Nuketown

March 2009

Pinball Wizards Convention Scheduled for May 1-3, 2009

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Tue, 03/31/2009 - 12:38pm

The 16th annual Pinball Wizards convention is being held May 1-3, 2009 at Allentown Fairgrounds AgriPlex. How I managed to miss this for the first 15 years it was held, I have no idea, but I've got to figure out a way to go this year. They've got game tournaments for adults and kids, a pinball-related flea market, vendors, machines for sale and a whiole slew of pinball machines (about half of Ag Hall, from what I hear) that you can play as part of the admission price.

Admission for adults is $15.00 per day while children (6-12) get in for $6.00 per da. Learn more about it at www.pinballwizardsconv.com.

Open Game Table Anthology Launches Volume 1

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Mon, 03/30/2009 - 10:01pm

The Open Game Table Anthology, a collection of essays by RPG bloggers, launched on March 23rd. You'll find contributions from Musings of a Chatty DM, Uncle Bear, RPG Centric, I Waste the Budda With My Crossbow, d20 Source, and many more, covering everything from world building to running a campaign to the history of the hobby.

Wired's Geek Dad blog reviewed the anthology and liked what they saw, and based on the list of reviews on the anthology's Lulu page, it looks like a lot of other people enjoyed it as well. It's officially on my "to read" list; I look forward to checking it out.

Game Day: Return of the Revenge of White Plume Mountain

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Fri, 03/27/2009 - 6:45pm

In 12 years of adventuring in Greyhawk, our group built up a number of legends, told, but never experienced. The recovery of the soul-devouring sword Blackrazor is one of them.

Brant Bladescream, warrior, adventurer and conman, recovered Blackrazor from the volcanic dungeon known as White Plume Mountain and used its notoriety to found the Blackrazor Guild. The guild would go on to become one of the cornerstones of our Greyhawk campaign, and last year we decided to finally play out the events in which Brant secured the epic blade. We were aided in this quest by Wizards of the Coast, which updated the classic S2 White Plume Mountain to the 3.5 rule set in 2005.

SciFiWire.com: 18 Sci-Fi Twitter Feeds You Should Be Following

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Thu, 03/26/2009 - 4:10pm

My column about  science fiction folks worth following on Twitter is up on SciFiWire.com. It's a pretty expansive list, with 18 people in the main story, and another five that didn't make the active list, but were still worth noting. This pretty big project -- you wouldn't think it would be, Twitter being Twitter -- but it takes a goodly amount of time to find, follow and read this amount of Twitter feeds (actually, there were more than this during the research phase).

SciFiWire: Resident Evil 5

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Tue, 03/24/2009 - 12:05pm

My review of Resident Evil 5 is up at SciFiWire.com. It's been a while since I played any of the Resident Evil titles, and the transition from the old survival-style games to the new run-and-gun games (ok, more like "run and then gun" games) was a bit jarring.

The current Resident Evil game is also obviously influenced by the movie series; there are a lot of cinematic, super-cool interactive cut scenes that could have been ripped from any of the films (dodging a possessed, chain-wielding motorcycle gang for example) but it's a hybridization that works.

The run-stop-shoot mechanic in this game is going to infuriate FPS veterans, but honestly, those folks should be playing Left4Dead instead; it's horde mechanics and four-player co-op play is more in line with what they want anyway. For those who like to be a bit more methodical (and occasionally panicked) in their zombie playing should enjoy Resident Evil 5. 

Blue Dragon Plus Mashes Together JRPG With Real-Time Strategy

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Mon, 03/23/2009 - 5:30am

  • Blue Dragon Plus
  • Designed by Mistwalker
  • Developed by Feelplus and Brownie Brow
  • Published by Ignition Entertainment
  • Nintendo DS
  • MSRP: $29.99
  • Buy it from Amazon.com

Blue Dragon Plus is a role-playing game/real-time strategy game mash-up and portable sequel to the Xbox 360 original JRPG. The first Blue Dragon was a game that I'd hoped to check out when it was released in Winter 2007 -- I was in a bit of an RPG drought at the time, and it looked interesting -- but I got sidetracked by life.

When the chance came to review Blue Dragon Plus for the DS -- a platform that I'd love to have another good RPG for -- I leapt at it. And landed in something unexpected. From what I've heard of Blue Dragon, it was a fairly traditional, turn-based Japanese RPG featuring your standard cast of adventuring heroes out to save the world. Blue Dragon Plus, however, is decidedly non standard.

Searching for Pathfinder RPG Fan Sites

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Sat, 03/21/2009 - 5:29am

I've decided to make the Pathfinder Role-Playing Game subject of one of my upcoming "Summon WebScryer" columns for Knights of the Dinner Table. The successor to D&D 3.5 (in spirit, if not in name) is going to be released this summer, so it seems like a good time to write about it. I'm looking for anything that has to do with the RPG; playtests of the beta, campaign web sites, you name it. If you know of one, please post it to the comments or email me at nuketown@gmail.com.

The Secret of Game Night for Kids

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Thu, 03/19/2009 - 5:28am

My six-year-old daughter is a gamer. She's had a Nintendo DS in her hands since she was three, and she's been playing the Xbox 360 with me almost as long. She loves video games, and would play them every night (and every day) if she could, but we knew early on we'd need to set limits.

Since Stargirl was about four and a half, we've had Game Night twice a week. Game Night is held on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and lasts for one hour. She can play any game she wants -- on the Xbox 360, on the DS, on my Mac, or even a good ol'board game (which she has occasionally chosen) -- but she's only got an hour.

Over the summer, we added a new wrinkle to Game Night: we take away minutes for bad behavior. Whining? Refusing to clean up your room? Yelling at your brother? Not putting your dirty laundry in the hamper? All these will cost her minutes on Game Night. She can earn these minutes back through good behavior.

Game Night's worked out well. For one thing, it's established clear limits on her gaming. She gets to play for two hours a week. She might get bonus game time on a Saturday night if the family decides to play the Wii, but that's it. Game Night's also gotten rid of the "when can I play my game?" whining that we had when she was four, and Game Night hadn't been established yet. And it's also helped with discipline.

Evolving the RPG Form Factor

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Tue, 03/17/2009 - 5:45am

In a post about which game systems he'd love to own, my friend (and fellow Dire Paladin) Dr. Checkmate offered this throwaway line: "I would like to see more stuff in the square format of WotC’s Star Wars books and the smaller still format of SWEX. I’m not getting any younger and these books keep getting bigger. Yeesh."

At which point I looked over at my library game shelf, and thought "amen brother." And then I had an interesting thought: of all the games I've played in the last 3-4 years, the ones I've enjoyed most have had a non-standard form factor (non-standard being anything other than the typical 9x11" form factor we've come to associate with D&D).

Beware the Megadungeon

Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Sun, 03/15/2009 - 11:01am

Expedition to the Greyhawk Ruins

Megadungeons, epic character deathtraps that have made or broken a thousand RPG campaigns, are staging a comeback. While it's been upwards of 25-30 years since we first crawled into Castle Greyhawk and Undermountain, the Oughts saw the release of Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, World's Largest Dungeon, Castle Whiterock, Maure Castle and now Monte Cook's Dungeon-A-Day.

But is this a good thing?