Bender: Even though the computer was off and unplugged an image stayed on the screen. It was…the Windows logo!!

Fry: Phhpht, that’s not scary.

–“Where The Buggalo Roam”, Futurama

Happy Halloween! So are we having fun yet? Can’t say my Halloween night seems any different than a Wednesday night. I suppose I could head out to one of the many local establishments having their Halloween bashes (wonder if my Unshaven Gamer costume would win anything?) but really…ehh.

So since it’s Halloween I suppose it’s a good time to tell spooky gaming stories. Unfortunately the only one I have isn’t really scary per se, more like a shocking coincidence tale, but since it did manage to almost brownpant everyone involved it’s what I’m going with.

Our story begins many years ago. It was a dark and stormy night. Actually, it was during the day. Late afternoon, early evening. And it was sunny. There I was, DMing one of the worst groups of players I’ve experienced in my decades of D&D. I mean they were all nice enough chaps but their playing skills left something to be desired. Everyone knows the infamous Head of Vecna story, right? Well, let’s just say if I pulled that on them the outcome wouldn’t be any different.

The particular campaign I was running had been horribly sidetracked due to their actions. Briefly, the party was responsible for a global armageddon that would completely annihilate all life on my campaign world. And it all got started because of a bar fight. Yeah. To save my campaign world I added a deus ex machina element by having the campaign’s main deity appear, telling the party that time would be turned back before that fateful tavern encounter if they would fulfill a special quest. The quest was to search the many planes and worlds for parts of an orb that had been fragmented and scattered. Of course there was also an evil party who was also racing against them to fulfill the quest for their dark master.

I believe there were a total of fourteen shards to find. In real world time I figured it would take several months to complete, and during this time I hoped to introduce gameplay elements that would help the players learn the ropes. Sort of a big tutorial.

Well, the quest for the shards was doing better than I thought it would. Not that there weren’t setbacks. Once the party decided to see what would happen if they let the bad guys get to the shard first. See, they were given a magical doohickey that pointed them in the general direction of the current shard they had to find and once found would be automatically teleported to the next world. The bad guys always seemed to be one step behind them. Because of this they for some reason got it into their heads this meant that the bad guys couldn’t touch the shard.

Or maybe it meant that as the DM I was trying to create a sense of urgency and push the party along? Naw, it had to be their logic…

The brain trust decides to purposefully locate the shard but not take it. The bad guys show up. The good guys wait and watch. The bad guys take the shard and are teleported out.

Oops.

The real kicker? These worlds were the Twenty-One Flavors of adventures. Stuff like in one world dinosaurs rule, another was a waterworld, and so forth. The world that they decided to pull this stunt?

The one without magic.

Oops.

Amazingly they managed to find the one vestige of magic in the world and were back on the road. What luck, right?

Okay, so after that things started getting back to a decent pace. They were nearing the last of the shards when I had them visit our world, Earth. Specifically I had set it up for the shard to be located in the home of the player we were playing at, a fellow named Chad.

I always like the fish out of water antics of putting D&D adventurers into our modern world, and probably every single party I’ve ever run has faced that challenge at least once. I still chuckle at the time one group convinced the party’s third level wizard to face a S.W.A.T. team alone because they were obviously also magic users (assault rifles = long wands). Hey, guess who wins in combat between a Wand of Magic Missiles and about 100 rounds of 5.56mm fired at twenty yards?

Soon the party was nearing Chad’s place in the game, though it took them a minute to connect my description of the place the magical item was pointing them to with where we were playing. Their characters then crept up to the building and scoped it out by peering into the windows. At that point I described the group of us playing D&D. Any doubt that this was supposed to be Chad’s house was now over.

The adventuring party, seeing what appeared to be no threats, then proceeded to the front door. Monty the paladin raised his mailed gauntlet and knocked on the door.

At the very moment in the real world there was a banging on the front door.

