The Carnivore who’s discarded womanhood!

Folding Chair

Ah the new fighting game smell!  I can’t stop myself– ok well I have– I didn’t go in for Skullgirls or Arcana Heart nor the Tekken vs Street Fighter malarkey–but I have a weakness you see, even if a game is so far from targeting my demographic group of ancient occidental old men, if I hear it’s good, I just have to try the fucker. Despite the fact that Virtua Fighter 5 is Marianas Trench deep and I have yet to come close to mastering even one character and despite the fact that while I have played 40-50 matches of KOF 13 online, I haven’t even scratched the surface of that game in the least.  These two reasons alone, not even counting Marvel vs Capcom 3 and Blazblue, are enough to say “never buy a new fighting game,” but again, I cannot stop.

So here we have Persona 4 arena by the same people that did Blazblue (and hence Guilty Gear) and it’s about some high school kids that  go inside their fucking televisions and fight each other in some strange show.  They fight with swords and guns and folding chairs but more importantly, they fight with these strange robots called ‘personas.’  Now, just like Guilty Gear and Blazblue, it’s expected that the plot of any fighting game in this type of insane genre will also be insane so there you have it.  Going inside TV’s, fighting on TV, using strange robots (are they robots?), saying stupid stuff in high pitched voices, beating up their friends and asking if they are OK afterwards, etc.   Anyway the game is based on some extremely popular RPG series that I’ve never played.  While the character designs are great, they just have to LOOK good, it doesn’t really matter what they say or do because despite any type of ‘plot’ it’s still just  a fighter and that’s all it has to be.

Gameplay wise, from my initial plays, I would say the game is a bit less insane than the Guilty Gear series and certainly less than Blazblue.  One thing that is noticeable off the bat is the ease of combos.  You can pull off some insane combos with just pressing the same button and with some mix ups, the combos can hit into the 30’s pretty easily.  I haven’t studied the system enough to really know why or how this works, but I shall because, so far,  it is quite a fun game.  While I like Blazblue and really liked King of Fighters 13 for awhile there, there is something about each that just doesn’t grab me–both are very very difficult games to get good at.  KOF has never been combo friendly by design and Blazblue is really a massive amount of memorization because combos are so long and most of the good ones have multiple cancels within them.  Whether it’s the hop-tech in KOF or just the insane amount of combos you have to pull off to win in Blazblue, I’ve been in the market for something that is a bit more grounded, but that doesn’t have the screen mobility constraints as Street Fighter 4.  Granted, kids going inside TV’s and fighting each other is pretty off the wall, but the fighting system, maybe because of the easy combos, doesn’t smack me in the head like Blazblue saying “you will never be good enough at this to enjoy it” yet.

The roster is mostly chicks with various weapons with a few dudes peppered in there.  There’s only one effeminate guy in the group which is good because, you know– Bridget from GG was a pretty tough pill to swallow when you found out ‘it’ was a boy– and with so many female characters, I was afraid this would turn into an Arcana Heart/ Skullgirls that I would simply embarrassed to play in front of the family or friends.  There are enough dudes to go around and while not filled with grim swordsman that I would like (ala Last Blade), there are some GIANT AXES in play to make up for it, in fact two of the characters are named AXE.  Since these are high school kids, it’s not like any of them are very badass, but some of their personas ARE.  One design looks like a greek statue holding a globe with the chest cut out and a dude sitting inside on a chair another is a massive demon that bursts out of the ground. The personas aren’t on screen all the time, but when they are it’s pretty fawesome.

So fuckall I am glad I got this. I’m probably going to only get to play against my kids but I will go online and get my ass kicked this weekend.  Every once in a while you will get matched with someone that is near your level of play so I’m hoping that happens.  If not, it’s fun to see the fireworks as one gets run down.

 

Our year in board gaming 2012

This year I didn’t get a ton of gaming in compared to previous years.  That said, the games I want to play have narrowed quite a bit as what we don’t have is TIME, so faster games are getting played more.  Gone are the weekends where we could conceivably play something for two days in a row or for even 8 hours straight.  Anything over 4 hours is really never going to hit the table again unless it’s either really good or there is some exceptional circumstances.

