Gantz: First Phase

SPOILER WARNING

The first "phase" of Gantz ended around 240 chapters into it. While I have since read up to chapter 272 (the latest chapter) there are some thoughts that I had while reading.

1. In the last entry I said something to the effect that I wanted several of the characters back. Looks like that's not as far-fetched as I thought. This series is approaching DBZ levels of resurrection.

2. The fights still drag terribly. Seriously, they get really frickin boring. The first few were great. The very first in particular was excellent. It had only two aliens, one of which went down without a great fight. But it was tense, and visceral, and didn't outstay it's welcome. It was used to extend character motivation and was chilling in places. The current fight started about 30 chapters ago, and is still going strong.

3. There are still no significant advances in the plot. All we know is that there are some other Gantz spheres, and there may be a master sphere in Germany. The vampires are probably aligned with the aliens, but that doesn't stop them slaughtering each other if necessary. I really want to know more, but it doesn't look like I will any time soon.

4. The death of Izumi seemed a little quick. He had been built up for 70 or so chapters as a cool anti-hero. While his death is suitably epic, it seems like wasted potential.

5. I'll restate my opinion on the vampires. Seriously, katana wielding vampires are really original. Unless you count Anita Blake, or Underworld, or World of Darkness, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or any vampire fiction written since 1990. Why can't vampires go back to being solitary predators of the night? You know, scary.

6. Seriously. MORE PLOT! I read stories for the story. The violence is cool and all, but I really want the plot to kick in, and there's no signs of that happening soon.

Gantz has so much potential, but it seems wasted somehow.

Gantz: Enjoyable, yet infuriating

SPOILER WARNING

Don't get me wrong, Gantz is a good series, but there are several things that pissed me off about it.

1. The fight in the temple, where the entire established cast bar one is cheerfully annihilated, including the coolest character in the series.

2. The fight scenes are epically long. The Dinosaur fight for example took almost 30 chapters to complete. It was a cool fight, but it dragged after a while. I actually tend to prefer the parts where fights aren't going on, as the plot and characters get their chance to shine. The fights have also lost the sheer, visceral horror that made the first couple of them so tense and fun to read.

3. Apart from the introduction of the vampires, which I'll get to in a minute, the plot really hasn't gone anywhere since the temple fight. I'm 167 chapters in and I still have no clue about any of the forces at work in the series. New mysteries have presented themselves, but none of the old ones have been resolved, in fact they seem to have been ignored entirely. This is unsatisfying to say the least.

4. The introduction of katana wielding vampires. Some people just might say that that is a little bit cliched.

5. The relationships between characters are developing nicely, but I still want some of the old characters back, especially Kato. The story is on the back-burner.

Still, the series is somewhat addictive, so I'll stick with it for now.

Gantz: First Impressions

After finishing Suzuka I needed another manga to read, so I chose largely at random from the list of manga on onemanga. I ended up with Gantz. The story is...unique, to say the least. Sometimes, when people die, they get taken to a small apartment in Tokyo to fight aliens on behalf of a giant sphere that speaks only in leetspeak. No....really. Imaginative? Yes. Crazy? Yes. Still, it's a blast. I haven't read manga this fast since Battle Royale, and the series does actually share some similarities stylistically with that cavalcade of fetishistic violence and extravagent nudity. It's bloody, to say the least, and it does seem that it sometimes uses blood and gore as a standin for actual storytelling.

Still, it's fresh and original, and fairly dark too. The main character seems to be undergoing a fall from sanity, probably from gazing too long across the abyss. The character development is reasonably well done so far, and I look forward to seeing where this one is going.

Suzuka

I just finished reading the manga series Suzuka. I was initially sceptical about it, and the terms that Onemanga described it in really didn't help. They said something to this effect:

Yamato is ready for a fresh start. So when his aunt invites him to stay rent-free in her big-city boarding house in hustling, bustling Tokyo, Yamato jumps at the chance. There's just one teensy-weensy catch: It's an all-girl housing complex and spa!

