Penny Arcade: On the Rainslick Precipice of Darkness 3

Part 1 on this series was one of the first reviews I did here.  It was a game that I truly enjoyed.  Part 2 was just as good, but was so similar in gameplay that I simply did not bother to review it again, although I easily could have since my first review was so sparse. 

Connect the dots!  Woohoo!

I absolutely love this game.  It's gameplay reminds me of the first Final Fantasy game in terms of style.  It's not exactly like it, but enough that I fondly remembered FF1.  This one is by a different game company, but still written by Jerry Holkins, so there is a dramatically different look and feel, but still the same humor and silliness that I liked about the first game.    The gameplay is a bit different in that you move from place to place by means of an overworld map, much like Super Mario Brothers 3 (as opposed to clicking a picture and just being there, but inside each location you are free to move about like in FF1 (and the first two games of this series).  This is nice because it give a feeling of movement.  There are also more placed to explore, but the bad guys are just as silly as ever.  You no longer get to make your own character to tag along with Gabe and Tycho, but you do gain some other interesting party members and there are lots of ways to customize and optimize their skills to get the best party composition possible. 

The plot is a continuation on the last two games - you've killed two of the four ancient gods that threaten mankind and now you're on the trail of the third.  You receive a phone call that is nothing but ten minutes of silence so the team heads down to docks/fairground from the first game because that's where the mimes hang out.  From there you encounter some baddies reminiscent of the first game, but the zone is short and you quickly move on to new content.  The combat style is very much like old-school, turn-based RPGs with the PCs on the right and monsters on the left.   The players and monsters take turns beating the crap out of each other and speed plays a role in how quickly your next turn comes up.  The player does have stuns and interrupts to keep a particularly nasty baddie from taking too many turns, but in the ens, it all comes down to choices by the player - do you concentrate of one baddie at a time of AOE all of them?  Do you take out the boss or the minions first?  Should I use my big attack or wait another turn and use my bigger attack?  Do I attack or heal this turn?  Like any good RPG, your success or failure will depend on how well you answer these questions as well as how you outfit your party. 





Sorry, dog was distracting me.  All I got was
loving a goat and getting all Jim's shots...



One thing that some players may have an issue with is the complete lack of side quests.  There is the main plot and that is all.  This was pretty common in the older games that this is a parody of/homage to.  There's also no voice actine.  At all.  In the first two games a narrator with an awesomely creepy voice narrated some on the longer bits that needed to be read.  This game lacks that and it makes me a little sad.  When I'm playing with a group of friends, I don't want to read out loud.  I hate reading out loud.  It also can be annoying that not all of us read at the same speed, so the faster readers have to wait for everyone to finish before getting through the wall of text.  The writing is awesome - far too awesome to skip, but sometimes it's late and you really aren't able to have the comprehension to remember what wasjust read. 

Eternal Darkness (2002, GameCube)

To think that once I could not see beyond the veil of our reality... to see those who dwell behind.  I was once a fool.

So turn down the lights and find an excuse to call in sick to work tomorrow morning, we're checking out Eternal Darkness!


This game is about 10 years old, but it holds up really well.  When you start up the game Silicon Knights waste no time in setting the atmosphere.  A quote from Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven followed by a modified Nintendo logo then then the creepy voice telling that, "You too will come to understand fear, as I have."

There's the usual cutscene before the main menu, but as soon as you hit start you are plunged into the action. You play a young woman in what looks like a bedroom and you're surrounded by zombies.  You blast away with your shotgun until you run out of ammo.  As the skeletal zombies close in on you, a cutscene show you run to a door with a slot through the middle, much like a cell door.  You head a voice echoing down the hall yelling something about the darkness coming.  Then a ghostly image of an old man appears.

You wake up to a ringing phone, it's the police to tell you that your grandfather is dead.

After a long custscene setting the scene you finally get to play.  You start by exploring the house and eventually playing as a roman soldier, a Cambodian temple dancer, Two member's on Alex's family (grand father and an ancestor), and quite a few more.  I really want to avoid giving away spoilers, this game MUST be experienced to fully appreciated.  The music and background sound effect (like whispering) help to keep the setting properly spooky.

The storytelling here is truly awesome.  It is probably one of the most intricate stories that I've ever seen in a game, truly making so that you do not want to put the controller down.  The puzzles, unlike most puzzle games, have all the answers somewhere in the game o any sane person can solve it.  Far too many times I've been stumped and looked up the answer and found it to be something that no one in their right mind would ever think of, but not here.  Common sense and logical thinking will solve every puzzle.

The graphics, in my opinion, have held up surprisingly well over time.  They are a bit dated, but the syncing is really well done and they were so far ahead of the curve for 2002 that they don't look too bad for today.  The controls are a bit clunky, but that's pretty standard for CG and they're not so bad that they'll really ruin the fun.  

The gameplay is interesting.  In addition to the common health and magic bars, you have a sanity bar.  This is the fist game I've ever seen with a sanity bar and they really used it to it's fullest potential.  The lower the meter gets, the more the game messes you your head.  I mean you, the player.  It stars slow by making the walls breath, then bleed and the heads of the busts lining the hallway turn to watch you as you pass by.  Pretty tame right?  Yeah, then your sanity gets lower by the time it's depleted you'll be wiping the TV screen and swearing.  I don't want to damage your experience by spoiling it, but at one point, I jumped up from my set with a long string of profanity read to smash my controller, then the game let me know it was the sanity meter ("This can't be happening!").  

There isn't a whole lot of variety to the monsters, but this isn't a slasher game, it's a suspense/horror game.  The purpose is less about the challenge of play than it is about the truly awesome story they tell.  It is rare that I gush like this about a game, but it really is that good.

They only gripes I may have is that the levels get reused a but, but they are in different time periods and you can see that time has passed.  Movement can be a bit clunky, but, again, that's GC.  Also, like many CG games, there's a lot of reading.  The reading does help to set the scene and mood, but it can slow down the pace a bit,especially when things are intense.

I found a really good playthough here.  Lots of spoilers, so beware.  This game is about 10 years old, so it's probably a bit expensive (close to $70 on Amazon, the last time I checked) so this might be your only way to experience this.

