Brace Yourselves – Steam Holiday Sale is Coming

It’s that time of year again. Of course I’m not talking about Christmas, no, I’m talking about the Steam Holiday sale. Never before have I known an event to cause such equal parts joy and dread in the gaming community. Now when you see good games like Dungeons of Dredmor going for for say, $1.88 you may find it easy to understand the joy part, but how in the world could anyone expect dread? Because the prices are so low gamers feel almost compelled to buy them. Only a $0.99 crack rock special could evoke a more frenzied consumer. When the entire sale is done all of us will find our wallets lighter, caught up in the sheer game buying orgy. So, be careful, try not to buy to much, and remember… a lot of these games come back even cheaper the next day or at the end of the sale.

That’s how they get’cha.


Avatar 2: Nukes from Space!

Admit it, you thought this too

So after everyone else on the planet has seen it I finally got around to seeing Avatar. What took me so long? Well there was that whole eye surgery thing that made me not want to goto movie theaters for a while. Then by the time I was in a state where I wasn’t constantly dropping drops in my eyes, or worried that the 3D would destroy my vision forever the movie was trapped in that limbo between the time between it’s in first run theaters and cheap theaters. So this week I spent a whopping $1 to see Avatar and $5 on a large soda and a large popcorn and settled down to watch the darn thing.

And you know what it was good and enjoyable. I liked watching it, it was fun, the visuals were stunning, the characters were interesting, and it told a pretty classic story. So all in all the movie was great. A+

But like a lot of other movies sometimes things just really glare out at you if you really start thinking about them. Like why not just drop bombs on the magical Yggdrasil stand-in tree from space? Does the future not have unmanned drones anymore? I mean they have unmanned blue people! Why not just use systems like the avatars to pilot a hordes of killer drones?! When that giant aboriginal horde is gathering, why not just dig in and plant land mines, etc. Maybe evac non-essential personnel off the rock first. That plan seems a lot more sound then, “Fly into the super-Bermuda triangle beneath the giant ambush rocks.” Why fly under the giant ambush rocks? Those things they were piloting are VTOLs! Fly over the bloody ambush rocks and /then/ descend. I’m pretty sure their vehicles with pressurized cockpits can fly higher than a bird can. Heck maybe just drop the bomb from that height to begin with! Why do the Navi’s arrows just bounce off their vehicles in one scene yet in a later at the climax of the film they punch through them like paper. For that matter why is anyone in the future making cockpit glass for military gunships out of glass weaker than today’s bullet-proof glass? And why in the hell wouldn’t the sequel be called, “Avatar 2: Nukes from Space”? You know that nine years later when the survivors get back to earth their response won’t be pretty.

Oh yeah, that’s assuming you ignore the fact that they have the only people dealing with the Navi under such little surveillance that they can so easily go off the reservation. Or why in the heck they can’t just dig a tunnel under the ground to the Unobtanium site and just mine it from there.* (I still can barely believe they really called it Unobtanium.) Nevermind that, there’s got to be other sites of the mineral somewhere on the planet that would be better to mine first before they start sinking their profits into a native extermination campaign.

Anyway, it’s a good movie. Just don’t think about it too hard. Let’s be honest, watching the “sky people” launch cruiser missiles and drones across Pandora for two hours would have been crazy boring.

*And let’s not get started on the fact that they show no scenes of Jake Sulley ever talking to the Navi about the Unobtanium, and if there is, you know, maybe someway they could get the really important space rocks the Navi don’t give a damn about in some way where everyone would be happy. I mean, I just assume magic space rocks came up sometime in montages or backstory, but who knows, maybe he never said a bloody thing.


Time Extended!

Anyone who’s ever played outrun or any of Sega’s other similar racers in an arcade can probably hear that over-excited digitized voice in their head now at the mere mention of these words. Imagine my surprise when browsing for some soda in Wal-mart I came upon these two packages of Mountain Dew Throwback and Pepsi Throwback. For those of you who don’t know, the superb Pepsi Throwback and Mountain Dew Throwback are back again for a limited time. According to Pepsi the production run for these is going to be 8 weeks long and it started on December 28th. These two sodas are identical to the previous run, though the packaging is much more in theme, I’m really glad to see the old Pepsi logo, and the Mountain Dew has orange juice concentrate and more caffeine in it like regular Mountain Dew.

I really like soda. A lot. And I like soda made with real sugar even better. Well, at least I think I do. Who knows, if I took a blind taste test, maybe I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. I’m not about to discount the fact that this whole, “Made with real sugar thing” could be a gigantic placebo effect on my taste buds. But if that’s the case, placebo tastes mighty good. It just seems to me the sodas made with real sugar “pop” a bit more and have a “brighter” taste to them. So I’m happy to see these products back on shelves. How happy am I to see them? I normally drink cherry coke. Yeah, that’s right, this whole real sugar thing is enough to get me to drink Pepsi instead of coke. I sure hope Pepsi gets smart and stops teasing us all with these limited runs, because I really want to keep on enjoying this stuff. Of course, without it I’ll just switch back over to Jones Soda and their excellent Pure Cane Cola, which is also excellent, and they have many other great flavors of cane cola as well. Berry Lemonade being a real favorite.
If you like soda too, check out for Galco’s. They’re in California and they were featured on History Channel’s Modern Marvels, Soda. (I did say I loved Soda, right?) They’re a veritable Mecca of soda. I mean they have nigh unto everything there, and their site is like an encyclopedia of Soda in the United States and nearby countries. Check it out.