I was not convinced by this at all. If I was lucky, I thought, it would be a Love Hina clone. If I was unlucky, it would be a Hanaukyo Maid Team clone. The latter I don't want because they suck, the former I don't want because I've already read Love Hina and, while it isn't the greatest harem comedy around (that honour goes in my opinion to Akamatsu's other opus, Negima), it is about as good as the genre is ever going to get without going into other genres like shonen fighting.

So it was with trepidation that I approached the series. Fortunately, I was pleasently surprised. The manga is not a typical harem manga at all. There are a couple of characters who do play up the stereotype, but it's in a light-hearted way, and they are developed characters, not placeholders.

The main romance is handled well for the most part, although a little clumsily at times. There's just a little too much of the main character screwing up and having to work out why and how he should apologise. That gets tedious after the fifth or sixth time. However, the mature plot and well developed characters more than makes up for that fact. Yamato Akitsuki stands out in particular. Usually I hate the main characters in romance, and Akitsuki joins Keitaro Urashima and Kasuga Kyouske in the critically small list of 'romantic comedy protagonists that don't piss me off.'

The main female lead, the titular Suzuka, is an equally interesting character, albeit marred by a tendancy for the author to keep trying to make her motivations and thoughts a mystery to the reader even after we have figured them out, which leads to her being annoying at times.

Now one of my opinions, of which I have many, is that the quality of a romantic comedy can be assessed by how it handles secondary romances. That is, other people who fancy either the male or female protagonist. There are basically two ways I can see of doing this right. Love Hina did this well by largely ignoring all of them as potential candidates except for Mutsumi. Kimagure Orange Road, on the other hand, does it well by giving these other candidates personality and depth and giving the protagonists real reasons to think about choosing them. This is the more mature route, but it is very difficult to pull off. Most harem comedies try this route, and end up failing miserably, leaving them with a cast of bland, generic secondary females who exist for no other reason than to hamper the main relationship and provide fanservice.

Suzuka takes the Kimagure route, and does it well. Part of this is that there are only three other potentials in the whole series, one of whom does not appear very long. They all have their own personalities, none of them are annoying, and there would have been valid ways to characterise Yamato going with any of them. To top it off, they all have their own story arcs, which means that they are never there solely to try to get the guy. This is the way to do multiple potential romances, if you're going to do them at all.

That being said, the series is not without its problems. The ending feels rushed, and happens very quickly. I won't spoil the ending, but I will say this: while there is no doubt that it's a very happy ending, it might annoy people. It is certainly a fairly mature ending, and it is reasonable to imagine that real life might go a little bit like that, but there is a bittersweet tinge to it.

The art is good, but not spectacular by any means. The character designs are also nice, and all characters have a certain feel to them. The obligatory fanservice is not as intrusive as it can be in some mangas, and it takes a back seat to the story, which is the driving force of this series.

All in all I can heartily recommend this series to anyone who likes shonen romance. If you liked Kimagure, or Maison Ikkoku, then go ahead and read it. If you're into anything more violent, or with lots of fanservice, then give this one a miss.

In which an interesting weekend is described

Friday 2nd: My birthday. We went to a Japanese restaraunt first, and then to the pub, where fun was had.

Saturday: Gaming was done...all day. I tried Tribe 8 for the first time. A post-apocolyptic science-fiction fantasy horror mish-mash....SET IN CANADA! Actually it's an astoundingly good game with a tight system and a rich setting. I will almost certainly try to get my hands on the rulebook at some point. A mammoth game of Arkham Horror was also started. And Arkham Horror is always good, although it steals your time and life away, much like the actual Cthulu.

Sunday: Mostly played Iron-Man DnD. Rolling 3d6 down the line has never been so entertaining!