We freaked the eff out. It probably looked like one of those old cartoons; skeletons jumping out of our skin, eyes bulging out, screaming like little girls.

And then we remembered we had ordered pizza.

The timing was so amazingly perfect, I can’t imagine anything like that happening again if I played D&D every day until I die. So yeah, not really a ghoulish story but it was scary for us that day, that’s for sure.

How about something truly terrifying? I mean, do you want to hear something really scary?

This is the stuff, man. Are you sure you can handle it?

Last chance to turn away.

Okay….

They’ve already started running Christmas ads!!!

Yesterday Privateer Press of Warmachine fame announced that they are entering the much maligned collectible miniature game (CMG) market with Monsterpocalypse. The responses I witnessed to the news were interesting to say the least. If you thought gamers would embrace the idea of another CMG from a company known for its high quality then you don’t know gamers using the Internet.

While I can understand the distaste for a CMG (and I share it, though not quite enough to spit on my monitor in anger like I pictured many of the gamers reacting) in this case the theme is so good who cares? Hello, it’s giant monsters stomping the crap out of things!

What I find particular cool is the fact that they’re also making destructable urban terrain. While we haven’t seen what this will look like I can already imagine the possibilities that it brings to other games. Urban Classic Battletech anyone?

So yeah, the CMG part of Monsterpocalypse sucks, but giant monsters have such potential it’s worth giving Privateer Press a pass. Makes me wonder why we don’t see more giant monster games.

Growing up one computer game I played until the tape started showing wear was Crush, Crumble, and Chomp. On the board game front there was SPI’s Creature That Ate Sheboygan, which was quite similar to Crush, Crumble, and Chomp. Or maybe it’s the other way around, not sure which came first. And then there was a whole lot of nothing.

Oh sure, there were silly arcade games like Rampage, and clones of it on various consoles have showed up over the years, but the giant monster genre has been woefully underrepresented in the gaming world. In the world of cardboard you have Monsters Ravage America (not good), and then there’s the miniature game Monster Island (quite good). There are a couple of other indie PDFs floating around similar to Monster Island but I haven’t tried them.

In the computer world there’s been nothing since Crush, Crumble, and Chomp that I can think of. And yeah, I’m aware of the perpetually delayed They Came From Hollywood. Doesn’t count since it’s not out. Who doesn’t—especially gaming geeks—enjoy the sight of a giant mutant lizard turning Japanese SDF units into wasabi paste? How many of us grew up with giant monster movies airing at least twice a week on our local stations? So why no big love for the kaiju?

Imagine a first person shooter with the player taking on the role of a giant monster. Heck, imagine Crush, Crumble, and Chomp as a first person shooter with today’s technology. Deformable terrain, physics, dynamic AI…man, that would kill. Instead we get shooter after shooter featuring Nazis, aliens, Nazi aliens, and once in a while third world troops. Whee…ZZZzzzzz

Anyone else out there bummed that the kaiju have avoided the digital world?

Over the weekend a friend of mine who had relatives over wanted to introduce them to some gaming, and since inducting non-gamers into the cult is never a bad thing I was all for it. Problem was that we were going to be stuck with six players (which actually ended up being five, as two decided to tackle it as a team), and while there are games out there for five or six players they probably wouldn’t go over with the crowd. For example, Arkham Horror works great with large groups but I could only imagine the non-gamers reaction upon seeing how many components there are. Hell, even long time gamers tend to get that shoggoth-in-the-headlights look when you start pulling out a hundred and fifty decks to draw from. I recently talked about my new favorite zombie game, Last Night On Earth, which works great for the player count but these weren’t zombie folks. What to play?

Introducing relatives to games like Diplomacy or Machiavelli isn’t a good idea, after all you’re probably going to have to see them again in your life. There are Eurogames that can handle the player load but no one I know is going to be caught dead with a Eurogame in their collection. In the end we decided on an oldie (not too old) but goodie: History Of The World.