SecuROM is the Devil

Contrary to what some of my readers may be thinking, the above is not an opinion, but actually a fact. A fact that bears repeating. There is in fact a hell, and SecuROM, the prince of lies, lords over all of its many honeycombed layers.

Ok, perhaps that is just a teeny tiny bit of exaggeration, but it’s not too far off the mark. You see all of the various bits and pieces of undocumented software that things like SecuROM and Starforce and things such as Gameguard have installed into my various computers have caused more problems and crashed more software and caused me to format and reinstall my machines more than anything else. Think about that. That’s more than viruses, adware, and spyware. That’s a lot of problems for a “legitimate” business.

I’m just so sick and tired of having my expensive high-priced machine being dicked around with by a company that is scamming game companies by promising protection against piracy, a promise that is as much of a boondoggle as timeshares (Which they don’t call timeshares anymore because we’ve all learned it’s a scam.) How many studies have to come out that show it’s not piracy but bootlegging, something the copy protection cannot stop, that are the cause of loss of sales?

Brad Wardell from Stardock put the whole issue together better than I will here, so I’m not going to go into deep analysis here. What I am going to do is relate one of my recent experiences with SecuROM.

Blood Bowl is a game I enjoy. A lot. I bought it direct from Cyanide because I wanted them to get the most money they could from my purchase. Blood Bowl, I found out after purchasing, uses SecuROM. Makes me wish I waited for Steam’s version, but who knows maybe that has some similar DRM  on it too. It’s hard to tell sometimes.

So I installed it on my PC, and shortly after my PC crashes and I have to format and reinstall. Blood Bowl only allows 3 activations. But I’m not too worried because, hey, SecuROM says that I didn’t lose my activation because it is the same PC. I mean, yeah SecuROM is the devil, but devils are lawful evil right? So according to SecuROM I have two activations left. So then I install Blood Bowl on my laptop. No problems, and this means I should have one activation left. So I go to install it on my netbook and BAM!,  failed to activate. What? I only have two copies of the game installed! Where’s did my third activation go?

Well if you haven’t guessed what the problem is I’ll illuminate it for you. SecuROM’s support FAQ is a pack of lies. My first install, the one before the format and reinstall, devoured my first activation and sent it to the farthest reaches of time and space, never to be seen from again despite what the FAQ says. The software will gleefully steal your activations whenever it feels like it and give nothing back in return. The FAQ topic is there to fool consumers into thinking SecuROM isn’t going to bend them over a table and screw them, because if they did they’d avoid anything with SecuROM on it like the plague it is.

But should this be any sort of surprise from a piece of software whose slogan is “Get MAXIMUM Control”. I mean great fishes and little gods. Get MAXIMUM control? What kind of a slogan is that? Only sick people want MAXIMUM control over other people. Also, if this were my slogan, I wouldn’t put it on the internet. I mean if you’re going to go through all the trouble to lie to people about your software you shouldn’t undo the whole damn thing by leaving your fascist slogan out there for everyone to see.

It just all reminds me why I don’t buy things from Sony, the owners of SecuROM, in general. I own one Sony product in out of all the many electronics I own. And I don’t even like that. Every time I’ve bought from Sony I’ve found that LG, Samsung, Panasonic, and Altec Lansing have made superior products for less. Oh, and the DRM, lock you in, you use only our stuff philosophy bleeds over into everything they make. (IE: Don’t buy their ebook reader ever) And in the realm of DRM, all Sony and SecuROM have manged to do is make me a lifetime customer of Stardock, and a lesser extent Valve. Both great companies on their own, but SecuROM and Starforce have made what should be standard business practices of decency and customer service and selling a product that isn’t design to self-destruct into a major virtue.


Why Game Systems do not Enhance Roleplaying

Every so often I’m told that a particular game system enhances role-playing, or that it is more role-playing friendly. However it’s my opinion that the “Game” part of “Role-playing Game” is actually in most cases is something that generally limits the “Role-playing” part, not enhances it. Since D&D is most popular, I hear that about editions of D&D, but this phenomenon and discussion is something that has come up in one form or another in every game I’ve ever played. In this article I will attempt to explain what role-play is, identify the best case scenario for role-playing, why role-playing is traded in exchange for the game, and give some examples of how game systems limit role-playing potential and how they’re largely divorced from the minutia these discussions usually delve into.

So to begin, what is role-playing? Well when in doubt, grab your dictionary. Here’s how the Random House dictionary defines role-playing.