Monday: The highlight of the day was without a doubt Classroom Deathmatch, aka Battle Royale the RPG. A class of Japanese schoolchildren dropped on an island and told to kill each other. The mechanics are geared for co-operative storytelling more than anything. Each character has a best friend and a rival. If you succeed on an action, your best friend describes the results. If you fail, your rival does it. There are no real limits on what can be described, so death is very common. But that's ok, because that's how it works, and you can always quantum leap into a new student. Scenes are set by all the players, even those whose characters aren't participating, and flashbacks can be used to get bonus dice. The only problem is that it is most definitely a one-shot game. The mechanics as they stand would not work for anything longer than that. Oh, and avoid the swim team; they're lunatics!

In which I apologise for being a closet powergamer

I was statting up Star Wars characters today, as one does, and my train of thought actually caused me to stop dead. There I was putting together some kind of Zabrak fringer (I had the model, okay? It seemed appropriate) and I envisioned him as a sort of Scout/Scoundrel mix. So anyway, halfway through I realised that I was actually statting the character out for optimum efficiency. You know, I'll take this feat because it stacks with this talent allowing me to leap out of cover, shoot, and dive back it, all while never exposing myself to counter-fire. Isn't building a character like that, you know, being a munchkin?

Well not wanting to be thought a munchkin, I desperately tried to justify it. Perhaps min-maxing was ok, as long as you roleplayed properly. But wait, I hadn't even thought of a personality for this guy yet. Perhaps as long as I made sure the mins were there as well as the maxes. But wait again, that's what a min-max is. In the end the only justification I could come up with was that perhaps as long as I didn't annoy the others it would be fine. But that's a pretty lame justification. So in the end I did what anyone would do. Seek out the biggest powergamer I know for advice.

So he gave me some interesting things to think about. Principally that there is a difference between powergaming and being a munchkin, and I had to work out what that line was. So I admit it world, I am a powergamer. I love being effective in combat. I love stacking feats to create an unstoppable badass capable of offing stormtroopers and dark jedi in a single shot. I like being impossible to hit. Because you know what? Being a non-combatent sucks in a game designed around combat.

Powergamers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your dex bonus!

This just in, Tate not bad

Well actually I saw the new episode of Doctor Who on Saturday, and I have to apologise to Catherine Tate. I assumed on the strength of her terrible comedy show that she wouldn't bring anything to the show, but she was actually not bad. No Martha or Rose, but certainly better than that awful woman played by Kylie Minouge (sp?) in the Christmas special.

I actually look forward to seeing what happens, perhaps she will grow into the role. Also, it's certainly nice to see some older talent joining the show (no offence to her, of course). Still, it seems we're still a long way from the Doctor being allowed heterosexual males as companions, like he used to be. Perhaps they could bring back Matthew Waterhouse, I hear that he's good, and it would be nice to get someone who remembers the good old days, because Russell T. Davies really makes me wonder at times.

Also, I saw the actual Buffy the Vampire Slayer film today. I never thought I would say that Luke Perry could rescue a film, but apparently he can. Damn he was cool as Pike. And of course Rutger Hauer makes everything good. Still, SMG is a better Buffy than Swanson.

White Wolf, what the hell?

As a lover of both World of Darkness and Exalted, you would think that I would love the publishing company, White Wolf. In truth my relationship with them is very hit and miss. I love their games, don't get me wrong. Some of the Old WoD stuff wa sub-par, and I think nWoD has a much better feel to it. Also, Storyteller 2 is a much better system than Storyteller. On the whole though, I love all the games of their that I've played. So why do I not like them so much?

Mostly, it's their arrogance. White Wolf can be incredibly pretentious at times. Just read the storytelling chapter of Changeling: the Lost and you'll see that in a hearbeat. Look at this section of it:

Imagine an artist's palette, first of all, a color-box from which you, as Storyteller, will "paint" your chronicle: the locales, the characters, the weird quests and dream-remembered promises. Don't consider the actual colors yet, though. Instead, think about the properties of those colors. Imagine the bleak, painterly neutrals of the Hedge and the sharp, dry-brush edges of the thorns. Imagine the oversaturated, high-contrast variety of colors present at an august Court function. Imagine the textured patinas of a lost artifact unearthed, an untarnished metallic luster yielding into verdigis, or perhaps the luminous nacre of a pearl plucked from between a dead man's chalky fingers.

