They Aren't Games... They're ART: The Lounge's Top 5 Video Games

People tend to think of video games as trash that'll rot your brains... A thoroughly unfair statement. How different is it to play on the computer instead of on a game board? If you consider the time and effort put in to make a really good game, it seems cruel and biased just to say that it will make you a zombie that will never accomplish anything in life. Consider the art design, the programming required to not just make a game a game, but to make it ART. Thus, I have compiled a list of REALLY GOOD games that I have played.

1.) Professor Layton Series:

Professor Hershel Layton, archaeologist and avid puzzle solver, along with Luke, his loyal apprentice, win by a landslide. Unlike any puzzle game before, the game's plot is deep and complex, one of those games you have to play twice through to read all the messages that hint at the totally unexpected climax. It keeps you guessing as you unravel every new clue. Like any great detective novel, it's hard to know the answer to the mysteries that the intrepid Professor faces until the very end. The puzzles you need to solve range from easy to mind-blowing, but every one is fun and exciting. This is one game you won't want to put down.

2.) Freespace 1 and 2:

A rather interesting game to be in the Top 5, considering it's a shoot-em-up space sim that was made in 1998 (Freespace 1) and 1999 (Freespace 2). However, the sheer excellence of its design, the complex storyline, the  the wonderfully-made ships you fly along side with (The distinctive style of each species is amazing), mix-and-match ship choice and loadout, the detailed mission briefings, near-perfect AI, intriguing and mysterious dead races (Complete with still-functional relics and the race that killed them), and realistic military-style feel of the game (Complete with classification levels, ranks, Interspecies Alliances,  and even SPECIAL OPS FORCES!) make it more than deserving of second place.

SPOILER:

Freespace starts out with a terrifying cutscene, in which a pilot in a damaged Apollo craft desperately cries for assistance from a nearby Ross 128 Installation. Soon, an unknown destroyer, later identified as the Lucifer warps in and obliterates both the pilot and the entire installation. The game itself begins in the final throes of the Terran (Human)-Vasudan War. Both races fought on more or less even terms. In the midst of a Terran-Vasudan battle, a new race, later dubbed the Shivans, attacks. With technology vastly superior to both races, the terrans and vasudans have no choice but to make an alliance. They hastily retrofit their old ships with shivan technology in an attempt to stop the nigh-indestructible race. Soon, however, tragedy strikes. After capturing the Shivan cruiser Taranis, the Lucifer strikes, obliterating both the cruiser and the installation harboring it. The Lucifer, pushes into Allied systems, meeting no resistance because of its unmatched weaponry and invincible shield system. The Lucifer successfully destroyed any possibility of sustaining life on the Vasudan's homeworld, Vasuda Prime. The Lucifer then made a B-line for Earth. Earlier, the vasudans discovered a manuscript dating back to 8,000 years ago, explaining that shields did not function in subspace. Using this knowledge, a group of bombers destroyed the Lucifer, causing a massive subspace cataclysm that severed all connection to the Terrans' homeworld.

32 years later, Freespace 2 begins. You start with battling an insurgency known as the Neo-Terran Front. The details are irrelevant, as they soon become a secondary threat. Shivans come into the scene as you discover a cargo depot surrounding an artifact that seems to distort subspace. A terran battle group investigates where it goes to, and find themselves in a vast nebula. They find it Shivan-controlled. After destroying what seems to be the shivan's capital ship, they realize their mistake as the most powerful ship ever encountered attacks. Dubbed the SJ Sathanas, it pushes into allied systems, but the terran-vasudan equivalent, the Colossus, destroys it. The victory was not to last. SPOILERALERT!!!!! Approximately 80 Sathanes assemble around a star, triggering a supernova and destroying all the ships within the system. The game then ends.
After about fifteen minutes of play, you'll feel the suspense and terror any space pilot must feel while blasting away at hordes of enemys. Your hands will start to shake when get skewered with beam weaponry and your hull goes down to 25%. You'll almost scream out loud in terror when the enemy juggernaut warps in and tears your friends to ribbons. In short, you become deeply invested in the game, or more specifically, your pilot. If your a fan of flying or shooting, this is the game for you.

