Random Dialogue

Harry Potter. Kid. Bespectacled. Fated.

The fourth book in the series was the first book where, in all honesty, I began to understand Pottermania. Goblet of Fire has a number of elements that finally open up the wizarding world to folks who have read the previous books. The wizarding outlook on muggles, and the steps they take to get around them, is explored thoroughly at the Quidditch cup. Interactions between various factions in the wizarding world are also pretty interesting to see, with the Death Eaters, giants, Ministry, etc getting fleshed out and explained.

Character growth was mostly enjoyable, too. I could have done without some of the whining around the dance, but overall I was pleased by where the characters went. Harry was a good deal less goofy in this book, and Hermione was pretty kickass. And Ron was there.

What really umphed my opinion of this book over the line to true enjoyment was, indeed, the last few chapters. I finished the tome last night, and I’ll sheepishly admit that when I started in on the Third Task I still had over a hundred pages to go. After a certain point, though, I realized I couldn’t stop reading OMG Cedric!

Those last few chapters really made the book for me. Finally, some of the deep details of this setting are becoming available, and what exactly went on lo those many years ago come to light. While I was certainly willing to continue reading the series before I finished this book, the gripping ending has completely put me in the mood to press on into book 5.

*sigh* Let the whining commence.

We’ve finally gotten the apartment into some semblance of order. The month leading up to the wedding and the trip to the con of cons meant that our home and castle was in dissaray when we returned to it. Thankfully some elbow grease over the last week has gotten us to a good place. We’re going to hang some art and do some last minute tidying today, and we should be ready to recieve visitors again. :)

Just in time, because tomorrow night we’re having people over to make characters for the Shackled City campaign. I’m hopeful we’ll be able to do introductions in addition to actually making the characters, but either way it’s a kickoff to a game I’ve been anticipating running for more than a year now. Thursday we’re hosting my family for a birthday occasion. My brother turns 23 tomorrow, and to celebrate we’re going to do chinese food and hanging out at “the married couple’s place”. Plus they want to see our loot. Annnnd Saturday is a Wine and Cheese get-together at the De Smet’s place. Back to the social season, I guess.

Later this week: Dungeon Siege II review.

The first thing that catches my eye as I flip through this issue of Dragon is the ad for Iron Heroes, another Monte Cook alternate D&D setting. Some very intriguing ideas in the blurb text. I’ve learned since we got back that they were running Iron Heroes demos at Gen Con, and I lament the missed opportunity to check it out first hand.

This month’s issue ties in with the release of the “City of Splendors” Waterdeep supplement for FR. A great article, “Waterdeep: Splendor of the City”, covers the history of the greatest city in the realms from a real world perspective. The article chronicles the existence of the city since it saw print in the Waterdeep and the North module, through the Volo Guide and up through the modern game supplement. While I have mixed feelings on the recent book release, this is a great article that gives a great sense of the history that both the realms and Waterdeep now have.

“New Olamn Bard College” expands on an organization introduced in the Waterdeep book. A bard-centric organization that is quickly gaining in popularity and influence, the group is a blending of the Harpers and the espionage-oriented offshoot the Tel’Teukiira. The article fleshes out the role of the college in Waterdeep, and gives some background to the schism between the Blackstaff and the Harpers. The article has all sorts of little life details, bits that I felt were sorely missed from the Waterdeep book. The college, for example, maintains plinths around the city with information about performances and social events. These plinths make for not only good local color, but would be a convenient way to hook an adventuring group.

To extend the sense of history even further, an interview with Ed Greenwood is the next entry in the magazine. “Volo’s Guide to the Master of the Forgotten Realms” is a relatively unannoying discussion with Ed about the history of the setting he crafted lo these many years ago. Aside from general enjoyment of Ed’s fairly laid-back way of speaking, I was saddened to hear that the Crazed Venturers are rarely getting together anymore. Considering we owe them much for the offwhite tomes we now get to read, it’s a shame that real life has a tendency to occupy the intelligent and talented so.

Fiction rears its head in Dragon again, an FR short story by Elaine Cunningham entitled “Game of Chance”. Normally I don’t read fiction in Dragon, but my self-appointed role as summarizer forced my hand. I’m glad I did. It’s a tight story with a surprising amount of movement for the number of pages it takes up.