What the hell does that even mean? Seriously, it's pretentious wank that tells you nothing in practice about how to GM a game of Changeling. (Incidentally, I wouldn't mind so much if Changeling wasn't in all other respects a fantastic game, probably my favourite of the nWoD line). So yeah, White Wolf can be arrogant as hell at times, but this takes the gold in stupid things that they've done.

The basic idea is that you send in your copy of the DnD Players Guide, and they send you a copy of Exalted in return. In itself, it's not a bad idea, especially seeing as 4th Edition is coming out soon. If they can drum up a big of interest in Exalted on the side, more power to them. It's the way that it's phrased that really annoys me. You're supposed to graduate to a better level of roleplaying.

Now you won't find me arguing that DnD is better than Exalted. I prefer Exalted, to be honest, but they're different beasts entirely. DnD is high mortal fantasy, with mortal characters in a fairly generic fantasy world. It is by no means a bad game, indeed I love it. Exalted is Epic level immortal fantasy. Your characters are, for want of a better word, gods. They are gifted with the power of deities, and capable of truly earth-shattering feats. It's at a much higher power level than DnD, and comparing the two in this fashion is simply not something that you can really do.

People who like DnD aren't necessarily going to like Exalted, and White Wolf have basically shot themselves in the foot by saying 'come and play a better game, leave those plebs who play DnD behind, what do they know?' The sort of person who would think like that is not the sort of person I want to play tabletop roleplaying games with.

That's not to blast those people who would make the swap because they are moving up to 4th edition anyway, I have nothing against them, and that's a good way to get yourself a little extra out of the bargain. But people who would make the swap solely in order to feel superior to DnD players, which seems to be what this deal is implying, you aren't welcome in my games, ever.

Now I'm sure that this has been in the works for a while, but they have done it at a truely, spectularly disrespectful time, considering that Gary Gygax only passed away last tuesday.

Shame on you White Wolf. Your games are great, we know, but stop being so arrogant about it.

EDIT: People of various forums are now suggesting that this move was done with their tongue firmly within their cheek. If that's the case, then I apologize profusely to White Wolf. Either way, I think it's pretty tasteless, but not so malicious as I thought it was.

But you're still pretentious!

Points of Light, or How I learned to stop worrying and love 4th Edition

Any RPGer who hasn't had their head in the sand has probably heard by now about Fourth Edition DnD, announced at GenCon last year. I have to admit that when I first heard about it, I was very sceptical. Wasn't this just some way for WotC to make a bunch more money by releasing the same sourcebooks over again? After all, 3.5 only hit shops in 2004, and 3.0 was printed in 2000. Surely there was no need for another edition?

Well, perhaps that is part of it, especially on marketing, but everything I've read about fourth edition makes me want it more and more. So what was the turning point? Quite simple, it's summed up on the phrase "Points of Light in a big, dark world." (Article requires a free membership to view)

What does that phrase mean exactly? The site itself explains it quite well:

Most of the world is monster-haunted wilderness. The centers of civilization are few and far between, and the world isn’t carved up between nation-states that jealously enforce their borders. A few difficult and dangerous roads tenuously link neighboring cities together, but if you stray from them you quickly find yourself immersed in goblin-infested forests, haunted barrowfields, desolate hills and marshes, and monster-hunted badlands. Anything could be waiting down that old overgrown dwarf-built road: a den of ogre marauders, a forgotten tower where a lamia awaits careless travelers, a troll’s cave, a lonely human village under the sway of a demonic cult, or a black wood where shadows and ghosts thirst for the blood of the living.

That's quite an interesting way of looking at things, and it does something to distinguish DnD from legions of generic fantasy games. It conjures up images similar to those from authors like Fritz Leiber, Robert E. Howard and Michael Moorcock. This is taking Sword and Sorcery back to its original, pulp fantasy roots. I really hope that it actually gets rid of the Tolkein feel that DnD has had so far, and makes something slightly fresher. I know it will keep the trappings, Elves, Dwarves and Dark Lords, but those are pretty seminal in fantasy. The feel, however, seems completely different. Characters are more powerful, combat is cooler, and enemies are more numerous. You really could see Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser adventuring in this game, you'd never have seen them in the old Forgotten Realms.

