A
s I continue to make new contacts for Eye of the Vortex, the very first email to a potential client inevitably includes the following statement:
“Please take a moment, check us out, and see what we are about. Webpage: www.eyeofthevortexonline.com, Magazine: http://www.eyeofthevortexonline.com/Magazine. php, and Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ads/manage/#/pages/Eye-of-the-Vortex/46833182217.” The reply I normally get is something to the effect of: “It looks very impressive!!” I could take credit for this, since no one on the staff but me sees the written correspondence, but I would be pretty mean for doing so. Instead I wanted to give my guys some much deserved props. The magazine is very graphically amazing. Our Illustrator, Jason Ford, does one heck of a job making the whole thing come together. He also doubles as the Illustrator for the webpage, making the graphics that are used to give it visual sweetness. I would like to point out here that Jason is self-taught. He does not have professional training. So everything you see each month is just the beginning. He has not even reached his full potential yet! He has just begun university this year in an unrelated field. The website is hand coded by Michael Esposito II. MZ (as we lovingly call him) learned to code a website…oh about three months ago. Again, here we have another selftaught, not even close to his full potential staff member. He built the entire site by himself from scratch. He is currently in college for Computer Science and is using this experience to help him along in his studies. Recently, Brian Ross volunteered to assist with the front end of the website design, primarily, getting the site prepared for regular article content. Brian, better known for his slightly edgy articles, does have some education on this front. He has a Bachelors degree in website design. Brian plans to have the website operational in the near future, which will provide us with yet another avenue for bringing fresh content to our readers. Needless to say, having this group of guys working with me definitely makes my job a heck of a lot easier. I let their work do the talking while I sit back and look smart for bring them onboard.
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hris
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Eye of the Vortex (EoV) is a publication intended to promote the gaming industry as a whole by bringing into the spotlight gaming products, personalities, concepts, events, etc. The intent of this publication is not to show favoritism towards any individual game or gaming genre, rather to provide fresh material, education, entertainment, and in general, inform the gaming public of new products and where they can find the product. EoV is not a vendor, nor does it claim to sell any product. EoV only provides an entertainment and informational service to its reader-base as well as a promotional service for its affiliates and sponsors. Images used in this publication are intended for the purpose of promoting the product relative to its use. Unless noted otherwise, all images used henceforth are the sole property of the promoted product’s owner. EoV asks that you help keep us in business by keeping an active interest in our affiliates and sponsors product lines. Our service to you is funded by their generous advertisement payments. Without your interest in their products, our services cannot be maintained. Please do your part in our community by keeping yourself informed and up to date on the newest products that our network has to offer.
Corrections to Issue 2 — February 2009 ~ “So’s Your Face!” - should have been in the Comics Category. [c] ~ “King Goes to the” - title got cut off. Should be “King Goes To The Movies” ~ “Converting the Mass” - Missing Mark’s Sign-Off. ~ “The Nature of Horror” - Author Badge was the wrong type.
Disclaimer March Cover: Aeria; Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine — one of the wallpapers that’s available on their site.
Chris Newton
Editor-in-Chief Email
Illustrator Email
Brian Ross
Writer Email
“Watchmen was a good movie, but if I wanted to see an eon-long sex scene, I could have stayed home and watched porn.”
“It’s one pixel too far to the left! Scrap it!”
Mark Manning
Writer Email
“I’d like to think I know what I’m talking about, but really—I’m pretty full of crap.”
“Answer my friggin emails!”
Jason Ford
Alex Hoffman
Writer Email
“But the mice and their small swords are going to get me in my sleep!”
Dan Wright “I’m playing games with your mom.”
www.eyeofthevortexonline.com
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February News Mah Shit’s Broken! I Don’t Think We’re In Kansas Anymore... Comic Books Without Spandex Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine! Inside the Box: Gateway Games! Mouse Guard Review: Part B
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February News ebruary was a turbulent month for the entertainment industry. A lot of cool stuff has happened though. Here’s some things you might have missed.
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1. Fantasy Flight Games Announces a Universal Fighting System (UFS) Promotion: Send them an old deck of a collectible
card game you don’t play, and Fantasy Flight Games will send you a Starter Deck of their fighting-based CCG. Now you can finally figure out who would win a fight between your favorite characters in many different fighting video games. Chun-Li versus Subzero, anyone? Limit 2 per household, this is a great way to get some free cards for you and a friend.
2. Konami and Upper Deck Battle Over Yu-Gi-Oh! - Konami Releases Crimson Crisis: While Upper Deck and Konami continue to battle in court over the top selling collectible card game Yu-Gi-Oh!, Konami has begun to push forward with the card game after battles between the two companies lead to the cancellation of the Upper Deck sponsored Crimson Crisis Sneak Preview. Crimson Crisis is to be released March 3rd by Konami without Upper Deck support.
3. Wizards of the Coast Announces Big Changes for Magic: the Gathering Core Sets: In an attempt to lend the flavor of Magic
back to a set that until recently had been thought of as mostly a way to balance constructed formats, Magic has introduced a set of sweeping changes to this years Core set, and every following Core set. Called Magic 2010, the new Core set will feature brand new cards, and a flavorful look at the leading and oldest running fantasy card game.
1.President Obama Graces Amazing Spider-Man #583, Sales Skyrocket: Over 300,000 issues of the presidential-featured issue have been sold, leading to at least 5 print-runs of the same issue. This sets the new record for sales of a single pamphlet-style comic book.
2. Volume #1 of Pluto and 20th Century Boys by Naoki Urasawa Hit Shelves: The critically acclaimed writer of Monster
has seen immense popularity in the US manga industry, and his take on Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy is sure to see high sales. Both books are set at a higher than normal price point ($12.99) but include high-quality color pages, dust jacket-style covers, and are larger than normal manga.
