Saturday, June 16, 2007

Friday, June 15, 2007

| Ah, Teh Greastest of Talisman's

Talisman holds a magical quest game-piece of my heart as well, and I appreciate the new edition coming out, and yes will probably pick up a copy for Wylie's sake, but as cool as the fact that such an old game that I played in my youth is coming back, I am just not all that excited about it. From what I can tell, the gameplay will be very similar to the game of yore, and to be honest, it just wasn't that good. Wait. Lemme take that back. The game play doesn't stand up to the test of time.

IMHO, games have matured and gameplay become more varied and interesting over the years, and I think roll and move games like Talisman, while being an awesome step up from Candyland for Wylie, will prolly not get played by me much, or at all.

Despite my grumbling, I am excited though, which is weird.

Did I mention that my latest obsession is Magic Realm, a game from 1978? The ASL in rules complexity and exceptions of fantasy questing boardgames. People either love it and are devoted to it, or hate it and despise it and call it unplayable. Weird. How's that for being a fan ov evolving game play and rulesets?

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Why'd the puck cross the road? To get away from all the DUDES fluffin about on ICE SKATES!

I just invented that joke! Prolly my first and last hockey joke. Sorry :(

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

| As only Bucci and fans can put it...

Mostly @ eLzar...

Derek (Honolulu, Hawaii) :: In any NHL game, in every camera shot of players on the bench, you'll see at least one guy taking in a mouthful of water and spitting it right at his feet. Hydration and physical fitness rationales aside, if you multiply one mouthful every 15 to 20 seconds over the course of a 3-hour game, we're talking about gallons of backwash on what's got to be the world's funkiest carpet. Where does this tepid moat of nastiness go?

Bucci :: It goes into one of two places: Jiffy Lube or Melrose's hair.


D>M>

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

I don't know if everybody keeps up with this, but a new edition of Talisman is being released. This is the game that showed me there were board games other than Monopoly. Therefore I feel an irrational fanboy ownership towards the game; much like Fallout. But that rant is for another day. They have a preview demo with pictures here:

Talisman!

From here on end, I shall become the Comicbook guy from the Simpsons so reading is optional. I'm going to sound like an elitist, pretentious snerd, proceed at your own risk.
I assume the mechanics are more or less the same, so that is no worry.

I do like the fact that the characters are cut-outs though. Of course as with everything in my world: Everything is improved when used with miniatures. Actually my biggest gripe is the overall presentation. Illustration, a subject dear and close to my heart like bondage anime elves.

The art is so meh! Technically it's good; much better than I can do at this point. But it's so uninspiring. It lacks style. The 2nd ed. art was quirky and full of British GW atmosphere at its best. The art for the big box ed. was ok. I never warmed up to the guy's style, but at least it was unique and had its own style.

This art feels more utilitarian. Like a shovel. Sure it does the job, its well constructed. But it certainly does not make me stare at White Dwarf ads for hours before I go to bed. This might be enough to force me to make my own board (with miniatures). Really.
I can tell by the way you read these words you are a nerd. A NERD!!!!!!! Come, give me your hand, let us create a glorious race of Nerd Overlords. We shall have no need of women. Tales of past games with our 1000th level characters will ring throughout the halls of Valhalla. This, this, my friend will be enough. Enough to fill the black void in my soul... You'll make the pain go away won't you? Daddy? Will there be candy for me Daddy..?

Monday, June 11, 2007

Beware the Necrosaurus Rex!

I just got back from seeing Knocked Up. I really liked it! I think you all would enjoy it. In the beginning there was one really quick shot of Seth Rogen and one of his buddies getting ready to fight each other with boxing gloves that they had lit on fire. I sort of feel like calling up Enron and seeing if he wants to do that right now, because it looked awesome.

| Necrosaurus

That dialog was pretty rad jon - that should be the start to a movie/screenplay thing. Just as youre walking out dejected he pulls out the Necrosaurus (don't wanna get sued by HP Lovecrafts estate.) It's like the ultimate sourcebook, because its REAL! You can be DMing an adventure from it to your gaming group when you guys all get sucked into the world of the Necrosaurus. And instead of it being like all spooky and scary and "real" high fantasy/horror or whatever, it would be totally like most of our real rpg adventures where there's stupid tangents and misadventures! And thats how we'd beat the Necrosaurus: we'd totally do the unexpected and he'd give up in total frustration.

