Category: Uncategorized

Gencon now has a day zero– Wednesday– that I’ve never yet attended until yesterday. The hall isn’t open except for badge retrieval so after that the nerds spill out into the streets of Indy into various drinking holes and hotels. The Ram, the Warmachine bar, was a two hour wait for example. After everyone of the group arrived there were the obligatory stories about who saw the fattest people — which steve won handily due to a 500 pound behemoth who’s labored breathing on the plane was likely not entirely due to the defribulators permanently attached to his chest.

I did see someone with the new DMs guide so there must have been a d&d party somewheres. after reading the new players handbook, I think d&d 5 has some good tech in there, but compared to 13th age? it’s certainly going to have more books but, rules wise it’s straddling this odd middle ground between the old school and 4th edition– where 13th age takes 4th edition and strips out all the stuff people don’t want (and adds in a lot of goodness from FATE and Feng Shui). We shall see where this shakes out. I myself am super tired of the generic fantasy–so that stuff is tough to get through in the new books, I saw a gnome in there and just had to close it for awhile…well on to day 1!

I had high hopes for this one and it does have some quality to it, but after less than a week, I uninstalled it from my computer.    It’s quite pretty and does exactly what you expect in updating the Age of Wonders series.  I found it similar to Kings Bounty if comparing to new games.  Certainly it’s worth checking out when it’s on sale, but for full price do not buy it.  I was going to post some screen shots, but I uninstalled the game so fast I didn’t even take any.

I have one major issue and that’s all artillery/siege weapons.  Stuff that throws rocks, tanks, cannons, etc.  Given that these units have specialized functions in the real world, you assume that since they are not magical at all, they might just have the same specializations and weaknesses of their real-world counterparts.  You’d be wrong.  Flame Tanks can take massive amounts of punishment and dish out fire over a wide area even after moving.  From what I’ve seen they are the best units in the game and can be spammed and spammed (unless you are against stuff that is immune to fire).  However, It was the catapults that caused my quitting of the game.  Catapults ALSO can take massive amounts of close combat and ranged damage, and can also move and fire their weapons at a hex NEXT to it (thus being in close combat). There is no reason in the world to not have all catapults and siege engines for your entire army. You don’t even need heroes.

While I appreciate the update graphically, like nearly all the fantasy strategy games outside of the Dominions series, Age of Wonders missed the mark.

Awhile back I had the opportunity to play YOMI face to face with another living human being.  Later, I played via an old dead technology killed by Steve JOBS ,called FLASH, on a personal computer.

I discovered later that the creators of said game, YOMI, had built a piece of software for a more personal device called an IPAD that allowed users singly or in pairs play this game via this device.  This was found to be fantastic news by all.

YOMI is for those of you that are intrigued by fighting games such as street fighter, virtua fighter, blazblue, jo jo’s bizarre adventure, time killers and World heroes perfect but don’t have the dexterity or desire to learn all the moves, get your ass kicked for months and months before winning even one game against another human being, etc. It is a TURN BASED fighting game that does an amazing job of emulating the genre. While I don’t think the character designs are all that strong (there is a fucking TAUREN from WOW in there…), the gameplay is really something to experience. At it’s core, it’s rock paper scissors, but once you play even a few games, you can have a view into the crazy depth of this game. Once you start to learn a character and beat the living shit out of some people with them (and vice versa) you come to know just how awesome this game is.

Someday when there is no more electricity or power we will be able to play fighting games via YOMI with cards, but for now, get it on the ipad.

I suck as a gamer and here’s proof.  I think I started Dark Souls in late 2011.  It’s now early 2014 and I’m still not done.  I’m getting CLOSE though, and both as a touchbase on my progress for the single reader of this blog, and to push me through to the end, here is a picture that for some will speak a thousand words.