I would love to see this ported to PC or a modern console.  Sadly, it looks like SK is having some financial issues right now, the the odds of that happening, or of a ED2, are pretty unlikely.  Even still, this game is AWESOME!  Sadly, I can't get images of this right now, but the link above will show you enough to get a good feel for the style of the game.

He-Man and the Half Naked, Burly Guys of the Universe

Writing my last two posts about the gems of my childhood reminded me of another:  He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.  I'm I'm going to try to do it without any gay jokes.  Not only because homophobic jokes are wrong but also because they're too easy with this material.  The whole show is a set up for

There were a few incarnations of this, but I'm going to stick with the first one, since as far as I know it was the most successful.  Like any cartoon of the 80s, it had all the earmarks of the ever present formula and it did it well. It had a main villain who was over the top evil and evil for the sake of evil, the mascot, and the PSA tacked on the end.

Let's start with the baddies.  There's Skeletor.   You knew as soon as you saw him that he was the main baddie - his freaking face was a skull!  His minions included Trap Jaw, a dude with an iron jaw and a prosthetic arm that he swapped out to a laser or a claw or some other tool that suited his nefarious purposes.  Since he, like nearly every other male in this word, wore pretty much a furry loincloth and not much else, I really don't want to even think about where he kept his spare parts.  There was also the aptly named beast man.  He was furry, had fang, and was some kind of beast/man hybrid.  And then there was Evil Lynn.  She was a sorceress, a master of disguise, and the token female of the group. Anytime a random woman wanted he man dead it was probably her in a costume. Hasbro pretty much phoned it in when coming up with the names and stuck with stuff like Stinkor for the (scratch and sniff) skunk man.  Their primary goal seemed to be to make as many unique characters as possible using a single body mold and swapping out the heads and adding a gimmick.  Because what parent doesn't want to get their kid a skunk guy that smells like a skunk?

The heroes were lead by He-Man, whose secret identity was Prince Adam, who looked exactly like he man, but threw everyone off by wearing trousers.  People would see him and think "hey! He looks exactly like he man and the two are never in the same room together despite claiming to be friends, but he can't be He-Man because he's not wearing furry bikini bottoms!"  His most trusted friend is Man At Arms, known to his friends as Duncan, because even the characters in this world realize how lame a name like Man At Arms is.  He passes as fully dressed in this world with a chest plate and arm armor to protect him.  He is not worried about protecting anything below the waist because all he wears is furry bikini bottoms and boots without a care in the world for his he-junk..  At least I hope it's a bikini.  It's possible that the men who inhabit Eternia have the hairiest pubic regions in all of the known universe! 



Teela, paint me like one of your French guys.



OK, I've been trying to segue into this, but I really can't seem to get here fast enough.  There's an elephant in the room and it needs to be addressed.  What is up with the furry bikini bottoms on the men???  Is "furkini" a word?  Well it is now.  From now on this thing is called a furkini!  Anyway, I think Adam may be the only man who has discovered pants and is keeping the secret for himself!  Was that why he was chosen to be He-Man?  Did the sorceress walk in and say, "Adam, since you already posess the secrets of bifurcated garmentation and long sleeved t-shirts I will also trust you with the secret of Castle Grayskull."   Of course, even Adam nods to the fasion elite by wearing a purple furkini over his lavender pants.  He aslo seems to be the sole possessor of shirt technology as well.  Nearly everyone else wears a leather harness, but only Adam wears a white shirt.  But being the modest guy he is, he covers it with a pink vest so as not to flaunt his apparent hording of shirt technology.  Only the men seem to be afflicted with a desire for furkinis, the women all wear leotards with no bare midriffs and the men wean next to nothing.  Ladies, if you want to demonstrate to a man the sexism inherent to many RPGs and in the fantasy genre in general, make him watch He-Man.  not to mention that the (real life, USA) rules at the time prohibited He-Man from punching, kicking or using his sword as a weapon again people, this meant that most fights meant that big burly guys were grappling and wrestling.  He-Man could kill all of Skeletor's robot henchmen, but had to get up close and personal with everyone else.  That's right, in a stunning 180 degree turn from the norm, the women are pretty much all covered up while the guys are nearly nekkid and hug-fighting.  If that doesn't hammer your point home, nothing will.

Skeletor felt strangely drawn to this place.

Okay, so I got that out of my system ,where was I?  Oh, yes, I should probably discuss the plot at some point.  Skeletor wants to rule all Eternia.  Why?  I don't have a freaking clue.  There's not a whole lot there.  it's a mind baffling hodgepodge of futuristic technology like lasers, hover cars, and cyborgs with ancient magic, swords, and castles.  That's right, they have laser rifles, but the preferred way of fighting to to bring a sword to a gun fight. The key to Skeletor's plan is to take over Castle Grayskull, and it's power to grant the powers of Furkini, I mean He-Man.  The Castle's protector, the Sorceress, picks well-know Shirt and Pants wearer Adam to be the loincloth and harness clad protector.  He, along with Man At Arms/Duncan, Duncan's adopted daughter Teela, and a handfull of seemingly random member of the hairy loincloth club for men battle to protect the castle, whose location seems to be onl reachable by magic, from the evil forces of The Deceptacons, sorry, Skeletor and his equally random tag team of terrors.  Every now and then the writers would mix it up by adding a new baddie or some other conflict that was not Skeletor's doing.  sometimes they even forced He-Man and Skeletor to work together to solve the crisis.

"I'm telling you Man At Arms, I don't know how twelve
banana cream pies got into your footlocker!"

Okay, so I talked about the formula for an 80's cartoon above.  Remember I mentioned mascots?  Well, He-Man, in order to be over the top in every way, has two - Orko and Cringer.  Cringer the cowardly pet of Adam who provides comic relief to pretty much any scene he's in.  When He-Man points his magic sword Cringer becomes the mighty Battle-Cat.  An armor wearing super version of himself who knows no fear.  Naturally he can talk and is totally over the top in both roles - imagine if Scooby Doo became Scrappy in every episode.  Yeah ,it's like that.  Also, we have Orko.  A floating rove and wizard hat who serves as court magician and jester for Adam's father the king.  Mostly this means that he attempts to cast a spell and it backfires all over Man At Arms.  His sole purpose is comic relief and to do the PSA at the end when He-Man is too busy combing his furkini.  Occasionally he will provide some plot device or arcane knowledge, but that's pretty rare.