3.) SPORE:

The unique game of evolution and survival, SPORE will take you for a ride that you won't forget. Starting as a humble cell, your creature gathers DNA points to evolve and become more effective at survival. Throughout it's evolutionary process, your creature will be threatened from all sides by rival cells, hungry creatures, malicious tribes, enemy civilizations, and intergalactic foes, each one more dangerous than the last. As you take your creature from its humble beginnings in a primordial soup all the way to a galactic conquerer, you'l come to love it. You'll cringe everytime he dies. No game will ever be the same with the creature and vehicle creator and editor, allowing for full customization of your creature. The game deserves every bit of praise it receives. Don't ever forget to play it if you have the chance. You won't regret it.

4.) Super Scribblenauts

This game takes its place in the Top 5 because of it's unique and engaging design. It puts virtually unlimited power into the hands of the player by allowing him or her to make anything he or she wants. This power is used to solve levels that range from simple to complex, and help the main character (Maxwell) get his Starites. The game has very little story at all, but the sheer originality of being able to make anything is beyond fun. The game has every right to be in 4th Place. 

5.) Descent 3

This game is also along the lines of Freespace, as it was published in 1999 and is another shooter. While lacking the depth of Freespace, the game is nevertheless exciting and fun to play. You play as an unnamed mercenary known as Material Defender 1032 who was hired by Samuel Dravis, an important figure in the PTMC (Post-Terran Mining Corporation). MD recently escaped from an alien planetoid (Descent 2) when Descent 3's storyline picks up. The game starts with an intriguing cutscene, showing MD's ship being thrown into the sun. The unconscious mercenary is saved by a mining station, but his ship is hopelessly lost. It is soon apparent that Dravis backstabbed the poor MD in the hopes to get him out of his way. Material Defender then throws his lot in with a group of insurgents, hoping to halt Dravis' plans. The game is gripping and fun as you battle through waves of robots with surprisingly good AI. As you collect more and more powerful weapons, you feel excitement and an urge to try them out on an unsuspecting bot. As more bots appear, you'll feel annoyance because they just WON'T DIE. The game is a pulse-pounding thriller that shouldn't be passed up by any self-respecting action gamer.

Dixit

I recently received a game that I previously did not know exist. I never saw the game played, but I was really excited about it. When I first played it with some friends, I was absolutely in love with the game. Its party game-style rules, beautiful and vaguely disturbing oversized cards, and the necessity for storytelling were all of great appeal to me. I therefore feel obligated to bring this great game into the eyes of my readers.

GAMEPLAY:

Dixit is, in a way, similar to Apples to Apples. The game can be played with 4-6 players, but I find that four is too few. The rules are simple. You are dealt six cards, like the ones below.

Then one person is designated the "Storyteller". The Storyteller chooses a card from his or her hand and makes a word, phrase, or sentence to describe that card. For example, the Storyteller could choose the card in the bottom left corner (The dice with the devil coming out of it) and say "Fate" to describe it. The Storyteller then puts the card face down in the center of the table. Then all of the non-Storytellers take a look at their hand and find the one that best fits "Fate" and put that card in the pile. The Storyteller then shuffles the cards and places them face up next to each other. The Storyteller then numbers each card. All the non-Storytellers then use their number tokens to vote for the card they believe is the Storyteller's. If he or she is correct, then he or she gets three points, and the Storyteller gets three points. However, if everybody chooses the Storyteller's cards, the Storyteller gets no points. If a non-Storyteller votes for a non-Storyteller's card, then the voter gets no points and the owner of the card that was voted for gets one point. The Bunnies representing the players then move an according number of squares. A new Storyteller is then chosen and the game continues in the same fashion until someone gets 30 or more points.

WHAT I LOVE:

 The best part of Dixit is its innovative storytelling design. You'll never have the same experience more than once. It's also a wonderful conversation-starter (Who wouldn't be interested in the reason for labeling such a card so-and-so?). Another great thing is that, because of the game's nature, it's hard to care about winning or losing, and even harder to win more than once in a row, as the game pretty much puts everyone who plays it on even terms. Therefore, when it comes right down to it, victory is mostly based on luck of the draw, but this is hardly a complaint. Most importantly, you can bring it into any situation, teach it in under five minutes, and play with a group of friends (Or strangers).

WHAT'S NOT SO GREAT:

It can be hard to get a game of four or more interested people together. Also, though this can be a good thing as well (Note that a similar sentiment to the one I am about to express is also in "What I Love"), players start on even terms. Those who like to have an edge through experience will be disappointed. The only real way to have an edge in the game is through a natural storytelling ability. Finally, after many plays through, players come to know the cards, and can sometimes even predict the Storyteller's card (I was able to do this successfully on multiple occasions). However, there is an easy way to solve this. There is a Dixit 2 expansion, which could presumably mix things up a bit.