If you’re not familiar with History it’s a light game on the rise and fall of empires throughout history up until the first World War. A turn represents hundreds of years and is called an epoch; there are seven epochs in the game. History is all about scoring points and denying them to your opponents. You get points for controlling areas and building monuments and cities.

Gameplay is easy to grasp and perfect for non-gamers. Each player is assigned a card that dictates where their empire starts in an epoch. The card lets the player know how many armies they get, and typically each epoch has one bad ass empire with a massive force. For example, when Rome rises they get twenty armies (average army count hovers around ten). From your starting location you move into adjacent territories, gaining control if empty or after a victorious battle if occupied by an opponent. Combat is dirt simple, with the attacker normally rolling 2d6 and the defender 1d6 and comparing rolls with high roll winning. To control a territory you must leave an army in it, and thus how far your empire can expand ultimately depends on how many armies you have, and how well they do.

That’s about it. At the end of your turn you can build monuments based on how many resource centers you control, and there are also event cards you can play during your turn that can affect other players or provide you with bonuses. But the heart of the game is simply about creating a chain of controlled territories. When your turn is done you score and then the next person cranks up his empire.

Since it’s all about the score the key strategy is where you expand. What’s worth what changes over time so while Northern Europe, a wilderness home to barbarians in the early days, is worthless in the first half of the game, it becomes quite valuable in the later epochs. North Africa, a great territory to control in the beginning, slowly fades in prestige. Sometimes it’s worth expanding into a relatively worthless territory in the current epoch to ensure a strong foothold in an upcoming epoch.

With scoring done at the end of your turn, and not at the end of everyone’s turn, the order you go is also something you must consider. A player who goes last in one epoch and then first the next has a huge advantage, as no one has had a chance to loot and pillage their empire in the between years. Assignment of empires is semi-random. When drawing empires players have a chance to draw, look, and then pass the card to someone else if they don’t want the empire. If you pass your card though you end up with being stuck with whatever someone else gives you (or possibly a random draw). This is an interesting gamble, as while you want to stick an opponent with an empire that will hinder them, you do so at the risk of landing yourself in the same predicament.

The scoring system creates some interesting play dynamics. While occasionally I’ve seen games in which one player was able to luck out with playing all the powerful empires, or the opposite with someone being stuck with the worst, overall everything seems to average out. A strong empire in one epoch turns into a weak empire the next, and a tiny empire lasts into a thousand year reign thanks to careful card play and a healthy dose of luck.

In terms of scoring there is no such thing as a safe lead. A couple of good epochs and suddenly the player who had the least number of points has overtaken everyone else. This is great, because there’s nothing worse than trailing in a multiplayer game with no hope of catching up and having to spend the next couple of hours going through the motions. History Of The World, thanks to the peaks and valleys in scoring, avoids this and keeps everyone interested right until the final army marches out under their banner of manifest destiny. While there are other games that allow players to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat (quite feasible with any of the Commands and Colors games), there are few that do so as elegantly in a game of such length as History Of The World.

On the drive home I started thinking about how the evening went. We started around nine and ended around two, with the same number of player we started with. Considering how many non-gamers probably think a game of Uno lasts too long the fact that History Of The World kept everyone interested was a surprise. I think that could be squarely attributed to the fact that the victory point carrot was a tasty treat. Why drop out of a game when the very next turn you could be leader of the pack?

So, if you’re looking for a strategy game to introduce non-gamers too, one that involves history and even bloody conquest, dig up a copy of History Of The World. I think you can find the “new” Avalon Hill version readily enough, and the “old” Avalon Hill version should be fairly common. The rules are pretty much the same, although there are minor changes between the two editions.

