Critical Hits Gift Guide #1: DVDs
Welcome to the first installment of the Critical Hits Gift Guide. We’ll be doing these every week
until xmas, covering a different area of gaming related products scattered throughout the internet. Today, Gaming DVDs.
It was only a few short years ago that gaming movies were considered things like Labyrinth and Mazes & Monsters. Sure, there was a D&D cartoon show, but other than it had a Dungeon Master and Tiamat, it didn’t bear much resemblance to the game. Then came a Dexter’s Laboratory episode called D&DD that spawned many a great reference among our group. Then came the actual Dungeons & Dragons movie… umm, yeah. The less said about that the better.
But now, thanks to the internet and technology advancements making it easier to make films, there are a host of D&D based films on DVD for us to enjoy.
[Read the rest of this article]
Inq. of the Week: Horror of Horrors!
These days, more and more emphasis is being placed on the story within games. Back in the olden days, Link just wandered around the land and just happen to be given a sword by an old man. Nowadays he’s drawn into adventure, and it looks like its going to take 70 hours to finish this next one. But how good are these stories? Are they immersive enough to, in horror games, scare you? Have you ever been scared in a video game or rpg, and if not, is it even possible?
I’ll have to say I haven’t delved into the genre too deeply, but I have yet to have a video game really creep me out, even when playing Eternal Darkness in the dark. Sure, a lot of crazy stuff happened, and I was probably even startled a few times, but at no point did I get shivers up my spine. I’ve also never been genuinely scared by playing in an rpg, though I’ve had fun playing characters who are scared and freaked out. I might be an odd case since movies and tv never really scare me either, except for documentaries. Maybe they ought to make An Inconvienent Truth video game!
Going Critical on Final Fantasy XII
As some of you may know, Final Fantasy XII was released to North American audiences this past Tuesday.
Although only having had barely five hours to actually play the game since then, this edition of Going Critical will be devoted to giving my initial reactions to these five hours with a full review of this game when I actually complete it (which at this rate will be when Final Fantasy XIII is released…).
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.
Dungeon / Coffee Master (Toothpaste for Dinner)
Toothpaste for Dinner is my favorite webcomic, accomplishing the difficult task of being consistently hilarious on an almost daily basis. He’s not afraid to do nerdy jokes either, as shown above. I’m sure I’ll be showcasing several from his archives, but I highly recommend checking it out. Also, be sure to check out his line of t-shirts.
When Things Get Nerfed, Angels Cry
Tons of blogs and sites rushed to cover the half-surprising / half-publicity seeking involvement of World of Warcraft in Southpark, and all quickly hurried to confirm that the Sword of a Thousand Truths was in fact a sword model found in the game but just happens to be a drop few will have for a while out of the hardest instance so far, Naxxramas. Fortunately, the episode turned out to be classic Southpark and added a very hilarious storyline to distance the whole thing from just being a cheap publicity stunt for both Blizzard and Southpark.
In a hilarious twist, this morning Joystiq reported that the expansion (the Burning Crusade) beta reveals for us a mixed blessing! The Sword of a Thousand Truths has been added to the game, apparently as a reward for the new style of honor combat in the Arenas. Much to everyone’s dismay, the Sword has been horribly nerfed to a meager 88.0 dps and the mana burn is gone entirely. I jest, really, if Blizzard had actually added the Sword as per it was described it would be horribly imbalancing and over-powered. It is still a massively powerful weapon, requiring level 70 to weild, and several other abilities were added to it to make up for the ‘nerfing’ of the item. It’s very nice to see that Blizzard did not hesitate in incorporating something that many people will appreciate and strive to obtain.
I call it abstract with the influences of a 3 year old
“Here’s this neat drawing tool” give the URL and then say “and here’s what we did with it” – The Game
“Dude, I just want to show off the beholder with a rocket launcher and an axe” – josh
The drawing is a collaborative effort between Sucilaria, joshx0rfz, and lastly Bartoneus. See if you can figure out who drew what! It’s an amazing game.
Link to our drawing (watch it be drawn before your very eyes!)
A link to the actual tool which is very useful in all actuality.
Google Video of the Week: This is a SERIOUS game Edition
(ok, not actually a new feature, but I had to post this one. It’s French with English subtitles, but totally worth it. Like an even more Indie “The Gamers.”)
Game Designers: WTF?
Something very disturbing happened in the last few days, a bunch of game developer’s blogs passed around discussions on balance (particularly in MMOs) and some of the conclusions that were made seem unsettling. A hilarious, and informative, summary can be found at WorldIV. The first part of the discussion I stumbled upon was at Psychochild’s site (link), where he was refuting a claim that balance in games is impossible. A bold statement to say the least, and I commend Psychochild on his avid defense (and publishing) on the topic of balance, but the part that really disturbed me was in the response to his post. The originator was Ryan over at Nerfbat, arguing at first that balance is impossible and then retorting with more of the same. The part that really inspired this response was something he said in his response:
Basically, to make a completely balanced game, everything would have to have a counterpart, or everyone would have to be perfectly identical. That, in my opinion, is entirely unfun. So truthfully, I shouldn’t be arguing that balance is or isn’t possible, because I feel that true balance shouldn’t be sought when developing a game.
I was already surprised that someone so seemingly familiar with balance as Psychochild would accuse Blizzard of being a developer that does not understand balance, and then I was hit by an employee at SOE making this statement! The above quote almost totally removes the speaker from having any understanding of balance whatsoever. [Read the rest of this article]
You Tubes of the Week: Of Nerds and Hardware Stores Edition
A double dose of Weird Al this week:
His new album, Straight Outta Lynwood, is released today. Go buy it!