  • verb (used with object)

1.     to assume the attitudes, actions, and discourse of (another), esp. in a make-believe situation in an effort to understand a differing point of view or social interaction: Management trainees were given a chance to role-play labor negotiators.
2.     to experiment with or experience (a situation or viewpoint) by playing a role: trainees role-playing management positions.

  • verb (used without object)

3.     to engage in role-playing.

A pretty basic definition. So what situation is ideal for role-playing? Free-form role-playing. Now some of you reading this may have dabbled in this before and some of you haven’t. Free-form is just what it sounds like, it’s completely free and there are no rules attached to it. About the only kind of restriction on what can be role-played is any kind of theme that might be in place to provide a setting. Other than that players can create characters with of any type or background or ability that they can possibly imagine. It’s an ideal scenario for role-playing in that pretty much whatever any player wants to roleplay is allowed.

However as anyone who has dabbled in free-form will tell you there can be some problems with this setup. The fact that anything is allowed can be a double-edged sword. You have to work and flow with concepts that may be strange, and if there is any conflict between players, well, you can just forget it. Without anyone in a position to arbitrate and no way to make judgments about what is and isn’t acceptable the entire thing will almost always devolve into a power-gaming mess unless all the players are on the same wavelength. And that’s the crux of the problem. Unless you have a group you can really trust for this, or an experienced group that knows how to work their way around this, then it doesn’t really work so well. All it takes is one guy not in sync to knock down the house of cards.

That’s where the “Game” part of “Role-playing Game” comes in. When you play a Role-playing Game you’re trading some of the freedom of free-form for some rules that decide how strong your character can be, what they can do, and a system to resolve conflicting actions as a kind of neutral arbiter. This is the reason combat is often a big section of any game system, as it’s a large conflict often in need of strict management. You no longer have infinite options, but everyone’s options are limited equally. If the game-system won’t support your character concept or won’t let you have an ability you’d like to play then your ability to role-play that is eliminated.

Now some games choose to take a very light-handed approach to the game system, like Amber or Fudge, and some have a pretty heavy-hand like D&D or Warhammer. None of these approaches is wrong. The game system is written with a particular tone or common activities being the focus of the game, and so it is written to facilitate  these things and to anticipate the conflicts one will see there. D&D expects a focus on exploring sites, fighting monsters, feats of skill, etc. so it has a lot of rules to govern this, where as a system like BESM expects more focus on character abilities and social events with quick bursts of conflict, and so it focuses on these elements. What particular system you decide to use largely depends on the sort of activity you would like to be doing in your game, and then using a game system to supports that.

However in all these cases it’s not the minutia of how the game handles something, like if it uses magic points, spells per day, per encounter, etc, or which dice are role and how they’re compared to a stat that limits your roleplay, but if the system will even let you do something in the first place. If you can do the action at all, then generally the game mechanics side of it doesn’t really matter. The player describes the action, embellishes it, describes it, does whatever the game-system demands he do in exchange, and either it succeeds or fails. It doesn’t really matter how the game mechanics of casting a fireball or a lightning bolt work so long as you can cast one in the first place.

This means that really what determines what is going to be better for role-playing for a particular character is what set of restrictions they are willing to accept on their role-playing in exchange for the benefits the game system itself provides. If a player finds the way a particular set of restrictions on their ability to roleplay are set they’ll enjoy that system better, but it doesn’t make any system better for everyone. Just remember, role-playing lives in the fluff, not the crunch, and when comparing game systems we should be talking about how game systems restrict role-playing more or less in different areas, rather than saying certain game systems promote role-playing.


Thirty-five Improvements D&D Fourth Edition Made to the Game

Diplomacy, it's not just a nickname for your axe

I’ve played a lot of D&D. I had my first taste of it in the final days of AD&D2e. It was ok, but I never really understood how it worked, that always had to be handled by my DM. And when 3rd came out, we switched. I’m one of the few people who actually bothered converting an AD&D2e character to 3e. When 3e came out I liked it. The game system was revised. Things like certain races only being able to get to certain levels of a class were gone, the rate of XP gain was unified, and it introduced the modifier system for stats which replaced so many copious tables and was one of the best things to happen to D&D since the d20. In short, 3e was good. I played many a great games of 3e, and I had many great adventures dealing with the Coryani Emperor’s mad plans in Onara, navigating the twisted intrigues of Sharn in Eberron, and driving out giant hordes from Geoff in Greyhawk.

But at the same time I was enjoying 3e I heard the wails and the gnashing of teeth of people who hated the change. 3e is an abomination. They’re taking all the flavor out of the game. They’re dumbing it down. All the role-playing flavor is gone. 3e is a money-grab. Why can’t they just stick with AD&D2e. 3e is a horrible flop and they’ll have to go back to AD&D2e. I remember hearing all those arguments back in 2001 and well on into 2003. I remember being berated for even mentioning that 3e was D&D.

