Tuesday, August 26, 2008

PAX is coming

PAX is coming this weekend. I'm greatly looking forward to it at this point.

Friday I'm heading straight for the Fantasy Flight Games booth and hoping to pick up a copy of the new Anima: Beyond Fantasy RPG. Also maybe a couple new early release figures for Anima: Tactics. Second will be Turbine to see what LotRO has to offer for going back to the game. I am looking forward to the expansion and maybe it can get me back into the game on a somewhat casual basis. My family will be going to the party they sponsor that evening. Also on the agenda is to scope out any good Wii games that nintendo or other companies might be showcasing. We've got like 4 games for it right now? Most of the games just don't interest, but PAX is the place where the good stuff will be shown off. Friday if possible but maybe later in the weekend I intend to stop by Microsoft and tell them that I'm a Shadowrun player waiting for them to make good on the franchise. The most recent x-box game and the latest edition of pen and paper have been serious disappointments so make this latest one something to be proud of.

Saturday I'll be helping with the Anima: Tactics tournament since I'm an official demoer. I'm hoping we have a good turn out and I really wish I could be playing in the tournament but I think it will be a lot of fun just getting the playing scene going. Maybe Cipher Dave and I can get a good game going on the sidelines though at least!

Sunday is our guerrilla VOR gaming. There will be at least 3 of us there for playing VOR and just showing people that the game is still alive.

That is a lot of gaming for one weekend and I can't wait for it to get here!

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Gaming, Politics, Working

Woo Hoo!

I'm still unemployed and gaming. I've had one interview and have another one soonish here. Honestly until August is over I don't care if I have a job or not though, it is great just being able to get up in the morning and see my children happy that I'm here and have some time to game or do other things going out and enjoying life.

So in case you haven't noticed, there is a political election going on here in the U.S. Have you been to Game Politics? Apparently the last game Obama played was Pong. I find it amazing that using a crackberry is enough to create generational appeal. But at least all the virulently anti-fun politicians didn't make it through the primaries. No word yet on what the last game McCain played was, the Political Machine wouldn't count though. No, these issues aren't too serious on my list of voting issues but you needed a good distraction from all the regular political news right about now right?

Another local player (Scott) and I have been giving VOR the old beatdown. I've certainly had fun playing with some new figures that I haven't been able to play with before. Lately we've been giving vehicles some beat down, you can see one of our vehicle missions pictured. The results of which are over on the bioplazm forums. Between VOR, Anima, and Arkham I've just about given up electronic gaming. I've taken the time to be the latest campaign on the second Galactic Civilizations expansion and created the Pharon and Golem enemy races in honor of VOR.

My wife and I played Shadowrun 4th edition at a game store recently. I've been very critical of it but hadn't given it an actual play. I had fun in that it resembled Shadowrun but I found it full of a lot of unnecessary mechanics changes and downright annoying changes to the story or "fluff" of the game. This next weekend I'm hoping to get a good old game of 3rd edition in, I still keep hearing about other old 3rd edition players who don't like the new edition either.

The reason I expect to be able to play 3rd edition is because I'm going to the Dragon Flight convention in Bellevue, Washington to demo Anima: Tactics. I was going to do it for my friendly local game store, but I also got accepted into Cipher Studious (the manufacturers of Anima: Tactics) program for Free Agents. Which means I'll be helping with demoing the game a lot locally, helping with conventions and tournaments and in exchange I hope to get some interesting little rewards to show off on the blog here someday. Just today I demo'd the game to 3 guys who were in the game store and hope to get a regular game night actively going. This weekend I'll be demoing at the Dragon Flight convention and I'll be having some games at PAX. Since $40-$50 is a full army for this game, there is no reason not to pick it up if you're already playing other war games.