3. Diamond Distributors Changes Comic Sales Benchmarks:
In a move that shocked the comics world, Diamond Distributors increased the amount of money a comic book must make in order to be listed through their service. Diamond Distributors is one of the largest
comic book distributors in North America, and this affects a great number of publishers. Indie publications and smaller manga publishers like Seven Seas Entertainment are most likely to be affected by this change, as their lower-selling books will end up not being distributed through the distribution giant. Comics are most likely to be affected, since most manga purchasers do so at book chain stores like Borders and Barnes & Noble.
1. Killzone 2 is Released as a PS3 Exclusive - XBox Fan-boys Cause Problems: While the pre-release reviews
had some amazing things to say about Killzone 2, XBox and PS3 groupies spent plenty of time attacking each-other over this would-be PS3 hit. Adam Sessler from XPlay even had a soapbox episode about it. In other news, arguing on the Internet is dumb. Don’t do it.
2. Team Fortress 2 Scout Update Released for PC- Still No Word on XBox Updates Pack: Updates
to Valve’s popular multi-player shooter dropped for PC in late February, adding more player created maps, three new weapons for the Scout class, and fixes to an older playercreated map. While Valve has promised an update for XBox users, no release date has been announced. PS3 owners have not gotten any word if updates will ever come to their console.
3. Gamers Get The Goods in February, But Will They Pay Out?: Amazing games hit stores in February, but
will gamers have the cash to afford all these new goodies in the weakened economy? Highlights include Dawn of War II for PC, based on Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000 IP, yet another installment of the Street Fighter series for PS3 and XBox, and Killzone 2 for PS3.
1. Jason Reboot Brings In $42.2 mil Opening Weekend: This is the largest amount of money any Friday the
13th film has ever made on an opening weekend. It also nudged out The Grudge (2004) ($39.1 mil) as the best performing horror remake thus far. The film was only expected to bring in about $25 mil on the opening weekend, so definitely expect to see more Jason in your future. The remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street should also begin production by the end of May.
2. Ledger Wins Posthumous Oscar: As everyone in the
world has probably heard, Heath Ledger’s daughter Matilda accepted his Best Supporting Actor Role for the Joker in The Dark Knight at the Oscars. Ledger is only the second actor to win posthumously, the other being Peter Finch for Best Actor in Network (1976). So far though, Ledger’s film The
Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus has failed to find a US distributor.
3. Tony Shalhoub to Finally Stop Dominating the Emmy’s: USA Network has recently announced that one of
it’s most successful series Monk will be airing it’s final season this summer. In a 16-episode arc, our favorite OCD detective will hopefully get some answers to his wife’s murder and leave the fans happy. Reasons for the show ending have been pretty much been narrowed down to Tony Shalhoub’s desire to move on due to the grueling production schedule. It’s a bittersweet ending, and I’m sure most true fans will always crave two more seasons just because ten is such a nice number.
1. Fantasy Flight Games Releases Expansion to Tannhäuser, Rio Grande Releases Bonnie & Clyde:
Board game companies were mostly silent this month, but Fantasy Flight Released an expansion to its popular pulp-style action board game, titled Tannhäuser: Operation Novgorod. The expansion features a new faction, characters, and even a new character type. Other games of note: Rio Grande releases Bonnie & Clyde, an update to the classic Rummy card game.
2. Wizards of the Coast Plans Worldwide Dungeons & Dragons Game Day: Set for the release
of the 4th Edition Player’s Handbook 2, WoTC has a special event planned for any hobby location willing to sponsor it. Set for March 21st, players will be able to play a pre-constructed campaign with provided materials at their local comic shops. Check out the Wizards website for more details.
3. White Wolf Releases PDF Supplements For Scion, Hunter, and Vampire: the Requiem: Available for preview and purchase at Drivethru RPG, White Wolf has released a 80’s look at Vampire called The New Age Requiem, and new SAS (storyteller adventure system) material for both Hunter and Scion.
4. Games Workshop Updates Warhammer Fantasy Line With Lizardmen Codex and Updated Models:
Renewing the Lizardman race with lore and unit updates, Games Workshop started shipping a large Lizardman update mid-month. Lizardmen received newly modeled figures, Games Workshop converted some currently metal casts to new, cheaper plastic casts, and launched an updated 109 page codex.
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Brian Ross Xbox 360 Elite
Mah Shit’s Broken! December 23rd, 5:30 PM. My sister arrives home for Christmas. We go through the usual merriment, getting a little drunk and playing some Rock Band. Typical night for myself when it involves family. Unfortunately, it lacked the foreboding signs of the epic bullshit that was about to force its stank on my holidays.
December 24th, 10:00 PM. My sister and her baby daddy call me at work to ask why they can’t get Karaoke Revolution Presents: American Idol Encore to work. I walk her through the annoying steps of Xbox 360 “Next Generation” and where it should say “Play Karaoke Revolution Presents: American Idol Encore” it instead says “Insert Disk”. I tell her there is nothing to I can do if it says that. I also told her to try a different game or take it out and put it back in. She tells me that it still doesn’t work. I secretly pray the game is dead to the world.
December 24th, 11:30 PM. My sister, noticeably drunker, calls back and admits she discovered the problem. She had put the disc in backwards and “The shiny end weren’t getting all lazered.” I mock her appropriately and disconnect, going back to work.
December 25th, 10:00 PM. My sister calls me at work and asks me why the movie they are watching and game they tried to play keep freezing. I politely ask her “What the fuck do you mean by freezing?” She replies that it just stops and won’t respond. I tell her to turn it off and leave it off.