As you’re probably already aware Tim Schafer recently announced his next project, Brütal Legend, which except for Jack Black being involved, sounds like it has great potential. It’s not that I totally hate Black, more like he’s one of those questionable individuals that depend on the alignment of the planets, how well your socks are staying up, and whether you’ve had enough caffeine at the particular moment you are experiencing his antics to seem tolerable. Since it’s just vocal work perhaps it will be okay. And hey, his character’s name is a mashup of the greatest iconic heavy metal character of all times with the artist that brought him to life, so that’s cool.

Judging from some of the musicians Double Fine has involved we can look forward to plenty of ‘80s heavy metal, and in turn perhaps a game CD soundtrack that is actually worth upgrading to the inevitable collector’s edition. Of course I wouldn’t mind seeing more than just ‘80s metal, as hacking and slashing with any type of metal is always a wonderful feeling.

Thinking about this I sat down and came up with my ultimate gaming mix-tape consisting of thirty-six tracks that complement your gaming experience. And yes, thirty-six tracks wouldn’t fit on a mix-tape but since tapes are obsolete anyway it just sounds better than the ultimate gaming MP3 subsequent archived recording playlist. Or something.

The following is the list, which should be played in order. Selections are not restricted by any period. Besides being perfect for your next Dominions, Weird Worlds, or Scallywag game they can also be used to greatly enhance casual gaming. The mix-tape is also excellent for a substitute for caffeine, the drive to work, and even a romantic evening with that special gal (if your special gal cannot appreciate the many wonderful selections here it’s time to get a new chick who does).

1. Into The Lungs Of Hell – Megadeth
2. Remnants Of Withered Decay – Malevolent Creation
3. Fear On The Bridge (Upon The Boiling Sea I) – 3 Inches Of Blood
4. Burning The Witches – Warlock
5. Ordinary Story – In Flames
6. Falling Down – Internal Bleeding
7. Manipulator Of Souls – Kataklysm
8. Western Alliance – Metal Church
9. I Am A Viking – Yngwie Malsteen
10. Silent Are The Watchers – Dismember
11. Vengeance – Nuclear Assault
12. Violated – Sinergy
13. Butchering Death – Jungle Rot
14. Surf Nicaragua – Sacred Reich
15. The Ancient Ones – Morbid Angel
16. Do Or Die – Testament
17. My Nation – Kalmah
18. Carved Up – Hypocrisy
19. Pyroclastic Annihilation – Demolition Hammer
20. Seasons Of Destruction – Sanctuary
21. Bullet – Misfits
22. Buried In The Backyard – Cannibal Corpse
23. Mistress Of Pain – Death Angel
24. Kinslayer – Nightwish
25. Hand Of Doom – Manowar
26. Killing Spree – Death
27. Mask Of Sanity – Children Of Bodom
28. Masturbating The War God – Nile
29. Red Baron/Blue Max – Iced Earth
30. Sense Of Demise – Sinister
31. In Times Of War – Dying Fetus
32. Termination – Omen
33. Despicable Heroes – Arch Enemy
34. Flag Of Hate – Kreator
35. Marital Decimation – Suffocation
36. The Trooper – Iron Maiden

There you go, thirty-six songs to soundtrack your gaming life to. Get compiling!

So the winners of the BAFTA awards were announced the other day. Judging from both the nominees and those that won, BAFTA (which sounds like a free trade agreement but is really the acronym for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts) is without a clue when it comes to video games.

Let’s start off with the original nominee list that included games that were not even available. Thankfully none of those won, but still, you do have to wonder why they’re even included to begin with. Really, of all the entry requirements shouldn’t being done be pretty high on the list?

Then look at the nominees themselves and what categories they reside in. For example, beneath the PC World Games Award there is a grand total of ONE PC game. Or check out the Strategy and Simulation category, which resembles one of those logic questions you’ll find on a standardized test. Which game doesn’t belong? True, you can probably call out more than one, but there is one title on that list that truly is a fish out of water.

And who cleaned up the awards? Wii Sports. Good for Wii Sports. I’m sure it’s the best strategy and simulation title that came out in 2007.

