlier stuff. It isn't bad, but is one of those
albums you only buy for three songs. Save it for a later purchase.
Greatest Hits II is a very good album, with a lot of his best songs from
several albums, many of which I don't have. With the very best of Here Comes The Night
along wiht a couple very good songs from Barry, it manages to deliver. Half the songs
were written or co-written by Barry himself, and most of the others were done by his regular
songwriters. A much better album, and highly recommended.
Now on to 1985, and near the end of the section. Manilow is another good album,
with songs like In Search of Love, It's All Behind Us Now, and He Doesn't
Care. The album sounds quite '80s, and has a similar feel to the Monkees Pool It!.
Amazing, even though I had to remove the tape from its original shell, place it in a new one,
and dub it to a new cassette before I could use it in my stereo system, because of some annoying
damaged splices.
Here At The Mayflower is Manilow's most recent album, and is quite possibly his
greatest work of all time. It's got AMAZING song transition, some of the best songs he
has ever done, and he even brings back some of his old songwriters like Marty Panzer, Jack
Feldman, and Bruce Sussman. These elements combine to for a compressed nuclear explosion of
utter genius, and is just wonderful. It shouldn't cost you any more than $15.00, and is one
of the best uses of your money for the next few months.