OVERALL:

Dixit is utterly deserving of the awards it has received. It is my favorite game of all time, with something in it that should appeal to everyone. Even if you're not a big gamer, buy it. It's not terribly expensive, and the oversized images on the cards are wonderful even when they're not being used. Don't pass the game up. Ever. 

Monty Revealed!

ATTENTION BLOG FOLLOWERS:

My smallish blog friend, Monty the sea otter, has joined my fledgeling blog. From here on, any text in blue is Monty's commentary.

That's Right!

I have recently finished a slightly-longer-than-a-week-long vacation, in which (among other things) I adopted Monty from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, thus his name. Monty will now introduce himself through pictures of our road trip.

I can take it from here, Kaires. Thanks!

This is me, Monty Monterey.

Here I am, guarding our card key. It's very important to do that sort of thing!

Watching good ol' California pass away...

WOW! My new home! Sorta dry... I guess I'll get used to that.

It was nice meeting you! I'll be doing a lot to help Kaires with his blog, so this certainly won't be the last time. You'll be seeing a lot of me!

...Yeah, you will.

You say that like it's a bad thing!

No! No! Of course not! It's a good thing!

Good. Well, I got an urgent message from my boss. I need to go now... It was nice meeting you! Bye!

Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of Shadow

I purchased The new Heroes of Shadow D&D Supplement before Christmas, and never got around to reviewing it until now. This may seem a bit really biased, but bear with me. Hopefully, it's analytical and coherent enough for you to glean something.

Heroes of Shadows is a great, interesting supplement that just oozes with flavor. Especially for all those who play an arcane class and/or wanted to see a class that could join the Assassin in Shadow magic, it's a wonderful purchase. As a heads-up, the book is heavily Essentials-based.

Let's begin with the beginning (A reasonable place to start, yes?). The book first gives an overview of Shadow, what it is, how to become a Shadow-user, etc. It also shoves a lot of Evard in your face. This can be a good thing, depending on your point of view, but I found that it became annoying to hear about Evard's Legendry of Phantoms and Ghosts all the time. With very few "excerpts" from other "books", it started to seem that the whole book should be written by Evard. This is a minor quip, however. In short, don't bother to read the beginning unless you REALLY want to.

Onto classes. The class section starts out with a bang by introducing the Executioner (It's pretty much the same as the release in Dragon). The class is largely basic-attacking, but this doesn't detract from it being possibly the most flavorful one in the book. The unique weapon proficiency, the choice of a guild (thus choosing a few guild at-will powers), Assassin's Strike, and poisons replacing daily powers make this a thoroughly unique class. It becomes even more interesting as it advances in level, with Death Attacks (The ability to instantly kill an enemy if it's at low HP), appropriately executioner-y utility powers (Most notably a utility power that essentially gives an assassin a jump speed equal to it's normal speed), and more poisons. It looks like a great class right out of the box, and has the potential to become a "super-striker" with good optimization. The only problem I can see occuring for the executioner is playing in a dungeon crawl. The class loses much of its special functions when placed in the middle of a dungeon. For example, many of the assassin poisons become much more useful when applied to food or stored in a container. There aren't many chances to pour a packet of dragon bile onto a villain's weapon when hacking away at hordes of minions. It's also worth noting that a utility power for the executioner is almost totally worthless in a dungeon experience. Thus, if you expect a dungeon-filled campaign, go with a rogue or the like. If you plan on city intrigue, murder, and covert operations, you can't beat the executioner.

Next up, we have the Blackguard. No question, it's the most resilient striker in the game, with plate and heavy shield proficiency, high HP, and a seemingly bottomless font of temporary HP-granting powers. Similar to the cavalier, a vice (Unlike the cavalier's virtue. Ha ha, Wizards) decides much of your power choices. The powers themselves are nothing that special, but they are effective. Just looking at the class, it looks like it can be a reasonably effective defender stand-in. It won't fill in the role entirely, but it is certainly capable of going toe-to-toe with monsters. I wouldn't want to play a Blackguard much, but it fills it's role and looks effective without any optimization. It's not much of a knock-my-socks-off class, but it works.

