On the Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness

Penny Arcade are one of the longest running gaming webcomics in the world.  They've built up a name using big words and satire to most, if not all, extents.  So after many years of drawing and building up their little animated world, and toying with the ideas in the back of their heads, they naturally made a game.

It's not an easy game, by any sense.  It sometimes take a little while for one to figure out what they should be doing in the game, but it does eventuate with entertaining cutscenes, familiar cameos, and a ridiculous storyline.  Oh boy is it ridiculous.

They released Episode 3 recently and were forced to change the style of the game from a Cell-shaded 3D graphics game to a classic 8-bit RPG format.  And frankly, I'm only a little surprised they didn't do that in the first place.  Were I in the position of Penny Arcade Aristocracy, I would have requested the suggestion of changing formats of each Episode.  A game about a Gaming Celebrant should celebrate Formats and their Generations.

Which is why I'm happy for Episode 3 to have changed the style.  I appreciate that they kept with the RPG format they intended, though I would be interested to see more.

Late to the Avengers Party

Lets face it.  Hulk is a Bully.

Most of my friends have gone and seen Avengers, and are foaming at the mouth at how awesome it was.  Even those who tend to be a bit picky with their movies enjoyed it.  Some even created an alternative story to appease those who thought it was a little lacking.  To them I say "There were Five Movies leading up to the film.  There's your in-depth story."

The stories of Nick Fury and Co?  I reckon that can earn a movie in itself.  A prequel covering the story of Hawkeye and Black Widow?  Sure.  I could totally dig that.  Even if I'm not a Gushing Fan of Scarlett Johansson.

Oh, what's that?  Sacrilege?  I should be burnt at the stake for committing such heresy?

Well throw me in water and see if I float, but I'm not a gushing fan.  Sure, she did a good job as Black Widow.  But I didn't care if I saw her arse completely covered in leather, as it was, or in a string bikini.  I was more excited seeing Gwyneth Paltrow in a pair of denim shorts.

Moving on before I get too distracted, the flick was fantastic.  Great Lines, Great emotion, and Great answers to interesting matchups.  There were fights EVERYWHERE.

So everyone who wants to go see it, but isn't sure whether they want to go see it?  Put it this way: if you enjoyed the other five movies, Iron Man 1 & 2, Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, or Thor, then you will LOVE this movie.

May 15th

May 15th has been a big day for a lot of people, especially for Video games.  It's a long awaited continuation of a wonderful series, coveted as one would the holy grail.

That's right.  It was the day and release of...


Sonic the Hedghog 4, Episode II.

...

What?

Sixty-Two Damage

So.  We have a good idea what Colossals do.  And also some more stats and features of my favoured war machine of the Motherland, Conquest.

Lets start with his stat line.  As far as what has been spoiled, he has the same Speed and Armour as a Juggernaut coupled with the health of two Berserkers. (Do your maths, and yeah it's true)

Health is a somewhat funny subject.  When an attack damages a Colossal, first you have to determine your position to the Colossal.  If you're to it's left you deal damage to the left grid, and vice versa.  If you're standing in both, or you're in it's back arc, you can choose which grid.  Then when one grid is full, it goes over to the next grid starting on a d6, meaning you don't start straight from column 1.

If the damage doesn't have an origin, for example Fire Continuous Effect, then you randomise which grid it is (eg: 1-3 left colum, 4-6 right column) and then apply damage as normal.

Systems work the same as any other Warjack, but the Left and Right Systems apply to all the weapons on that side, Melee and Guns included.

Sidenote: Just realised that Critical Amputation from the Destroyer's Melee attack can get FANTASTIC Milage out of these guys.

As for damage, he can deal a pretty good amount.  Colossals start off with a Melee Range of 2".  Always.  I'm suspecting the only exception is the Kraken has up to 4" during his activation.  On top of that, each weapon has its own melee range which halves the front arc.

His fists are the same power as a Juggernaut with the Butchers Fury Spell.  Since he has two of them, it's madness.  Given his full compliment of focus, which is the same as any other Warjack, he can make a Behemoth feel a bit weak at the knees.  It's not often the Behemoth can stand next to a Warjack who can deal the same amount of Raw damage to a Juggernaut as he.

After that, there are new Power Attacks for this giant Warjack to perform to get the best benefit during his turn.  One is a Thresher Style attack, using one weapon and attacking everyone within melee range of it.  The other option is a swat style attack, where a model in melee range gets slammed.  No run up like anyone else would need, just backhand the target.  Which is easy with the Giant Fists he has.

But wait, THERE'S MORE!

