Ken Newquist I’ll admit it. I’m a SimCity addict. I played the original game far too much in college, kidding myself that I could study and raise Atomic City to new heights. SimCity 2000 was more of a good thing, giving players the ability to alter the local economy, implement ordinances, build on multi-level terrain, and even … Read more
The Manual of the Planes is a cosmological toolbox detailing the heavens, hells and strange places in between for Wizards of the Coast’s Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition role-playing game. Written by Jeff Grubb, Bruce R. Cordell, and David Noonan , the book is heir to two planar traditions: the minimalist 1st edition Manual of … Read more
The Fellowship of the Ring, the first film in the Lord of the Ring’s movie trilogy, provided gamers with what they’ve always wanted: a great, glorious movie capturing fantastic adventures on the big screen. It’s offers a cinematic backdrop for all future dungeon crawls, helping to focus the mind’s eye on exactly what a horde … Read more
Crystal Ball is a robust RPG aid for Apple’s Macintosh OS. Created by Joseph Sharp, the program runs under both Mac OS X and the older Mac OS 9. The tool is built to support Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition and includes tools for creating characters and monsters, tracking combat, calculating experience, creating names, rolling … Read more
An e-mail circulating the net claims that McDonald’s has announced they are going to start importing most of their beef from South America. It’s a claim that’s not true, although it is true that Mickey D’s is testing the importation of small amounts of beef from Australia and New Zealand. Here’s the original e-mail: Date … Read more
It’s been a few weeks since the release of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones (ok, more like two months). I’ve seen the movie twice, and am contemplating seeing it a third time. Now, with the climactic 45 minutes of the movie a pleasant but more distant memory, I can give an objective review of … Read more
For the last few years — ever since the Harry Potter books became immensely popular — there has been an e-mail circulating online claiming that the adolescent wizard is in liege with Satan, aka the Prince of Darkness. In the books, there is a division between those who wield magic and those who don’t. The … Read more
An e-mail hoax is urging folks to find and delete the harmless “jdbgmgr.exe” file from their Windows-based computers. This self-induced minor lobotomy kills the Java Debugger Manager — which really is represented by a teddy bear icon — can cause certain Java applets (small programs in their own right — to act buggy. It’s not … Read more
I got my hands on the revised edition of Star Wars d20 this week, and after paging through it quickly I’m fairly impressed.
Believe the hype. Spider-man is a solid superhero movie that deserves the skyscraping profits its earned since it’s opening weekend. Geeks know the story: Peter Parker is a nerd and borderline genius who gets bitten by a radioactive spider, and thus gains arachnid like super-human powers, including great strength, the ability to climb walls, and … Read more