End of the summer and Fall was slower for gaming as usual, but there was some fervor for a few games that made people really want to get out and push some wood on cardboard.   Mostly, that fervor was around Eclipse, which is the clear winner for best game (and most played)  over the course of this year. I got in 18 games of it, and seeing as most Risk-like strategy games I own have been played maybe 3-5 times ever, that’s saying something.   The game is almost perfect for the 4X space genre and really, my complaints about it are the mediocre alien art rather than anything to do with the game itself.  The first expansion is also excellent.  While Eclipse games can sometimes be a bit boring if all the players turtle up or get a bad draw (or are eliminated)–it’s due to lack of experience on how to rack up the points.  While totally dominating the 4X space genre (bye bye Twilight Imperium), Eclipse by no means takes the place of Cosmic Encounter as both the best sci-fi board game and best board game ever made but shit– it’s close.

Other than Eclipse, Glory to Rome is my second favorite for the year.  While an older game, it had a reprint this year and it kicks ALL sorts of ass.  It’s what we all wanted Race for the Galaxy to be and just didn’t know it at the time.  There are just so many paths to victory, and while you are trying to set up your own stuff, like Race for the Galaxy, there’s much more interaction with other players.  I think this will get played an absolute TON in 2013.  Easy set up, easy to play, difficult to win and a Knizia level of nastiness makes for a total winner.

Second tier games that I liked but got pushed out by the two above:  King of Tokyo is the first of the equals here.  I love this game and will play it any time but it’s really light, doesn’t have  much strategy and I can see some people not liking the randomness of it.  There are some tough decisions to make in the game, but at it’s surface, it seems all about just rolling dice.   The dice are a factor however, so this is why I like to play 3-4 games in a sitting to even all that random out.  Secondly is the Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Duel at Mt. Skullzfyre.  This is a fun little game but with too many players, say 5+, the turns take forever and because you have to win 2 rounds the game can take 3-4 HOURS to get through.  Sitting down to just play a single round is well worth it.  While light and not very strategic, the art and getting to yell out the spells makes it a solid game to play when you don’t have a ton of time.

The last two are games I wanted to like, but am not sure about.  First is Blood Bowl Team Manager.  While a solid concept, I became frustrated in two four-player games where I was the last player to go on the first season of each game, limiting my play options.  It seemed impossible to catch up in either game and made me think that this is a serious design flaw.  While I love Blood Bowl, and Team Manager is a cool concept, I can’t see this hitting the table due to this balance issue.  In contrast,  In Nexus Ops, the players after the first get a bonus to their cash to balance out the power of the first turn.   Team Manager has no such fix and from my few plays at the wrong end of the table, it needs it.  Secondly: Feudality by Tom Wham.  This is also a fairly light game with a lot of randomness to it.  I’d describe it as Catan with fighting.    While enjoyable to play, the same dice issues that I have with Catan creep up in Feudality and it doesn’t seem like you can knee-cap the player closest to winning easy.  I don’t expect it to hit the table all that much.

Games that fell by the wayside this year a bit.   First off is Warhammer Fantasy Battle. I hate to say it but I only got in a few games this year while painting a lot more than I usually do.  I assume I’ll get in another game before the end of year, but this SHOULD have been played a lot more than it was.   Sure I could have packed up my shit and gone to the GW store any given Sunday for a game, but it’s tough when you have a basement set up with a table.

Secondly, I only got to play Cosmic Encounter FOUR times this year.  That’s a crying shame and has to be rectified in 2013.

I did get in some old stuff this year that proved to be pretty awesome.   The first was Epic 40K, the third iteration of the Space Marine rules– yes the ones that TANKED after 6 months of support from GW. I was surprisingly pleased with the rules and wish now that I had played it a lot more in the heyday (if there was one) for this ruleset.  Bolt Action uses these rules (essentially), so if you are looking at a modern iteration, that’s where to go.  Following the old GW vein, I was coerced into playing 40K, a game I rather loathe since the new ‘mass close combat’ style rules came out, but in it’s 2nd edition which still has some tactical depth for the scale with individual models rather than moving globs of models en masse (which is ok for EPIC scale, but 28 mm skirmish? No).