Cunning Warrior and kidnap bait

Duncan's adopted daughter Teela does not know the secret identity of He-Man.  Now I usually try to steer clear of sexism and accusations of sexism, but really.  They'll trust Orko the Incompetent with He-man's secret but Teela's fragile female mind can't handle it.  True, it could be her age, but they never really say that's it, it's just, "Don't tell Teela.  Everyone else is ok, but Teela might blab."  As though the writers figured out, or got told, what dicks they were they decided that not only would Teela be an accomplished warrior, but she'd be in charge of training Adam.  That's right, the Captain of the Guard leaves the training of the King's son to the daughter that he will not trust any secrets.  At one point, they reveal the true identity of Teel's mother, but they can't trust her with that knowledge so they wipe it from her memory.  He-Man is fine to tell though.  Sure, why not.  If Skeletor ever captures He-Man he can learn the secret of Grayskull, the secret of Teela's parentage, and the technology of bifurcated garmentation and long sleeved tees.  Talk about all your eggs in one basket!  Oh, yeah, and all that about her being a skilled warrior?  She's also one of only four women in this universe, so she's frequently kidnapped.

And last of all, we come to the PSA.  due to FCC regulations at the time, all children's programming must be educational, so Mattell took a page right out of Hasbro's book and got around this by making entertaining shows and tacking on a thirty second PSA at the end.  It usually consisted of Orko or the lead character of that particular episode saying something like, "In today's episode,  Stratos didn't listen to Man At Arms about taking proper care of his things and Stratos' furkini got all tangle and He-Man and Teela had to go off in search of the comb of Furkini combing.  So when your mom and dad tell you to take care of your things, you should do it.  And remember, The Power Is Yours!"

I just can't figure out why the show wasn't
more populare with teenage boys...

Before I end, I need to mention She-Ra.  As near as I can tell, Mattell  saw that girls watched the show too and liked Teela and the Sorceress and Evil Lynn and they decided to try to expand the franchise.  The created She-Ra, Princess of Power!  They kept the primary formula, over the top evil for the sake of evil baddies, anthropromorphic mascot/hero battle mount, inept court magician, PSAs, and shirtless guys.  Granted the shirtless guys all rear long pants without furkinis and weigh less than He-Man and company by a good margin.  like He-Man, She-Ra's characters were all out of the same molds, She-ra's figure was exactly like Teela's, Evil Lynn's, and the Sorceress' except that she wore a small mini-skirt over her leotard.  Being Adam's cousin, She-Ra alter ego, Princess Adora shared in his knowledge of vests over white t-shirts, but even though the secret of pant-wearing seems to be well known in her world, as she preferred some bizarre vest/leotard combination.  A leovest?  A vestard?  My brain hurts.  Anyway, her faithful companion was a magic pony what turns into a unicorn with rainbow wings.  There was also some king of flying teddy bear/kaola thing and a crazy dingbat magician.  It was like the split Orko into two!  Her companions are build like Ken Dolls and appear to wear jeans.  She-Ra also has a sword, but was under the same restrictions as He-Man - cannot use the sword as a weapon, no punching, and no kicking.  Unless it's a robot - which works out great because She-ra's main enemies just happen to be mostly robots!

I didn't really watch this one as much, so I can't really pick it apart and make fun of it the way I did He-Man.  let's be honest, a 12 year old boy is not going to watch anything that involves rainbow unicorns.  But many women who watched the show as kids agree that She-Ra was every bit as awesome as He-man and made for some good after-school TV time.

BY THE POWER OF GRAYSKULL, I   HAVE   THE   POWER!!!   

Voltron: Defender of the Universe

"Activate interlock!  Dynotherms connected!  Megathrusters are go!"

And that's when the awesomeness started.  Seeing Voltron form, with the cheesey technobabble that accompanied it, was probably one of the most awesome sights on TV at the time.

A little trivia - Voltron was originally supposed to be a re-dub of Mirai Robo Daltanious, but when World Events Productions requested the material from Toei Animation, WEP requested "The one with the lions."  Toei sent Beast King GoLion.  WEP was unable to translate them, so they just made up the plots and dubbed their own lines.  And this explains alot...  

Who can forget the dreaded Nipple Monster?

The show starts with Optimus Prime narrating.  OK, not actually Optimus, it's just the voice actor Peter Cullen.  Anyway, so Prime narrates and then the story starts.  Usually with Zarkon deriding the witch Haggar for her most recent failure and the witch proposing a brand new plan.  The brand new plan is usually the same plan that just failed - "make a monster to kill Voltron."  Zarkon likes this plan because he apparently lacks the ability to learn from past failures.  Then the monster gets sent to Planet Arus.  The Voltoron team go out to fight the monster in their lions.  They do not form Voltron yet because they also have issues with learning from past mistakes.  They get their buts kicked, find out what the monster's weakness is and then form Voltron to kick butt.  The bad guy is usually killed by being cut in half vertically.  And like anything from Hollywood, it explodes.  Even if it's not mechanical. 

The formula was apparent even when I was watching this in Elementary school.  It's cliche and predictable, but it worked.  Think about it:  Voltron had to win or the series would be over but if he won too easily then there was no real risk and the series would be boring.  A typical plot twist would be that they could not form Voltron because one team member was injured or one lion was down for repairs.  And again, the team cannot learn from mistakes and never really trains replacement pilots, so if one guy gets sick the whole team is pretty much going to get its ass kicked.

The Voltron team consists of Keith, the commander and pilot of the Black Lion/head.  He's pretty much your stereotypical leader - good looking, calm, and tough.  Then you have Lance.  He's the one who stands up to Keith when necessary and also cracks jokes and playfully teases the other members.  He pilots the Red Lion/right leg.  Pidge small.  I'm not sure ih he's a little kid.  He had a weird, annoying voice and is a little scared.  He also makes friends with the sentient mice of the castle and pilots the Green Lion/left arm.  Hunk is the fat guy.  Like all fat people he is obsessed with food and sleeping.  Yellow Lion/left leg.  Sven has a thick Swedish accent.  He pilots the Blue Lion/right arm.  He is replaced early on by the princess.  Princess Allura is the token female.  She wears pink so much that it may be the only color in her wardrobe.  She is the poorest skilled pilot and is frequently kidnapped.  Zarkon apparently keeps attacking Arus because he wants her to be his slave. 