This is a real example of where the feel of the game can really get me excited about something. I had assumed that this was a financial decision to boost WotC, but it really seems like they know what they're doing here. I can't wait!

New purchases

I recently ordered 2 new World of Darkness books from Amazon Marketplace. The first is their newest WoD game, Changeling: the Lost. This I have wanted for a while, and the number of positive reviews from everywhere sealed the deal. I didn't like the original Changeling game, its focus on capturing childhood innocence at the expense of anything resembling maturity smacked of Michael Jackson, and didn't sell the game at all. I never actually played it, but just looking through the book made me feel uncomfortable.

The other book I bought was the new splat book, Midnight Roads. It's about characters who travel, and basing campaigns around them. I shall have to work it into the Chronicles of Storge somehow.

Dark Heresy, what the hell?

I flipped through a copy of Dark Heresy the other day. For those of you not in the know, Dark Heresy is the new Warhammer 40K RPG dealing with the Imperial Inquisition. The story is kinda odd.

1. Games Workshop has already done fantastically well with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP). The game is astounding. The production values are really high and the system is well designed.

2. Fans eat it up, and clamour for a 40K RPG.

3. GW announces that they'll make one. In fact, they'll make three. One focusing on the inqusition, one on other humans, and one on alien races.

4. Dark Heresy is announced. It sells out during pre-order and you can't find copies anywhere.

5. Dark Heresy is released. Already sold out.

6. Less than a week later, GW announces the termination of the 40K roleplaying line.

What the hell is wrong with this picture? The only rational explanation I can think of is that the RPG is a niche product. The wargame is far more profitable. Why make £25 selling a chunky hardback with fantastic writing and and artwork, with a lot of thought that has gone into it, when you could make £25 selling a few dis-assembled, unpainted figures that the player has to put together themselves? If this is even close to the truth (I am shooting in the dark) then it's exactly the same attitude that makes me hate GW in general.

They really suck when it comes to giving good deals to their customers.

Wii is where it's at!

The seventh generation of the console wars has seen Nintendo come from behind to win a startling victory over the other two competitors. As the oldest of the three currently fighting, they had a lot to live up to, but they had seen steadily declining sales culminating in the Gamecube being beaten by a coffee table...errr...X-Box.

Anyway, the Wii was a masterstroke on their part. Realising that there was a significant number of people out there who didn't need better graphics and special effects, they focused instead on re-defining the way that video games are played. The Wiimote seems a little gimmicky when you first use it. Surely this can't be the way forward? But after using it for a while, you realise its potential. As soon as game developers start realising that as well, the true potential of this devices will be seen.

The 360 and PS3 are fighting it out to attract the hardcore gamers, and the Wii has cut right through the centre and stolen all of the casual ones with its low cost and the perception that it is the most 'fun' of all three of them

That's why I bought one, anyway. That, and I'm a raving Nintendo fanboy......Princess Zelda so wants me.

I'm back

I know this never got many (or perhaps any) readers, but I'm gonna start it up again anyway, just for the lulz. I have a lot to write about, so why the heck not?

Anime Stuff

Been watching a lot of anime recently. Most of it was stuff that I had seen before, although there have been a few new ones as well. I've rewatched Haruhi Suzimiya, Haibane Renmei and Now and then, here and there.

As for new series, I've watched Gunslinger Girl and DNAngel. GG is a fairly good series about psychologically brainwashed schoolgirl assassins, although it's a serious series, not a comedy. DNAngel is a sort of fantasy/drama/romance series. Both are fairly good, although I can't recommend them in the same way I could recommend any of the three series that I rewatched.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't watch them if you get the chance, but I wouldn't go out of your way to see them.

