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You are here: Home / Archives for Newest Critical Hits / Featured

Review: Battle Tag (by Ubisoft)

June 1, 2011 by Bartoneus

The odds are that you haven’t heard of the game Battle Tag that was released by Ubisoft in November of last year. How do I know that? Because so far it has only had what must be called a “soft release” and is only available through Ubisoft’s online store or in stores in Canada and Texas. Aside from some attention garnered at E3 2010, there’s not many ways you would have heard about this game. What’s surprising about this is that Battle Tag is far and away the best laser tag game I’ve ever played and may even be one of the best back yard experiences I’ve had in my entire life.

Filed Under: Featured, Reviews, Video Games Tagged With: back yard, battle tag, battletag, game, laser tag, lasertag, lazer tag, lazertag, new, Reviews, ubisoft

Dear Mom & Dad: Please Send GP

May 31, 2011 by Vanir

College is a special time in every PC’s life. They’re learning new things, they feel more free than they’ve ever been, their hormones are raging, and their backstories are finally blossoming. Just make sure yours uses protection.

Filed Under: Dire Flailings, Featured, Humor, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: academy, backstory, bards, bards rule, books, college, dm tips, learning, school, university, yay bards

Review: D&D Daggerdale

May 25, 2011 by Dave

D&D Daggerdale is the newest D&D video game release from Atari, available for download on PC, Playstation Network, and Xbox Live. We played the Xbox version, using review copies provided from the publisher. A “hack and slash” style game (in the same genre as Diablo, World of Warcraft, and to a lesser extent older D&D games like Neverwinter Nights and Baldur’s Gate), the game is touted as the first game to use the D&D 4e ruleset (though the connection is loose, as we’ll discuss) and set in the Forgotten Realms.

Filed Under: Featured, Reviews, Roleplaying Games, Video Games Tagged With: 4e, D&D daggerdale, daggerdale, diablo, forgotten realms, hack and slash

Splitting Shadows

May 24, 2011 by Vanir

This past week, I decided to pretend I was J.J. Abrams in the final season of Lost and concocted a reason for all the mysterious events and shadowy nether-business in my campaign. Since the PCs were trapped in some horrifyingly evil prison demiplane, I decided an appropriately evil thing should be trying to make everything worse. But I was still stuck. Then reality splintered all over the place. It takes a really good vacuum to get reality out of a carpet.

Filed Under: Dire Flailings, Featured, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: bogeyman, boogeyman, collaborative storytelling, dreams, egon spengler, inception, nightmares, real ghostbusters, split party

The Old School Job, Part 1: The Temple-Brothel of Monte-Cookus

May 18, 2011 by The Chatty DM

In which Chatty finally reveals what new RPG hack he’s been working on for so long and starts telling the story of his latest play test game in a mythical fantasy city.

Filed Under: Actual Play, Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Featured, Freelance Writing, Game Hacks & Content, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games, Uncategorized Tagged With: Cortex Plus, Hack, Leverage RPG, Old School Job

Chatty in Washington: Highlights of DC Gameday

May 17, 2011 by The Chatty DM

In which Chatty exits his blog silence to share the best tidbits of his Washington DC trip to attend a gaming con.

Filed Under: Actual Play, Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Featured, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: Blowback, dc gameday, Mouse Guard, Washington

The Plastic Is Too Damn High: Miniatures Pricing Primer

May 6, 2011 by Dave

Like many of you, I was dismayed at the cancellation of the D&D minis line. Understandably, this raised some questions among the community. “Are minis really that expensive to make?” “Why can’t I just buy a box of assorted monsters?” “Isn’t it stupid to reuse sculpts?” I hope to be able to answer some of these questions, with what limited knowledge I have about the situation.

Filed Under: Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Critical Threats, Editorial, Featured, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: D&D, D&D minis

Proper Villainy

May 3, 2011 by Vanir

Villains add a great element to a campaign: an opposing force that the players can invest themselves in fighting against. But what exactly makes a good villain? Let’s take a little trip down a road paved with good intentions.

Filed Under: Dire Flailings, Featured, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: curly moustaches, darth vader, dick cheney, dm tips, evil, evil bastards, hayden christensen, lord soth, playing evil characters, proper villainy, roleplay, stupid ranger, villain

The Architect DM: Traps, Hazards, & Terrain

April 27, 2011 by Bartoneus

Once again I solicited on my twitter account (@Bartoneus) asking what aspects of location design in RPGs people have problems with, and I’d like to thank everyone that responded this afternoon. I will be addressing many of the topics you guys asked about in the future, but for today’s post I chose DigitalDraco’s comment: “I always want to include more interesting terrain effects, hazards & the like but they tend to seem added-on.” This topic immediately struck me as one that I’ve struggled with in the past and one that I believe many other people have had issues with as well.

Filed Under: Featured, Roleplaying Games, The Architect DM Tagged With: advice, architect dm, D&D, DM advice, dnd, dungeon mastering, Dungeons and Dragons, hazards, location design, roleplaying games, Roleplaying Games, terrain effects, traps

Unboxing – The Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond Boxed Set

April 25, 2011 by Bartoneus

We were extremely fortunate to get an early copy of the upcoming D&D boxed set called The Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond to unbox and show you all today. It comes packaged in a thin box the same size as the Red Box starter set and comes with a very sturdy 127 page paperback Campaign Guide, a 31 page Encounter Book, two sheets of cardboard tokens, one poster with a map of gloomwrought on one side and an encounter map on the other, and a Despair deck of 30 cards.

Filed Under: Featured, Reviews, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, 4th Edition, box set, boxed set, D&D, dnd, Dungeons and Dragons, game, gloomwrought and beyond, new, preview, Reviews, roleplaying, Shadowfell, the shadowfell, the shadowfell gloomwrought and beyond, unboxing

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About the Author

  • Bartoneus

    Danny works professionally as an architectural designer and serves as managing editor here at CH, which means he shares many of the duties of being an editor but without the fame and recognition. He also writes about RPGs, videogames, movies, and TV. He is married to Sucilaria, and has a personal blog at Incorrect Blitz Input. (Email Danny or follow him on Twitter).

    Email: bartoneus@critical-hits.comWeb: https://critical-hits.com//author/Bartoneus/

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