Shockingly, Advanced Space Crusade got raised out of the dust and played.  This is one of Games Workshops pinnacles of design with both a campaign game and tactical game wrapped in one.  While not something I could play a lot of, it’s a solid experience and one of GW’s best 40K offshoots.

So that was 2012– what is there to look forward to in 2013?  First off is Talisman City.  Fantasy Flight is tackling one of the more difficult to design expansions to Talisman.  If the success of Dungeon is any indication, I have a lot of confidence that City will be excellent.  Talisman has a ton of expansions at this point and I’ve played with all of them but Dragons, which looks like a lot more work than integrating the rest of the expansions.   Moongha Invaders is the next on my list for 2013– and a kickstarted I’ve supported.  Other than that, there’s not too much that’s coming out next year for board games that I know of now.  I’m sure there will be something to grab at my hard earned cash and if not, there is always Eclipse…

Xcom Review: a finished game!

I did it.  I finished a game.  So rare, so unique to actually push through and complete any game I start– it must be good, right?   Yes.  The new Xcom delivers the turn based goodness big time.  While it is not up to the Jagged Alliance 2 level of turn based goodness– Xcom is by far the best modern TBT (turn based tactical) game I’ve played and hopefully will usher in a new age of copy cats that take the genre to new heights.  This was an A class title and while I’m not sure about sales, it must have some publishers thinking that turn based strategy is a sell for gamers.  What’s amazing about Xcom is that it not only plays like a great TBT title, it LOOKS like an A class game.  A lot of people may have played Laser Squad Nemesis, but likely not a lot of people were drawn in by the graphics who otherwise wouldn’t look at a TBT game.  The last serious TBT I played was Soul Nomad and the World Eaters after a long string of NiS titles since the legendary Disgaea hit the states.  Xcom is a far cry from the NiS games but the essentials are the same: you have a group of guys, they level up, they get better gear, they fight stuff in turn based mode.

Getting in on a good shooting

First, lets me get on about the stuff that’s not really all that important: the visuals.  This is window dressing for the core gameplay and while it can’t make the game it is a HUGE bonus in Xcom.  Firaxis uses the Unreal engine and it is just gorgeous.  All the effects look great, the physics are superlative and the destructable terrain is to DIE for in this genre.  We’re seeing things in Xcom (again, a TBT) that are normally in a top drawer FPS.  The camera work is fairly good during shots and criticals– I saw a few glitches here and there, but nothing gamebreaking.  This is, by far, the best looking TBT around.  What I was most worried about after Xcom Apocalypse is that the aliens in the new version would look like SHIT or just too comical to take seriously (like the blue ice cream guys or the walking asses).  I can say the aliens look excellent.  While not a fan of the ‘greys’ as a design, they did a great job with everything else.  They even go into explaining why there are so many different races invading the earth all unified– not something that was ever done in the old Xcoms.

Gameplay.  Firaxis made some decisions that at first concerned me a great deal.  First there is no inventory at all.  You don’t have a backpack filled with crap for each soldier and you cannot pick up anything on the ground during a fight.  Soldiers have a main weapon, a pistol and up to two extra items (either a medikit, stun gun, grenades or extra armor for the most part) depending on your class.

Secondly, your guys get two moves only.  That means you can’t move one square forward, move another square forward, etc.  You have to pick a square to move to and GO. You can move a second time, but again, you pick a square within your move range and go there.   For your shooting action, you either shoot first (and not take your movement at all) or move first, then shoot.

