PC
I added this blog for a really bad reason
I just subscribed to Game Stooge entirely because of this. I am an idiot.
Age of Conan gets a free trial
So I’m not a massively-multiplayer kind of guy especially – I like the idea but I have a job, kids and other things that mean that they’re not suited to my lifestyle. I pelayed a little EVE Online and that was it. But I heard good things about Age of Conan and apparently there’s now a free trial. According to Economical Gamer you need to register and download by the end of the year (which is why this isn’t just a link post kind of thing) so get stuck in and drive your enemies before you…
Linky linky linky linky LINKS
Sorry for last week’s lack of links and apologies in advance for the lack of links next week!
- Mark Charan Newton thinks sci-fi books are dying. I tend to agree.
- Why fandom owes even more to H.P. Lovecraft than we realised.
- A man has ‘beaten’ WoW. Sort of (via Boing Boing)
- Dollhouse battles were about sex. So says Whedon – Fox will never tell.
- Real life vampire killing kits!
- Using Microsoft’s Surface to play D&D – more footage.
Links? On a Thursday?
Who would have thunk it?
- Charles Stross writes on the issues to do with spaceships.
- Lev Grossman chooses his top 5 fantasy books of all time! (via i09.com)
- Something Awful dissects the art of Traveller.
- Paizo are having another of their RPG Superstar design competitions.
I think the internet is playing Dragon Age too…
Service Temporarily Suspended Due to Dragon Age
Not exactly, but more or less all my geek time is being spent on Dragon Age at the moment, and I suspect Sophie’s is too. I’m on the PC, she’s on the Xbox. I’m sure thoughts will come but right now? Too busy playing…
It’s Thursday. Want some links?
- I personally don’t especially care about covers – I choose books based on reviews and previous work and I think most SFF covers are rubbish. But some people care a great deal. Here’s a post at A Dribble of Ink about the changes between editions of Mark Charan Newton’s Nights of Villjamur. The comments are pretty interesting if you like that sort of thing, with all sorts weighing in, including Newton’s editor.
- Filming of the Games of Thrones pilot has wrapped. Now we wait to see what the chances of a actual series are.
- Sex advice from D&D players. Actually serious advice, not a parody.
- The AV club’s best 15 video games of the noughties.
- Next time you’re at a loss for PC or NPC, try looking up this print of Characters for an Epic Tale. (via Boing Boing)
- The BBC discusses committing war crimes in video games. (via Rock, Paper, Shotgun)
- The Times covers ‘adult gamers’. Shock, horror!
- And, finally, Kotaku celebrates World of Warcraft’s 5th birthday by finding out from people why they’ve never played it. The intro where the writer discusses how it just doesn’t live up to tabletop gaming experiences is the most interesting one to me.
Yet another THURSDAY LINK DAY!!!
- More DMing advice from Penny Arcade
- The movie Gattaca is being made into a sci-fi, police procedural TV show. Sound pretty cool!
- How we’ll cope (or not) with the Dollhouse cancellation – the 5 Stages of Grief. But, maybe we’ll get more Buffy?
- Setting up your Mac to play PC games.
- Michael Chabon on breaking out of genre and the role of fan-fiction in popular culture.
- What Stormtroopers do on their day off.
- Some guy at the Guardian reads George R. R. Martin for the first time.
- Robin D. Laws does a great real world RPG inspiration. Maybe we should change the way we do ours?
- i09’s take on what SFF books you might like if you liked some recent movies. It’s a cool idea, done well and the recommend some great books!
- Finally, The Onion A.V. Club gives us more geek fun with their New Cult Canon write up on Army of Darkness, a movie I have never seen but now really want to!
Thursday Link Day
I’m going to try to do the links on Thursdays from now on. I’ve got some niiiice ones today!
- Holy crap – Planescape: Torment is getting a re-release! Best CRPG EVER. This will work properly on Vista and Windows 7 apparently so it will work nicely for the new PC… (thanks to the Wertzone – no idea how I missed this on my RPS feed)
- Boing Boing has a piece on using Google Wave as a chat channel for RPGs. I guess, but it won’t replace the table top for me.
- Boardgame News has a great article running down card games and boardgames that have been released using the whole Cthulhu/Lovecraft mythos – great, good, average and bad. I really want to play some Arkham Horror.
- And finally, here’s a report about the Essen Game Fair by a guy from local shop Paradigm Infinitum.
Crap – console versions of Dragon Age lack isometric view (plus RPG info)
Well something had to ruin the party. According to Kotaku (and all over) only the PC version of Dragon Age will have the classic CRPG isometric view. And my PC won’t run the game! There’s rumours of other issues as well, including smaller battles.
Not sure exactly what I’ll do here – I’m planning on getting a new PC but it probably won’t be until next year and I don’t want to wait for Dragon Age. Stink!
In other DA news, there’s some details of the pen and paper RPG in a new podcast at the Green Ronin site. I haven’t listened but there’s details in this RPG.net thread. It sounds interesting actually – simple but with a stunt die sort of system called a ‘Dragon Die’.
1st DragonAge review
By Game Informer. It’s of the PC version when Soph and I will both likely get the 360 version, but it’s very good! 70 hours sounds like quite the time sink… As far as I can tell this is the first review, but there will be more!