I really like the “Ecology of…” articles that grace every issue nowadays. They not only provide interesting background for DMs, they provide some crunchy technical bits for running the critters in a campaign. Lizardfolk are the focus of this article, tying in to the Lizardfolk-centric adventure in this month’s Dungeon. Speaking of Dungeon, Wormfood this month is umm..sort of underwhelming. I don’t want to bag on them for going the easy route, but they posted three characters from their beta test campaign under the guise of providing cohorts.

After that, there is an article that breaks my mind. Entitled “The Charlatan”, it is apparently a prestige class that won a contest Dragon was running a while back. It’s crap. Utter crap. For some reason, someone thought that it would be “fun” to have a prestige class where you can pretend to be a powerful wizard. oooooooo. Idiots.

“Swamp Swag” is the Bazaar of the Bizarre this month, another tie-in to the Dungeon for this month. All the magic bits are lizardfolk-made tools for surviving the swamps. The theme is getting a little thin at this point…though, the undead fish that transforms a corpse into a lacedon for you is kind of cool.

That’s about it, excepting the Class Acts one pagers. They’re more impressive than normal this month, as a little blurb explains they’re going to get WotC R&D folks to participate in the near future. Sounds like a plan.

I went into this movie not really knowing what to think. A Terry Gilliam film starring Matt Damon and Heath Ledger…ayuh. Lots of chances for weirdness there. However, leaving the theater I was able to throw this one on the stack of movies starring Matt Damon that I quite enjoyed, along with Bourne Identity and Ocean’s Eleven.

As you’re probably aware from the trailers, the Brothers Grimm are a pair of con artists who get in over their head when they’re confronted with real paranormal phenomenon. What the trailer don’t show is that the reason they face down the depths of the Black Forest is a knife to their throats, put there by the despotic leader of local invading French forces. Named Delatombe and played by Jonathan Pryce (underused in this role), he represents the command structure of Napolean’s thrust towards Russia.

The role of the French in the movie is really very weird. Why they’re there and who they are is very poorly sketched out. Except for a vague reference to the short angry one, I don’t think most people would understand why the French are in Germany at all. The Italian merc Cavaldi, who tries badly to talk with a Franco-Italian accent throughout most of the film, is especially confusing.

Other than these small beefs, I greatly enjoyed the movie. They paid loose service to quite a few fairy tales, and used some really cool creepy folk tales to gloriously disturbing end. Like all Terry Gilliam movies, it is impossible to watch this film without being uncomfortable at some point. Damon and Ledger do a great job with their respective roles, being at the same time adventurous and fragile.

While I don’t think it’s a flick for everyone, I got my money’s worth.

Katie and I have been blissfully and tremendously by ourselves for the last few days. As our friends and family (I hope) know, we love them dearly. Every once in a while, though, you need some time to yourself. So! Other than working this week, we’ve been working on getting our lives back to the norm. I’ve been pulling my normal shifts this week, and have pants Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Content for the games page has been flowing wonderfully, and judging by the releases for the next few months, as long as I stay focused I should be doing one original piece a week for quite a while.

Next week I should have a review of Dungeon Siege II (early commentary: very competent hack n’ slash) and some of the RPG tomes release this summer, including SR4.

Brian’s already been thanked many times, but I’d like to do it again in my own little public forum. Brian De Smet was instrumental in getting myself and 12 other people to Indy and back last weekend, and I wouldn’t have had that (fairly well received) piece to put up on Slashdot Tuesday without his help. Thanks, man.

Monday we pretty much laid low, and then hit dinner at Outback (the girl wanted steak). Eva and Alan joined us very impromptu, and we ended up playing a game of Gloom at their place. Sort of funny and an interesting way to kill an hour or so. Quick concept: Each player represents a melancholy family. You want all of your family members to die, miserable and alone. Players play cards that make family members happy on other families, and cards that make your family members sad on your own folks. The first to off their family ends the game, and points are tallied up for all sadnesses on the board. Most points win. Cards are see-through (ala Hecatomb), with points lined up in specific areas of each card. Thusly, cards placed on top of old cards overwrite the old point modifier. The see-through surface (for the most part) allows you to keep track of what is going on. Not sure about the replayability, because once the joke’s been told I’m not sure it would still be funny. I’d probably play at least one more time, but the low printing quality of the cards (basically a poor print job on transparency sheets) would make frequent play not only boring but destructive.

