Gamehole.com

After playing 750 point games, the smaller size was really challenging to build a list for. The game itself was a rough one... We played a "Mosh Pit" type scenario using this roundish piece of hill terrain to define the mosh pit. I pushed ahead fast, but forgot that you can't run and shield wall on the same turn (I told you I was rusty). When the Houseguard Riflemen started shooting up my Precursors the next turn, I was starting to fear that I had seriously overextended myself.

Round 2 I moved up a little further, and this time I shield walled. Temporal Barrier would assure I didn't eat a charge this turn, and would force the 'Ferret to advance cautiously. I did manage to shoot some lightning around and take out a few enemies, which made me feel better.

Moments before the last of my infantry get wiped out by Rayvn's Thresher attack...

Round 3 was the money round: Haley pops her feat and throws Deadeye on the Stormblades. We wade in and manage to kill off most of the infantry. Suddenly things are looking up. I've got most of Ravyn's infantry dead, and a huge pile of troopers standing in front of her to gank her next round. Unfortunately, I don't know Ravyn very well... She casts Vortex of Destruction and then dives in and threshers my pile of infantry, killing most of them. My Defender (which has had it's heavy barrel destroyed by the Hydra in prior rounds) gets picked up an chucked at Haley, and they both get knocked down.

The assassination attempts drag on for a couple more rounds, both of us unable to get the job done. I finally get off a lucky damage roll to take Rayvn down, but by this time I'm down to Haley, the Defender, the Journeyman, 2 Stormblades and the Lancer. Bobaferret is down to Rayvn, the Hydra, 2 Halberdiers, 2 Riflemen and a Ghost Sniper. A brutal but good game. We were both fighting tooth and nail to stay alive, and it showed.

In other news, I picked up Darksiders on the XBOX 360 yesterday. I've seen this game at PAX for the last couple of years, and both times I knew there was something special about it. The visual style and polish is so far very impressive, and the game is a blast to play. Has a very visceral, Devil May Cry sensibility to it, and the controls are smooth like butter.

Also, went and saw Sherlock Holmes last night, and liked it much more than I expected to. It had a nice blend of steampunk and occult horror, and if you are a fan of either one, there is likely something here to enjoy... I was entertained the whole time (a rare thing these days, especially for movies over a couple hours long.) I approve.

Labels: miniatures, MKII, video games, wargaming, Warmachine, XBOX

I finally got my Precursor Knights completely painted and sealed today. They have been sitting on my painting table and taunting me for over a month now, and it's good to have them finally finished. They are a unit I really enjoy playing, and I think I'm going to be using them even more frequently now in MKII with the reduced power of the Sword Knight.

The gang's all here. Zombies everywhere be a'feared.

For my color scheme, I went with a GW shadow grey and P3 Menoth White Highlight. I wanted them to fit well with my Cygnar army, and yet still stand apart as something different, and I think I've accomplished that. I made liberal use of a Menoth White Base-colored wash to give the whites a very antique ivory look. The white stripe across the bottom of the robes was an afterthought, but I thought it tied the whole scheme together nicely.

The unit leader and the UA. Nice models.

And that pretty much wraps up Christmas vacation for me. I'm planning on setting a new painting and playing goal this year, and hopefully I will do better than last. After taking on a whole unit, I want to take a break and paint some single models - I'm behind on epic warcasters and I need to get my Thunderhead (and soon a Cyclone) painted. Once I've recovered I'll probably tackle the Long Gunners or the Gun Mages. I'd like to get caught up on what I already have before the new wave of trencher stuff hits.

Of course, to acomplish any of this will mean that I have to shake the horrible Dragon Age addiction that current has a hold of me. I loved Mass Effect, and I had high hopes for Dragon Age as well - and I'm happy to say that so far it is living up to those expectations. I'm about 30 hours in and well on my way to saving Ferelden from the Darkspawn hordes. Of course, Mass Effect 2 drops at the end of January, so I'd like to have saved the world by then. At least January won't be boring!

Labels: miniatures, roleplaying, RPGs, video games, wargaming, Warmachine, XBOX

I picked up Lost Odyssey about a week ago, and I have to admit, I’ve been more than pleasantly surprised with the amount of enjoyment I’m getting out of it. I wasn't sure what to think at first, as it is only putting up scores in the mid-70s on MetaCrititc, which isn’t usually a good indicator. But, after finishing Mass Effect I found myself still very much in the mood for good, story-driven gameplay, so I decided to give it a shot.