Now, one thing I keep hearing about these BAFTAs is the fact that yeah, they’re really lame and all, but hey, at least it’s a serious institution giving out the awards so it’s all right. Video games are being accepted, after all.

To begin with, do awards that are so off base really have any meaning? Aren’t the BAFTA awards pretty much the equivalent of earning a gold star in school because you show up? Do even the winners feel like they’ve actually won something?

Let’s get back to that whole acceptance thing. Gamers are willing to give BAFTA a pass because instead of a bunch of dorky gaming mag editors handing out the awards it’s the ACADEMY of Film and Television ARTS. Oooooo, swanky.

Who cares?

Why should we feel that we need acceptance by the mainstream? Last time I checked the folks who are into gaming, whether as creators or fans, tend not to be the type who are interested in following the crowd. Yet deep down it seems like there’s a yearning to be finally, positively, considered cool. To me this is the same issue that’s driving the whole ‘are games art’ debate. It’s not really a matter of folks wanting to view games as something that awakens your spirit and emotions, but rather the chance to drop the perceived stigma that being a gamer brings.

Aren’t we so far entrenched in the world at this point though that it doesn’t matter anymore? Do we really need to justify our passion by the recognition of groups who have no idea what they’re talking about?

I say no. Meaningless awards do not promote the hobby. But that’s just me. What’s your take?

Memoir ’44 Painting Contest

Quick note to all the Memoir ’44 fans out there in case you didn’t spot this on the Days of Wonder blog. They’re having an aircraft painting contest in conjunction with Game Trade Magazine to win a big, custom tournament-style map. Read all about it here. I know I’ll definitely be picking up a GTM next month and seeing what kind of magic I can work. Watch all the mags be stuffed with Fi 156es instead of something cool like the Lightning…

I was rewatching Office Space tonight for the millionth time and became inspired, with the results below.

I suppose if you aren’t familiar with the movie it will fall flat, but then again maybe it falls flat period. But that’s the beauty of this, you dear reader, are the perfect focus group.

It’s always nice to see our developers getting print or screen time where you may not expect it. No, we’re not talking about being featured on Cops (So that’s why the beta is late!), but in the world of non-gaming media.

Recently Patrick Proctor, who you know as the president/founder/lead developer/all around guru of the ProSIM Company, was quoted in the New York Times in an article on Iraq, which you can find here (his quote is near the end).

While the article has nothing to do with gaming it does illustrate something I’ve talked about before, in a roundabout kinda way: developer insight and knowledge of their subject matter. Patrick Proctor is not simply a developer who read a couple modern warfare articles on Wikipedia and started designing computer games on the subject. This is a man who knows what he’s talking about because this is what he lives.

The entire ProSIM team is like that. Curt Pangracs and Gary Bezant also bring their decades of experience and knowledge to the gaming table when designing ProSIM titles. And it shows in their final products, which are some of the most realistic modern warfare titles you’ll find on your personal computer. There’s a reason why professionals use them, and why you should be playing them, too.

Air Assault Task Force, ATF: Armored Task Force, BCT Commander, The Falklands War: 1982, Raging Tiger: The Second Korean War, and The Star and the Crescent all do a fantastic job of portraying the nuances of the modern battlefield, from the early days of airmobile operations to potential future conflicts in the Middle East. They’re serious games, meant for serious play. They also represent one of the reasons why indie gaming is so great. ProSIM doesn’t dumb it down. They don’t develop for some nebulous bottom line mass market. Their simulations may be played out in real-time but you won’t gather wood or command a force of tanks that launch bee hives at the enemy. Instead you’ll walk away from your computer with an understanding of real world tactics. You’ll learn something without even trying.

You can find demos for all the above mentioned titles on our main site. If you’re a wargamer and you haven’t yet experienced the perfect synergy of developer knowledge and passion, by all means check out the complete ProSIM line.