One Year Earlier
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Having worked yet another Christmas for no apparent reason other than a sadistic boss, I get off work seeking revenge. I’m still not sure how it equated to revenge, but it made sense at the time to go to Best Buy, brave the crowd and buy the nicest Xbox 360 they had. This turned out to be the 360 Elite. I did this knowing all about Red Rings of Death and other
horror stories of disc scratching. The sales person told me the newer models didn’t have the Red Ring problem and it was a fantastic buy. As it turns out, sales people are liars. After I got it set-up and ready to go at home, eager to play some Assassin’s Creed after reading about it for a year, I turned on my brand new 360 and nothing. Nothing except three blinking lights. I immediately turned it off, then in a moment of true tech-savvy fixed the problem by turning it back on. Red Rings of Death my ass! I would later learn that a single instance of Red Ring Syndrome means that you have a 50% chance of unit failure within a year. I figured that was a made up statistic. Over that year I would often see those three Red Rings of Death and would witness no less than ten overheating incidents despite an external cooling accessory.
December 26th, 7:00 AM I get home and to my horror, every time I attempted to turn on my 360 it loaded up the giant Xbox ball screen then froze. I tried every engineering trick I could muster: I turned it off and on, unplugged it and waited a bit before restarting, gave it a thorough shaking—nothing worked! In fact, I may have done some damage, because after about my fourth attempt to fix it I got a giant green screen of digital death. What I didn’t realize was that each time it froze and each time I restarted my hard drive I was becoming more and more like Leonardo DiCaprio in “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.” Because along with that green screen, I saw something I had never seen before. That fourth quadrant, that magical level of red that signifies Xbox death, was lit up bright red. In unison, the quadrants seemed to say “Fuck You, Fuck You, Fuck You.” Oh, how I hated them. I could have kicked a chipmunk! I went to my man cave to access the net and try to make sense of this disaster. I did a couple of searches on Xbox’s website for key phrases that I found relevant to the level of this calamity. Unfortunately, Microsoft’s support team doesn’t quite know how to handle colloquialisms such as “epic fail”and“mah shits brokened.” Luckily the phrase “Red Rings of Death” brought me to a helpful screen that asked me how many were lit up. I selected all damn four of them. It told me to take everything away from my 360 and see if it would turn on. I unplugged the network adaptor, removed the hard drive, and unplugged anything and everything that wasn’t necessary for it to turn on. Shazam! It loaded right up. Problem solved, my hard drive was the culprit. I then called tech support and within five minutes was talking to a nice young lady that sounded Indian
with an American accent. Microsoft either has some of the finest outsourcing available, or someone got a really crappy college internship. Radikha (as I refer to any anonymous Indian girl) helped me out by asking me thousands of questions and eventually gave me an address to send the hard drive to for repairs. As it turns out accessories are handled far different than consoles. I sent off my hard drive and thought about what to do in the couple weeks that it would be gone. Then I remembered, how much of my life was on that little HD. Hundreds of Rock Band songs, countless game saves including the game I was currently playing (I was at the end boss!!!), and other random stuff that I could write off as gone now. I cried a little and held a small eulogy before deciding to watch Dark Knight.
December 26th, Noon As I’m watching the Joker go to work ‘Usual Suspects’ style on the bank, I couldn’t help but wonder why William Fichtner was laying on the floor motionless for so long. Then I couldn’t help but to wonder why Christopher Nolan would film him laying motionless on the floor for over thirty seconds. Then I wondered why I didn’t remember a whole minute of Fichtner on the floor when I saw it on the theater. Then denial kicked in and I hit fast forward. Nothing, just Fichtner on the damn floor. I tried to go back to the Xbox 360 dashboard and nothing. As the horror sunk in, I realized that Fichtner wasn’t on the floor, my 360 was fucking stuck. Noooooooo! I went back to the cave and the Xbox support site. This time instead of talking to Radika, the wonder Indian, I was able to click on console repair. I put in that my Xbox 360 was freezing with no responses and it immediately printed out a UPS packing slip. There was my answer, and at least this time it had free shipping. While it sucked that I had to send in yet another part, at least this time I had my answer in under a minute and didn’t have to play twenty questions with a possible foreigner to get it sent in. The best part is from the moment I requested a repair, the Xbox website tracked my console’s progress, even showing what city it was currently in while in transit. Definitely a way cool feature, although very frustrating at times to know you have that much longer to go.
December 27th - January 5th The first part of the process was excruciatingly long.
It took from December 27th until January 6th for my console to go from North Carolina to Texas. I watched it sit for a day or two in certain cities and wondered if the rest of the process would take this long. This was partially due to the holiday season, I believe, since lots of packages were being returned/shipped. It was also over two weekends which might have hurt the time.
January 6th - January 8th On January 6th, my console arrived at the Microsoft Repair Center and immediately went into “under repair” status. I got an email and everything notifying me of this and thanking me for being a loyal customer. After the ten days it took to make it a couple states, I was pretty sure it would be in Texas “under repair” for well into the summer months. When I woke up on January 8th though, I had another email in my box that said my console was shipping back. Hot damn that was fast! Now to wait ten more days for it to travel across states.
researched where to find all my old downloads, but even if I hadn’t, Microsoft included a piece of paper that showed me exactly how to do it. Everything went smooth and after giving my modem a thorough download workout my hard drive had all my DLC. All-and-all, the process went very smooth, much smoother than I imagined. Microsoft’s console replacement system worked extremely well, even if their phone support took forever to get anything accomplished. For all the horror stories, I found Microsoft extremely easy to deal with in terms of getting repairs done and their system was amazingly streamlined and very simple to use. I’ll leave you with one point of advise though, if you buy an Xbox 360 buy it a new and get the extended warranty.
January 9th My hard drive returned. It was a new one, that or they removed a small finger print blemish and gave it a total spiff over to return the reflective portion to it’s original shine. I had never gotten a single status update on the hard drive, and it did go to an entirely different place then my console.