I’m about 11 hours into the game, and judging on the fact that I just finished disk 1 of 4, I’ll estimate that I’m only about a quarter of the way through it. So, keep in mind that whatever opinions I have, they are based on that much exposure. The game might go completely to hell from here, and I just don’t know it yet. That being said, I like what I’ve played so far very much – so much in fact that I find the reviews the game is getting a little bit bewildering… I have some theories as to why we are seeing the scores that we are, and I’ll touch on them as I go.

At its core, Lost Odyssey is a Japanese-style RPG very much in the vein of Final Fantasy X – not surprising considering that the game’s developer, Mistwalker was founded by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the Final Fantasy series. The game follows all of the conventions of a solid, old-school J-RPG: a turn based battle system with an emphasis on special class skill and leveraging elemental strengths and weaknesses, a large cast of characters that grows as you move through the game, and a deep, plot full of politics and intrigue that drives the game along. For me, this was fantastic, because I haven’t particularly been a fan of the shift to the real-time combat systems we’ve seen in the more recent j-RPGs, still preferring the tried and true turn-based combat and all of the rock-paper-scissors gameplay inherent to it. At the same time, my guess is that the game is losing point in reviews for not doing enough “innovation” inside the genre. Too bad really, because what Mistwalker did create is very well executed for what it is trying to be.

Graphically, the game looks great. Built on Unreal Engine technology, the world is well detailed, with the kind of striking panoramas we have all come to expect from the genre. The game world is in the middle of an industrial-magical revolution, and “magic engines” are the foundation of technology in the world. It gives the game an everpresent mystical steam-punk flavor that I find really cool.

I wasn’t too sure how I felt about the character designs at first, but they began to grow on me almost immediately, thanks to their expressive animations and the excellent voice acting. The characters are distinctively Asian-flavored, both in dress and facial features, and have a more “mature” bent to them than past J-RPGs. It is definitely nice to play a leading character that isn’t either effeminate, pre-pubescent or has spiky blonde hair (or in the case of FFX and FFXII, all three.)

As you can tell, I really like the game at this point. I’m a little disappointed at the lukewarm reception it’s getting, but at least it seems to be selling well. If you’ve been on the fence about picking it up, I’d say it’s definitely worth the play time, and there is enough solid gameplay there that you will definitely get your money out of it, especially if you are a fan of the older-style turned based combat systems.

Labels: consoles, RPGs, video games, XBOX

I've been wrapping up games like crazy on the XBOX over the last week. Nothing like a couple of snow-bound sick days to help a guy finish off games.

I finished Mass Effect, which only seemed to pick up momentum all the way to the end. It's been a long time since I have finished a game and immediately found myself wanting more. It's a great game - it just doesn't get any better for me. I'm glad to see that rumors of a sequel are already boiling.

With Mass Effect done, I turned my attention back to Bioshock. I picked it up back in September, and I have been working my way steadily through it for the last few months. For a shooter, this game has more story and setting than most roleplaying games. The decision to set the game at the bottom of the ocean in the 1940's was a brilliant move, giving the game a look and feel that is completely new - something we don't get enough of these days. In a time of cookie-cutter settings and licensed crap, it was a breath of fresh air. It makes me happy to see a developer take a risk and have it pay off.

I picked up The Orange Box right after Christmas, and ended up killing an afternoon playing Portal. Part of the Orange Box collection, Portal is basically a mini-game based around a gun that allows you to open portals all over the environment. You play the role of an andriod who is guided through a series of test chambers by an insane artificial intellegence. You are forced to use this portal technology to defeat a series of puzzle-rooms, each requiring more clever and complicated thinking than the last. The game itself is amazing, and despite being very short, it still manages to tell quite an intriguing story. The AI, GLaDos, ends up being the star of the game, with some fantastic dialog that manages to be both humorous and ominous. The game is worth finishing for the end song alone.

If Portal was a great appetizer, for me, the main course has been Team Fortress 2. I'm not a huge fan of online shooters, but TF2's class and objective-based system is a lot of fun, and you don't necessarily have to be a great twitch-gamer to be successful in the game. Classes like the medic, engineer and heavy gunner all make a good alternative choices for those of us who are "twitch-impared." The gameplay is well tuned, and the game has a great, campy style that makes it all the more fun. For a taste of what I'm talking about, check this out:

You can find all of the game's trailers here. The "Meet the.... " entries are all hillarious.