The magazine rundowns are almost over. I have three more mags sitting on my stack. (A lot got queued up because of Wedding/Gen Con.) It’s funny, I started doing this because Dragon wasn’t really that interesting and Game Informer was pretty mediocre. I figured I’d have fun ragging on the rags. Much to my surprise, Dungeon and Dragon have gotten really good, and EGM is actually sublime. Regardless, chronicling them here on the site are a good reason to make sure I read through them, which I’m not sure I would do otherwise.

Tomorrow is a dual-party day. Katie’s cousin Noah has his one year b-day, and Abby turns older. Luckily, they mostly don’t overlap so we’ll be able to go to both. Yay for things working out.

Shackled City Character Generation is on September 1st. Break out your popcorn, kids. It’s going to be a good show.

Of the several enthusiast press magazines that I recieve, Electronic Gaming Monthly is easily the best. Game Informer tends towards blandness, being that it is the Gamestop house organ, and Play has a tendency to be a little umm…fervent for my tastes. The writing in Play tends to be pretty good, but sometimes they make odd review decisions.

In any case, first article - “Sequel Factory”. A whine-less look at the fact that the industry is ridden with repetition. The business rationale is explored, and a ray of hope: New consoles usually means new franchises. Two pager that explores the topic thoroughly and intelligently.

Liberty City Stories gets a look, back in the city of GTA III but set prior to that game. Intent is to have just as much content as a big game on the small screen. meh. Hilariously titled article follows “Why is Shigeru Miyamoto so damn happy?” A nice interview with the designer about Mario 128, the DS, the Revolution, and his family. Nintendogs game from familial input. Nice to know the man takes such inspiration from the little things. Another interview follows, with President Iwata. Much shorter, mostly to the point about the Revolution and company goals.

Echoes of the last GI witha piece on King Kong. A two page spread with details on the combat and graphics. Still looking forward to that one. A “Zelda Watch” article makes me sad…interview with Eiji Aonuma doesn’t realize that the game will be pushed back not long after the magazine hits the stands. Sales charts make me even more sad. Crappy Episode III games in spots 2, 3, and 7. Good lord.

I skip the Gizmondo article, because it’s about a non-existant system. A humorous article about Metal Gear Solid 4, centered around an interview with Hideo Kojima. I’m not a big MGS man, but I like that they’re going in new directions. Nintendogs is the next article. They really are the distilled cuteness of all of humanity squeezed into a single game.

Humor in gaming mags is usually forced and crappy. The “Overheard” column gets it right. Let the quotes speak for themselves. My personal favorite: “What gets me out of bed and into the office every day is the thought of Ken Kutaragi’s resignation letter, framed, hanging next to my desk.” - What J. Allard wrote as part of an exercise in what motivates MS execs.

NFS: Most Wanted. Eh. Next-Gen Console Report has a beautiful many functioned monstrosity of a controller smack dab in the middle of the page, with different “features” arrayed around the page. The Odds of any particular feature making it onto the revolution controller are listed. “Pressure Sensitive Grips — Wow! All of my ideas on how to use such a feature are extremely dirty. I can’t imagine Nintendo thinking the same way that I am. –Randy Pitchford, Gearbox”

The Beastie Boys as celebrity gamers. Kaaay. “The Top 10 Most Ridiculous Game Names” It’s Mr. Pants. Woooo! The #1 most anticipated game is Zelda. Long way, anticipators, long wait. “These Games Are Out There” talks about games that are apparently under the radar. I guess I have a different set of metrics, because I’ve been waiting on Shadow of the Colossus for quite a while. Ico’s sequel will be a wonderful balm for the soul. Stubbs looks good too.

“Soul Searching” gives a first look at Soul Calibur III. As happens occasionally with magazine articles, I finally have a better grip on the game because of a well presented bunch of text and art. I’m glad I started picking these things up. Aside from everything they’ve done before, there is going to be a semi-strategy mode to the game. Chronicles of the Sword mode has you moving your character around a map, completing objectives and earning goodies while also participating in the standard fighting mode. They also are going to have a make your own character mode, so you know that’s going to be creepy. :)

Reviews this month mostly seem to be on the money. I’m especially pleased to see how much they like Hulk (smash!). I’m surprised by how little they like Geist. Have to check it out via GameFly. Annnnnd Seanbaby for the closer. A breakdown on some typical nerd-types, including a large-bellied 4-Um Troll. Ahh, my readership.