January 12th Luckily this time I didn’t have to contend with the holiday season and weekends and it took about half the time to go from Texas back to North Carolina. I immediately checked for a small blemish I had added under the case to the machine itself. Something that couldn’t be cleaned and only I would recognize as a mark. As I suspected, it wasn’t there and I had received a brand new unit. That’s a good thing, as my old unit never worked well from the very first day despite being an (“)(\w+)(“) unit. So I plugged the new one in, turned it on and laughed with joy. No three Red Rings of Death. No loud whirring sound of the processor. No excessive heat being put out the rear. I was shocked. Not only was it a brand new unit, it had none of the problems my old unit had. I spent the next couple of hours reinstalling the two hundred some points of DLC onto my fresh hard-drive. I already had
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Alex Hoffman I Don’t Think We’re In Kansas Anymore... Review of Toto! The Wonderful Adventure, Vol. #1 Grow up, go see the world; it’s a statement that many people have dreamed about. At some point in your life, you become interested in what’s beyond the four walls of your home and out in the real world. It’s natural to want to explore, and whether your end goal was to search out ancient temples or simply visit the streets of Paris or Moscow, the adventure promised by different worlds has long enticed men and women to roam. It’s easy to recognize why it is that I feel such a connection to the manga Toto! The Wonderful Adventure. Kakashi, a boy that’s lived on a small island his entire life, is ready to move past the confines of his home and get out into the world and explore. To do this, he’s concocted hair-brained scheme after scheme, failing miserably each time. All of that changes in when a transcontinental airliner zeppelin, called Baum, lands on his island to refuel and repair. Seeing his chance at an adventure, Kakashi jumps headlong into the mix, stowing away in the cargo hold. Once inside, he meets a lonely puppy, and befriends him. As it turns out, this airliner is also being hijacked by a gang called the ‘Man Chicken Family’, which is about as dumb of a name for a gang as I can think of, but hey, they’ve got guns, and everyone is getting off the zeppelin, like it or not. Kakashi is not so easily persuaded to leave, and after some run-ins with the gang, they finally let him stay. Unfortunately, things don’t go as planned for the Man Chicken Family. The military has special cargo aboard the airship, and they’re ready to reclaim it, at any cost. Kakashi and the puppy eventually find themselves in a country called Oz and meet a girl named Dorothy. When she meets the puppy she names him Toto. Wait… an airliner named Baum, a land called Oz. A girl named Dorothy, a dog named Toto, and a boy whose name in Japanese means (“)(\ w+)(“)? Doesn’t this sound familiar? If not, it should. Toto! The Wonderful Adventure plays on the themes and characters of Frank Baum’s classic The Wizard of Oz. However, it’s not a reworking or an adaptation, but rather, a story that touches on classic fantasy literature and pays homage to Frank Baum’s work without reinventing the wheel.
Toto! The Wonderful Adventure, Vol.1 Produced By:
Price:
Del Rey Manga
Can: $12.50 US: $10.95
Written By:
Yuko Osada
“Feel free My Blog”
to
Check Out
Rating:
T for Teen
Illustrated By:
Yuko Osada
Pages:
208
One of the most entertaining things about this book is its energy. Kakashi is a somewhat headstrong, rambunctious young man that captures you with his wide-eyed wonder and manic desire to see the world. His personality is that of a fairly generic manga hero, but also like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes or Kevin McCallister from Home Alone. It’s completely absorbing, and you will find that the book goes by far too quickly. Another great part of the book is Osada’s version of Dorothy. This isn’t your grandma’s Dorothy; the sweet-mannered and serious farm girl from Kansas. The Dorothy in Toto! can take names and kick some butt, especially if anyone messes with her friends. These characters are full of personality, and they’re a huge part of what makes Toto! so much different from the original Wizard of Oz. The crazy humor and the hints of The Wizard of Oz fantasy make it even more of a rewarding read. Toto! The Wonderful Adventure is for anyone who wants to know how fun comics can be, and it’s a great story for younger readers too. Pick it up, and adventure into a world that is familiar, yet remarkably different. If this first volume is any indicator, exploring Kakashi’s world in future volumes is sure to be just as wonderful an adventure as the first.
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Alex Hoffman
1. Maus •Art Spiegelman•
Comic Books Without Spandex A Serious Look at Serious Comics
T
he funny papers, comic books, graphic novels, caricatures and political cartoons; whatever you call them, comics have always been a large part of American culture. They started with newspaper comics like The Yellow Kid and The Katzenjammer Kids in the late 19th century, and moved into the 1930s with the development of America’s symbolic heroes. Since Superman debuted in Action Comics #1, comics have permeated the American psyche. Characters like Wolverine, Batman, and Spiderman have become household names and fans of these characters know their stories through books sold at bookstores and comic shops all over the country. The comic industry has evolved and changed over time, with big name superheroes like the X-Men and Batman taking up most of the popular limelight due to movie deals and TV shows. Comics are more than just laser-shooting eyes and feats of immense strength. Comics have grown to encompass many different types of storytelling; from the acerbic wit of xkcd and the soap-opera like drama of Questionable Content to violent overtures like Frank Miller’s 300 and heartfelt short works like Megan Kelso’s The Squirrel Mother Stories. Over time, many comics have grown to express a kind of storytelling that merges story with visuals and allows artists and authors to develop stories that could not be told merely with words. These stories thrive in images.
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Sometimes, even more spectacularly, comic books defy all expectation and promise something more than what we expect. It’s in that moment that a comic book becomes more than a comic book; it becomes a story that entraps and enthralls, a story that grabs onto our conception of what comic books are and shakes it to pieces. These books show us that comics are just another medium for expressing ideas, emotions, and the art of the story. These comic books—no, these stories, are pinnacles of achievement for their authors and for the medium that they were published in. And, if you’ll let them, they’re ready to change your mind about comics.
The memoir of Spiegelman’s father, this graphic novel describes Vladek Spiegelman’s life as a Polish Jew before the Nazis took control of Europe, and then as an Auschwitz prisoner. Each type of character is drawn as an animal, which fits with the title of the book (Maus, by the way, is German for mouse). The Jews are represented by mice, the Germans are cats, the Polish as pigs, and the Americans as dogs, with a few other species here and there. Some have speculated that Spiegelman’s use of animals in the novel is a way to distance the subject matter from humanity. Unlike other Holocaust literature like Elie Wiesel’s Night, Maus is not concerned with the history or the brutality of the Holocaust; rather, it is concerned with Art’s comprehension of such a travesty, and an imagining of something that cannot be understood. Most importantly, Maus is a tale of human interaction and compassion, and the fates of those men and women destroyed by the German death camps. In its unique depictions of one of history’s darkest hours, Maus has cemented itself as not only an important work of Holocaust literature, but as an amazing story that everyone should read.