Blood Bowl

I spent a lot of today playing Blood Bowl. Basically someone looked at Warhammer, and thought to themselves 'what would it be like if these guys were playing American Football instead of fighting? And what if there were basically no rules, and players were free to kill, injure and maim each other?'

Well, it turns into a really fun game. It takes about five minutes to set up, and a game can last anywhere from 1 hour to 3 or so. There is a great strategical element, and also a great luck element, as all good games should have. What's more, if you are playing in a league, you keep your team throughout, and your team and players can get better, get more skills, and improve themselves, so you really start to care for your team.

So last week, my team, an undead team unimaginatively called Storge's Zombie All-stars played their first game, losing narrowly to the Spitberg Soulstealers, a Chaos team. This week I wa up against the league's top team, the Dark Elf Har Garrath Harpies, and I didn't really think I had a chance.

The game started well, and within three turns I had taken out four of his players. This allowed me to score a touch-down just before the first half ended. In the second half I was able to score again pretty quickly, and then sail to victory, although he did score a touchdown out of pride just before the game ended.

In fairness, I had a great deal of luck going for me, and the other guy kept rolling 1s, so I shouldn't really have won, but hey.

Play this game. You will love it.

Magic in fantasy

You'd be hard-pressed to find a fantasy setting that doesn't use magic. Indeed, it has pretty much come to be that magic defines fantasy. A fantasy setting is a fantasy setting because it has magic. Any yet, there are so many different variations on the same basic theme that it almost feels like there is no single thing called magic. However, in reality there only seem to be two variations on magic that I can really find. Within these two catagories there are innumerable sub-variations, but it seems like all magic belongs to these two. Most systems of magic that I have seen actually use some combination of the two, tending towards one of them. So what are these catagories, you ask?

Well I like to define them as 'artistic' and 'scientific' magic. The basic definition of scientfic magic is that of rules. In order to use magic, you need to say the right words, or use the right ingredients, or draw the right magic circle. Just about every video game uses scientific magic, the reasons for which will become apparent. Any system where you choose from a list of spells is scientific. Books can also be like this, the magic in Harry Potter, for example, requires the right codewords, and is therefore scientific. Alchemy from Fullmetal Alchemist is very scientific magic, in my opinion. You have to draw a transmutation circle, and re-combine the thing you are transmuting into something else.

Artistic magic, on the other hand, is about imagination. The magic does what you want it to, without reference to scientific laws. Note that this does not make the magic unlimited. A good example would be 'The Will and the Word' from David Edding's Belgariad. A wizard imagines the effect of his magic, wills it to be, and then speaks a word. If he required a specific word, it would be scientific. As it is, the word is merely a conduit, and any word will do. A wizard could imagine a house burning, will it to be, and shout 'turkey' and the house would catch fire. Artistic magic would be terrible in computer games, and even roleplaying games, as the player has to have something to define the magic by. It has now way to tell what he is imagining. I also find that many films use artistic magic, rather than scientific. In the recent LotR films, for example, what magic there was seemed to be based around what the Wizards wanted to happen. Books seem to use them both in roughly equal measure.

Note also that this doens't mean that scientific magic requires no imagination, or that artistic magic is lawless. This whole discussion has been about clearing my own mind on the subject, and is therefore rather disorganised. Artistic magic has laws to it also. There are limits. In the Belgariad, for example, the magic actually tires the wizard out and they can't use anything that is beyond their own mental strength. Similarly, I'm not saying that scientific magic systems have no imagination. Look at FMA for example, when Edward Elric transmutes stone into the shape of a door in order to escape from a building. There is not 'stone to door' circle that he could draw, it's more that he imagined the stone reshaping itself.

So most systems are a mix of the two. I know this has been a rather serious post, but fantasy is one of my favourite genres, and I wanted to clear my own mind about the magic.

Objection!

So I mentioned that I had picked up a Nintendo DS. To that effect, I yesterday picked myself up a copy of 'Pheonix Wright: Ace Attorney'. I got it in the bargain bin at the local GAME, and to be honest, I didn't have high hopes for it.