So when 2008 rolled around I suppose I shouldn’t have been terribly surprised when history repeated itself and I hear the same sorts of arguments when the 4th edition of D&D saw the light of day. And you know what, I get why someone wouldn’t like any sort of new version of their favorite game. There are plenty of changes. Some you’re not going to like, nevermind the fact that most of us are pre-disposed to dislike changes of any kind. Toss in the fact that a new edition is a request for you to buy new product, and I completely understand how that could be a deal-breaker of sorts.

What I have never gotten though is the need to heap abuse upon anything about the new version or anyone who uses it. I mean “Gabe” from Penny-arcade had “4e is an abomination, you should play X, that’s the real version” as one of the top things he’d been emailed about his D&D campaign. Is that really the kind of message to send to someone brand new to the game? Then again, I never really understood “system fanboys” and “Mac or PC fanboys” and it seems to be pretty much the same phenomenon, and let’s not even get into “real-life” issues that delve into the same territory.

Back to the matter at hand, sometimes I am foolish enough to get into this “discussion”. Though it’s never really a discussion so much as an opportunity for people to sling hate at each other. On one of these occasions I was told, in classic hyperbolic fashion, that there was nothing good about 4e. So rather than being smart and not getting involved, I instead decided to write-up a list of everything off the top of my head that I thought was an improvement that 4e made to the game. Then my list was 32 items long. I have since added three more.

Even though getting into an argument which is probably nothing more than an exercise in misplaced  anger wasn’t the wise thing to do, I still think the list that was written up was an interesting thing to look at, and so it deserves to be shared here with anyone willing to take a look at it. I don’t think I imagined the list would get so long when I began writing it.

A few disclaimers before the list begins, however. I imagine someone is going to say something about how one edition promotes role-playing more than another, and you won’t see that on this list. I decided to keep this list about the game design itself, which keeps other external things like book layout out of the list too. For the record though I don’t think either game by its nature encourages role-playing more or less than the other. Look for a future article where I explain why. Also 4e is not perfect. I could make a list of things I don’t like about 4e too. It’s not perfect, and with any luck when 2015 or so rolls around at 5e comes maybe some of those things will be addressed.

So without further ado here is my list of 35 improvements I think 4e brought to the game.

  1. Cone and Burst templates replaced with easy to follow Burst and Blast squares which do the same thing but do not require memorizing the square pattern or having a template, such as the ones by steel squire. No more groans from Entangle being cast. Wire coat hangers everywhere breathe a sigh of relief.

  3. Skill system was redesigned so similar skills were combined into groups, eliminating the need for skill synergy as synergistic activities are now part of the same skill. All classes tend to have skills that are often relevant in every adventure.

  5. Skill point system replaced with / untrained / trained / skill focus setup. Generally in this game and 3e what happens is players will max out certain skills and just continually put a point into it each level to keep it maxed. Now this simply happens automatically as training and skill focus are flat bonuses that can be given to skills and all characters get a half their level as a bonus to skill checks. This also has a side effect of ensuring your character improves overall at skill related tasks to represent experience gained as an adventurer, rather than eternally being pathetic at a number of tasks like what would happen in the earlier system.

  7. Large Base Attack Bonus, Fort, Reflex, Will tables replaced with static bonuses at level 1 based on class and defenses, attack bonus, ability checks and skill checks increase by 1 every other level (IE: Half level). I’m never going to forget what a pain it was leveling up my Fighter/Wizard/Spellsword at level 10 having to references three different charts.

  9. Game is stable and consistent through levels 1-30, where as 3rd has a “sweet spot” of 5-12. Before level 5 characters are rather weak, after level 12 the game breaks down.

  11. Vancian spell casting is gone. Spells now use a unified easy to understand implementation that is shared by all powers regardless of the power source while still keeping their flavor due to the properties available to the powers themselves. Fireballs still explode and need good reflex to avoid and roast your party members if you’re not careful, while divine casters often need not worry about this as their offensive prayers usually only hurt enemies, but they tend to have less offense in comparison. Martial characters still primarily deal in AC. Players do not need to learn whole new systems to understand spell casters or psionic characters.

  13. Powers system allows for all classes to shine in their own way and emulate the feats of heroism that players are accustomed to in legends, stories, books, movies, and yes, sometimes video games. Large number of powers to choose from allows characters to make their character different from others of the same class by the selections they make. Power selections also allow martial characters to differentiate themselves from other martial characters more so than in earlier editions, where before only spell-casters got that kind attention. Rogues in combat are no longer just a defined by their sneak attack, but their ability to blind, cripple, slip through defenses, etc.

  15. Races strengthened and made more unique. Races are more important throughout a character’s career thanks to more feats and class options related to race. Had side effect of no longer requiring ECL for many classic D&D races.

  17. Combat rules streamlined and unneeded complexity removed from key areas.

  19. Roles for Monsters and Character Classes make it easier for the DM or Players to narrow down their search for what they want to play or what monsters to include and careful choose which entries they want to read fully.