He has guns.  You would think there's 3 guns, but you'd be wrong Right.  The underslung cannons are a duo with an interesting rule

We'll start with the Main Cannon, because that's a F-off cannon that starts off with +1 Range, AOE and Power over a Destroyer Bombard, with the additional benefit of Critical Devastation, Throwing[?] all models under the AOE away from Conquest.  That's a very awesome cannon.

[?] - I don't have the rules for the Mule on me, but I think it's a throw.

The underslung guns are a different story.  To start, as I understand it, they're just like Hand Cannons with the AOE of a Bombard, and a special ability called Creeping Barrage.  Rather than a normal ranged attack, place an AOE 3 within 12" and anything that enters/ends its movement in the AOE suffers a half Power Damage roll.

Board control?  Hell yes.  It may not be too threatening, since it's 7 off the dice against Winterguard or the like, but it still makes your opponent second guess his motives.

But if you didn't want to lay your templates, you can make an attack against someone.  Then do it again.  Because rather than one shot against a model, you get two.  Two entirely different attacks against the same target.  Whether you can redirect this second attack, or it automatically misses, I dunno.  But that's still awesome.

To top off his Board Control he doesn't suffer any forced movement, and can't be disrupted, both per standard Colossal Rules.  So once he's there, he won't be leaving until he's destroyed.

Overall, is this fella worth the same as a Behemoth and a Berserker?  I'll probably have a better idea if I put him on the table, but I'm pretty convinced so far that this fella will be super-fing-awesome.

Just for a little size comparison.

Ups and Downs

I must say, the highlight of my month has got to be seeing my pseudo-nephew running up to his mum, arms out in his little jacket and hoodie and giggling his little head off.

That tops off the long and exhausting month I've had.

Twas the first tuesday of the month and I'm on my way to work.  I hadn't had a good start to the week, just from work, but I receive a considerably long message.

It started off with "If you are receiving this text it's because I consider you a close friend".  That's a nice thing to say.  While I have hardly seen Stacey in months, and much the same beforehand, it's nice to know that she considers me a close friend.

The message then goes on to tell about how she was admitted into hospital on the saturday beforehand on Severe Anemia, contrary to the double dose medication she was taking ("I came in with a [Red Blood Cell] count of 57 when it should be about 120") and after a few tests, she found she had Cancer.  By the end of the week, we knew it was Stage 4 Lymphoma.

Happily when I went to see her, we had a few minutes to ourselves and she explained it out to me and said that given the various cancers there are, this would be the one you'd settle for because there is a finish line.  It just takes time to get to.

But the fact that a good friend has gone to hospital?  That's a fucking shock to the system.  And it happened not long earlier too in march, because another close friend was hospitalised with Arrhythmia, an irregular heartbeat condition.  And the other day, I found out that she has to continue to take medication for the rest of her life in case it causes some more significant damage.  I haven't seen her yet, but it has always been difficult to get a meeting together with her.

And slowly, but obviously surely, it has really burrowed itself into my head, and thrown a wrench into my work which has its own vicious cycle.

It hasn't all been bad this month.  As of the time of this writing, Jenny will be here in 4 weeks, and we've been getting our shit into gear.  I'm going for my provisional license on Monday, which was a wonderful day of flipping out on myself.

I had gotten my finger out and checked out when the closest booking was.  However, I had left it a bit late.  Turns out all all the driving instructors in North Brisbane were booked out until the 4th June.  So I'm panicking, and figure "Lets try South Brisbane".  Nope, their earliest was the 7th.

I'm panicking more, because I'm a little embarrassed that I don't already have it, (I've had my learners for 5+ years) but I was more flipping out because I've left it too late, I wouldn't be able to get my license before Jenny gets here because there aren't any available bookings and I wouldn't be able to drive her around, it'll all be Public Transport and favours. (Which costs an arm and a leg)

So I looked further out.  The earliest I could get was at Currumbin on the 15th May.

First question I asked myself was "How the FUCK am I going to get to Currumbin?"  I checked.  It's not easy.  But it's available, so I filed it away and searched for the next best thing.

Which turned out to be Caloundra on the 18th.  I checked the public transport, and it's easy enough: Take a train to Landsborough Train Station, and there's a bus going up "Steve Irwin Way" which would plant me right in front of the Transport Depot.  Done.  It's a 2 hour trip, 3 if you include the walk from my place to Bald Hills station, but it was possible.

But heeding advice from the customer service lady of the QLD Transport Dept, I checked the monday afterwards for any cancellations.  "There are always loads of cancellations, so be sure to check like twice a day."  Luckily, there she was: 30th April, Caboolture.  Very easy to get to, closer to me, and all I have to do is get there and take the test.