Both of these things seem shocking to Jagged Alliance veterans—but they do something that I highly respect: save time.   If you remember, missions in the old Xcom and map clearing in JA could take a long, long time.  Xcom’s new version drastically reduces the possible time spent on a mission, mostly due to the two major changes above.  You are not wasting time moving single squares with your guys, nor are you fuddling about with trying to determine if you can grab a grenade out of you backpack and still have enough action points to throw it.    This does remove some of the age old tactics of picking up alien tech and slapping it in your backpack (or alien corpses) or getting aliens to drop their weapons on a successful psionic control attack (yes Psionics are in the game).  However, the benefit far outweighs the loss of these age-old and rather beardy tactics in that you are done and on to the next mission.

Campaign.  The campaign game is engaging and tight.  There are cinematics for a lot of events and a set of cheracters that you interact with throughout who provide some added entertainment and give you a feel for what  is at stake.  I only played through the campaign twice, once losing pretty quickly before I understood the importance of countries panicking and leaving the Xcom project.  Once you get down to too few countries funding Xcom, the aliens basically take over and it’s game over.

Another interesting bit is that the aliens always abduct humans in multiple sites–so you have to choose where to take your guys to shoot them.  You can take easy missions (and should early on) with small rewards, or take difficult missions with more rewards.  Eventually you are forced to take the most difficult missions as the panic level in some countries becomes so great, you don’t have a choice but to take on that mission to lower the panic level.  Since, as noted above, missions go quickly, campaign game can go fairly quickly, unlocking new weapons (and facing new enemies) at a good clip.  While it’s key to allow the player to determine some of the pace in a TBS game, I found it a good mix of being forced to take action and having time to mull over decisions.

Soldier upgrades are simplified in that you choose a skill per advance.  These skills are very clear in gameplay, and you can tailor your guys to be pretty much exactly what you need at the time.   My only complaint here is that you will get some guys that can no longer advance as they have all the advances in their class tree.  This is minor as by that time, you are headed to the end of the game.

The Assault class was my favorite.

That said, Xcom is not an extremely long game where you are slugging through hours and hours of missions and side quests, there are distractions from the main quest, but you are always against the clock and have to start making your way to the end with some speed if you want to win.  As a responsible adult, I found this to be great as I could actually FINISH it.  Now back to the pile of unfinished games from 2011….

Beyond the Gates of Antares – new Rick Priestley sci fi miniatures game on Kickstarter soon

Some good painting there.

Well this is unexpected and pretty big news. I figured all the Ex-GW that went over to Warlord game would stick to the historical stuff as to not compete directly. Certainly Hail Caesar and Bolt Action are considered to be both excellent games but by the fact that they are historical, probably don’t appeal to the mass of gamers like 40K does.  Well the, why not try to take on their former masters with what looks to be a 30MM Sci Fi skirmish game called Beyond the Gates of Antares.

Given where 40K went after 2nd edition (that also fueled Necromunda) I was completely off the wagon.  While I have a small Eldar army and various sundries collected over the years, I have had no desire at all to play 40k, even 6th edition.  I believe GW has the skills to make  a great ruleset as evident by Warhammer Fantasy 8th, they did not go far enough with 6th edition to turn it back into something I’d be interested in playing.

That said, BOLT ACTION’s rules are pretty much exactly what people want out of a game– not too heavy, not too light, with impulse driven iniative rather than the fatal (in 40K’s current scale) IGOYOUGO mechanic.  I expect the new game to be similar.  They were on to something GOOD with AT43– it just didn’t work out well at the end due to balancing the armies out.  I will be throwing some cash at this kickstarter for the single reason that the rulebook will likely kick total ass if Rogue Trader is any indication.

Here is the link.

Inevitable Hobbit commentary (wherein the author uses the word “Lucasification”)

Ah… the Hobbit, my first foray as a grade-schooler into fantasy literature. I already knew the story a bit from the 70s movie (it came out in 1980 but is squarely in the 70’s for style) and some lord of the rings movie books that I had lying around, but reading the book as a little kid was both a challenge and a huge pleasure that lead to COUNTLESS (mostly lesser) sci-fi and fantasy novels to follow. It turns out that my dad was a closet Sci-fi freak and had boxes and boxes of paper backs like the Killer Thing and a lot of Ray Bradbury along with some Pel Toro. He was the one that turned me onto Tolkien in the first place and this path, started in the late 70’s led directly into D&D and basically the entire wonderful world of gaming (at that time on the fringe).