2. Watchmen •Alan Moore•
While the movie Watchmen just recently released on March 6th, the comic book that inspired the movie was released over 20 years ago, and its track to the theater has increased its sales as more and more people begin to come into contact with the property. Both before and after the film, the compiled graphic novel has been selling like mad, and for good reason. In the comics world, Watchmen is considered one of the seminal works of the genre, and its dark, gritty symbolism and action influenced comic writers for years to come. Watchmen focuses on an alternate timeline where masked superheroes exist in the 1980s, and their presence is increasing tensions between the USA and the USSR, both still locked in the Cold War. Watchmen is
more about the place that heroes, be they political, emotional, religious, or even figurative, should have in society, and the very concept of the superman in a credible, real world. From the symbolic bloody smiley-face to the contrast of the mundane to the romanticized, Watchmen is full of double meaning, and is an intellectual thrill ride even after the fifth or sixth read.
3. Monster •Naoki Urasawa•
When it comes to suspense, no comics writer has quite the same strength as Naoki Urasawa. In his award winning thriller Monster, we meet Dr. Kenzo Tenma, a Japanese immigrant in Germany following the events of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Choosing to save a child named Johan over a powerful politician costs him his job at a prestigious German hospital, but Johan, the boy he saves, turns out to be a serial killer, a Monster with no regard for the sanctity of life. He murders doctors at Tenma’s hospital, and only Tenma knows what he has done. Tenma resolves to find and stop this mass murderer before more people are killed. Hot on Tenma’s trail are the police and a very wily detective who believe Tenma is the murderer. Throughout the series, Urasawa uses brilliant plot twists and dark suspense to ask very real, very human questions. It is a doctor’s job is to heal the sick and fix the wounded; but at what cost? And can someone trained in the saving of life readily give up their oaths to murder a killer?
4. Demo •Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan•
One of the more recent indie books of note, Demo is a prime example of a book that takes a concept and twists it 180 degrees. In this Eisner-nominated collection of short stories, each of the characters in Demo has a ‘superpower’ like normal comic book heroes. The difference in this character driven collection is that these powers are more often than not a curse. You won’t see anyone fighting crime in Demo, and you definitely won’t
see do-gooders and superheroes. What you will find are many powerful stories that show a humanity and reality not seen in other superhero comics. Individual powers take sort of a back seat to the interpersonal relationships, the drama, and the heartbreak of life. What immerges from the change is something unlike any other comic has ever presented. The stories cover many issues, from the line between love and lust in “Girl You Want”, the power of choice in “Stand Strong”, and the choice between giving up your livelihood or your morals in “One Shot, Don’t Miss.” Not to distract from the power of each chapter of the book, the artist Becky Cloonan develops a unique look for each of the different stories, giving each more strength. There isn’t a single story in this compilation that isn’t worth reading and that doesn’t transmit some sort of deep emotional insight. Amazing in its scope, Demo is a brilliant work of fiction that defies expectations.
5. Y: The Last Man • Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra •
Apocalypse happens all too often in the literary world, but no one has written and illustrated it as amazingly as the talented duo behind Y: The Last Man. Brian K. Vaughan is the award winning talent that keeps bringing you the hit TV show Lost, and in his first Vertigo series, in the summer of 2002, every living mammal with a Y chromosome is killed. It’s complete gendercide, taking down the reproductive capability of the entire planet, minus one man and his pet Capuchin monkey; Yorick and Ampersand, the two last surviving males. After traversing the corpse ridden streets of New York and traveling through DC to find his mother, Yorick is sent to visit Dr. Mann, a brilliant woman who may be able to fix the world’s lack of the Y chromosome. The story that follows is breathtaking in scope and a perfectly realized blend of sarcastic humor and well realized action scenes. While what actually kills the men in Y: the Last Man is never fully explained, Y allows readers to get down on a personal level with the tragedy of death, and the sometimes futile quest for happiness and a promised life that’s always just out of reach. Can Yorick find the woman he loves before it’s too late? And what will the rest of womankind do if they find out he’s not one of them? Originally released as pamphlet comics, the series has now been collected into 10 trade paperbacks and a movie is in the works. It is a brilliant story not to be missed.
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Brian Ross MapleStory
Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine!
