Quite the Predicament
Obviously when you are playing a game like World of Warcraft, it is all consuming to the level that it begins to invade the other aspects of your life. It was a joy, as I talk about back in that old post, to be playing with my (now wife) then girlfriend and hear her make hideously accurate quillboar noises. Now it just invades my other thoughts such as when thinking about comic ideas and embarrasing situations, the kind of stuff I think about every waking hour of every day (naked troll women). Surely that will google us some excellent visitors!
I’m actually amazed that I didn’t see the news that Trogdor is going to be unlockable in Guitar Hero II in more places. As tired as the Homstarrunner stuff got from over-exposure, that song was just something out of heaven. Today’s Penny Arcade revealed some sad news to me that Gabe has mostly given up on Lost, though I admit this part of the current season is starting to ‘drag’, or just not picking up as much as the last two, but we have supreme faith in the writers at this point. The worse part of this, is that apparently Gabe, as well as almost everyone else I’ve even heard of, has fallen in love with Heroes. A show who’s first episode caused Becky and myself to convulse uncontrollably for minutes at a time. I’m determined to give it a second shot, as everyone claims it is so good, assuming I can somehow get my eyes on the episodes between the inital one and present day. If it is bad, rest assured, I will write a full analysis of why it sucks hardcore.
Review: Wicked
Title: Wicked – The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
Author: Gregory Maguire
Year of Publication: 1995
Genre: Fantasy/Fiction
Length: 406 pages; small font, large book, not a quick read.
Rating: 4/5 – Worth paying full price.
Review:
The Wizard of Oz is a classic story, whether you saw the film on TV, read the book(s), or both. There are very few people in North America who have never heard of Oz, and most everyone can name at least a half-dozen characters: Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion, and The Wicked Witch of the West, to name a few. Even if some of these characters only have titles instead of names, and don’t have much of a character to them, they’re well-known and loved. Or, perhaps, hated, if you were that sort of kid.
In Wicked, Maguire, who is in the business of recreating old childhood stories into books better suited for adults, takes one of the most notable villains from Oz and turns her into something more. She’s given the name Elphaba, which is based on L. Frank Baum’s initials (El ef bee, el fa ba). Elphaba is born looking like a demon child, with green skin and teeth like razors. Her parents are poor people who try to live a simple life, but nothing is simple in Oz. There are great political problems, religious problems, and a scared populace that is quick to attack first and ask questions later.
Halloween Boardgames / The Triangle
First, a shout out to Halloween games.
If you’re in the Halloween gaming mood, here’s some tabletop games to check out:
- Mall of Horror
- Arkham Horror
- Betrayal at House on the Hill (and if you see it around, it’ll probably be out of print soon, so might not be a bad idea to snap it up).
- Call of Cthulhu RPG and/or CCG
- Horrorclix
- Any suitably creepy RPG adventure. I’m running one myself in d20 Modern this Saturday.
Now that you’re prepared for the week ahead, here’s something that has nothing to do with Halloween: the Triangle.
Garbage In, Garbage Out
Game design is like many other creative fields in that there are many ways to approach the creative process that will eventually lead to a game. If it were a science, we’d have programmed a computer to do it, and it would be making all of our games for us. (Though some have theorized that this is what Reiner Knizia is, some kind of sophisticated German AI gone rogue, sort of like the movie War Games in reverse.)
LAN Party: Specificity is a Necessity
No, I’m serious, this actually happened. The Ochbad depicted here offers more of an excuse then was actually given, not that any was really needed, because we’ve come to expect no less from him. This isn’t to say that we dislike him for it at all, in fact the hilarity of the situation more then made up for any of the inconveniences, and fortunately enough it only really inconvenienced him in the end. To say I had no prior knowledge of the issue would not be entirely true, I suppose the assumption was simply made that being “without windows” meant that some other suitable replacement would be in attendance. This would also not be entirely true. He ranks among the few people who I would not put it passed to show up for a LAN Party, huge computer and monitor in tow, without actually having any kind of operating system whatsoever. That’s dedication…or something.
I had gone through literally months of mental preparations and planning for the event, anticipating every flaw, every snag, every problem that could occur to derail the caffiene fueled locomotive of pure bliss. No amount of prescience could have prepared me for this particular situation, as unthinkable as it really is, but the loose nature with which I decided to plan out the weekend did not require all in attendance to be up and running 24-7. For this I am eternally grateful.
Eventually, and I mean that in the sense of roughly half-way through the LAN party, by nothing short of a miracle the gods of Windows XP parted the clouds and bestowed upon his computer the raw ability to operate. After which we did enjoy much ‘War that was Dawning’, and some of the ‘Crafting of War number 3′. Needless to say, this will go down in our history books for one of the best arrivals to a LAN Party ever. At least until it is topped by someone who shows up with a thousand lobsters in place of a computer.
Let's talk about Elegance, baby (Part 1)
All games should strive to be elegant.
All games should strive to be elegant.
ALL GAMES SHOULD STRIVE TO BE ELEGANT.
OK, so then what’s elegant, and why should games strive to be it?
It’s a little complicated…
Yo mama's so fiddly…
This past week, I’ve come across two pages that have got me thinking about “fiddliness.”
The first was a post on Boardgamegeek entitled “American style games vs. German style games: fiddly is good.”
The second was about Magic: The Gathering’s new set entitled “Time Spiral.”
Both got me thinking about how there’s good fiddly and bad fiddly.
Review: Straight Outta Lynwood
After last Sunday’s premier of a Robot Chicken episode that featured a Weird Al video, the Adult Swim bump said something to the effect of: “If you took a time machine back to 1986 and said, in 20 years, Micheal Jackson = flamed out, Weird Al = still relevant, we’d have laughed our asses off.”
Not only is that true, but Al’s new album shows an amazing versatility, and a master of the parody maker’s art. Herein I dissect the new album track by track and give an overview of the animated music videos contained on the dual-disc release.
Romantic Computers Cannot Cry
I’ll start off with an apology for not having a comic or any kind of new drawing for this week, it’s been an off week in general. I will, however, dazzle you with an amazing (and true) proverb!
Pretty much all online sites with comments get innundated with spam, and we are no exception. Thankfully the Game is most gracious and deals with all of that without complaint or hesitation, deleting tons of rogue comments from online casino sites and various other ad companies every day. Most sites have moderation or just a trash bin that these comments are thrown into, but we here at Critical Hits subscribe to some newfangled green thinking!
We are fortunate enough to have our very own Journalistic Guinea Pigs (of Justice) who we can feed these spam comments to. Their vast and intricate media digestive systems process this spam, and over a painstaking process that takes a thousand milliseconds, they change the spam into what we call “creative output” (poop). Thus, with this process, we are saving the environment by turning otherwise harmful spam into quintissentially useful crap. Rest assured, dear readers, that they remain cute and cuddly all through the task, in fact their inherent cuteness increases output and efficiency in one fel swoop, don’t ask me how it just does. [Read the rest of this article]
OSU/GAMA/Wargamer Study Results
Remember that survey I asked you all to take?
They have the first “sortie” of data back.
They haven’t gone indepth with the analysis yet (and they admitted it was flawed in a few ways) but what we do have back are some not so surprising results- perhaps surprising in how overwhelming they are.
93% of respondants were men! 90% white! Over 72% between the ages of 23 and 50!
Kinda disheartening, huh?
