My wife swears that MSG gives her headaches. Frankly, my wife gives me headaches when she starts whining about the level of MSG in her Chinese food…because for all the noise generated about MSG’s supposedly harmful effects, nobody has been able to definitively determine that MSG – eaten in normal amounts – causes any physiological problems. Despite this, many people [...]
This week we welcome co-editor Gregory ‘Mazinga’ Harris, Patricia ‘AnaKhouri’ Correll, and Ed to put a cap on our Gen Con 2010 coverage. We also have some other convention news, I announce my in-development chambara tabletop RPG, and we pick apart Ghost in the Shell 2.0. (Note: If you dig the podcast, please take a moment to rate and review [...]
With two days of gaming under our belt I thought it would be a good time to post a handful of highlights from this year’s con. Freemarket – The new sci-fi RPG from indie game stars Jaren Sorensen (octaNe, Action Castle) and Luke Crane (Burning Wheel, Mouse Guard), Freemarket is a bizarroid mix of transhumanist tropes – reputation economies, matter [...]
One of the things I hate about kids television programming is that kid’s shows rarely deal with how kids’ minds actually work. Typically, kid’s programming is designed to teach kids oversimplifed moral lessons or how to be a fully functional member of society (‘share your stuff’, ‘disabled people aren’t monsters’, ‘Queso is Spanish for Cheese‘) – rare is the show [...]
Last week Shapiro Keats and I took Gohan to the Krohn Conservatory’s annual Butterfly Show. The Krohn Conservatory is in Cincinnati’s lovely Eden Park, and the butterfly show is one of those deals where you go into this room where there’s a ton of butterflies flapping around free, and you just hope you don’t accidentally squish one. We had a [...]
(Note: the following piece contains graphic descriptions of sex and non-consensual sexual acts. If you find that sort of thing is offensive then consider yourself forewarned.) So – did you hear there’s this game out there that lets you rape girls? Actually, ‘lets you rape girls‘ is a mischaracterization. The game, RapeLay (as in ‘rape lay‘ – for some reason [...]
Non-Japanese reviews for SquareEnix’s Final Fantasy XIII are trickling in, and it seems there’s a disconnect between what Japanese gamers and Western gamers expect from their RPG’s…so much so, that FFXIII director Motomu Toriyama has weighed-in on the issue: “We think many reviewers are looking at Final Fantasy XIII from a western point of view,” says Toriyama in a recent [...]
Back when my Jackie Chan fandom was in full swing, I rented Fantasy Mission Force expecting yet another tour-de-force stuntfest from Mr. Chan. Those of you who have seen FMF are snickering already, but bear in mind this was the late 80′s when the only way to find out if something sucked was to actually rent the damn thing…and that [...]
So a few weeks ago some friends of mine asked me to run a Godlike game. Godlike, in case you’re not aware, is a World War II pencil-and-paper role playing game in which super-powered humans serve on the frontlines during the war’s various conflicts. The players take on the role of these so-called ‘Talents’ and most of their activities center [...]
I had to switch to Vimeo for this one, since YouTube doesn’t like videos over 10 minutes in length (boo!). At any rate, we also spoke with Cryptic Studios’ Bill Roper about Champions Online. In short – the game looks fantastic. The character creator (which you will see plenty of in the below video) is the best I’ve ever seen [...]
Assistant Editor Gregory ‘Mazinga’ Harris interviews CCP / White Wolf Games’ Ned Coker about the new RPG Geist and CCP’s EVE Online.
Thuy Trang died eight years ago this September. Most people wouldn’t know that name, and who could blame them. Her career – such that it was – lasted a mere eight years, beginning with a role in the inaugural season of Fox’s Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers and ending in a bit part in The Crow: City of Angels. Mighty Morphin’ [...]