I
MapleStory
’ve been playing MMORPG’s since I got my first 14.4 modem. I’ve dabbled in numerous betas, played almost every major release, and even thrown my hat into the ‘free’ ones such as Maple Story and the Aeria Games. Recently I saw a banner for an Aeria game called Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine and couldn’t believe my eyes that they had acquired a fairly major brand. I was converted to the Shin Megami Tensei (MegaTen) franchise about three years ago when I picked up Digital Devil Saga and later delved into the Nocturne and Persona series. For those not familiar with the MegaTen Universe, it is an extremely dark role playing series that plays fast and heavy with religion and technology. Many players who embrace the series do so because of its overwhelming difficulty and twisted morals. For example, in last year’s Persona 3, you summoned your persona by shooting yourself in the head with a gun, and in all honesty, that is just the tip of the
Shaiyla
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iceberg in terms of mature content. If you have ever played a MegaTen game, the demons are pretty much the same: heavy influences of Japanese and Chinese demons along with Angels depicted in bondage. The families, fusions, and alignments are nearly intact and they added variations to demons such as “runt” varieties that have inferior stats, but level faster and gain abilities quicker, which are of course accompanied by “giant” variations that have superior stats, but level slow and gain abilities slower or not at all. Imagine, Aeria’s newest release, is from the MegaTen universe as well. Most of these are encompassed in the “real money” items that you purchase with Aeria Points (AP). They do things such as accelerate your experience gaining rate, provide extra storage, or give superior guild. I played the game through to level 25 and found little evidence that a person would have to ever buy AP, but saw definite advantages to having it—notably powerful gear from the very start and a 1.5x experience boost for the first thirty levels. Ultimately, the game holds very true to its roots and is extremely dark and has hints of a J-RPG console game. These aspects are then stretched thoroughly to create a standard grindfest MMORPG, which is altered by also being a potionpopper. Good news is there are surprisingly a lot of things to do in the game, but after awhile it all begins to feel more and more like grinding in different ways. The main problem with the game is that it is extremely difficult
to figure out and since it is relatively new to English players, there is very little good data on it. Japanese sites have a ton of data on them, however it is in Japanese and the translations are iffy at best. There also have been some changes for the English version. Mysteries that many players have from the get go is how to properly build a character’s stats, what plasma and the items in it are, how to recruit demons, and anything pertaining to armor. Just realize that when you play this game, more than any other MMORPG I’ve ever played, you’ll be asking questions and constantly referencing outside of game materials. The question about truly reviewing the game lies in the fact that it is free. Does being free give it a certain license to be crappy? While it by no means is as good as staple MMORPGs like Warhammer, Warcraft, or Everquest, it does surpass or equal games such as Star Wars Galaxies and Age of Conan in terms of overall strength and complexity. The graphics are not the best, but surpass anything early titles accomplished and are fairly on par for other MegaTen games. The biggest graphical detractor is the fact that the screen is locked at a fixed size in windowed mode to seemingly simplify programming. The sound is fairly decent and the music has a distinct Japanese twist to it and quite nicely blends soothing melodies with a little technological dissonance. A major problem facing the game currently is a horrific spawn experience that is seemingly built as simple as it comes. You kill a monster in one place it pops in another, and they never
seem to really de-pop. So what happens is in more traveled paths you get this void of creatures, but then you go hunting and find not just one monster, but twenty some monsters clumped together. Dungeon rooms just pretty much pop an entire room at a time and again is more or less a cluster of monsters to deal with.
Shaiyla
The strongest point is capturing demons and sheer amount of personalizing you can do to your hero. There are currently 129 demons that can be recorded into your book, several variations for each demon, and numerous ones that you can capture, but not record. Some people will collect the demons constantly adding to their Demon Compendium, while others will choose to simply build the strongest most powerful creature they can through repeated focused fusion and leveling. Your main character and demon can all be custom built into several distinct builds most easily described as melee, gunner, and mage. Overall, not even considering the game is free, it is worth a shot to check out. The daily events can be fairly fun and shake things up, it has cool elements you don’t really see in MMORPG’s, and for the most part the game works as intended and isn’t rife with the bugs like other MMORPG’s. Ultimately though, for the game to last it will need to find a way to shake up the grinding aspect, fix the spawning, and implement some form of PvP which is non-existent in it’s current form. If you enjoyed Final Fantasy XI and like MegaTen games though, this may be the perfect game for you to invest some time in.
last Chaos
Twelve Sky
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Dan Wright
These games and more can be found at CCG Armory. Check out our website for up to date pricing and our extensive collection of excellent products available online.
Ticket To Ride Regular price:
$50.00 Sale price:
$35.00 Save 30% Today! From Edinburgh to Constantinople, Lisbon to Moscow, Ticket to Ride - Europe will take players on a train ride to the great cities of turn-of-the-century Europe. More than just a new map, Ticket to Ride - Europe features brand new gameplay elements including Tunnels, Ferries, and Train Stations, plus they’ve upgraded you to First-Class accommodations with larger cards, new Train Station game pieces, and a lavishly illustrated gameboard.
Aquire
Regular price:
$30.00 Sale price:
$21.60 Save 28% Today! • Classic planning and purchase game in existence since 1962. • Ranked #49 on Board Game Geeks all time game list. • Listed in Games Magazine Hall of Fame. • New artistic treatment to game components. • 24 page rulebook
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Inside the Box: Gateway Games!
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t’s game night! Friends and family are gathered at the kitchen table, most of them perfectly content to pull out the good old deck of cards and get a game of Hearts or Euchre going, just like last week. Suddenly, you suggest playing a board game instead. The looks you get tell you everything: one of them hates board games that just send you in circles, another feels that Risk takes too long (they’re right), Clue is played out already, and nobody in the room has ever finished a game of Monopoly in living memory. What do you do? You need a Gateway Game! Whether being used to entice non-gamers into the world of board games, or expanding the game repertoire of your circle of friends, gateway games are board games that are easy to learn, fun to play, and don’t require you to take a digital photo of the game state so that you can continue the game in the morning.
Ticket to Ride (Days of Wonder • ages 8 and up, 2 to 5 players) Ticket to Ride is the quintessential gateway game of the day. In it, you play a railroad baron blazing a network of tracks across the country in an effort to connect destination cities. Be careful where you lay down tracks, though, because other would-be rail tycoons want to connect their cities as well, and they might force you to take the long way to get there, if you make it at all. Setting up the game, you immediately notice the wonderfully detailed game components. The board is a large, colorful map of the US, with major cities linked by potential railways. There are five sets of molded plastic train cars, each a different color. There are also two decks of Destination Tickets and Train Car cards, each detailed with railroad imagery. Just opening up the game is a pleasure for those who enjoy steam locomotives, which includes most children and a good number of adults. Learning the game is fairly simple as well, usually taking only five minutes or so to get a handle on how the basic game works. The main goal of Ticket to Ride is to connect the cities on
your Destination Tickets, by placing train cars on the printed railways. In addition, there are other mini-goals that can also earn you points, such as having the longest connected railway at the end of the game. Each turn, you have the opportunity to do one of three actions: claim a route by placing a train (using a color-coded Train Car card in the process), pick up a Train Card with a color you think you will need, or be a little greedy and draw an extra Destination card. Since you can only take one action each turn, these three simple actions belie a conflict lying beneath. Which routes are best for your destination cards? If you take a Train Card instead of claiming a route, will that route still be available on your next turn? Maybe you should draw a new Destination Ticket, and hope you get something easier than connecting Seattle to Miami? The easy to learn rules and the level of strategy inherent in the game combine to produce a game that is both adequately challenging and fun at the same time. It is not only a great game to introduce to non-gamers, but is widely touted as a wonderful family game as well.
