Saturday, September 29, 2007

Videogames the Silent Killer

Videogames are evil. I am tired of them. I play them too much. The Playstation 2 sits there in its smug mischievous manner mocking me. It sticks its CD tray out at me and waves its controllers in the air.

“You know you want to play me!” it recites its usual siren song with a voice that sounds like the rabbit from Donnie Darko.

“No!” I wail attempting to keep myself at the computer, but my efforts are in vain; the PS2 is armed with RPGs. No. Not rocket propelled grenades. Role-playing games.

“Your thief mage is almost at level twenty…” It continues its diabolical torture session. “ If he becomes level twenty, you can make a Ninja Summoner…”

“Damn you Final Fantasy Tactics and your unusually high replay value!” I cry falling to my knees, my hand’s still at the keyboard above my head, continuing my vain quest to stay on task.

“You spend twenty to thirty hours a week on me every week, what could four or five more hours hurt?” It asks quietly before giving a maniacal laugh.

“Got…to finish…assignment…” I valiantly drag myself back into my chair. The red glowing button peers like Sauron’s eye into my soul.

The lights are flickering! Sepulchral orchestra music is being played through the TVs speakers! The ground is shaking! It set my bed on fire!

“Play me!” the PS2 bellows. I pull a vial out of my jacket and throw its contents on the PS2.

“Suck on holy water bitch!” A terrifying scream follows as the PS2 smokes and the room returns to normal. O.K. that was close. Too close.

I am not alone in my addiction. There are thousands out there just like me. If only we could get together and put an end to the PS2’s diabolical reign of terror!

We can fight them!

They can be destroyed!

Throw them from the rooftops!

Smash them with hammers!

Fight back! We need to be addicted no longer!

We can have real lives! We just have to join together!

What was that PS2? What’s that X-box? Halo 3 just came out! Nooo!

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Scion

White Wolf’s new tabletop Scion Hero breaks the mold. It is a perfect mixture of Exalted and the World of Darkness’s system. But Scion Hero is its own game. It fixes some of the problems inherent in the previous systems.

In exalted, the player characters are quite over powered. Beginning Exalts are able to do anything short of rearranging space-time, (and if they practice sorcery they can even do that). In World of Darkness, you hesitate to try anything; most of the time, doing anything dangerous is a great way for your character to end up dead. The way they got around this problem is by adding in a system of “epic attributes” giving the characters auto successes on roles that involve the attribute.

It is based in a modern setting so fans of traditional medieval fantasy or futuristic laser rifle battles may not find it appealing. White Wolf brings us into a world of gods, magic and shootouts. Players control the children of the gods, modern day Hercules’s fighting against the spawn of the titans. The gods of Scion aren’t some contrived new idea; they are the pantheons of old. Play as children of the Greek, Egyptian, Norse, Japanese or Voodoo gods.

The book itself is well made. White Wolf has fixed the problems with binding that they made on the Exalted core book. With over 300 pages of easy to understand text, this game knocked me off my feet. Not to mention the incredible illustrations. White Wolf has outdone itself.

Scion is a breath of fresh air to the world of tabletop gaming and worth the retail price of $34.99. Any role player should pick up his or her own copy.