It's going to be hard fought, because after today and yesterday, it's going to be a rainy day on that Monday.  Goody.  I'll just take things slower than usual and get through the day.  Hopefully without Hypothermia since I'll be walking through the rain on getting to and from there.  And trains never fail to have the Air Conditioning blasting.

So that's my personal life up until now.  Otherwise, Tuesdays have been booming with people coming in and having fun, then Friday nights are getting much clearer with the game Champions (I really should read the rulebook for that) and D&D... I've already blogged about.

Then there's Jenny.  Fuck I can't wait for her to get here.  We're in the process of sorting out the Schedule.  Jenny made a list of things we plan to do in the 10 days she's here, and now we just have to organise it.  The only thing that unchangable is the Saturday Night Dinner.  So far, we're up around 50 people so she is feeling a bit humbled, especially by those coming interstate to see her. 

Thank you everyone.  I really appreciate it.

Changing Methods

My D&D group is getting a little difficult as of late, mostly because we're starting to really spread apart.  Aaron is on the Southside of Brisbane, Scott and I are still in one place, and Richard is up in Townsville.  In the past, we've made do by having our D&D set placed down in front of a Webcam to allow Richard to join in.  We haven't had a problem, except for Richard not listening too often and Aaron finding it really difficult to get motivated to cross town since he's the only driver out of the three of us in Brisbane.  (Which shall soon change, but still)

Aaron has been pushing for an alternative by playing over the internet through D&D Insider, which provides a program that gives us everything we need in computerised form.  Health tracking, a playing grid, player graphics, etc etc etc.  It's all well and good until I have to fork out money for it, which I would rather not do because I'm saving for Jenny.

My suggestion was rather than using D&D Insider, use Vassal.  Eventually we want to play the Iron Kingdoms RPG system, which is significantly different to D&D itself and more like the Warmachine/Hordes game, and I think Vassal will be perfect for it since the Module already supports the majority of the game, the Module developer just needs to apply a few things once the books come out and it'll be ready for play.  Hopefully.

The only other thing we have to worry about is voice command.  Because rather than having to type it out, it's simply easier to just say what you're doing.  There are a few options with that, the first of which Aaron suggested was Skype.  I've got Skype, he has Skype, I don't think Richard has Skype, and Scott Definitely doesn't.  The alternative to that is MSN messenger, which I'm fine to use, but whether Aaron is even able to we may never know.

Though I do remember last time I used MSN Messenger, I kept getting messages from Bot Spammers saying "Come visit my webcam".  Hmm.

I am keen to do Vassal for the IK RPG so we can fight something mad, such as a Dire Troll or a Juggernaut.  If we can build up ourselves enough, we could even try and take on a Colossal or a Gargantuan, which would be awesome.

Expanding Horizons

I spent just last Saturday playing Talisman with Scott and Dick. Normally it would have been a session of D&D, the last for the story arc until Aaron figured out what he wants to go with the main Arc, however Aaron didn't even turn up.

But sitting down for Talisman also included some excitment, as we had one of the expansions available, "The Highlands" which adds an additional corner piece to the game. Scott and I will be getting more and more expansions as we go, because the game builds that way, with regular fresh new experiences.

Today I looked up Crysis 3, a game coming out in the future, probably next year, and something Occurred to me: They wasted an opportunity with Crysis 2.

I liked Crysis 2, it was a fun game that only faulted when you got quick Energy Regeneration and Extended Stealth. The combat was exciting and can swing in either way, though I do admit it was quite fun sneaking around everyone and occasionally dropping mines onto the backs of Ceph Devastators.

Aside from the single player, there is the Multiplayer which offers a good set of features for someone who is into that sort of thing, along with DLC's to support it, providing extra features and new maps.

Sadly, there aren't any DLC's for the Single Player, and I find that to be a waste.

Crysis 2 has a lot going for it. It has a good story, it's graphically wonderful (Even on the PS3 version, plug that sucker into 3D Telly and it gets pretty fkn awesome), and it plays really well. But there isn't just one story to follow. Even in Crysis 1 there were two stories, following Nomad and everyones favourite englishman, Psycho.

The story of Crysis 2 follows Alcatraz who takes over Prophet's mission, to a successful point too. Now while that story may be wrapped up rather well, surely there is more to the entire thing? Who is left of the Squad? What of Nomad and Psycho? Had they fought similar battles in different places? What about the lead up to Prophet today? What was he doing and how did he get a Nanosuit 2?

Now as someone who isn't a developer I can only imagine how much it would be worth putting in effort into making and providing expansions, but shouldn't it be one of those things thought of in advance? I hope they have with Crysis 3.

That and 4 Player Cooperative. That'd make it an Xbox sale for me.