  21. 3rd edition followed a “battle of attrition” model of balance, where upon players would face a large number of easy challenges that would spend their resources and player’s mistakes would come out most of all in later encounters where resources they spent in the beginning encounters cause their downfall. This lead to the “30 minute day” where players would get up, fight something huge, then goto bed. (The length of time it takes to run encounters encouraged this as well.) This lead to DM’s often having to pump things up for the one big fight to work correctly. 4th edition centers more upon each encounter being dangerous and less on attrition between encounters, encouraging parties to continue adventuring.

  23. Encounters are now easier to create. Monster types make it easy for DM’s to get ideas how a group of monsters interact with each other, avoiding game-breaking combinations. The effects of traps in an encounter with monsters are now easier to determine. As a result, traps are more often parts of combats and not “That thing that happens between combats”.

  25. Skill challenges give a framework for DM’s to visualize and create a variety of non-combat based encounters. (Previously you just kind of winged it.) Skill challenge system is flexible and abstract so it is not confining.

  27. DC’s and Damage table in DMG makes it easier for DMs to calculate original or unexpected things, such as terrain not thought as such being used as a weapon

  29. Fantastic terrain added, effects of natural terrain more clearly defined.

  31. Disease system is more robust, with variable effects dependant on the stage of the disease on the affected character.

  33. Sizes of creatures adjusted and consolidated. No more piles of tiny sizes most people don’t remember and no more colossal size that filled up most people’s game mats. Have you seen that Colossal Red Dragon mini in person? It’s huge. It’s a statue, not a mini.

  35. Classes always gain something each level. No “dead levels”.

  37. Epic levels (21-30) no longer need a separate system to use and are part of the core game. Note that Level’s 13-30 in 3rd are past the sweet spot of 5-12 and game mechanics break down in those levels.

  39. Epic destinies get players to think about how they want to exit the game when it’s over. Epic destinies have many important world-changing events in them which can spur on future campaigns.

  41. Paragon Paths are easier to use than Prestige Classes and serve the purpose of specializing a character better than prestige classes

  43. System is written from the ground up to accommodate future books and expansion without breaking the core system.

  45. Weapon groups with their feats and the magic items eligible for those groups allows for lots of flavor to be tied to a weapon type, with the added benefit that newly created weapons do not need new rules added to use these feats / magic items

  47. Encounters are generally based upon groups of monsters opposed to 3rd ed being largely based on “The one big thing”. This makes movement and tactics more important, making combat more interesting. 4th edition however can still easily do “the one big thing” very well, where as third has lots of difficulty with groups of monsters, especially if you’re talking about more than a pair of the same monster.

  49. Monster stat blocks are easier to read and are written with running them at the table in mind. Running monsters is vastly easier as a result.

  51. Death and dying rules allow for the character’s health to be taken into effect (Death at -Bloodied instead of -10), while at the same time making it so the dying state is more dramatic, yet simpler to manager. The three failed death saves per encounter and you’re dead is simpler and more effective than the -1 hit point or 10% stabilization a round. The unneeded 0 hit point condition of disabled has been removed.

  53. Magic item slots consolidated. With three primary slots, weapon, armor, and neck, and the rest being supplemental. Stat boosters items that were required for progression removed.

  55. Encumbrance rules simplified. No more unwieldly chart that just gets ignored.

  57. Rest and recovery simplified. No more need to play the cleric-rest healing game

  59. Swimming and flying simplified and made easier to understand and run creatures with those abilities or adventures in those settings.

  61. Frustrating grapple rules eliminated. Monsters that were grapple-centric now have abilities to represent this, making them simpler to run while keeping their flavor.

  63. Healing surges take much of the need to manage healing resources off of the cleric. Healing surges encourage the encounter-centric game balance and de-emphasize attrition-based challenges.

  65. Fort, Reflex, and Will saves turned into defenses just like AC. This streamlined attacking because the die rolling is all on the attacker’s side and not the defender’s side. This also tends to make things easier on the DM.

  67. Spells with durations longer than a round have been replaced with effects that can be sustained by the caster or effects that need the target to make a saving through (10+ on a d20) every round to escape the effects of the spell. This makes it so you do not end up having to keep track of the duration of several spells cast on you like in previous editions, and you simply have to remember if something is cast on you or not. Once again, this tends to make things easier on DMs.

  69. Recharge system replaces effects that were often “recharges in 1d4 rounds”. Recharge powers now instead list what numbers on a d6 that must be rolled to get the ability back. The monster rolls a 1d6 each round and if one of those numbers come back up the ability returns. Instead of “ticking off” rounds for the ability the DM only has to keep track if the ability has been used or not, and remember to roll recharge each round to see if it comes back.


First Impressions of Blood Bowl

Being that I play D&D and lot, play and run games at the local game store, and am generally at the game store it’s no accident that I’ve heard of Blood Bowl before. The miniatures game by Games Workshop pits two custom made teams of players against each other each other in an incredibly violet game of a football like sport. Around here they organize into Blood Bowl leagues around this time of year and really get to it. It’s always sounded like something really fun to play.

