It’s Blog Day, apparently. Or, I suppose, 3108 day. Not sure I really see it, but I’ll play along. Here are five blogs worth visiting:
I’m a little bit biased on that last one, since that’s my wife’s blog. Also, the second to last one is Brennan Taylor’s blog, and I’ve done freelance work for him; I suppose that makes me somewhat biased there too. Oh well; there are no rules in this pseudo-holiday about being impartial.
Recently, I finished playing Dreamfall, the sequel to The Longest Journey. I won’t review either game here, suffice to say that I give both very high recommendations. The Longest Journey has been one of my favorite games ever since I played it way back in college, and playing Dreamfall was like getting to visit old friends and old haunts. That’s really the best way I can think of to explain why the second game struck such a chord with me. There’s not really a lot of game in there; the puzzles are generally pretty easy, and I think there’s more content where you’re sitting back and listening to the characters talk or watching events unfold than where you’re actually doing something. At times, I felt like I was simply moving the characters from one cut scene to the next. I didn’t mind, though. The characters are all interesting and believable (and, generally, very likeable), and the story is involving. I wasn’t really playing the game for the gameplay at all, but for the setting, mood, and other story-related things. Few games an evoke real emotion the way these two games do, and that’s their primary strength.
The new “5 Things” is up. This time I wrote about character generation.
I just rented and watched A Sound of Thunder last night, a movie based on the Ray Bradbury short story of the same name. If you’ve never read the story, do yourself a favor and avoid this one, unless you’re a fan of thoroughly mediocre productions. If you have read the story, you’ll really want to avoid it. The movie deviates so far from the story that the plot is almost unrecognizable, even to the point where the title of the movie no longer makes sense in context. The only reason I watched the movie in the first place was because of the title; I read the short story many years ago and it made an impression on me, so I wanted to watch the film. I’m just sorry I didn’t read the back of the DVD box until I got home. I quote:
Chicago, 2055. Time Safari Inc., led by its slick CEO (Ben Kingsley), offers the hottest ticket around: an expedition into the past to hunt dinosaurs. Just don’t bring anything back. Someone does. And 65 million years of evolution jump the tracks. Vegetation engulfs buildings. Carnivorous insects attack. Highly evolved dinosaur descendants turn humanity from predator to prey. It used to be our world. Now it’s theirs . . . unless two scientists (Edward Burns and Catherine McCormack) can somehow turn back the clock.
It’s a testament to director Peter Hyams’ skills that an intersting and poignant short story can be turned into such a generic and poorly-produced film. I’ll just go ahead and list a few of the things that really bugged me, in no particular order (SPOILER ALERT . . . if you care).
Anyway, I’ll stop with the rant now. Just, don’t rent this movie; it’s not worth it.
Toribash is a strategic, turn-based fighting game for the PC. I can hear you already: “Huh?” Allow me to explain. In Toribash, you take control of a fighter whose moves are completely based on the game’s physics engine and your manipulation of its body parts in response to that physics engine. Each turn is equivalent to 10 frames of the fight, and fights have a limited number of frames. Players take their turns simultaneously, and each turn gives you about 30 seconds to figure out what to do. It’s methodical and tactical, while at the same time being frenetic and completely insane. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever played before. I highly recommend this wonderful little time-waster. Oh, and by the way, it’s a free download.
About a week and a half ago I got a review copy of HeroCard: Champion of New Olympia (as well as the Talon and Ferrion expansion decks), by TableStar Games. In case you hadn’t guessed, Champion of New Olympia is the next in TableStar’s HeroCard series of games. All of the HeroCard games use the core HeroCard system for conflict resolution; Champion of New Olympia is no exception. Since the core battle system is the same in every game, I’ll refer you to a previous review rather than repeating myself, should you be interested in knowing what that system is like. Instead, I’ll be focusing on the board game aspect of this title.