Hasbro loves me!

Voltron was pretty epic.  But like all good things, it had to end.  Specifically, because WEP ran out of episodes to re-dub.  So they just picked up some other random cartoon, redubbed it, and called it Voltron.  The took Armored Fleet Dairugger XV and called it Voltron.   It was not well liked, but it was Voltron, so we tuned in every day, hoping for the good stuff.  Some days they'd show the lions, some days they'd show the cars.  It took 15 vehicles to form Voltron (all separately, of course).  I don't really remember much from this shows and I haven't been able to find it to watch it, so I'm pretty much sticking to the one that I remember enjoying more - the lion ones. 

You can watch Voltron for free (and legally) on Hulu and a few other sites.  The first few aren't that good, but later in the series it really hits it's stride, mainly as the writers begin to realise where they want to go with it. 

There is a new Voltron out now.  It's good.  It's really good.  I've only seen a few episodes due to time, but I got a kick out of seeing the guys from the old show play a part too.  It's nice that it's not a reboot.  And best of all, it seems to keep the parts that made the old show awesome and added better storytelling, voicework, and animation.  The Nicktoons site has some episodes up (I think).  You can watch them after you've caught up watching Korra.  :-p

Batman: Arkham City

Firstly, this game has a free demo in the Xbox live marketplace, so there's no reason not to try it out before buying.  It lets you play the first 15 minutes of gameplay. 

The plot is pretty simple but still compelling, and let's be honest here, this is Batman- the plot is gravy.  The whole reason that you're playing is because you want to zoom around Gotham and beat up bad guys like the Joker and Penguin.  The plot merely serves as an excuse to drive Batman forward as he pummels his way through oddly dressed henchmen toward the main villain.  And in this case, the plot serves well.  It is simple, yet compelling.  After the Arkham Asylum incident, a whole section of Gotham has been fenced in and made into a giant prison under the control of Hugo Strange.  Hugo knows that Batman is Bruce Wayne and arrests Wayne and tosses him into Arkham City along with anyone who knows the secret of what Strange is up to. 
Batman meets up with many old favorites such as Harley Quinn, Two Face, and Catwoman.  He also pattles lesser know baddies who are sure to please true Batman fans such as The Mad Hatter and Zsasz.



"Jeez. She fell funny."



The setting is big enough to give you the feel of a whole city to play in and there are plenty of side missions to keep you busy and happy while you are making bad guys rethink their career choices.  The level of detail in the city is amazing.  Be sure to visit the alley behind the Monarch Theater for a touching scene.  There are a few other eastereggs there as well.  The Exibits in Penguin's museum are worth checking out.  The devs put a lot of effort into the little details here and it really if worth stopping to just look around this miniature world that they've created.

The fights can be a bit repetitive and most can be won by masshing buttons, especially on easy mode, and the boss fights usually hinge around a gimmick.  In the tradition of Legend of Zelda, the gimmick usually hinges on the most recent addition to your arsenal.  But the vastness of this sandbox more than makes up for it.  As you play on, the baddies get tougher and you will eventually need more strategy to defeat them such as specific combos to defeat certain weapons and specific tactics to take down gunmen.

All in all, I am in love with this game.  there are enough levels of gameplay here to keep anyone interested, a plot worth following, and a wide vast sandbox to play in with lost of places to explore.

Dungeons & Dragons (The Animated Series)

In 1983 Dungeons and Dragons was starting to become popular, or at least widely known outside of the basements of parents with geeky children.  News channels were starting to carry news of kids playing it and Christian groups were accusing it of Satan worship instead of Rock and Roll.  CBS needed something new to add to its Saturday morning lineup and Scrappy Doo was a breakaway character that saved Scooby Doo from cancellation (It wasn't until later that he was blamed for the show jumping the shark).  So CBS, in a rare forward-thinking move for a TV network, combined the IP from TSR and the storytelling skills of Marvel Productions (Spider Man, The Incredible Hulk, Muppet Babies, Transformers: The Movie) into a Saturday morning cartoon that ran from 1983 to 1985 and spanned twenty-seven episodes.  That is pretty short lived for a series, so it wasn't really a huge success.  It also got a lot of criticism for the level of violence, despite the fact that the weapons were rarely used again people or animals (the barbarian would use the club to strik the ground to create an earthquake) and when they were they did not harm the target (the Ranger's arrows ofter turned to rope and bound the target).  Eventually, the low of ratings and high criticism (at one point the National Coalition on Television Violence demanded a disclaim linking it to real life fatalities) made it no longer worthwhile for CBS to keep it on the air.

The characters were pretty boilerplate for the time and it is so stereotypical 1980's cartoon that it is really fun to rewatch, in the same way that you'd go through your old yearbook and laugh at the hairstyles.  There is the tall, handsome, older leader of the group.  He is blond and smart.  There's the thief, a bit shy and a cute female to balance out the leader.  There's the token minority, a black girl (she's 14 and probably a girl to balance out that there is only one other female in the group).  There's the loudmouth coward for comic relief, the nerdy, brainy wizard whose spellcasting is a bit unreliable at best.  You have the little kid cast as the fearless barbarian because...  umm...  because... Scrappy Doo.  And what 80s cartoon would be complete without an adorable little mascot?  In this case, we have Uni the baby Unicorn who adds nothing to the show except cuteness and the occasional comic relief or plot device ("Oh, no!  The monsters took Uni again!  Let's rescue her!") 

Just look at that face.  She was up to no good, I tell you!

The general plot is that a bunch of kids ride a rollercoaster at a fair and get sucked into the "world of Dungeons and Dragons."  Why them and not anyone else is, to my knowledge, never explained.  Personally, I blame Uni.  I never trusted that little bastard.    Where was I?  Oh, yes.  So they're randomly sucked into the nameless world of D&D and met by a short wizard known only as the Dungeon Master and told that to get home they must fight the evil Venger, a winged magical baddie who either has one horn or it too cheap to replace his broken-ass hat.  The DM tossed them a bunch or weapons because what harm could giving a bunch of kids weapon bring and told to go fight evil.  DM appears whenever they need help or advice and gives them riddles before disappearing for the rest of the episode.  Wizards are dicks.  At least when Gandalf pulls that shit he comes back and either saves everybody's ass or has been up to something useful - like chilling out on top of Saruman's tower until an eagle happens to pass by.  But even Gandalf never comes out and says, "dude, this shit's fucking evil and the bad guys are going to come and kick your ass."  He just says, "Hello, you tiny, defenseless hobbit.  Why don't you take this pretty ring and wander around aimlessly for a while.  I'll catch up later."  Yeah.  Wizards are dicks.