A friend from work just loaned me Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty 4, so the parade of A-list games doesn't look to be ending soon. I also really want to finish Final Fantasy XII, but after months of playing the XBOX 360 in HD, going back to the PS2 is like leaving the new hotness to go back to the old and busted.

Labels: consoles, RPGs, video games, XBOX

I’ve been completely sucked into Mass Effect. To be honest, it has been a time since a video game has this kind of effect on me – in fact, it you may have to go back to the original Baldur’s Gate to find a single player game that sucked me in like this one has. I only got the game just under a week ago, and I have already put almost twenty hours into it, which is unheard of for me.




After you complete the first of the three missions, you are introduced to the idea that the galaxy is really a pretty big place, and you can roam all over, surveying worlds and taking on side missions. These are typically far less intense than the plot missions, and they help to advance your charter, both in terms of level and equipment. They also make for great short session if you only have a half-an-hour to play. After you bulk your party up a little bit in these side missions, everything starts getting quite a bit easier. It’s almost a shame that the game design doesn’t do a better job easing you into the combat portions by introducing you to the side missions earlier. A little attention up front would have saved me a lot of frustration later on.

Labels: consoles, RPGs, video games, XBOX

A late Merry Christmas to everyone out there!

Every year around this time, I take a bunch of time off from work. It is one of my favorite breaks – not a lot is going on at the office, so I’m not worried about getting behind, and it’s the only time that I get to take time off and just stay home and just relax. We had company for the first half of the week, but the last of them went home this morning, leaving me next five days to relax and revel in geekish pleasures.

Knowing the break is coming, I laid out a laundry list of dorky activities I wanted to get accomplished. Of course, I wouldn’t be a true hobbyist if that list wasn’t several times larger than anything I could reasonably to hope to accomplish in the time allotted. Still, it’s my intention to give it a good effort. Here’s what I’ve got:

Wargaming: Warmachine Army

Since I got hooked on Warmachine over Thanksgiving, I’ve decided to put my Chaos Space Marine army on hold for a bit and focus on getting a full-fledged Warmachine army painted up. I have a significant amount of both Cryx and Cygnar pewter, but for now I decided to focus on Cygnar. I want to:

Finish my Trenchers. I’ve got three of ten trenchers painted now, and so far they look great. I think for the rest of them I’m going to experiment with a quasi-production line approach. I’m going to lay down the base color coats on all of them at the same time, and them probably shade and highlight them individually. As far as the models themselves, they are really beautiful and just ooze character. I am constantly amazed at the amount of detail Privateer Press puts into each model.

Finish my Stormblades. Okay, to be fair, the Stormblade unit is actually all finished, but I’m also working on the unit attachment. The Captain is done, but I still need finish the standard bearer. I’d love to leave the holiday break with two fully painted units.

Assemble my Sword Knights. I bought the Sword Knights unit boxed set along with an extra blister a while back, and then promptly stowed them away in the closet. After listening to the Pod Thralls list their “500 pts for 100 bucks” Cygnar list, I pulled them back out and decided they would be next up. Then I open the blister and looked at all the little parts. And then I puked a little in my mouth.

Roleplaying: Eberron Campaign

In my last post I talked a little bit about how much I like the Freeport setting. Over the last few weeks, I’ve spent a bunch of hours working on integrating it into my Eberron game, as our party will be spending a great deal of time in the Lhazaar Principalities. If there is any interest in seeing how I’m tying that all together, let me know, and I’ll post it. Beyond that, I’m “redeveloping” a significant portion of the Eyes of the Lich Queen to better fit our campaign and play style, so I’ve got a lot of work to do.

Video Games: A Cornucopia of XBOX Goodness

There is so much good stuff out on XBOX 360 right now that it is almost mind-numbing. I’ve been working through BioShock and Oblivion: The GOTY Edition, all the while playing through the Halo 3 campaign co-op over XBOX Live. To add to that already impressive list, my wife bought me Mass Effect for Christmas, and I used some Best Buy gift certificates to pick up The Orange Box. How I’m going to get through these and still take care of everything on the list above, I’m not sure, but it should be fun trying. That many A-List games at one time is truly remarkable, and that list still leaves CoD4: Modern Warfare and Assassin’s Creed waiting in the wings.

