Wow, 5 months

Oh, how the time flies. Was it really 5 months ago that I made my last post? Yikes. Good news: I'm a father! I didn't even have to buy Maria the maternity shirt that says "Yes, my husband logged off WoW long enough to knock me up" but there were some jokes. We now have a son named Dante, and he's great. Maria had some complications, but she pulled through and everyone is happy and healthy. But that's probably enough of my personal life; on to the gaming related stuff.

Unfortunately, Maria ended up having her labor induced just a few days after I made my last post, so the mini D&D game that I was trying to get together fell through. Sadly, we really haven't done much in the way of roleplaying since Dante was born at all. But we're really itching to get back to it, so hopefully soon.

So, what's happened since I last posted? I got my PS3 and my Wii hooked up finally. E3 went down. The launch of Starcraft II came and went. I went to Gen Con. A bunch of games came out that I haven't gotten to play yet.

Let's start at the top of that list, E3. For anyone that doesn't know the Electronics Entertainment Expo is a big convention where a lot of new technologies and games are unveiled. This year there were some much anticipated announcements from Sony's demonstration of the Move, to Microsoft's demonstration of Kinect, and the announcement of the next installment of the Twisted Metal series.

Some of you may have noticed that I've never said anything about owning an Xbox. The reason for that is incredibly simple: I don't. So I don't really have much stake in Kinect, but I can say that the part of the demonstration that I saw reminded me a lot of the games that came in the box when I got my first webcam in the '90s.

I was a little bit more impressed with the showing of the Move, but not so much that I'm planning on purchasing one. Really, the move looks like what it is: Sony trying to tap into the apparently lucrative motion games market that's been cornered by the Wii for so long. The problem with this, of course, is that Nintendo has had some time to figure out what it really is that their customer base wants, and cater to that. Sony and Microsoft are late to this particular party, and are going to have to play catch-up. That's not to say that Kinect and Move won't have any good games, they're bound to have a few, but I doubt they will be enough to entice me to buy the peripherals.

The two games that are coming to mind right now that I'm excited about from E3 are Epic Mickey, which has now been announced as releasing on November 30, and Twisted Metal. I've been a fan of the Twisted Metal franchise for a long time. Before I upgraded my console gaming from a Super Nintendo, a buddy of mine had Twisted Metal 2 for the Playstation. We used to have endless tournaments on that game. I remember I was the only person who could get the hang of using Shadow, and I didn't even screenwatch. So I'm really excited that Twisted Metal is finally making its way to the PS3.

The two modes that were demoed at E3 were a Capture-the-Flag type of mode called Nuke, and a team deathmatch. There's a lot of emphasis on the online aspects of the game, which makes sense because it's something that the franchise has never offered before, but there's really something to be said for sitting in a room with all of your friends, eating junk food, and drinking while kicking the crap out of each other on the screen. I don't have the most stable internet connection at home, so I'm not likely to get a lot of use out of these modes of play, but I'm still looking forward to what I've seen.

The other game I'm looking forward to that was exhibited at E3 is Epic Mickey. I'm not really sure what it is about Mickey Mouse. He's a Walt Disney icon, but he's hardly been in anything at all, and most of it wasn't all that good. But still he represents something magical that we all identify with our childhood and we always look forward to one day there being something awesome featuring Mickey. Epic Mickey may just be that something awesome. You play Mickey Mouse wandering through an animated world armed with a paint brush. Anybody that used to watch Looney Toons remembers that the most powerful tool in an animated universe is a paint brush, it can paint in a door, or it can erase everything that you are until you're nothing but a pair of talking lips. That seems to be the whole premise of this game. With his paint brush (controlled by the WiiMote) Mickey can paint or erase anything in the world. Of course, this is limited to the parameters set forth by the level designers, but I have high hopes for the game.

After E3 on my list comes Starcraft 2. When the videos for this started coming out, I think all Starcraft fans everywhere echoed Tychus Findlay's line from the end of the trailer, "Hell, it's about time." I was lucky enough to get in some games in the Beta, though my flaky internet was a serious hindrance. There's a lot to learn about this new game. But it's going to be a fun time, I can already tell. I think I'll save my impressions on the game for a future post, though.

