Ken Newquist

My Favorite Game I Never Play

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Pirates of the Frozen North

I love WizKids’ Pirates of the Spanish Main and its various expansions, even though I never actually get to play the game. Hell, I think I’ve officially played it twice, but that hasn’t stopped me from picking up booster packs for every other expansion.

The most recent of these is Pirates of the Frozen North , which introduces a new Viking faction and corresponding Viking longships. It also has icebergs that move about the board on their own, smashing any ships they come in contact with, and the icebreaking ships needed to destroy them. I picked up a pack to honor my Swedish ancestors, but I’m more interested in snagging the recent Pirates of the Mysterious Island, which has submarines, and the upcoming Pirates at the World’s Edge which ups the game’s weirdness quotient even further with giant crabs and prehistoric sharks.

Daylight Saving Busy Work

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I always hated busy work in school, and I’m hating it now as I update my home’s various computers for tomorrow’s daylight saving time switch, the one that our ingenious Congress decided to foist upon us. The goal of the change in DST — it now happens about three weeks earlier in the spring, and … Read more

Game Day: GenCon 2007

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There’s no game day for me today, as I’d had alternative plans that fell through when I came down with Pink Eye. Which isn’t to say there’s not some great gaming news to talk about — after much debate, scrambling and a little bit of arm twisting (or perhaps just enthusiastic encouragement — I wasn’t … Read more

Red-Eyed, Hack-Lunged Geek Dad

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There’s nothing quite like waking up in the morning with your eyes glued shut.

That’s what happened to me this morning as I struggled awake on the sofa bed, annoyed at a certain yellow Labrador who was trying to push me off the mattress so she could have more room to spread out.

My eyes were crusted together, which is a lovely indicator of Pink Eye, or a Pink-Eye-like condition. And the said thing is … that’s an improvement. The last week has seen me sidelined by a particularly nasty cold that had me fighting my old nemesis Post-Nasal Drip for three days.

As per normal, I have the kids to thank for this. Both got sick last week, and took Sue down with them. I’d hoped to escape the Week of Hacking Mucus unscathed, but alas, they dragged me down on Monday.

The Magic Item Compendium and Theories of Arcane Distribution

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Wizards of the Coast is releasing a Magic Item Compendium reprinting 750 magic items from previous publications and Dragon Magazine articles, while adding in 500 new items. In anticipation of its release later this month, they’re running a series of articles by Andy Collins, one of the book’s designers. In the first article he talks … Read more

Game Day: Re: Your Brains, HeroClix Redux

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Jonathan Coulton’s undead anthem “Re: Your Brains” will lead off our gaming session tonight as our brave band of adventurers faces off against a horde of undead besieging the town of Barovia. But hey, it’s not just the undead we’re dealing with today: super hero gaming returns to the table as we get back to … Read more

Ken, Son of Thor, Thwarted by Samsung

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When last we saw our villain, he had just destroyed his Samsung integrated receiver/home theatre system with a touch as a spark of static electricity leapt from his finger to the power button of the system, destroying it in a flare of blue LED light. Flash forward two weeks, and see our heroine Sue calling … Read more

206 lbs: Upticking Redux

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I gained two pounds over last week, primarily because I only went to the gym once or twice last week, and drank way too much soda (mostly on Game Day and the kids not being around on said Game Day, so I could play video games until 4 a.m. after the guys left at midnight). … Read more

Gears of War Grinds Through a Shell-Shocked Future

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A soldier stands with his gun before him, his hands resting on its grip, while clouds gather behind him.

Halo saved the Xbox. Prior to its arrival, the gaming console was an also-ran; afterwards it was the definitive reason to buy Microsoft’s PlayStation competitor. Gears of War may be the Xbox 360’s Halo. Like Halo, Gears of War features humanity fighting a desperate, last-ditch war against alien destroyers. As the game opens, the far-off … Read more

Game Day: Talk like a Dwarf, RPGs Go POD, Pierce the Magician

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Tonight we’ll be playing Khelez-Mar: The Dwarven Imperative, our dwarf-centric campaign set on the Pomarj in the World of Greyhawk. The last adventure saw the adventurers tracking a large orcish warband comprised of orcs, grey renders and manticores. They engaged and mostly destroyed several of the warbands patrols before breaking off from the main body … Read more