2004 FebruaryIn case you missed it, there are now eleven more reasons for New Line to make The Hobbit. Only Titanic and Ben Hur won as many Oscars in a single year as The Return of the King just did. Now if only Decipher would keep publishing the dozen or so LOTR RPG products that are already written, despite getting rid of the remaining RPG department staff, roleplayers could give Decipher some money.
Archive for February, 2004
MLB SportsClix hits stores
Wednesday, February 25th, 2004The much-hyped MLB SportsClix becomes available today, and begins its true test to see how well it can sell. While the baseball miniatures’ stats are based directly on the previous MLB season’s official stats for each player, I haven’t found many HeroClix or Mage Knight fans that are anxious to play the new game. In fact, I overheard a WizKids Envoy (their “official” demo guys) who had seen MLB SportsClix already saying how little he liked it. But that seems to fit with WizKids’ strategy of not cannibalizing the fanbase of their other titles to make new titles successful. The idea is to get new fans, not just make the old fans happy. To each customer his own, and if WizKids can find hordes of new customers amongst the vast legions of sports fans, more power to ‘em.
Ogres in Love contest winner
Monday, February 23rd, 2004It took a while of debating, but we’ve finally selected the winner of our Ogres in Love contest, David Vega. We’ve selected several other entries that were in the running for the best submission, and posted them along with David’s prize-winning poem of an Ogre’s Valentine’s Day (a disturbing prospect at best). David’s well-earned copy of The Slayer’s Guide to Ogres will be on its way shortly. Have a look at the best entries we ended up with.
Rio Grande Offers More Trading and Building
Friday, February 20th, 2004A new Rio Grande Games newsletter is upon us, and the theme seems to be lots of trading and building. Games described in detail include Power Grid (a redesigned reprint of Funkenschlag), 5th Avenue (a skyscraper-building game), Goa (involving spice trading), Saint Petersburg (in which players develop the title city) and Marco Polo (a race to the East). Other news includes the fact that, alas, the Bohnanza expansion has been delayed. Still, it seems there will be plenty to tide us all over in the meantime!
Microsoft licenses Catan for MSN Zone, Messenger
Thursday, February 19th, 2004Today’s other big news is that Microsoft has picked up the license to every Catan game there is, I think (naturally including The Settlers of Catan, far and away the most successful German game in the US), for inclusion in their online gaming stable. Because it’ll be part of the Premium service, it won’t have a spot in the Start menu under Games in the next release of Windows, which would be about like having a five-level store in Times Square, but still, this is huge. This means that the hordes and hordes of casual online gamers (you know, women in their thirties, non-gaming businesspeople… the ones the industry ignores while they try and figure out how to clone EQ again) will get sucked into the magic… unless of course they look at it, scratch their heads, wonder to themselves why anyone would play a complex game they don’t already know, and wander back over to Bejeweled. Whichever way it goes, we’ll find out this summer. Mayfair has issued a press release, which we have included below with typos corrected, ho ho.
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Last dance, last chance for love
Saturday, February 14th, 2004You’ve only got until tonight at 12 midnight PST to enter our OgreCave Ogres in Love contest. It’s an easy one: just come up with a few sentences describing an ogre’s Valentine’s Day, and you could win a copy of this month’s new Mongoose Publishing release, The Slayer’s Guide to Ogres. So look at the rules (I think there’s only two, actually), and type up a contest entry while there’s still time. What’s that? Girlfriend? Nah, she can wait.
Cargo arriving at DunDraCon
Friday, February 13th, 2004Some of you may understand that title, others not, so let me elaborate: Tom Jolly’s Cargo, the new strategy boardgame from Wingnut Games, will be available for the first time at DunDraCon this weekend. The neat little game of shoving crates of tea around the docks at the Boston Tea Party was, well, held up at the docks of the Port of Oakland while customs was clearing it. But just in time for the con, the Cargo cargo was cleared and arrived in Wingnut hands this morning. Be sure to check the game out, whether you make it to DunDraCon or not. Gotta love a Tom Jolly title that reminds you of both Dig Dug and chess.