Now I’ve never picked this game up because I haven’t been looking forward to getting into another game, but also the game isn’t cheap and it requires the assembly and painting of small pewter miniatures. Something I’ve been needing to do with a whole bunch of miniatures that I have. So when I heard about the Blood Bowl video game I was intrigued, but I didn’t pick it up because I wanted to try it. Unfortunately no demo ever surfaced (why?) but I recently got to try it at the local game store that has it installed. And I’ve got to say, wow, this game is just pure fun. I mean I pretty much I have easily emptied out an entire day into play the game after I purchased it. It’s really nice to see a good turn based strategy game on the PC, and the fact that the game is about getting the ball to the goal rather than eliminating the opponent really makes for a great change of pace. There’s just something really magical about having a turn where  you tackle the ball carrier, send your catcher into the end zone, and have your thrower inch up, grab the ball, and toss it through a narrow open lane for a touchdown.  Guess this means I might end up looking at the Blood Bowl pen and paper game box a bit more seriously next time I’m at the store.


Brutal Legend for Xbox 360 Impressions

So this week I got my hot little hands on Brutal Legend, a game with big aspirations, amazing visual style, and a hype machine that’s been steadily building once everyone’s eyeballs were finally graced with viewing this piece of eye-candy. I want to say I love this game, but it has two major, and one minor,  flaws that sort of spoiled it for me.

But let’s start with the good. It’s chock full of awesome, metal sounds, it drips style, and it has great voice acting that is fun and humorous, reminiscent of the old Lucasarts adventure games. In addition it has a fun beat’em up aspect that evolves into a competent real-time strategy game that is high on action. Imagine Dynasty Warriors game where you built units, the combat was less repetitive and you had a plethora of buffs and powers at your disposal, that’s what the game’s RTS action is like. This RTS battle game is what the multiplayer is built on, and from trying the single player, I think this is poised to be successful if it keeps up a following. It’s definitely a new game in town for Xbox 360 play.

Now for the bad. The single player campaign is short. (And I did every single side mission too.) I managed to finish the entire campaign in one sitting. Granted it was a very long sitting, but one sitting? That’s pretty insane. I really got the feeling that the last “act” as it were got chopped off. There’s a huge build up to your battle with the demon lord Doviculus’ army, only to have one full-scale RTS battle with him and his hordes, followed by the boss battle with him. Really? You also fight him in the same place you beat the previous faction. While I guess that did help some plot points I was really looking forward to the triumphant march to Doviculus’ new home base on the map, only to be disappointed. Really, you spend more time going after the faction before Doviculus’ demons than you do Doviculus himself.

There’s also a plot point so dumb it makes me want to bang my head, but not in a good way. I’m not going to spoil it for you but there is a name that’s dropped that by the big bad guy that causes a big to do in the hero’s team of Ironheade. Interesting, right? No, because one of the main characters has said name written on their person! How can everyone there, including Jack Black’s character, Eddie Riggs, not already know the name Doviculus drops and diffuse the situation creation by him dropping the name? Am I supposed to believe 3 months went by from the time Doviculus dropped the name and no one said, “Hey <BLEEP>, you’ve got that <BLEEP> name written on your <BLEEP> in big giant easy-to read letters. I think that means we made a mistake about <BLEEP>.” It boggles my mind. Yes, more than people mining rocks with their heads.

A third sticking point that annoyed me. The game is pretty good about giving you tutorials. One of the first things you’re taught is to look around the world for a particular symbol and to use a relic raiser song to raise the relic, and told about jumping for lightning plugs, doing side missions, etc. Simple, no? Well at the same time in the beginning of the game there are serpent statues and hidden artifacts that are bound up.  I found lots of these statues. You can interact with them and Eddie will say something about them, which usually indicates there’s something important. Now I figured later I would get some ability that would let me open up these items, like the Relic Raiser, and similar to many other games with explorable worlds like this. You know the drill, get the upgrade, go back to the places you’ve visited to use the upgrade to unlock the thing that was locked before. I figured I’d get a tutorial about it too, maybe a quest to introduce it like so many other things in the game. Surprise surprise, none of that happened. I found all the upgrades, did all the side quests, and completed the game and then I realized no, no such tutorial and hint would be coming my way. At which point I found these things and messed around with buttons until I figured out that some of my basic moves from the beginning of the game could have opened them up. And then once I opened these things up I got the entry that told me what these things were. Goody. The artifacts tell me about the game world’s history, something I always find interesting, and the serpent statues upgrade Eddie’s health, damage, etc. No wonder Eddie seemed like he was made out of wet toilet paper in the RTS battles. I mean I thought that’s just the way it was as a way to encourage me to use my unit’s and not Eddie’s axe, but apparently it’s just because I didn’t get a single serpent statue throughout the whole game. Aye. Needless to say having completed the game I’m not going to go back through the game and find these things. I just wish the game would have given me a clue, especially when it’s so good about introducing every other element of the game.