You didn't really think Hasbro cared about where or not
you shared with your little sister, did you?



The series, like most cartoons of the time, never really advances the plot.  Each episode has is pretty formulaic and has the kids meeting a random stranger, who may or may not be a henchman of Venger, and cleaning up after the loudmouth's mess.  Uni may or may not be at risk of getting eaten by something.  The kids whip out the magic weapons, kick ass, and then Dungeon Master shows up to fulfill the shows legal requirement of hold an educational value (yes, there was a legal requirement for a show to be educational, that's why so many had PSAs at the end).

In at least one episode, they got to go home for a short time before needing to go back to the D&D world.  Come to think of it, I don't think the cartoon ever named the world.  Sadly, the show was cancelled before they kids ever got home, so they're trapped forever in the fucked up land of D&D. 





Uni, that's the last time we miss the portal
because you were getting eaten by a grue!

The show is pretty bad, but it's a fun kind of bad.  The bad 80s styles and cliches are a bit fun to recognise and point out, the villains are over the top and evil for the sake of being evil.  The kids sometime agonize over moral dilemma that are quite silly, and the requirement to have some kind of redeeming value is shoehorned in so clumsily that I imagine the writers at times just said, "fuck it, let's do a sharing is caring episode and be done with it so I can go get a beer."  DM is completely useless.  In fact, he's exactly like an idiot pretending to be smart - he just blabbers some nonsense and tells you after the fact he knew it all along but that you needed to learn it for yourself.  The barbarian has no pockets whatsoever and yet manages to conceal a massive club. 

Let's face it - It's cheesy and cheese is delicious!

Max Payne: The rise of the cutscene

Rockstar's latest offering is a gritty shooter in a style that reminds me of the old detective film noir style.  The plot is simply captivating and it kept me up way later than I should have just because I wanted to know what happens next.  Unfortunately, the film relies on custscenes and some kind of red and blue blurring effect to distort the cut scenes, which really annoys me.  I have vertigo and those effect are what vertigo feels like.  To be fair, though, they seem to use the effect more when Max is drunk, and it does convey the disorientation of drunkenness quite well.  Also, I'm a big believer the the saying "show, don't tell" and in games that means let the player explore and discover it on their own rather than force the player to stop playing to watch a cutscene.

Now please don't get me wrong, custscenes can be truly epic when done right.  The Wrathgate cinematic in World of Warcraft nearly brought tears to my eyes.  In this case...  Well, I'm on chapter five and I feel like I've spent more time watching cutscenes than actually playing the game.  And every now and then, Rockstar decides to not tell you when a cutscene ends and you were supposed to be playing a gimmicky and timed shooting gallery segment.  I am beginning to wonder whether Rockstar really wanted to make a game or if they really wanted to make a movie but just made it into a game instead.  I love the plot, I'm not a big fan of the way in which Rockstar has chosen to tell this story.  Every time you use a cutscene you are taking the gameplay out of the player's hands and relegating him to the role of a passenger on your ride.  The whole point of a game is that the player is the driver.  The player gets to drive the story forward and unravel the beautiful fabric that you've woven as the plot. 

The gameplay is pretty solid.  It's a standard shooter and the controls are pretty intuitive.  There aren't too many trick shots or special finishers that you can use, but that's fine with me.  The last bad guy in each...  let's call them "encounters", the last bad guy in each encounter is marked by a special slow motion effect and a focus on the bullet and a close up of the kill.  You can pull the rigger to pump a few more shots off in you like, but you're wasting ammo.  The first few times I felt a rush and the thrill of victory at this accomplishment.  After a while it got on my nerves.  Not only does it tell me that all the bad guys are dead rather than let me explore and clear the room, but sometimes the shot just isn't that good or worthy of an epic slo-mo.  A headshot does, a near miss to the left hip really isn't that cool.

In the end, with a same like Max Payne, the style is exactly what I expected, which is good in this case.  The cinematics are increasingly artistic and creative, to the point of trying too hard.  The game play is excellent, but too sparse and too often interrupted.  The "bullet time" effect is is overused or simply not used to good effect. 

On the whole, a good game.  Great gameplay and a story worthy of any Hollywood summer blockbuster.  Personally, if I'd been able to play a free demo I probably would not have bought the game, but now that I've played it, I can't put it down.

The fall of 38 Studios.

The big news yesterday and today is the reported closing of Curt Schilling's 38 Studios.  38 Studios laid off their entire staff and the CEO, Jennifer Maclean, and the Senior Vice President of Product Development, John Blakely, have both updated LinkedIn to show that are no longer with the company.  This move leave the taxpayers of Rhode Island on the hook for an unpaid loan of $75 million.  And that's not just what's left of the loan, 38 Studios defaulted on the first payment, so they're out the whole kit and caboodle.  Basically, that amounts to a huge gift. 

So, 38 bought Big Huge Games, had experienced staff, and funding from the state.  What went wrong?  Well, 38 gambled big and lost big, to oversimplify the situation.  Amular wasn't a bad game, in fact it got some great reviews.  Most of the criticism was that it was a bit buggy and the art was lacking on some areas.  Basically, they made a big expensive product, ran out of money and rushed it to market before they were ready.  A common problem in today's gaming marketplace. 

If it's so common, why did it kill 38 and not others?  Well, Amular was their fist release.  The company was founded in 2006 and actually had no releases for six years and when the game did finally hit the market sales were not fast enough to cover the investment put into it.  If another studio, let's pick Valve just for fun, started a project right now and spent six years making it and that game flopped Valve would still have other sources of revenue to keep them running.  38 didn't, so when game finally hit the shelves, it was all or nothing.