Upper Deck adds to CCG plans
Tuesday, February 10th, 2004So on top of the DC CCG planned for July, the Marvel CCG at the end of March, and the TMNT TCG due this month (which manages to be a mouthful despite the abbreviation), Upper Deck has more news. According to ICv2, Upper Deck plans two more collectible games: the Shaman King CCG and the Bratz Fashion Party Fever CCG. I’m not familiar with the Shaman King, though I can apparently catch it on Fox’s Saturday morning line-up. However, the Bratz CCG, while possibly making inroads with the young girl market, won’t be entering my house. The wife and I deemed the entire Bratz concept to be a bad example for our daughter. They all look like they should talk like Rosie Perez on speed, and that ain’t good.
RPGs officially a threat to the state
Monday, February 9th, 2004Okay, people, we have a problem: 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that an Oregon prison inmate can’t receive roleplaying materials in the mail. Firstly, it’s White Dwarf that’s at issue (so to speak), so there aren’t any roleplaying materials in it… but the court doesn’t draw that distinction, and maybe it isn’t fair to ask it to split hairs as finely as we do. Apparently, the same prisoner had earlier been denied a subscription to the superhero comic Green Lantern, on the basis of an obscure law that’s been overturned, but the real motivation behind that was probably the same as that of this ruling: “to prevent inmates from placing themselves in fantasy roles that reduce accountability and substitute raw power for legitimate authority.” Uh, yeah: who’s got the raw power here, hoss?
It would be easier to decry such a stereotype about gaming materials if there weren’t (more than) a grain of truth in it. But my bigger concern is something else: the computing and Internet industries have been struggling in a similar fashion with judges that appear unwilling or unable to grasp all the subtleties of that which they’re passing legislation for. Have our subcultures become so complex that they outstrip the complexity of the law – that is to say, too complex to be healthy? Or are we just looking at the classic American schizophrenia of the mainstream versus the intellectuals/geeks/bohemians/whatever? This is just depressing – I mean, I don’t relish the thought of some con ordering up a box of bloodlusted Orks either, but still.
Love still in the Cave
Friday, February 6th, 2004There’s only a little over a week in our Ogres in Love contest, in which we’ll be giving away a copy of The Slayer’s Guide to Ogres, coming out this month from Mongoose Publishing. Come up with 100 words or less describing an Ogre’s Valentine’s Day, and you could well end up with a free copy of the book. Or at the very least, your name and entry up on the site. Have a look at the contest details, and get to writing.
OgreCave Preview: CyborGladiators
Friday, February 6th, 2004Matthew’s brought us a pre-release look at CyborGladiators by Firefly Games. I got to test out the game at last October’s RPGnet Game Day: Oakland, and ended up losing a limb, then the combat to a really tough insectoid. The book’s at the printer right now, so see what you think with Matthew’s review, and watch for it in stores in a couple of weeks.
Sisterz are doing it for themzelvez
Friday, February 6th, 2004It seems like every post I make these days is about some absurd new Hasbro initiative, but here goes: the G-rizzle has obtained some info on Star Sisterz, a collectible charm-bracelet-based game that combines the popular beaded trinkets with truth-or-dare-style questions on cards. It is actually a Wizards of the Coast-branded product, but it’ll be carried in Limited Too, so maybe the coolness levels of the two will cancel out in the minds of female 11-year-olds. Interestingly, this will hit around the same time as Duel Masters.
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Eberron cover and support details
Tuesday, February 3rd, 2004The G.R. has details and a cover shot of the happening new campaign-setting-to-be, courtesy of their spies at Winter Fantasy. I still kind of think it has a dumb name, but the logotype is pretty appealing actually. I hope they don’t go with black and white art in the inset, though. Two other hardbacks will also hit in ’05, along with a mess of support the year after – five books are currently planned for ’06.
Dracula’s Revenge comic creeps closer
Monday, February 2nd, 2004This just in: the comic book based on Human Head Studios‘ upcoming board game, Dracula’s Revenge, now has an official press release (below). I mentioned the comic a couple weeks ago, but the release gives added details on the comic’s plotline, as well as author Matt Forbeck‘s inspiration for the story. The comic arrives in April, hopefully followed by the board game shortly thereafter.
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