Of course, that’s not to say that I’m not going to talk at all about the card battle system; I would like to talk about what’s different here, so far as the heroes, themselves, go. Champion comes with two heroes (To’a King and Deva), and there are two expansion heroes (Talon and Ferrion) that you can buy separately. This is a game about superheroes, and the cards support this conciet. To’a King is a big, brawny tank hero with some spiritual/ancestral guidance powers. He’s got a lot of powerful physical attacks and a few special abilities to draw from. Deva is a psychic with the ability to create an astral construct, and her cards focus mainly on attacking and blocking with that construct, and performing special abilities with her psionic powers. Talon is perhaps the most balanced of the four, and is a sort of Batman-esque vigilante with a penchant for high-tech, non-lethal weaponry and martial arts. Ferrion has an armored powersuit and an apparantly sentient sidekick/weapon/familiar called Griffin, which powers most of her attacks and blocks. One difference that I noticed between Champion and Galaxy is that the attack and block cards in Champion tend to have much higher values than those in Galaxy; consequently, though, they also tend to cost more. Because of this, you’re forced, to an extent, to focus on either attacking or blocking in a given round, and it’s difficult to effectively do both. Thematically, I like the Champion cards a bit more, as they’re easier to identify with. In Galaxy, there were such obscure card names as “Antiparticle Screen” and “Eldritch Elusion”, which weren’t that descriptive. In Champion, the card names are easier to understand (especially when combined with the card art); you’ve got cards like “Uppercut” and “Scope-Assisted”, for example. It’s also just easier to identify with a super-strong human than with a cybernetic space crustacean.
Now, as for the board game: I like it. It’s not the best board game that I’ve played, but I do like it. There’s a decent amount of strategic depth here, and you’re presented with a lot of options and choices each turn. However, randomness does play a somewhat significant role in this game (moreso than in Galaxy), which some people may not like. The game is also shorter than I expected it to be; I’ve yet to play a game that lasted more than 45 minutes, and these were almost all games where I was teaching the rules (and in some cases, learning them) at the same time.
In Champion of New Olympia, each player takes on the role of a superhero, and your goal is to thwart crimes in order to be declared the Champion. Each player has a base, at which you start and at which you “respawn” when you’re defeated in combat. In order to stop crimes, you must consult contacts in order to learn where said crimes are taking place; some of these contacts are friendly to you, and will give you that information for free. Others are friendly to your opponents, and must be fought before they’ll part with their leads. Once you consult a contact, you draw a plot card; plot cards have a location on one side and a crime on the other. When you get to the designated location, you flip the plot card over to reveal the crime that you’re attempting to stop; at this point, your opponents can try to stop you from stopping the crime. Each crime has a difficulty, from one to three, which dictates how many cards your opponents can play in opposition to you. Your opponents also get to decide whether you’re attacking or blocking, so if you don’t have a balanced hand it can be a bit of a gamble (savvy opponents can use this against you, if they’ve been paying attention to what you’ve been doing). If you stop the crime, you draw powers cards equal to the difficulty of the crime; if the crime had a difficulty of two or three, you also get a fame medal. Powers cards give you either potent (and free) actions that you can use throughout the game or constant effects that boost your natural abilities. Fame medals are what you need to win the game; the first hero to three fame medals wins. In addition to consulting contacts and thwarting crimes, you can also attack other heroes in order to steal their fame medals and send them back to their base. One final thing to mention on this point is that, if you fail to stop a crime, that plot card goes to the Crime Wave. If the Crime Wave ever reaches a pre-set limit (between five and seven cards, depending on the number of players), the game ends and everybody loses. I’m not sure how I feel about this mechanic, and I’m also not sure that it’s entirely necessary. It would seem that a game in which everybody loses would be somewhat anticlimactic and unsatisfying, unless that game is a purely cooperative game.
