Resident Evil Intro CAST

Now THIS brings back some memories. Resident Evil was the game that made me finally decide to buy a Playstation back in the day. Played it over at a friends house and got hooked almost immediately. The cheesy intro and cast line up was perfect. 

It would go on to influence some of the games I ran for years afterwards. Secret biotech corporations, crazy monsters, all that sort of stuff. Although I would burn myself out on zombies pretty quickly. So few games actually measure up to what the original RE achieved back then. 

DragonStrike 1993 VHS

Watching this hits a bit differently after reading about how it was made in Ben Riggs book Slaying the Dragon. That really low budget coupled with not even having a final set of rules to instruct folks on. Plus how it's one of the key points in the final fall of TSR. 

AegiSteel issue one - comic book review

 

AegiSteel issue one 

From Outland Entertainment

Available on DrivethruComics.

Set in a fantasy steampunk setting this comic focuses on a small team of heroes trying to protect a town from an invading force. So a pretty straight up typical romp in that type of setting. 

The writing is solid and to the point. Not giving us a huge dump of information on each character that we need to slog through just to keep going. Mainly letting their actions and a little bit of dialogue to most of the work... and it works well. These nineteen pages gives a good beginning and end for the story while leaving us wanting to know a little bit more about the characters and the world they live in. But it's a fast and easy read that keeps you pulled in. 

Also the artwork is done well. A few panels left me wondering what exactly was happening as they appeared more 'pose inspired' than focused on showing us the action that was taking place. But it's very clean and slick looking. Not a lot of excess "noise" that you have to look over to figure out what is going on.

My only problem I really have is this appears to be the only issue so far. I kind of want to find out a bit more about the world and the characters but can't find much else about either. Hopefully Outland picks this up with a few more releases at some point.

Now as a complete aside point. This has also led to me discovering the other comics that Outland Entertainment has released. Elflord, Samuria, DragonRing, even the little known short series Blood n' Guts; all some of my favorite indie comics from a few decades back. So they'll be seeing a few of my dollars soon. 

In the end I'll give the comic a four out of five. Give it a look if you will. But also take a look at the other comics they have to offer. 

Gary Gygax on the BBC

It's always to see actual video interviews and such from the early days of gaming. This is from around 1982, two years before the first big crash and burn of TSR. 

Keys From the Golden Vault

 

At the shop I work at our copies of "Keys From the Golden Vault" have arrived. Beforehand I was saying I wasn't impressed with the design of the hobby shop cover this time around. But once I saw them in person I will admit they do look a lot better close up. Pictures just don't do it justice.

Much as WotC/Hasbro has done to piss everyone off they still manage to put out a good looking product. Not sure how many are going to sell though. We still have several groups who of have either quite DnD altogether or have stopped buying any official product from them.

Time will tell I guess. 

How To Make Powerful Wheel Slingshot | Post Apoc style

Really neat video of a guy making an arrow slingshot from a wheel. Perfect idea of some post apocalyptic games for weapons made from scraps. 

Jaded Gamer Diary - The DnD exodus continues

 

Whenever there is some big blow up online in the gaming community it sounds like affects everything. But then when you look around your local gaming community it becomes evident that most people either don't know about it or simply do not care one bit. For me I rarely ever saw anything local reflecting the opinions online. 

Until Wizards of the Coast pissed in their own bed.

Working at a game shop I saw some immediate results. Some people coming in asking how it will affect them, or asking if we keep carrying DnD material, etc. Then we saw people voting with their wallets, and did they ever. 

We sold more non-DnD games over the last three weeks than we usually move in six months. Games I didn't think would ever move like the new Stargate SG-1 book. Pathfinder sold out so fast it was like blinking and poof no more books, we would still be selling the corebooks if the distributors weren't sold out.

Cyberpunk RED, Forbidden Lands, Sla Industries, Conan, Fallout, Monster of the Week, Numenera (much as I hate to say) and so many more. We had to just keep restocking. 

I've seen people leave DnD before. Back near the tail end of 2nd edition before WotC bought out TSR and then again during the 4th edition era. With 2nd ed we saw a lot of folks just leaving the community altogether. Stopped gaming and moved on to another hobby. There was no internet and little ways of finding new games other than an ad in Dragon or whatever the local ship happened to carry. With 4th ed people seemed to mainly just to stay with 3.5 and then jump ship to Pathfinder once it hit the shelves.

None of that happened this time. From what I can tell people are surging out into lots of other games. Nobody is leaving the hobby just changing who they give their money to. This is a great thing. Part of me is actually hoping Wizards/Hasbro does something stupid again just to keep this change going.

The Monitor Celestra Larp Movie

Why Larp in a park when you can do a Battlestar Galactica Larp on a decommissioned destroyer?

Always thought this was rather amazing. Props to the folks who pulled this off and those who were lucky enough to participate.