Reviews
I've been planning (and promising Morbus) to review Cranium for weeks. I was excited about playing the award-winning board game, which came highly recommended by friends and has celebrity endorsements from the likes of Julia Roberts and Naomi Judd. So, then, why no review? To play Cranium, you need at least two 2-player teams. Despite my best efforts at luring friends over with promises of spirits and baked goods, it took several weeks to round up four willing participants.
Tired of your average fair of role-playing games? Are you cynical about the whole scene? Think the D20 system is antiquated crap and that there has to be more out there than Wizards of the Coast and White Wolf? Well, looks like the guys and gals at Hogshead Publishing agree with you, because they have a line of games directed at this very market. These games fall under their label New Style and blow away all preconceived notions about role-playing games.
The stars have aligned. The portents have been read. The Arkham General Hospital has recorded twice as many miscarriages in the last lunar cycle. The nursing staff has been whispering about an abomination being born. What do all of these signs point to? The release of the d20 rules for Call of Cthulhu from Wizards of the Coast.
I finally broke down and picked up the core book for the new Star Wars using Wizards d20 system. What drove me to this you ask? Well, I decided that for better or worse, I really wanted to see what a non-D & D d20 game looked like. There are others that I could have chosen, but Star Wars seemed the best bet for me. At least with Star Wars, there would be some cool pictures and background information that I would enjoy reading, even if I thought the game sucked.
Rogue Publishing sent me an email asking me to do a review of their game Pariah. As my wife can attest, I can't pass up the chance to acquire and read a new game, even if I never get to play it. Pariah uses the FUDGE rule system and centers over psychic children. The basic gist is that all of the characters are under the age of 18, and there are groups after the children and their powers.
We've seen the movies: Hackers, Real Genius, Antitrust, Wargames. Now we can play role of the 'leet system hacker struggling to save the world from an evil corporation. Uplink - the Hacker's Shadow is a game published by a small company in the UK called Intorversion.
It's anything but a well-kept secret that most GMs have a mean streak a mile wide (though they may pretend otherwise to lull their players into a false sense of security). There's a certain sick thrill that comes from outsmarting your players, and an even sicker one from killing off a PC with a well-placed trap or a monster that's a little smarter than they originally thought.
My first computer was an Atari 600XL. It had a keyboard, a cartridge slot, and two joysticks. Really basic joysticks - you know the ones, with the rubbery stick, and the big red button. All you could do was move, and fire. My brother Garth and I had two games: Galaxian and Ms. Pac-Man. I loved Ms. Pac-Man. I played it for hours. But I digress.
Microsoft recently announced the upcoming release of Asheron's Call 2, the sequel to the massively multiplayer online roleplaying game. AC2 will feature new dynamic, evolving world that reacts to player behavior and actions; a next-generation MMORPG graphics engine; a revamped combat system and a new in-depth crafting system that gives players a chance to pursue noncombative skills. Read on to find out more...
SOAP is an unusual, action-packed game in which "your character is likely to be shot by ex-lovers, have a life-threatening operation, save a family member and have a car crash, all in the space of 30 minutes." That's right - SOAP is meant to be an RPG-style approximation of TV soap operas.
