Sunday, November 11, 2007

How You Doing, You Old Pirate?


Years ago I had a job I would equate to Kevin Smith's "Clerks." Everyone should have one of these jobs. My "Clerks" job was at an Arcade. And not just any job wandering the isles trading cash for tokens but a real high-end specialty. I helped run (and then manage) the Laser-Tag inspired game of Q-Zar. At this job I met and worked with a variety of people that meant a lot to me. Some of these people I still stay in contact with even though we haven't worked together in over a decade. These people I worked with helped me move up the working ladder until I am where I am, today. And I helped them when I could. Q-Zar might have been a "Clerks" job, but the people there became a sort of family and many of us are still looking out for each other. I've gone on to do a lot of different things since then, including some active duty time with the Army, but I had the opportunity to get together with an old friend this weekend and party like it was 1999. Geek style 1999, that is.

My buddy, who shall be known as EmpTass, introduced me to Guitar Hero III. As I've written before I've been worried this is a franchise I need to spend some dough on just to find out I suck at it. After playing two (2) songs (on easy I should add) I was hooked. We moved on to hard, then super-ultra-hard, and I still felt compelled to keep trying. We both decided that the hardest setting should just tell you to plug a real Electric Guitar in to your console. I have no idea what I was worried about, this game is great, and I didn't feel stupid playing air-guitar. As many a reviewer has pointed out the music selection is excellent. It's the actual songs and not a coverband or anything. If a soundtrack ever comes out for GH3 it will be mine.


We used to play many a CCG (Collectible Card Game) from Magic to Star Wars (the best), and a handful of lesser titles, that never made it big, in between. As I've mentioned before, World Of Warcraft's lineage started as a PC game and bloomed from there to many different aspects; novels, RPGs, comics, CCG, and MMORPG. WOW is the best selling aspect of Warcraft, probably since the original RTS. It also is probably the most successful online game since EverQuest. I just can't push myself the extra yard to start a new videogame addiction, because I know it will chew me up and spit me out and in the end. I'll have the greatest female elf character in the history of the internet, but I'll be broke, jobless, car-less, house-less, Xbox-less and by this point mind-less. However I'm willing to stick my big toe in the water and try other parts of the franchise. And I stuck my big toe in the CCG.


Many CCGs try emulating Magic for its resource generating aspects but never seem to get out of its shadow to become something unique. Usually I, and my friends, would describe a game as "just like Magic except..." This is the first CCG (I know the box says TCG, I just like CCG) I've played in a long time that starts like Magic but becomes its own entity pretty quickly after the first couple rounds. I think this is a huge accomplishment since the field is glutted with Pokemons and Yugiohs and strange hybrids that didn't last a month. First off, the starter comes in a big clamshell box that could hold a Betamax tape with plenty of room for your cards, not to mention great artwork. The rules themselves are easy to learn but it takes some time to master. There have been a couple expansions to WOW and a new way to play that seems more like an RPG than a CCG. This is known as a Raid. The Raid Master controls an epically large creature of some sort and the rest of the players (3 to 5 are recommended) face the RM. This now begs the question, at least in my mind, could the WOW paper & pen RPG also retain aspects of the card game to make them both playable.


Halo has made an interesting transition from FPS of the year to tabletop figure game. EmpTass and I tested the game's robustness and here is what we learned. You need dice to play. The box says it comes with dice. There were no dice in the two boxes I bought. We ended up using dice from a Disney board game. They were happy dice not in the vein of hyperactive Halo Slayer tabletop simulation. We read the rules on the fly as we played and some things made sense; putting down spawn points first, no fighting first round, line of site rules, grenades can hurt everybody. Other things were a little off; re-spawning dead characters, missing with grenades, upgrading figures to "swap weapons", the turn in general. It seems easy at first. You put five (5) figures on your side, spawned from a point, worth 400 total points or less, but no single figure can be over 150 points, which are the rare figures. How the hell am I supposed to play with them if their not on the field. You can only re-spawn the dead. WTF? During your turn you can upgrade (or add 25 points to the value of) a figure in play, until it matches the value of the figure in "reserve", then swap them in play keeping track of any damage. I couldn't pin down a reference during your turn but I think you are supposed to move one person at a time (or re-spawn or "weapon swap") then its the next persons turn. This became a little tedious as I had to remember who I already moved, but overall it worked. You play on a collectible grid map that comes with each set. I have two (2) now and they look exactly the same. With a little rules tweaking, this game could be loads of fun. Maybe I just misunderstood stuff.
BTW this game is part of the Clix line of gaming figures, so one can imagine the possibilities of mixing Halo with AvP (my personal favorite teamup idea) or Marvel Superheros against the Halo's Covenant.

Playing Magic after so many years feels like putting on a comfortable pair of sneakers. Well, maybe if your sneakers had new abilities you never heard of like Flash and Deathtouch. Its been a long time since I played, and with new terms for new card abilities I thought WOTC defined terms on the card. EmpTass and I were left scratching our heads at some terms and just decided to ignore what we couldn't figure out. The Lorwyn set is like any other "Starter" expansion of Magic, it can be played alone or mixed with all the other sets. The only groundbreaking idea in Lorwyn is the Plainwalker. I don't have one so we could playtest one, I just like the idea. It creates a second persona on your side that fights with you, has special abilities that influence the game, and is different from the usual summoned monsters and magic. I can't wait to get one. It's like the character card you get in the WOW CCG. Weirdest idea of the set has to be "changelings," an ability that makes any creature all creature types at once. This could radically change deck creation. I need more cards to test out these things.

Much gaming was had over pizza and soda. It really felt like my old college days. I would like to learn more about the Clix line of figure games and mix and match different franchises (Hellboy and Master Chief vs. Aliens and The Flood) just to make new plots. I would like to see better maps though. Now I want a game that combines guitar playing with an online mode, while moving figures on a board and playing cards, all in one. See you next broadcast.

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