The Vampire is next up to bat. It's far and away the oddest class I've ever seen. This exclusive class seems much more like a monster template due to it's distinct lack of choice. It's lousy number of healing surges is made up with built-in regeneration, making it surprisingly resilient. This aforementioned regeneration reduces the need for healing surges, changing them into a sort of currency. The Vampire can use it's healing surges to "purchase" an extra punch for their attacks. Continuing with attacks, it's powers are also odd in a very cool way. harming, polymorphing, etc. are all in the vampire's repetoire. What jumps out at me most, however is the vampire's radiant weakness, made more deadlly by a feature that makes the vampire take damage when exposed to direct sunlight. The final and most flavorful piece of the bizarre class is the ability to drink blood. With a willing ally, it can transfer said ally's healing surges to itself. All in all, it's a great, flavorful class with the potential to have good toughness and dish out serious damage, but it's choices are few, so it doesn't seem like a class to play over and over again.

Finally, we have the Binder Warlock. It's... Okay. Sure, it can do some damage and has some nice area powers, not to mention a summoning power, but it doesn't really stand out. It's quite flavorful in terms of story, but the class just fell flat. Warlock's Curse is nowhere to be seen, which makes the class that much less warlock-y. It's boon is only kind of effective. The normal warlock can take some of the Binder's powers, making it that much harder to distinguish if a warlock is a striker or a controller. This class was a ho-hum bit.

Moving on. Now we move to additions to older classes. Starting off, we get a new hexblade, which is just as awesome as the rest.  However, it's pact weapon gave me pause. A HexBlade uses the Scourge of Exquisite Agony. Weapons mismatch, much? In fairness, most blades were taken by earlier types of Hexblades, but I think Wizards could have done better on that note.  Some new warlock powers are given, and they are all very effective and flavorful, especially the level 6 utility Mirror Darkly.We then come to death-themed Warpriest powers. Not much to say there, as I was never a fan of Warpriests. Last, but certainly not least, we get the necromancers and nethermancers. Both are great additions to the mage. The necromancer especially has flavorful, summoning-focused powers that would be a great addition to any party. Finger of Death especially stands out at me. It has the potential to be ridiculously destructive, a nice addition to the normally frail damage a wizard deals. Nethermancy is the more control-focused version of Necromancy. They are are sort of... Eh. I would've enjoyed a more in-depth write-up of Necromancers instead of two different schools of mage magic. Nevertheless, Nethermancers might be better than they look, though I would never want to try one out.

In the next chapter, races are described. To start, they have revenants, which are pretty much the same as their earlier release.

Next up, Shades are introduced. They have a compelling backstory, plus they look cool, but when it comes to hard game strength, they come up sadly deficient. Though they have automatic training in Stealth, Darkvision, a good racial power, and their racial utility replacements are nice, their surge penalty is a severe hit. Despite the serious drawback, I think the race will gather fans because of it's sheer story-related awesomeness.

Finally, Vrylokas take the spotlight. They are easilly the best race in the book, with a speed of 7 (Yes, seven), a conditional bonus to Bluff (Passing as a human), necrotic resistance, a great racial power, great utility replacements, and a compelling backstory. With all this, the small surge penalty seems negligible.

The book then moves to Feats, Equipment, Paragon Paths, and Epic Destinies. Some of the Paths are great, like the Shadowthief, while others leave something to be desired. The Epic Destinies are all mediocre. The Feats also are nothing special, and the equipment is all "storyline equipment" that's basically useless in a combat situation (There are no magic items to be found). In short, though some good elements do exist in the last chapter, don't buy the book for them.

To sum it up, Heroes of Shadow is a wonderful D&D supplement, not neglecting to add story and solid game functions to the mix. Though there are weak points, the book should not be ignored. For all those who wanted to see shadow elements or just wanted fresh new powers and classes, this is the book for you.




Whew. That kind of got rambling. Anyway, I hope you all like it.

Monterey Bay Aquarium

Today was the last day we had scheduled in Monterey. We had planned ahead of time to go to Monterey's aquarium, so we accordingly did so. It was, put simply, absolutely amazing. Every variety of fish and mammal you could name was there. Seahorses, sea otters, jellyfish, crabs, anenomes, even octopi were among the multitude that were there.  The best exhibit were the jellyfish, hordes of them just drifting. It was beautiful in that mindless way jellyfish have. Even better, there was an interactive display that seemed to come straight out of a science fiction movie. Using a touch-screen, you could pull up zoom views of plankton and move them around.

The zoo wasn't all smiles and rainbows, however. The aquarium spent quite a bit of time describing the dangers posed by humans to the undersea environment. Before this ends up as "please, take the pledge to reduce water consumption or feel indescribable remorse", I'm just going to simply say that watching what you do and being as efficient as possible; you could save a cute sea creature. These guys are counting on you.