Before seeing the movie, I saw one of my co-workers walking out of the nerd store. She was buying a present for her cousin and would probably be the least likely individual to be coming out of the nerd store that I could imagine (looking quite like one of the forever21 models posted across the atrium). This present was a Hobbit card game of some sort and yet she had never seen the film nor read the book and this is where I think Peter Jackson had to make some hard choices about the Hobbit.

The Length
Stretching this rather short book into three films was shocking at first and remains shocking for a viewer that is familiar with the original book and 70’s film. I found a few small bits of the new Hobbit tediously long but this was made up by the fact that there were parts barely mentioned in the book that are getting the FULL treatment in the movie– and these are EXCELLENT parts of the story. Radaghast the Brown finding that Sauron has returned to Dol Gudor, the actual showing of the attack on Lonely Mountain by Smaug and the Orcs on Moria were all very well done and fun to see.

The Flashback
To my astonishment, the beginning of the Hobbit is actually the beginning of the Lord of the Rings (in the book) where Bilbo has a going away party and then disappears to Rivendell. So this sets up these films as a solid pre-quel to the LoTR stuff because the entire movie is one big series of flashbacks or stories the characters are telling to other stories.

Things that were great
Gollum. Fucking amazing. While the entire scene was different from how I pictured it in the book the tension level was fantastic. They nailed Gollum down beyond all expectations.  The way the ring was lost by Gollum was also very well done.

The Goblin King. While this entire sequence was Lucasified (see below), the Goblin king himself looked badass with his flesh beard and carbuncular skin. I was just very sad that he didn’t say the line: “Who are these miserable persons?” that I loved so well from the book. It must have been tough for Jackson to work through the Goblins actually not immediately killing the dwarves because, lets face it, in the other films they just attack and attack and attack all the time.

The Dol Godur back story.  We know from reading the Hobbit that Gandalf goes off from time to time to do stuff– once for a VERY long time.  The stuff he is doing is not important for the Hobbit story (other than the fact that he’s gone) but was vastly important when framed as a prequel to the Lord of the Rings.  He has to investigate and defeat either the return of Sauron in some form or the newly reformed Witch King of Angmar.  This is going to be super badass.

Things that weren’t so good
The escape from the goblin king – this was a ridiculous CGI sequence not unlike the newer star wars films. It puts the dwarves and gandalf at such odds and surviving so many near escapes from destruction fighting the goblins that the viewer can only conclude that they are completely immortal and free from harm. You just become numb to all the craziness on screen. Plus man, it’s tough to beat this:

Thorin almost getting killed- again, taking a quick scene from the book and expanding it to a really long scene is OK, as long as the resolution is somewhat consistent with the original intent. I understand that this scene was showing Thorin vs the ‘big bad guy’ and is the climax of the film, but why did we have to think he was dead? Why mess with the audience that already knows he will live?

The reason for this ‘almost death’ of one of the main characters, as I see it, is the type of viewer like my co-worker noted above that had never see the old movie, nor read the books. It’s that viewer that some of this stuff is targeting, not US nerds. For the climax, Thorin’s almost death adds drama and excitement and for most people this was likely needed. While the book is exciting, it’s not HOLLYWOOD exciting and to bring in the kids, all of the Lucasified scenes may have been necessary.  Unfortunately those were the  parts I loathed, both in the Hobbit and the Return of the King (where the mouthwash clean out of Minis Tirith by the ghosts was the worst offender).

It’s an Action film
It’s shocking for those of us that grew up with some very very different views on how the characters looked and how the ahem.. ACTION sequences went down that it is a bit shocking to see on screen.  We know Gimli and Aragorn are badasses– but you never got the impression that the dwarves from the hobbit were really that great at fighting anything.  They mostly got captured and run down only to be saved by Gandalf or Bilbo in the end time and time again.

Don’t let those things shake you out of seeing it though, the Hobbit rocked.