Sequence (Jax Inc. • ages 7 and up, 2 to 12 players) If Ticket to Ride seems to still be a bit too much for your friends, Sequence may be just what you are looking for to bridge the gap. Practically everyone is familiar with a deck of cards, and most people have played tic-tac-toe, so a game that is essentially a fusion of the two should not be intimidating to anyone.
As Sequence begins, each player draws cards from a doublesized deck of standard playing cards. On the board is a grid of playing card faces that correspond to the cards in the deck,
with the notable absence of Jacks on the board, which we’ll get to in a minute. Each turn, a player uses a card in hand to put a chip of his or her team’s color on one of the matching faces on the board, then draws a card. When a team has five chips in a row, that’s a “sequence.” A team with two sequences wins the game. Simple, right? Well, there are one or two more rules that give the game a little spice. Two-Eyed Jacks are wild and can place a chip on any spot on the board. One-Eyed Jacks are “anti-wild” and can be used to remove any chip from the board, except for chips that are part of a sequence. TwoEyed Jacks are particularly tricky, because you often have to choose between advancing your own team’s sequences or blocking the opponent’s progress. The most difficult part of the game is adjusting to the game board layout and keeping track of where on the board all of the card faces are located. The moderate level of strategy in Sequence makes this a good game for families with slightly younger players, but there is a good deal of luck involved, which can be a bore for hardcore gamers. At the same time, this luck factor can actually make the game more tolerable for folks who say they “always lose” at board games. If Sequence sounds simple, that’s because it is. It is that simplicity and familiarity which make it an excellent gateway game for those tough nuts who normally wouldn’t crack open a board game.
Acquire (Avalon Hill • ages 12 and up, 3 to 6 players) In the grand tradition of Monopoly, Acquire is all about making money through real estate. Fortunately, Acquire’s gameplay is not as linear and repetitive as Monopoly, and the game can be completed in a reasonable 60 to 90 minutes. In Acquire, you are a real estate mogul, creating and investing in seven of the world’s largest hotel chains. Over the course of the game your hotel chains will take over other hotel chains, and they in turn may be taken over, all in the name of gaining you profit. First released by 3M in 1962, Acquire has retained a loyal following, being reprinted by multiple companies over the years, and even inspiring players to design custom rule sets for those who want more. The latest edition from Avalon Hill includes updated tiles, hotel chain markers, stock certificates, and a 24-page instruction booklet that makes learning the game easier than 1960’s editions, which had the equivalent of stereo instructions crammed into the box top. The game board, a numbered 9x12 grid, is deceptively spartan. This simple matrix will set the stage for the machinations
of each real estate tycoon as they build hotels and finagle profitable hotel chain takeovers. As play progresses, hotel tiles are placed on the board by each player, and hotel chains are created when hotels are placed next to each other. In the opening rounds of the game, players buy stock in the smaller hotel chains, planning for them to be bought out by the bigger chains. Players want the hotels they have invested in to be bought out, as that gives them cash in hand and an opportunity to acquire more valuable stock in the larger merged chain. Later in the game, the strategy changes to investing in the larger chains on the board, since, at the end of the game, larger chains pay off stockholders with more cold hard cash! The game may end when none of the hotel chains can be taken over, or when one hotel chain has more than 40 hotels. Note that I said the game “may end.” This is my favorite aspect of the game: if a player feels that it is in his best interests to continue the game, he or she may choose not to end the game on his turn, despite having an end game condition on the board. However, as long as an end game criteria is met, any player may end the game on their turn. Be Warned: Acquire is not traditionally considered a Gateway Game by some, because they find the game rules to have a steeper learning curve than they would like. However, my experience has shown Acquire to be an engaging and addictive game with a straightforward goal and enough strategy to keep the game fresh, without being too complex. In other words, my friends and I had a lot of fun playing this game, right from the start!
These games and more can be found at CCG Armory. Check out our website for up to date pricing and our extensive collection of excellent products available online.
Lost Cities
Regular price:
$24.95
Sale price:
$17.47 Save 30% Today! For the daring and adventurous, there are many lost cities to explore. They are in the Himalayas, the evershifting sands of the desert, the Brazilian rain forest, ancient volcanoes and in Neptune’s Realm. With limited resources the players must choose which expeditions to begin. Those with high confidence may want to up the stakes: increasing the rewards for success, but risking more should the expedition fail.
Dominion
Regular price:
$44.95 Sale price:
$31.50 Save 30% Today! You are a monarch, like your parents before you, a ruler of a small pleasant kingdom of rivers and evergreens. Unlike your parents, however, you have hopes and dreams! You want a bigger and more pleasant kingdom, with more rivers and a wider variety of trees. You want a Dominion! In all directions lie fiefs, freeholds, and feodums. All are small bits of land, controlled by petty lords and verging on anarchy. You will bring civilization to these people, uniting them under your banner.