Now, I like the way the mechanics work, and I like the theme of the game, but the two seem a little bit at odds with each other. My main issue with the game is that these superheroes seem profoundly self-serving. The game is fairly cutthroat, with each hero in complete opposition to all of the other heroes; rather than working toward the greater good (as a good superhero would do), these ‘heroes’ stop crimes (and try to keep each other from stopping crimes) in order to be named Champion, and for no other reason. Something about the combination of mechanics and theme just doesn’t jive, in my opinion. Now, if you can get past that, there’s a lot of fun to be had here. Luckily, I was able to get past it; however, I would have liked to see cooperative rules, even if they were just optional.
Another problem I had with the game was that, as was the case with Galaxy, there are some rules that need clarification. “Telepathic Discord”, a card in the Deva deck, reads, “Opponent discards 3 random cards. Only 1 per turn allowed.” I imagine that it reads this way because of space limitations, but it’s a little unclear. I think it means that you can only play one “Telepathic Discord” per turn, but as there’s only one such card in the Deva deck, this doesn’t seem that important a distinction (though I suppose you could make a case for its necessity while creating custom heroes). Among the powers cards, “Scanalyzer” is one of the two that offers a constant effect; it reads, “Permanent +1 hand size. Place this card below your action deck to gain a max hand size of 8.” This implies that you can only gain the benefit of one “Scanalyzer” at a time, meaning that if you draw another, it’s essentially a wasted draw. However, the other constant effect card, “Mutation”, has no such limitation, reading “Permanent +4 to one attribute. Place this card under a single attribute to increase it by +4″. As there are two of each card in the deck, it would seem that you can get +8 worth of attribute bonuses but only a +1 to your hand size; I’m not sure if this is intentional, or if the “Scanalyzer” card is simply worded unclearly. Finally, there’s the fact that Champion introduces an exception to the rule that Restricted and Exclusive cards can only be played on your own turn; if you decide to take on the role of the attacker when somebody else is trying to stop a crime, you are allowed to play Exclusive and Restricted base attack cards. The problem is that, while the manual certainly implies this exception, it doesn’t come right out and say it, so you have to figure it out for yourself.
What I Liked
Champion is a fun game. It’s fairly quick-playing, and the heroes are fun to play. The artwork is pretty good, and the mechanics seem pretty solid. It’s not that difficult to learn or to teach, either. Also, like other HeroCard games, there’s a pretty good production value here; the components are solid and attractive, and they give you everything you need in order to play. They even make it all fit within a relatively small box.
What I Didn’t Like
I think that the theme and the mechanics are in a bit of disagreement. I also think that the mechanics could have benefited from a little more editing and proofreading. I’m also not sure how I feel about the “everybody loses” mechanic of the Crime Wave; I have a hard time seeing why it’s there.
The Bottom Line
HeroCard: Champion of New Olympia has its flaws, and some of them do affect play. However, despite this, I have little trouble recommending the game. Had I actually bought it, I would not have regretted the decision, and I really enjoy playing the game. I can’t wait to play the next HeroCard game.
I just stumbled across a website of RPG motivational posters. Good stuff, and topical even.
I’m teaching a class (provided enough people sign up) for the Upper Darby Adult Evening Program called Role-Playing Games for Beginners. The class is going to consist of a short tutorial on RPGs, followed by an actual adventure, designed by yours truly. So, if you live in the Upper Darby/Philadelphia area, and you’re interested in taking a class on RPGs (or even just meeting some like-minded people in the area), go ahead and sign up. Thanks.
[Edit: I did not create this picture. I got it here.]
A while ago I posted on a music service called Pandora, which creates streaming radio stations based on specific songs or artist that you choose. The main problem with Pandora, however, was that it had to be run in a browser window, which was inconvenient at times. Enter Pandora’s Box (or Pandoras Box, as the creator calls it). Pandora’s Box is an application that loads Pandora separately from your web browser, and allows you to minimize Pandora to your system tray. Extremely convenient, and highly recommended.
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