We live good lives.

Labels: consoles, Dungeons and Dragons, Eberron, miniatures, podcasts, RPGs, video games, wargaming, Warhammer 40K, Warmachine, XBOX

I'm back, after a long hiatus. And you know what, I'm not even going to try to explain. Fuck it.

I've been tearing through Crackdown for the past week, and for the most part, I like it. Let's dispel the idea right up front that Crackdown is nothing more than a Halo 3 Beta delivery mechanism. The game itself is solid, with nice presentation and plenty of action. On top of that, I could care less about playing the Halo 3 beta. So have no doubt, gentile reader, my intentions are pure as new-fallen snow.

I think Crackdown is going to be one of those games that you either get it and you have a ball, or you miss the point entirely. If you think it's a Grand Theft Auto III clone, you are well on your way to missing it. While the similarities abound, in the end, the two game play very differently. At it's core, GTA was a driving game. At first glance, Crackdown appears to be a driving game as well, but after your character powers up a bit you begin to realize that the core mechanic is really much more of a vertical, platformer-type of game. You will soon find yourself bounding from rooftop to rooftop with Matrix-like agility. Once the game started to head in that direction, I pretty much lost all interest in the cars that populate the vast sandbox city.

That being said, I'm probably having as much fun trying to collect all of the agility orbs (usually perched in hard-to-reach locations on the very tops of building) as I am playing the main storyline of taking down the three crime syndicates that plague the city. As your hero's powers grow, you can complete even more amazing feats of strength and agility. At one point, I couldn't find the offramp into the city, so I got out of my car, picked it up, and threw it off of the elevated highway onto the suburban streets below. Then I jumped down, flipped the vehicle back onto its tires, and sped off.

While the mechnaics are fun, the game definately could have used a little more structure. There are basically 21 crime bosses scattered through the city that you must eliminate, and then you're done. There are some vehicle races and foot races across the tops the building as additional diversions, but truem scripted story missions are lacking. Even with these shortcomings, it remains a well done game, and big enough that I don't feel bad shelling out the cash for it. It's definately worth at least trying the demo on Xbox Live marketplace if you're not sure.

I also picked up Fable. I had played it once a while back on the PC, but I found the controls sloppy and crude, and I just couldn't get into it. On the console it's a blast, and I've been plowing through it a few hours each night. I won't talk much about it, because I realize that it's old news, but I will say that I'm now seriously excited to see what Fable 2 has to offer.

PODCAST WATCH

If you have any interest in table-top gaming or the RPG industry in general, check out this interview on Fear the Boot. Fear the Boot is a great podcast on pen-and-paper RPGs, and now they are starting a new interview series with industry luminaires from both the table-top and video game industries. They started the series with Ryan Dancey, who is a pretty interesting cat to listen to. This guy basically brokered the deal for WotC to buy TSR, and also had a formative hand in the creation to the d20 Open Gaming License. He has years of industry experience, and tons of interesting demographics on gamers in general, and I found what he had to say facinating. Check it out.

P.S. It looks like they just posted the second interview in the series, this time with Mike West of Lionhead Studios. It's like the knew I needed something to tie into bringing up Fable this many years late.

Labels: podcasts, video games, XBOX

I’m still having a blast playing NWN2, and my dwarven cleric/warpriest is cruising right along. I’ve only played a little bit of FFXII, just to check it out, and while it looks amazing I seem to only have the attention span for one RPG at a time. Vaan and company are going to have to wait for me to finish saving The Realms before they get much more attention. With so much gaming goodness, I made myself a promise that I wouldn’t buy anything new until I get some of this backlog out of the way.

Unfortunately, I failed my Will save vs. Gears of War. This game is phenomenal. It’s the kind of game you just can pile enough adjectives on top of to express the sheer amount of bad-assery contained within. It is pretty rare these days to find a game that is truly firing on all cylinders: the graphics are the best yet on the next-gen, the gameplay is tight and polished, the characters have just enough depth to be interesting but not intrusive, and the setting and story are captivating.