What could they have done differently?  Well, most gamers I know rolled their eyes when Schilling started a game company and didn't really have an interest.  Most baseball fans that I know took a mild interest and just kind of tuned it out because they're not into RPGs (unless you count fantasy baseball as an RPG).  38 could have capitalized on their founder's fame a bit more to produce a game that required a smaller investment that might have appealed to baseball fans and Schilling's fans in particular.  A Home Run contest game, a baseball game that centers on the pitcher rather than the whole team, an RPG starring baseball players who get sucked into a game world (like Tron).  That could have produced an initial stream of revenue to fund the projects that they really wanted to work on.  or they could have branched out into subgenres for funding - Alumar was said to have a pretty good story (I have not yet played it) but maybe they could have set up a webcomic to generate ad-based income to help fund it.

All in all, starting a major studio is a risky effort.  And while the rule of "risk big, win big" does apply, there are ways of minimizing risks so that the people who depend on you the most - your employees, are not unemployed when the job market sucks. 

Now, if the state is smart, they might be able to take ownership of 38's IPs and sell them to recoup their losses.  If the state is smart and lucky, they may be able to lure another game maker to open shop and buy those IPs with a plan that the state will make money to recoup their losses and will be able to increase employment in the state.  Rhode Island and Massachusetts are two major college states.  Any company that sets up there will have no problem finding talented people to work there.  The company might be able to purchase the right to Copernicus, which is mostly finished and put out an MMO quickly and keep afloat on that income. 

I will be watching this to see where it goes.  I'm very interested in how this will turn out.

Cooking "games" for the Nintendo DS

Today I am reviewing two items because the second is simply a remake of the first, but in my opinion, is far better.  But to understand why I like the second so much better, you might need to know a bit about the original.

Item 1:  Personal Trainer: Cooking
 

The software (can't really call it a game) and concept is what makes this worth picking up.  This software uses your Nintendo DS as a cookbook and will tell you, with voice commands, how to prepare the various dishes.  Recipes are divided up my country of origin or category (salad, soup, meat, etc.) and contains a shopping list feature, calculator, and a kitchen timer. 

This software contains recipes from many different countries and cooking ... Umm..  I guess I'll call them "genres."  There are American dishes, Mexican, Thai, Russian, Italian, Japanese, and many more.  The program has a little chef that will talk you through all of the steps and can give more details and even videos when needed. 
There is a Japanese cooking school on the cover.  This appears to be where the recipes originate.  The good news is that the recipes, especially for Asian meals, are really authentic.  The bad news is that the recipes, especially for Asian meals, are really authentic.  Authentic as in:  I have no idea where the hell I can buy squid ink.  Some of the Asian dishes require ingredients that are not carried by my local supermarket.  It also means that some of the other recipes require ingredients that seem a bit odd to me.  Seriously, they put squid in Jambalaya?  Also, some of the cooking terms are a bit odd.  The recipe for chicken stock includes a chicken carcass.  That's right, carcass!  I am not a chef, but that seems odd to me, and I usually associate the word "carcass" with roadkill, not dinner.  It may be just really bad phrasing. 

On the whole, I really like the concept and the software, but the recipes are for someone with more varied tastes and possibly a more access to specialty cooking supplies than me.  I would not hesitate to recommend this game to someone looking to expand their repertoire.


Item 2:  America's Test Kitchen: Let's Get Cooking


This is basically the same software as above with all new recipes.  The recipes seem to be more Americanized and are more in-line with what I'd actually make.  There were a lot more items that I wanted to make in this program than its predecessor.  The software allows for each user to create an individual profile and even mark items as things that they'd like to try.  It also allows for the scheduling or a certain dish and for job assignments to different users.  I can even adjust the settings so that my 4 year old is not put in charge of the cutting or the stove.  Not that I'd blindly do that if the program told me to, but still, it's nice to say, "this is your job" and let him feel like a big shot because he stirred the cake batter and I don't have to take away a job because a 4 year old should not be trying to julienne potatoes.

I have only made a few items, but there are so many that I want to make that I am really in love with this program!

The DRM Dilemma

The issues with the Diablo 3 launch had me thinking about Digital Rights Management (DRM) and how best to go about it.  For starters, DRM is here to stay, but there is a right way and a wrong way to go about it.

Firstly, I don't really want to get into whether companies should or should not employ DRM.  They do.  And I don't really want to get into the ethics of piracy or anti-piracy.  At least not in this post.  My main point is that publishers have used some type of copyright device from very early on, from quizzes at the beginning of Leisure Suit Larry to the spyware/malware that Sony once put on music CDs.  Publishers want your money.  The whole reason that they exist is to generate profit and DRM is a tool that they see as being key to that profit generation.  Clearly some publishers are more ruthless than others.

We're all familiar with the standard type - you buy your awesome new game, download it, and then try to type the long code in the tiny print.  Sometimes is blurry, smudged, or contains printing errors.  Sometimes you wonder if the dashes are required, or if that's a 1 or an I, or whether it's a 0 or a O.   Fun times.  But if I'm running a LAN game, I can sometimes get away with copying the same disk to multiple computers or even copying the disks, and so long as I'm not actually connected to the Internet, or at least a site like battle.net, I can have my LAN lovin' and game on. 

Blizzard decided to pick a different route.  They decided to keep people like me from pulling shenanigans like the ones I explained above I need to be connected to battle.net the whole time I play my 1 player game.  This saddens me a bit because I can't take my laptop to work and continue my game on my lunch breaks, but Blizzard is creative and clever and the, in my opinion, really do care about the player's experience and gave us something in return for being shackled to their servers - they made a really nifty friends system and two auction houses (one of which is not yet implemented at the time of this writing). 

Blizzard got it both right and wrong.  Right in the sense that they tried to provide value in trade for the fact that my 1 player game can only be played when I have an internet connection and wrong in the sense that they failed to launch smoothly and angered/frustrated players right out of the gate with server malfunction issues.  Most players would never have cared about the mandatory connection, and many would have never noticed if that fact was not brought to light so very early in the launch.  What Blizzard could have done better was to provide an offline mode for players like me who wish to play alone and without an Internet connection at times.