My fears were put to rest soon. I love this game. Basically, you are Pheonix 'Nick' Wright, a defence attorney fresh out of college, and you are in your first real case. Your best friend, Larry Butz, is up for Murder 1, and it's your job to prove he didn't do it. Well, that case is basically the tutorial, showing you how to go through witness testimony and find contradictions and falsehoods. After all, if Larry is innocent, then the witness who claims he saw it must be lying, right?

After that you get thrown into the game headfirst. You must talk to people, examine the scene of the crime for clues, and then battle it out in court to prove your client's innocence.

This game could have been a real dud, and the worst mistake they could have made would be to have a series of completely unconnected murders for you to solve on by one. This game instead has an actual storyline. For example, for the first two major cases the prosecuting attorney is Miles Edgeworth, and there are masses of rumours surrounding him. They say that he hasa never failed to get a guilty verdict, and isn't above faking evidence, hushing up testimony and surpressing clues that don't help him. You can see how this could have gone wrong? He could have been a cardboard cutout who escapes at the end of each trial screaming 'I would have got away with it if it hadn't been for those meddling kids!'

No, Edgeworth has a storyline, a background, and reasons for doing the things he does. In fact, it seems that both Wright and Butz know him from before. This storyline all comes down to the line in the fourth chapter, where the defendent is Edgeworth himself and the prosecutor is his erstwhile mentor.

I won't say more for fear of spoiling it, but I will mention a few problems I had with the game. Firstly, it is too dependent on dialogue trees, and it never feels like you have quite enough freedom to say and do what you want. Secondly, it always seems like your are about to lose, and there is nothing you could have done to stop it, when suddenly some deus ex machina comes in to save your ass. This is somewhat lazy storytelling, and detracts from what I was saying about the otherwise high quality of the storyline. The last major flaw is that, once you have played the game through, it does not have great replayability, as you have already learned the dialogue trees that will get you victory.

Overall, however, this game is a superficially flawed, yet fundamentally innovative and interesting concept. I will definitely be getting the sequels.

Future Shadowrun campaign

Over the summer I will be GMing a Shadowrun game. The story takes place in and around Las Vegas, and is focused on investigating and eventually toppling a very powerful drug dealer. There will be only three players (there was a fourth, but he decided to accept a work placement scheme in London instead. Talk about poor priorities!), so I'm throwing in a couple of NPCs as well.

The story will start with all of the characters awakening and finding themselves in a small room, which looks very much like a high-security prison cell (mostly because it is a high-security prison cell). They all have envelopes in front of them with various instructions on how to escape which will only work when combined. With any luck they will escape the prison, and will then have to find their way to Las Vegas, the nearest city, whereupon Mr Johnson (for those of you who aren't Shadowrunners, "Mr. Johnson" always refers to a person who hires shadowrunners, in order to disguise whatever their true identity is) will contact them, and offer them a job. Although they don't know it, he was in fact the one who put them into the jail cell.

The job he offers them is to take down a local drug dealer and shut down his operation. It isn't a difficult job, but if the players dig a little deeper into the situation, they will find a tangled web of evidence suggesting that Mr. Johnson himself is the one who supplied the dealer. Either way, Mr. Johnson will continue to give them jobs of various kinds, one of which will bring them into contact with a group who claim that Mr. Johnson is poised to betray them. Whether or not they beleive these people, they will soon find themselves attacked by thugs.

Various things happen and, with a dash of luck, the campaign will end with the overthrow of Mr. Johnson's operation. He may or may not be the 'final boss'. Of course, players have a nasty habit of throwing your plot off course, so I have a few sidequests prepared for if such a thing should happen, which will give me time to prepare.

More on this as it comes in.

XIN

Here's something worth watching.

Watch the series called XIN. It's a wuxia style flash animation set in a dystopian future in which physical beating and abuse has replaced expulsion and detention as punishment in schools. Student gangs are rife, and fighting in school is commonplace. Yeah the idea is a little absurd, but the story makes up for it in many ways.

