The Masked Carnie

Ok, I know I don't update this blog very often, so let me just lay a little thing on you.  I generally hate collectible games.  At least, that's what I thought.  I think what I really hate is collectible card games.  I used to play Magic for a long time.  Eventually, I got tired of needing to invest so much money every set to have a remote chance of making a decent deck, and left entirely.  I decided to try other CCGs like Dragon Ball Z & My Little Pony.  I left each of those for the same reasons.  I respect them all as games, but I just hate the collectible aspect of it.  I hate "the chase" to buy the most powerful cards.  I don't like how it was required to play well.  As you can see by the title, I am now playing Heroclix, which is also a collectible game.  Why is this somehow the exception?  Why do I still choose to invest money in this thing, especially when the player base is apparently very low?  For tha...

I am a big fan of 1vG games (1 vs. group).  I love being the 1 big, bad juggernaut that everyone else has to team up to destroy.  When I played Magic, Archenemy was a massive gift for me, even if I never really had the cards to make a solid deck to abuse it.  I really enjoy playing Pandemic as the bio-terrorist, even though he becomes more of an after-thought in that game.  In Heroclix, I'm forcing myself to figure out how to manage large swarms myself, but I find a particular glee in bringing a giant beast against the horde.  It is for this reason that I feel I would really enjoy being a DM.  I understand that the DM's job in D&D is simply to operate the story, and should be expected to adjust the difficulty in whatever direction is necessary for a good story, victory be damned.  That would diminish it for me a bit, but I still feel I'd have a lot of fun with the role.  Recently, I've had the opportunity to play a game that puts one player ...

I just finished watching Batman: the Killing Joke in a theater.  Right away, I want to state that it is a great vindication to have a DC animated movie finally in theaters.  DC animation has been very strong over the years.  It's missed occasionally.  Justice League: War and Son of Batman weren't particularly strong, but even for those low points, they still delivered as well as any live-action movie did.  The last time this happened was for Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, which was ok in its own right, but it was really a movie of its time for what superheroes were back then.  Mask of the Phantasm was a bit of an adolescence of animated movie superheroes.  It acknowledged that it had grown, but it still kept itself appropriate for young audiences.  With the rise of superhero movies in live-action becoming really a whole new monster now and the quality of the Arkham games, we've seen the maturity level of superheroes in the media truly grow. ...

Civilization: Revolution, a game that I truly never anticipated I would end up enjoying.  I never played a Civ game before this one, and it took some time before I was actually willing to give it a shot.  In fact, I think this was given for free for Xbox Gold members at one point, and I might not have bought it otherwise.  It's definitely made me a fan, though.  When I have a computer again (my last one had a traumatic accident and died), I definitely would want to get whatever is the most recent version of Civ.  Then again, perhaps I won't enjoy the newer ones more than this.  From what I could research, this was praised by Sid Meier as being exactly what he always wanted Civilization to be.  It's also supposed to be good for fast games, and that's with a typical game lasting 4-6 hours!  This is currently a game I play when I want to spend a lot of time just chilling out.  This is my long game.  I don't think I could handle a game tha...

There's a really hot new game going around right now, and for once, I'm right there on the front of it!  Thank you to Game Grumps for introducing me to this glorious gem (warning: NSFW language at the link)!  This game was originally intended for the Oculus Rift, but it can be played with a standard PC.  The idea for this game is very unique, and I always love me some good unique.  One player is at the PC, and only that player is allowed to see the screen.  Everyone else is playing nearby within earshot, but they cannot see what you see.  The main player is in a closed room with a suitcase bomb and various modules connected to it that are used to disarm it.  Your friends are the bomb defusal experts, who have a 23-page manual detailing how to disarm it.  It is up to all of you to communicate effectively enough that you can correctly disarm the bomb within the given time limit.  This game continues to exceed any expectations I have.  I...

Have you ever heard the thought that there's no such thing as an original story?  There are lots of creative people in this world, but all of them draw inspiration from other creative works.  This came up in the trial over the popular " Blurred Lines " song.  Pharrell Williams, a defendant who lost his case in court, said that creativity was stifled by this verdict, and it became more dangerous for anyone to make anything that was inspired by anyone.  Although I have not followed the case in any real detail beyond a very nice parody from Glove and Boots , it's easy to see how anyone who is creative for a living has to be very careful they don't accidentally make something too similar to someone else's work.  Although our world is vast with many ideas, there really is still a finite amount of possibilities, and with so many creators, those possibilities are being explored very rapidly.  I bring this up to ask the question: how valuable is it that we contin...