While I'd love to rant about this, anyone interested is seeing someone froth at the mouth on this issue can simply search the D3 forums.  I'm more interested in what this means for the future of DRM.  Was this launch enough of a disaster that companies will hesitate to shackle you to their server?  I doubt it.  I think we'll see more and more of this from companies who will give us less in return.  Blizzard knew this was a possibility from the PlayStation Network outages and people couldn't play certain single player games.  The reality is that DRM is here to stay.  And while the old adage that "locks are for honest people" will always hold true, you'll still see people using locks that will hassle their honest, paying customers and will still do little except slightly slow down those who are determined to pick that lock.

They only thing that I can really say to you if you truly hate the direction that DRM is heading is to keep calm and keep your comments civil and constructive.  Hammering away in all caps and calling the devs all kinds of filthy names will not get your argument heard, it will get you banned and ignored.  Threatening to burn down the publisher's office will just get you arrested.  And do not threaten to boycott.  Let's be serious, will you really never buy another video game again?  And how many of your friends are likely to follow your lead?  Look at the recent NOM boycotts of Starbucks - sales actually rose during that time.  There is no surer way to tell a company that you are irrelevant than to prove you are toothless.  And once you've crossed that bridge, it will be tough to get a good dialogue with anyone who matters.  So keep calm, keep constructive, and keep civil. 

Again, I really don't want to get into politics here or to agitate toward forcing publishers to steer away from this trend.  I could name a dozen different ways of protesting, but for now, I really want to educate my fellow gamers what DRM really is, and what its effects are, and how companies are trying to slip it past you disguised as as features.  I want to get the dialog started on alternatives - how can a publisher ensure that they will see a return on the investment it made in creating the game and how can players not feel taken advantage of or inconvenienced in the process.

Diablo 3 - first impressions

This is pretty much my first interaction with the Diablo series.  I played the first so long ago that I can't remember and I didn't play the second.  I was invited to the beta, but I had computer issues and didn't get to play.

The first thing is the control style.  It's similar to the first game, so not really a surprise in that regard, but it did catch me off guard.  I didn't expect that kind of control and it threw me for a few seconds.  I haven't played a game with that control scheme in so long it took me a while to remember.  I'm a bit user to the wasd keys.  Also, I apparently have to click every bad guy I want clobber, and every coin or piece of loot I want to pick up, but I can walk close to coins to snag them. I find that to be a bit cumbersome, but I'm willing to give it a chance so that I can see if I can get used to it and in the case of the looting, it's not that bad unless they disappear after a short time.  It will suck if I loose loot because I'm fighting an endless onslaught of baddies.

I've not really gone too far with the plot.  I'm doing a few of the opening missions with one of each class to see which one I like before continuing.  I'll post more when I've had time to give this one the attention that it truely deserves.

The Secret Whirled

A castle in the park.

Making friends

The Secret World had it's public beta this weekend and I got to check the game out.  I first saw it at PAX East, and thought it was interesting.  After playing, I think it's breathtaking.  The setting is eerie and creepy.  I'm not big on zombie (I think they're overdone) but this is an interesting take on it, and let's face it, you need bad guys to fight.

The game is set in the modern world.  The world is secretly ruled by a few secret societies, chiefly The Templars- an ancient order dedicated to ridding the world of evil and making the world pure, The Dragons- an Asian organisation who thrives on chaos and strategy, and The Illuminati- a group who seeks power and influence by any means necessary.  

This weekend's beta was limited to the opening campaign of the Templars.  I don't want to give too many spoilers, but one night while you are sleeping you somehow manage to inhale a bee and inadvertently set your shirt ablaze with blue flames.  Ok, your backstory is a bit slapped together, but that's ok.  So then a representative of the Templars randomly shows up and recruits you.

I see two Lovecraft references and a possible reference to Murder She Wrote.

Your fist mission is to investigate Solomon Island, a tiny town off the coast of New England.  The accents place the town in northern Maine or New York (NY is not part of New England, by the way) and bothered me.  But I don't want to get into my opinion on accents and voice acting here.  It seems a thick fog has rolled in essentially making the town into New Silent Hill.  Many of the street and place names got a laugh out of me as most seemed to reference something or other.  Your job is to uncover the dark secret behind the fog and zombie invasion.  Thee are other later for more content.  

So far, this looks like a really interesting game and I can't wait to play the release version.

Running out of shop names?

The simplest haircuts are the best.

Redheads are hawt.

The most awesome furniture I've ever seen.

I have been lusting after the furniture on www.geekchichq.com for almost a year now. (that's right, lusting. As is staring at open mouthed and fantasizing about all the things I'd like to do with it...) I really, really want one.

The Emissary (http://www.geekchichq.com/furniture/emissary) seems like a good choice - It can double as a dinner table and the leaves can be installed over nearly any game I'm likely to play.



The Hoplite (http://www.geekchichq.com/furniture/hoplite) is really,really cool as well. It could go in my living room and double as a coffee table. But If not sure I can use a small table like that for very long comfortably.



Oh, heck! As long as ignoring the fact that my kids would destroy it and ignoring my financial reality, I might as well get a new house with a room dedicated to The Spartan (http://www.geekchichq.com/furniture/spartan). Then not only can I play, but then every time I open it up I can yell, "THIS IS SPARTA!"



...or not.



I actually got to check out these pieces at PAX East 2011 and in 2012 I managed to get my wife to want one too.  They are very, very well made.  The craftsmanship is very high and is probably better than anything I currently own.  The price seems a bit high until you realize that each unit is custom built and that $50 table you bought from Kmart won't do a tenth of what this one will.  Once you consider the usefulness and quality of the item, the price is actually quite reasonable.  If it wasn't for the fact that my kids would destroy it,* I'd use my tax return on it.  In the meantime, I'll just keep checking the site and dreaming. 

Maybe when the kids are older.  Like 20.



*My 3 year old destroyed his own bed.  It was a metal frame toddler bed and he was doing cannonballs off the dresser.  He was using the drawers as a ladder.  I shudder to think what he'd do to a beautiful table like this!

Show the Indies some love.

I love iindependent game makers.  Some of these people are living the dream.  They're making games and getting them published.  Some dream of making a living from it, others just want to finance their next project.  Others are just happy that someone is playing something that they built. 

I went through the Indie Games section of Xbox Live Marketplace last night and looked at the variety.  They have everything there from neat, polished games that you would not be surprised to see on a store shelf to rough attempts by novices.  Some are clever concepts and others are just clones of something else.  It really is a mixed bag, but some things in there are true treasures.  Others look like they were made by immature teenagers to amuse their friends.