The characters are hella cool, but special mention has to go to Legend, Ghai and the titular character, Xin, all of whom kick ass. The music is fantastic. The fights are really high quality for a flash series. Everything is very tight and well put together. The later episodes especially are very professionally done, although the animation in the earlier episodes is a little less well done.

Go. Watch. Now.

Ten things I hate about you!

The 'you' so prominently referenced in the title is of course, my arch-nemesis, video games. Now before I go any further, let me clarify. I love video games. I rarely find a video game I don't like. However, they are also the most annoying thing on the face of the planet. So here, mostly to clear my own thoughts on the matter, are the top ten things that annoy me in video games.

1o. Loading screens with no progress bar: Loading screens themselves are pretty bad, but those without a progress bar, or counter, or percentage, are the worst of the crop. This is my thought pattern when I see one: 'Oh, loading eh? If you insist. But wait! How long are you gonna be loading for? I've seen fricking long load times before! Can I go make a sandwich, or if I do will I come back to find it loaded, my character dead, and 'Game Over prominently displayed?' Seriously, if you must have loading screens, at least put a progress bar.

9. Repetetive Music: This one should be a no brainer. Music should be varied and interesting, or the player (namely, me) will get bored and restless, and project that onto the game itself. Final Fantasy has always been really good at this. Nobuo Uematsu is a fantastic composer though, and most game companies can't be bothered to get someone even approaching his calibre.

8. Requiring you do repeat the same pointless task until you finally succeed at it: There are some very bad offenders at this, but one of the worst has to be Super Mario. Remember that video I posted a while back? That ain't so far from the truth. The only difference was that that video was funny.

7. Game Over: The very idea of game over sickens me. It's like the game telling you that you aren't good enough because you can't complete it with a certain number of lives. I hate the 'game over' screen more than just about anything else apart from the rest of the items on this list.

6. Lack of progress: In most games, after a game over, you just have to re-load and try again, knowing that you are no closer to your goal, indeed you are further away because you have to fight your way back to the scene of the game over. How should this be done? Well, look at the much underrated Pokemon games. If you lost a battle, your character may lose a bit of money, but all progress that you made is kept, and any experience your pokemon gained, including that gained in the battle that you lost, remains. All you have to do is walk back to where you lost and challenge the person who beat you again. No trainers on the way will challenge you, as you have already beaten them. That's a good system, where game over doesn't exist, and losing is a setback, but not an annoyance.

5. Random Battles occuring too frequently: 'Ah, a random battle? Piece of cake. There I've won. Doobie, doobie, doob- what the crap, another one? I hadn't walked three steps!' Random battles I understand, mostly because games did not used to have the capability of rendering those monsters in real time. I don't mind random battles at all. If they are set to occur every two paces? Fuck that.

4. Jumping puzzles in games patently not designed for them: By 'games patently not designed for them', I obviously mean first-person games. In games designed to switch between first and third person, like the Jedi Knight series, they are acceptable, as you can switch to a view much more amenable to the idea of jumping puzzles. In first person games, get rid of them, they suck.

3. Irritating music at game over screens: Super Mario is guilty of this to the greatest extent I know. I have already pointed out that the game over screen shouldn't be there, but if it is, don't put annoying music there. Especially if that music seems to screem 'hahahahaha you suck' at the player. Seriously, at that point, the player is probably annoyed and frustrated, so putting bad music is like kicking them in the crotch when they're down.

2. Unskippable cutscenes: Cutscenes are good the first time around. They build story and character, they get the player from one place to another, and they often look damn cool (Final Fantasy VIII's 'Dollet Landing' scene is one of the most brain-defying great video game moments of all time.) They aren't so nice the second time around. Or the third. Seriously, make it so that your cutscenes can be skipped. Players don't want to watch them over and over just because they keep failing.

1. A lack of save points: Does this one really need explaining? Seriously, put adequate save points in the game. I don't want to fight through a dungeon, lose to the boss, and then have to fight my way through it again. The golden rule of video games has to be 'always put a save point before the boss.'

Let me reiterate. I love video games, but they can be hella annoying.