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Mark Manning RPG Evangelist
Mouse Guard Review: Part B Play Test Data
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t is very strange how differently games can been seen when based upon simply reading the rulebook and actually trying to run the system. I want to start by explaining the situation under which I was running the game, as this will hopefully show people what to expect should they start to run the game themselves. Trying to be as thorough as possible, I aimed to have a balanced level of experience within my playtest group, which essentially boiled down to six members plus me. Of these six players you had: two seasoned players—guys who have played through a few campaigns and dabbled under a few systems, after which you had the “control-group” of short-term role-players with a few games under their belt and then we had the two new, first-time players. The one thing I immediately found to be of great loss was that our venue had no large table in which we could all game around, instead we were rather littered around an assortment of chairs and sofas in a fairly horseshoe layout—in short, an ideal layout for story games but not for dice engines. Never the less, it was a comfortable setting and did allow us to really settle down into the game without too much moving around, but I do feel this system truly needs at a table to enjoy fully. Before I go any further with this review I’m going to say this: the system is beautiful when it’s running smoothly— but to get to that point you need prep and I cannot stress that enough. Read the rules, ensure players have got a good grasp of the mechanics and make sure you know the majority of background information as this stuff is integral to the flow of the game and the storyline. Even with a solid basis of knowledge in the mechanics, I was a little blind-sided by some of the questions that were thrown my way throughout the session, which in turn highlighted a problem I hadn’t considered.
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When you are actually reading through the book, the information is presented to you in a style and flow which really works—it immerses you in its depth, draws you into
the world and gives you a great picture of how it all works. But when it actually comes to referencing the material and answering direct questions about minor details I found it a little tricky navigating the material and spent a reasonable amount of time reading sections that I had read a few minutes earlier just to make sure I had taken it in and not simply read it. Do not get me wrong, the answer to nearly every question posed to me was in the book. But at times, I felt like I was wadding elbow deep in a river trying to catch a fish with my bare hands because the information would always be linked in with something else. Now this is fine when you take the material all in on re-read after re-read but is not helpful to the GM’s who need a system they can skim and play from. I guess what I’m trying to say here is that Mouse Guard is not an “out-of-the-box” game so to speak. Something rather nice about the system was how well people grasped key concepts and of special delight to my group was the concept of failed attempts still aiming towards some form of tangible benefit in the shape of “Checks”. Essentially speaking the system tells you from the start that by winning every time, you won’t learn anything and that sometimes you really need to make a mess of it before the lesson is learned. This idea as a whole appealed greatly to the experienced players and seemed something that should be standard by the others, but when it actually came to implementing it outside of a conflict situation—I must confess I was a little lost. This doesn’t really reflect on the system too much, but does draw more attention to the fact that some time needs to be taken to consider pacing and difficulties. Whilst I accept that tables and charts can be a rather boring addition to any system I sometimes felt the system lacked some explanation, mechanically speaking, as to what was considered difficult and what wasn’t. Granted, we are shown the maths of what was achievable based upon my characters stats and skills, but how does this translate to the scene we’re running? What is the difference between a check 4 and a check 5 in terms of storyline events? Is that the difference between a light shower and rain; or the aforementioned shower and a storm? Pulling away from that for a moment though, I want to draw your attention to the conflict resolution mechanics— pure genius. One issue I have experienced with a number of “Checks” systems is that combat can drag on for quite some time and whilst you usually end up with a concise winner, it doesn’t really serve to drive the story to any degree other then the dreaded “Good Ending – Bad Ending” situation, which only serves to bring the entire gaming experience down to the level of a linear role play console game. But with Mouse
Guard you really get a feeling of suspense and trepidation when entering a conflict—it’s no longer a case of counting up your remaining hit points and gauging your level & gear against theirs; it comes down to a much harder decision of whether risking it is worth the possible outcomes and more over what those outcomes could be. Secondly, you really find that the battles had a feeling of impact and speed—although my players were relatively unfamiliar with the concept of scripting the outcome of their own fights, it’s been the secret dream of many a Dungeons and Dragons player (DnD’ers) for several decades now and they relished the chance to set some sort of stakes and control over how bad things could really get. That said, on my end, this felt a little funny at times as I found myself unable to gauge a reasonable creature for the mice to face off against; usually ended up selecting an average-band creature such as a crab, and then setting a relatively minor consequence on the mice. These were usually such things as being driven off or being tired out by the whole experience. But in truth this really worked for the system and the setting, after all the game does suggest that dying should not really be one of the GM’s possible outcomes unless its really going to propel the story and the present conflict. After our play test, I tackled the group as a whole, threw the floor open for some Q&A and general feedback so I could try to grapple the questions my party had. On the whole the group relayed that “It was good, but it needed…”, a line that was usually followed by some kind of visual aid or more surprisingly “A sense of achievement.” The players commented on a feeling of slight detachment from the goals they knew they should have been interested in and more a sense of pride in besting the difficulties thrown at them. This struck me as odd because that, in my mind, was what the system and setting where about, the constant conflict between survival and compromise. But the players couldn’t quite agree with that sentiment; “It didn’t sell itself that way,” was something one of my players offered as comment to me.
of story over mechanics, making it a perfect product for more “Checks” RP’ers to side-step into storytelling games, before tackling such systems such as Prime Time Adventures. When it all comes down to it, I feel that Mouse Guard is one of those systems that if you have some interest in it that you won’t be too disappointed if you have a go and that fans of both the setting and the Burning Wheel engine will enjoy greatly. I do strongly advise that you consider your gaming style before you shell out for the game. I can say one thing though; I am looking forward to running my own Guard through the territories one day—neck deep in adventure and constantly pitching his wits against Mother Nature. Until next time gamers, keep rolling those dice.
M
ark Manning PG Evangelist
R
Mouse Guard Roleplaying Game You can find this product on Barnes&Noble
So trying to bring in the key points, I guess I want to say this: Mouse Guard is going to give you a good gaming experience but it would benefit from a fair amount of prep time and maybe even having the players going through some of the rules sections themselves so they can marry their concepts of achievements to the mechanics handed to them. The system covers a number of aspects to role playing that most mainstream systems such as DnD and White Wolf’s World of Darkness simply don’t touch. It does seem to be in that small gap between pure dice crunching and story-telling games. At times it felt like a smoother version of DnD and at others, a less “Checks” take on Houses of the Blooded’s goal
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