Assuming you can get around those sticking points the game is quite simply, awesome. I really enjoyed my time with the game, and I don’t regret my rental of it at all. But I don’t think I could justify a purchase of this game unless I planned to play the multiplayer game a lot. And maybe that will be the case, because the RTS battles are really good and a some of the best action sequences in the game. We’ll just have to see if there is the kind of following this game needs to do well.


Wet for Xbox 360 Impressions

Among all the other games that have come out, Wet from Bethesda is a game that is liable to slip under many people’s radars. A visually stunning and stylish game, Wet is enjoyable and lots of fun to play and rewards the player for acrobatic gunplay with things such as slow-motion effects and auto-targetting, but suffers from some control snafus and the plague of the past two console generations: too-shortitis.

For those who haven’t seen it Wet is an action game that follows the heroine, Rubi Malone, through her exploits as a fixer, doing jobs for the criminal underworld. The game has a Quentin Tarantino style and 70’s drive-in “grindhouse” style look and it simply oozes personality. All the characters are well voice acted and have their own interesting personality quirks, which even though they aren’t original are at least acceptable and consistent, the entire whole of the game fitting together quite well. Everything is stylized to the hilt, from the main heroine to extras like the ER doctor sporting the afro. Even common enemy types are commonly given individual touches, tattoos, country flags, different clothing, personalized weapons, and other things that makes it feel like real film working with a huge cast of extras rather a game where you can simply make one model and repeat it ad nauseum. The entire game is given a film-grain and scratches effect which is very confident, emulating the slight flicker and screen movement these old reels used to display. Even loading screens are disguised as reel changes with cheesy drive-in ads (The one advocating viewers to “Visit your place of worship regularly” is particularly hilarious with the violence-drenched scenes it appears between.) in the interim, and nearing death makes the film-strip begin to come off its track and death makes the film snap altogether.

The gameplay centers around Rubi Malone’s acrobatic prowess. From the moment the game begins players will be diving, sliding, running on walls, sliding down ladders, running along  ledges, and swinging from pole to pole all while participating in rapid-fire gunplay that is more often than not filled with copious explosions. The game allows this to happen by slowing down the action every time you’re in the middle of any acrobatic maneuver while firing. In addition to that benefit while in these maneuvers Rubi uses a gun in her left hand during acrobatics. This gun automatically targets the nearest enemy, allowing the player to control the gun in the right hand and choose to concentrate fire on one enemies or take out a different enemy. While doing this the game gives points for dispatching enemies during spectacular displays of diving, sliding, and leaping with “style points” which are used to upgrade Rubi’s abilities, allowing her to shoot faster and do tricks like wall running off enemies and using them as a springboard for yet more feats of athleticism. This sort of action is the game’s bread and butter and it’s fun to do. Rubi’s moves chain together easily and for the most part aren’t difficult to execute, though there are some snafus with controls, more on that later.  Open areas often become small puzzles making the player think how best to move through a piece of terrain to get the most airtime to dispatch the enemies the easiest, all while trying to keep an eye out for the old video game standby, exploding barrels. (It’s a wonder a whole generation of gamers aren’t developing “barrel-phobia” by now.)

Gameplay really consists of two major segments. The first are long corridors, which are often filled with obstacles which Rubi must use her acrobatic abilities to overcome, and spare numbers of enemies. These areas honestly feel a lot like an old platforming game, which Rubi having to do things like climb up mine shafts, navigate her way along the outside of a building, and escaping a collapsing tunnel. These areas are competently put together and don’t have may overall problems with them, but they suffer from a few areas where it can be unclear what to do. To clear this up the game has the player is given “Rubi Vision” which has terrain Rubi can use in her acrobatic moves glow red. This works very well 99% of the time and gives the player good hints as what to do but in one or two spots you have to make leaps of faith. One part in particular that drove me insane was a gap with a window ledge and a window. The window ledge glowed red in Rubi Vision, making it seem like the player is supposed to jump, grab on, and then maybe vault up to another ledge from that ledge, a platforming element that is used often in the game and before the window. However when leaping Rubi would not grab onto this ledge, causing me to die and having to start over from the last checkpoint. (Checkpoints are frequent through levels and are usually placed right before challenging areas, but later in the game checkpoints become sparser, forcing you to replay easier parts to get back to the hard part where you last died.) I had to look online to find out that I had to shoot the window out and then leap. Note this window looked like it was part of the background, and grabing onto the ledge of identical windows and vaulting past them is something that had already been introduced before, so this kind of thing was an unexpected, and surprising, curveball. Another similar ambiguous element occurs in the William Acker’s dungeon area, a rather bland out-of-place spot compared to the rest of the game, where the player must slide toward a portcullis and shot one crank while Ruby’s auto-aiming left hand shoots the other crank. Granted the cranks glow, and there is a “wet streak” which is often used to denote sliding… but shoot a crank to make it raise? That’s a bit out of left field. It’s sad too because most of the game is put together well, with just a few glaring defects like these standing out against the rest of the game.