So as I looked through there, I downloaded a few demos.  Due to budget issues, and a problem with my credit card I can't buy anything until later this week, but I noted a few promising games that I'll try to feature.

One that impressed me was Avatar Deathmatch.  Basically, you take your avatar and play your friends.  You shoot foam darts, similar to a Nerf gun.  There are various powerups such as God Mode (invincibility), Health kits, and better weapons.  This is on my list to buy.  I can't wait to play against some of my friends with this one.  I recommend checking this one out. 

I plan to talk a bit more about others that catch my eye later, but if you see any fun indie games, whether for Xbox, or for PC, or for anything else, let me know and I'll give it a shout out.  You might be in on the ground floor of the next Angry Birds or Minecraft.  Or maybe you'll make some kid's day.  Maybe you'll inspire some kids to really learn their stuff and someday put out a Triple A title.  Even Jordan Michener started out as a kid with a computer, a little knowledge, and a dream.

So when you can, show the indies a little love.  Take the time to read the catalogue and see what's there.  You may find a fun game and you may make some kid's day. 

Note:  I'm not saying that you should buy a bad game just to encourage some kid (unless it's your cousin or something), but take the time to see what's there and reward someone for good work when you can. 

What is geek?

Well, the easiest way to answer that question is to just grab a dictionary.

geek/gēk/Noun: 1.An unfashionable or socially inept person.



2.A person with an eccentric devotion to a particular interest: "a computer geek".


What it means to be a geek has evolved during my lifetime.  When I was in school, being a geek usually meant that you were unpopular, and bullied.  Today, geeks are sometimes the most popular people in class.  They are free to show they intelligence and creativity and to revel in their own quirkiness.  But is also means that "geek culture" has expanded as well.  Today, Anime geeks no longer have to wade through piles of catelogs to get their hobby imported from Japan.  Often times, they were bootleg copies and poor quality.  Today they can just log onto Amazon.com and not only can they get a copy, but it will be a high quality copy legal copy.  The price of computers has dropped dramatically, so more kids grew up knowing computers and video games and these hobbies have gone mystical to mundane.  Most people today have a rudimentary knowledge of computers and sports fans even have a huge selection of video games dedicated to them.  Even the stereotype of a geek has changed from a heavyset man with thick glasses and poor hygene to a releativly normal person who simply loves science/anime/games/whatever.

In many ways, this is good.  It means that people are more accepting of who others are and those of us who are a little different or have a deep love of a unique hobby can express ourselves without fear.  I sometimes feel a little envious of younger people who can grow up and find peers with similar interests and who can wear a tshirt to school with their favorite passtime on it without fear.  My own life in school was a lot liek Revenge of the Nerds, except I never really found my Tri-lams.  Instead, I supressed how I expressed things and tried to fit in.  I even played football.  I'll admit, I enjoyed playing, but I was never any good, I never fit in, didn't really like the sport.  I just liked being a part of a team and being accepted as a part of a team.  Every now and then, I need to resist the urge to tell kids, "you don't know how good you have it!"  But reall,y who wants to hear an old guy like me gripe?

Now, there are anime geeks, tabletop gaming geeks (D&D, Warhammer, etc) video gamer geeks, music geeks, and many other kinds.  And we're all out of the closet and thanks to the internet we can find people who share our hobbies and suddely we're not alone anymore.  We've banded to gether to become a much sought after commodity as well.  Whole channels like G4 are dedicated to us, colleges woo us with offers to teach us how to enter our favorite industry, sites like YouTube allow us to show off our skills.  Some of us have even found a way to turn our hobbies into an income they can live on. 

A while back there was an ad campaign with the message "it gets better."  It did get better for me.  It it will keep on getting better for all of us because now we can truely be who we are.

We can let our geek flag fly.


Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go roll for initiative.

Screw you for judging me! (Hello Kitty Review)

Out of boredom, and maybe a little masochism, I downloaded "Hello Kitty Beauty Salon" on my Android phone.  It is free, and I believe also available for iOS.  It contains all of the characters you'd expect from HK, plus a few I've never heard of (which is everyone but the title character and maybe the penguin-looking guy). 

It's a pretty common gameplay style that you'll find across mobile games - customer comes in, you serve them, they pay, and they leave.  You can find this gameplay for car shops and cafes and whatever else you like.  This is pretty much a re-skin of a common gameplay type.  It's free to download and they give you enough points to hire one helper, but you need to buy more points with real world money to hire more, which will probably limit your ability to advance at some point.  Your other items can be upgraded with tokens earned ingame, so there is that.  For some reason, all of the customers appear to be humans with bunny ears.  I'm not sure why they need a hair stylist since they never remove the bunny hats. 

In short, this game could kill some time waiting in the doctor's office of a boring ride on the train, but it does nothing spectacular that you couldn't find elsewhere, so if you're a Hello Kitty fan, you might get a kick out of downloading this.  If you're not, and can get over the excessive pink inherent to the HK franchise, it's worth playing to kill a few moments if it just happens to be on your phone or whatever device you're playing.

And as a prank, it's fun to "share" it with a friend who might freak out that you sent him Hello Kitty.

On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness.

At last weekends PAX I got a chance to see the third episode of Precipice on display.  I didn't actually get to play it, but I liked what I watched.  It looks like old school RPG action of of the first final fantasy game.

So after getting home, I decided to check out the first in the series.  I've put it off for a while because I was afraid that it wasn't my thing, and I was right.  But despite that the genre wasn't quite my style, I really liked it.  The story was just silly enough to be worthy of Penny Arcade and the gameplay was, while not a style I like, really solid.  The fact that I enjoy the game despite it not quite being my genre is a mark of how well the gameplay is built.  A good game should draw you in despite the things that would not ordinarily appeal to you and this does that well.

It's a slightly lovecraftian setting with an occasional item of steampunk tossed in.  The basic plaot is engaging and I liked the fact that rather than just letting you control Gabe and Tycho, you get your own player to interact with them.  It was also fun seeing other characters from the strip get worked in in various ways.  They even included the former roommate Jim.  Well, part of him...

Overall, I'm not sure if a diehard RPG fan would like this, but any fan of Penny Arcade will find this worth the price and time.  I'm looking foreward to playing part two.