The game takes place in a kind of post-apocalyptic earth, opening 14 years after the invasion of the alien-like Locust. Only, in this world the aliens did not come from outer space, but emerged from the bowels of the earth itself. You fight amongst the rubble of neo-gothic buildings and through interiors that evoke the same sense of crumbling elegance that was present in many of the interiors from The Matrix. The game uses a third-person tactical shooter mechanic, where you find yourself (and your team) moving from cover to cover and throwing down in hellacious fire-fights. Within the first few minutes of playing you get the sense that this is how G.R.A.W. was supposed to work. I haven’t played multiplayer yet, as I don’t have an Xbox Live Gold account – although this is the game that will make me get one.

In other news: I’ve been a fan of the Mechwarrior CMG for a long time, so I was sad to see the open letter to players that basically says the game is on the ropes. That’s too bad, as it’s a great little strategy game. I’ve been buying boosters since Age of Destruction, and it seems like WizKids has become a little over-dependant on reusing old sculpts and just giving them new paint jobs and assigning them to new factions. There are already too many factions in the game, and just getting the same old mech for a faction I don’t really care about won’t keep me buying.

They claim they are suffering from a loss of consumer interest… I think the interest is still there, but the product has just gotten increasingly boring and convoluted. Add to this the quality issues that have dogged them since Annihilation, and it’s not surprising that they are having issues. Want to save the game? Cut back on the factions and give us some nice new sculpts. Hopefully they can figure it out, because I still love the game.

One last thought: It was interesting to see people camping out in tents this week to get a shot a buying a PS3 or a Wii. That's no small feat in Idaho's climate. Just for the record, I wasn't one of them. That's waaaaay too much work for an over-priced system and a bunch of lackluster launch titles. Call me after the first round of "greatest hits" games hit and the price drops.

Labels: consoles, video games, XBOX

I am truly ashamed. It's been almost a month since I've posted last, and a whole lot of shit has gone down in that time. First, I finally got my nasty gall bladder out, which is a big part of why I disappeared for a month. The upside of that turned out to be that I had it removed the week of E3, which gave me an excuse to lay in bed and watch show feeds from Gamespot and IGN all week long.

On E3: Interesting show this year - it had a very different vibe. You could almost feel a perceptible power shift from the normal hierarchy: the powerhouse Playstation, the scrappy underdog XBOX and the retarded cousin Nintendo. The only thing that seemed to be a constant is that Nintendo remains as retarded as ever. In fact, by naming their console the "Wii", they chose to revel in it. They should have just stayed with Revelation, or better, go with something like "tits" - at least something like that would make me want to buy one. And I don't want to hear the usual line that they are the last truly creative company, and all about how bold they are for doing everything different. Lesbians do everything different, but it still doesn't make them useful to me.

Sony's press conference left me cold. Kaz Hirai was his usual arrogant self, espousing the virtues of his mythical console, building to the mighty crescendo where they unveil that the PS3 would be available for a mere five hundred and ninety-nine North American Dollars! Then there is this strange pause where all of the little mental calculators are doing their fuzzy math, followed by a tremendous psychological shockwave which said (at least what I heard in my bed 1,ooo miles away from E3) "Fuck you, Hirai!" Somewhere in the middle of all this, they also showed waaaaay tooooo muuuuuch footage of the next version of some racing game that I quit caring about the first time I played Burnout 3, and some footage of a geriatric Solid Snake which miraculously made my give-a-shit meter for all things Metal Gear Solid actually go negative. Oh, and before I forget - where there hell was Killzone 2?

All of this left Microsoft in the enviable position of being the only major player extolling the virtues of the next-generation gaming who actually has a next generation console on the market. As you can imagine, this was pretty fun for them, and it showed. Microsoft was finally able to drop all of the aformentioned "scrappy underdog" posturing, and stand as a success in their own right. Also, the Vista preview was interesting, and it's good to see that PC gaming isn't officially dead - it just remains terminally ill.

As far as games, there wasn't that much I came away excited about... Of what I did see, BioShock got me the most excited. System Shock 2 is still in my top five favorite games of all times, and BioShock appears to be a fitting spiritual sequel in every way. Gears of War looks amazing, and I like the look of Assassin's Creed. Heavenly Sword is one game that looks every bit as good in action this year as the trailers did last year. It was nice to finally see a lot more about Neverwinter Nights 2, which I am very excited about. I was hoping to finally get some info on Bioware's Dragon Age, but that was a no-show.

Labels: consoles, PC games, video games, XBOX