The second major element of the gameplay are the “arenas” which are wide open areas filled with enemies. Some of the arenas are simply “kill all” type affairs but most of them need Rubi to close the entrances, preventing more enemies from entering, by doing things like damaging keypads and dropping large chinese gongs over doors.  The arenas are arguably the most fun, and most frustrating part of the game. The arenas are usually filled with acrobatic elements and hazards, and usually the best way to make your way through these arenas is to find the best route through it which keeps Rubi in the air the longest. These areas are frustrating because they’re often the ones that the player will be repeating over and over, either trying to get the best score or simply dying to the onslaught of enemies, and the Hong Kong triads swarming you while they scream, “Taste my special sauce!” is only amusing so many times.  Most of the arenas are straight forward, but one or two of them are particularly brutal and throw curveballs like looking up at one part to see you can wall run up to a ledge, something that’s hard to think about while you’re trying to fight off a wave of enemies and dodge the guy with the gatling gun trying to turn Rubi into swiss cheese.

About the controls. There is a lot of what I would call a “snap to” element to the controls? What does that mean? A lot of programs, especially graphics editing, have something called snap to where if an element nears something significant, like a border, the element will snap to it so it’s directly against the border. This feature usually works pretty well, since usually if you’re moving an element next to a border it’s because you want it next to it. The game’s controls sometimes happen like this, especially where poles are concerned. Most of the time this isn’t any problem, but sometimes the “snap” doesn’t seem to kick in like you expect it, or sometimes you need to release the left trigger, the wall run and Rubi vision button, to make her grab hold when you want her to and most of the time you don’t. Usually when the “snap” doesn’t work right Rubi ends up hurting into a fire or electrical hazard or a pit, and it can be really frustrating when that happens.  The snappyness can also make controls feel a little “locked in”. For example, Rubi will only let go of a pole at the perfect time in her swing, and she always swings exactly to the next terrain element to grab on, sometimes going upwards when her swing animation doesn’t fit it. Granted this makes it a lot easier to do the stunts the game requires, but the disconnect from your controls and what happens can be annoying, especially when Rubi goes around the pole, an easy target, once more because you hit the A button too late.

The last big problem for Wet is that it’s short. I was able to finish the game in about three days of playing, and that’s taking my time about it. Once you have a sense for how things will play out even I can finish the game in a single sitting. Once you finish the game all you have really to look forward to is score mode, playing a higher difficulty, or trying the “Golden bullets” mode where enemies die in one hit. Granted, playing again can be fun, especially in golden bullets mode, but once you have a play through under your belt another one isn’t really needed. There isn’t much new to find and Rubi can’t carry her upgrades with her between games.

Because of the game’s length and lack of replayability I can’t really recommend it for more than a rental. Granted it is a fun, enjoyable rental, but once you’ve gone through the game once or twice most people’s desire to play the game will be ended, with those bearing the curse of completionist braving the game time and time again to find hidden monkeys and unlock achievements. There’s nothing wrong with being a good rental, and in a game of on-demand games I wonder if Wet would have done better as a game that a player would rent online and download, similar to a pay per view movie, then as a full retail box game. Wet is a fun ride, but just like a rollercoaster it’s something best sampled than owned.


Cox Cable’s Epic Fail

You can't make this stuff up

You can't make this stuff up

For a little background, I’ve been a Cox Cable subscriber for a long time. I’ve had their cable internet service since around 1999 or so. And on the whole I’ve been largely happy with it, but as time goes on the email service I get from them seems to continually get crappier and crappier and crappier when I compare it to the great golden emailing calf that is Google’s Gmail.

Before this incident occurred I’ve had the feeling that some of my emails have just been going into the ether, just plain disappearing. Usually they’re things like verifying accounts for services, like, WordPress. Or Gmail. In response I checked the spam filter settings on my account. You see Cox filters emails before they even hit your email client and by default they delete anything that their filters decide is spam. You can’t turn this feature off, but you can change it so instead of deleting the messages it will put a big — SPAM — in the subject line so you can let your email client filter it. Since I thought my emails were mistakenly being deleted I decided to turn on this option and no whatever Cox thinks is spam gets a great big — SPAM — in the subject line in my inbox.

Imagine my surprise when I opened up my mailbox just now and saw the picture above in my mailbox. That’s right. Cox marked their own newsletter as spam. While I appreciate Cox’s honesty about the content of their newsletters, I have to ask my self just how badly you have to mess up when you neglect to make your own spam filter not mark your own messages as spam. Remember, if I hadn’t changed my spam filter settings this message would have been deleted before I could even download it in Outlook. No Spam folder, no logs to check, just gone. Brilliant.

Oh yeah. Some of my messages still dissapear into the ether of the information superhighway even after I changed my spam filter settings. Gotta love it.