Then there was Gen Con. I used to always put those together into Gencon or GenCon, but as it turns out all of the logos have it separated, so I guess I'll follow suit. This year I only got to go to GenCon from Friday evening on. Maria, Kevin, and I got in around 7:00 (19:00) and proceeded to wander around the con grounds looking for something to get involved in. We wandered and wandered and eventually we ended up waiting in line to see the Damsels of Dorkington (www.damselsofdorkington.com) who were pretty funny. Then off to Champion's for some drinks and food.

Saturday was our first big day of the con. Mike and Elly came up for just the day, Mike spent the day with Kevin playing a gigantic Axis and Allies game. Elly walked around the convention hall with Maria and me dressed up as Yomiko Readman from Read or Die. There was a whole lot to see this year. I know we spent a lot more than we probably should have. Some highlights of what we picked up include: Savage Worlds Explorer's Edition, Savage Worlds Shattered Skies, Dominion Prosperity (which is supposedly in the mail, but still hasn't gotten here), and a preorder for Red Dragon Inn 3.

Saturday night we played a Savage Worlds game with the Weird War II setting. Weird Wars is basically historical wars, so far fairly modern wars, with the addition of weird things like zombies, magic, and dragons. We were playing in World War II at a point where we had never encountered any of these strange things before. Of course we ended up running into a whole host of zombies in this little village, but we ended up making it out alive. I really thought that I'd do more damage though, when I stuck 30 rounds of ammunition in a plastic explosive, stuck it to the big uber-zombie's chest, and detonated it. I really did a surprisingly small amount of damage.

Sunday was really just more of the same. We walked around the exhibitor's hall and looked at all the neat stuff. Next year we're hoping to be able to go for the whole con and get in to some more events. Last year we had a pretty good time doing True Dungeon, maybe we'll try that again.

Next on the docket is Blizz Con, and while I'm not going, I'm really looking forward to it. Here are a few predictions and hopes for Blizz Con. the release date for Cataclysm will be announced as sometime in November, probably a Tuesday. We'll get some more info on Diablo III, maybe a suggestion about when to expect it, and maybe even the final class will be revealed. I'm hoping they'll finally reveal their new MMO that they've been working on. Apparently it's from a new intellectual property, which really makes me happy. As much as I love Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo, I really think it's in Blizzard's best interest to develop a few new franchises.
That's about all I have to talk about at the moment. Hopefully I'll have some more roleplaying related stuff in the near future. Until then, Good Gaming.

The Long Absence

I'm sure my 1.5 readers noticed a while ago that I haven't updated in a while. There are a few reasons for that; mostly though, I'm lazy. I've not given up gaming, I just haven't written much on the subject. So here's a quick rundown of the state of things.

The Mage game: Still ongoing, but winding down.
The Vampire: The Masquerade game: Finished.
Vampire: The Dark Ages game: Started.
Consoles: Still not hooked up, but soon, I hope.
WoW: Still playing, but I still don't have a character to 80 yet.
The House: Still in a shambles, but it's starting to pull together.
The Wife: Pregnant, will soon be giving birth.

This will tell you how big my wife, Maria, and I are into games. She decided that the best thing to do when she goes into early labor will be to get all of our friends together to play a big D&D 3.5 extravaganza. I'll be DMing this one (wish me luck) and I'm hoing to be able to make it a fast-paced battle-fest. Maria will be in periodic pain, so I don't want to bring much social, political, or logistical thinking into it, I think I'm just going to keep hurling monsters at the party until either everyone is dead or it's time to go to the hospital.

To this end, I am creating the party myself and I'm going to hand the characters out at the game, this helps keep players from being too attached to their characters and they won't mind as much if they die. The pary it thus:

Dwarf Monk/Drunken Master
Half-Elf Ranger
Human Rogue
Half-Ork Favored Soul
Human Fighter (I may throw something else on this one later, I haven't looked at it very much yet)
Half-Celestial Halfling Sorcerer
Human Paladin

I rolled randomly for all of the races. I had all of the class types generally picked out, but I rolled randomly to assign the race/class combinations. I'll write out a run-down of how the game goes. It should be fun.

State of the Blog:
I do want to come back to the blog. I find that writing about the games that I'm in can be hilarious and cathartic. I'll try to fill in the gaps in the Mage and Vampire campaigns soon. The plan was originally to start a Changeling campaign once the house was in order, but with the baby coming soon, and the house still a disaster, I don't know when that will actually be.

So until later,

Good Gaming