Watched The Departed last night - it was pretty good! No spoilers, but the ending was a little "meh" to me. I felt like it could have had more pizazz or been more interesting - but the journey was cool - seemed like it had a lot of potential though.

| Boobs are great

i have to say digging through the archives can be great fun, although I think eLzar has the most extensive archive of all of us. I gotta say in the day I was supAr envious of your White Dorf and Dragon selection. Damn good zines back in the heyday before marketing-profit centric companies eviscerated their content or existences... booo.

c^nt was JP's Mantra in that era. Final hurrah: Kick'um upside the C*nt.

Note: eLzar, 2nd Ed is great and all until I remember... "STUFF". Then my nostalgia starts to deflate. Even THACO has a place in my heart, but "STUFF", Uggg...

OMG, Rocky IV is so bad. Even when I was younger, I saw the cold-war taste as over the top and I was a bit oblivious to politics then. Yet I still watched it a few times. I mean, stupid fighting movies act as a bit of an opiate for me still. Knocked up looks really good. I almost saw it this past week, but decided to hold out a little longer.

j0rn, I hate that creepy 'nerd' camaraderie that some gamers will try and invoke. So awkward when they just don't get it.

D>M>
We went to Santa Barbara this weekend.

Fact:
I like boobs.

It was fun. The only really weird thing that happened was when I ventured into a board game store near the hotel. Mostly it was Transformers Monopoly and shit, but as I was investigating the one shelf of Eurogames and the shopkeeper called out to me in his thick Irish accent. "I can see the games ye're lookin' at! I like those games too!"
"Oh... cool!"
"Yeah, I can tell the games ye like. Just by lookin' at ya!"
"Oh?"
"Yeah, I can tell you're a nerd!"
"Ha, ha, takes one to know one, I guess."
"Yeah. As soon as ye walked in I could tell ye were a nerd!"
"Okay."
"I can tell every time!"
"Great."
"Yeah, ye're in here lookin' at that shelf, I know what a nerd ye are! I can tell you're a real geek!"
As I walked out the door feeling vaguely ashamed and alarmed by this terrifying Irishman, he started ranting at me about Reiner Knizia. I couldn't tell if he loved him or hated him. After that every time we walked by the store I would avert my head, afraid to catch his gaze.

Yeah, Knocked Up looks great. I'm gonna try to catch it this week, maybe tomorrow even. I also saw a couple of surprisingly good trailers before Ocean's 13 (which was aight): one for Vantage Point, which looked like a really good thriller, one for Michael Moore's new one Sicko which looked hilarious, and one for the Will Smith version of I Am Legend. I was really surprised by this one... it looked really good. The book was great so I'm really pulling for this movie to be better than your typical Will Smith tripe.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Saw Knocked Up this weekend. Totally worth it! Laughed my ass off often!

I really like Judd Apatow's style of writing. I find his dialog to be spot-on. I even liked his TV show "Undeclared" and was totally bummed when it was canceled. He also uses the same actors too. The guy who played the nerdy guy from "Freaks and Geeks" (totally funny when he dresses up as Jaime Summers- Bionic Woman- for Halloween on that show) plays a hilarious role in Knocked Up. Whatever... highly recommended. See it!

Can't sleep, watching Rocky IV, and am totally entertained. What a lame-ass political statement it was. Well, what do you want from 1985?

| an cold

Been fighting an cold this weekend, so wasn't up for spreading the germy love erlick. Watched The 40 Year Old Virgin last night - it was awesome! Really good and not what I expected - now I'll all psyched to see Knocked Up - woot.

| More Digging Through Storage

I found the definitive Warhammer Quest character sheet. It was JP's wizard, and was named: Vagi-C*nt Anal C*nt The Magi-C*nt Fucking C*nt C*nt C*nt C*nt Slave-C*nt Slash-C*nt Germany.

Or Kaiser Kunthelm II for short.

Wow.

Also, in his most vile of illustrations for this character was a HILARIOUS depiction of the human incarnation of the Kaiser's most popular spell, Healing Hands: Healing Hans.

BTW, I wasn't sure if I actually spelled out that word so many times life as we know it would end, so I censored myself.

HEY JON (or anyone): Have you or anyone in your game group played Magic Realm before?