Even those who are not big into table gaming have often heard of Settlers of Catan. With over twelve million copies of the game sold worldwide, it's often used by crafty tabletop proponents to lure non-gamers with its colorful tiles and straightforward, intensely social systems. The digital version, developed by staunch devotees over at Big Huge Games and delivered via Live Marketplace, is a deeply reverent execution of the original.
PAX 2007 is creeping up on us and I’ve got another batch of info about this year’s show to share with you.
Eye of Judgement - Sony's unbearably compelling CCG, played with the upcoming Playstation Eye peripheral - may be the most niche product ever conceived. A constructible deck card game that requires a custom camera and a six hundred dollar gaming console to interpret it, "niche" may be insufficient to describe the tight, sunless, deep sea crevice such a product might reside in. Not that it matters to me, of course: I am the pale white lobster that makes such cracks his home.
Re-instituting a serious play schedule is going to take a couple days, but already our forays have proven useful: behold! We met a crazy person! After making these statements, he assured us that he was (in fact) "Stable." It's funny how asserting one's stability tends to create the opposite impression.
I'm certain that people expected me to post these links, and those expectations compel me with a terrible power.
One: Aquarian Age Alternative, this arcade/CCG/thing from Japan, is beyond language. At least, it's beyond the English language. There may be some ancient language yet spoken that still holds the power to contain it.
Two: Eye of Judgment, a realspace card game that uses the recently announced Playstation Eye, IS FUCKING UNBELIEVABLE
I feel as though a great weight has been lifted.
(CW)TB
With the new maps and modes out, we're getting back in. That restaurant level is hot - and I don't just mean the kitchen.
The trouble is that much of our friends list has moved on to other games (Gears and Guitar Hero mostly), so we're doing a little housecleaning on the roster and trying to get new people in there. Are you still playing R6? Send an invite to either Gabe or Tycho - optimally one or the other, to make the most of the limited size of the friends list.
Team Inferno is waiting.
(CW)TB
Gametrailers.com just added a bunch of Odin Sphere videos. I’ve spent a lot of time with this game over the past couple days and it continues to impress. I hit an especially hard level yesterday in the Winterhorn Mountain zone. This is a snowy mountain full of yetis and angry ice monsters. Just to give you an idea of how deep this “brawler” is let me tell you the strategy I ended up using to get through this level.
I understand that Eric Nylund drops Halo fiction much sharper than one might expect, but after a youth singed by Forgotten Realms product I retain a healthy fear of the tie-in novel. Command & Conquer is the next franchise to receive the treatment, this time from Keith R. A. DeCandido - the strange force known as KRAD. I'm not familiar with the man's work, but there is rather a lot of it, and much of it tasked with distilling an existing brand into explosive paperback fiction.
Yesterday I mentioned that Todd Goldman had started unleashing his lawyers on sites that were posting about his latest act of thievery. He wanted all slanderous material taken down. This from a guy who's initial reaction to the accusation was to call the guy he stole from a pedophile.
More often than not, review copies either collect in a pile by the door for trade-in or they're used as prizes at PAX. I'm aware that this is sort of rude, but we have our own opinions on which games warrant advocacy. As yesterday's news was a thin, absolutely homogenous gruel, we turned to a reviewable copy of Odin Sphere received earlier in the week. It was poking out from beneath a chair leg and it took some time to find.
You might remember Tycho mentioning Todd Goldman and a story about him stealing some artwork from a web cartoonist. We covered it in a comic and a post and our point of view was essentially “yeah it sucks but you can’t sue the guy for being a douche bag.” I would have left it at that except, well the latest development in the whole ordeal is actually super funny. It’s important to point out that Todd’s initial response to the article about his thievery was to call Dave Kelly a Pedophile. I’m not joking here he actually said “Here’s my inspiration! Every month I paint the works of a pedophile.” The letter goes on and it’s obvious that he’s just being a smart ass and blowing the whole thing off. Honestly I chuckled at the letter when I read it because (being a professional asshole myself) I thought it was a funny way to respond to the accusations. However, if you call someone a pedophile in a public forum you can’t turn around a few weeks later and threaten to sue that same forum for slander.
Humiliated at the table for the last time, we are now determined to secure victory at any cost. We briefly considered more training and practice, but I believe these solutions were presented in a humorous context. Once the fits of laughter had ceased, we began to research toxic amphibians and the ochre sap one might squeeze from their drooping pustules. You may find the results immoral, but you need to consider Ping Pong as a global phenomenon. For example, when playing by Djibuti Rules, it's considered perfectly normal to release a hungry lion. Like clay or grass, each venue presents unique challenges.
In case you thought I was exaggerating in my earlier post here’s some proof. These were taken by Amaze. Kiko should have his photos from the event on his Flickr pretty soon.
As Tycho mentioned we lost another match this time to Amaze. We’ll have pictures soon and I’ll have proof of the story I’m about to tell you. Until I can show you you’ll just need to trust me. This is all 100% true.