Today is the ninth birthday of the most underrated video game system of all time, the Sega Dreamcast.

If the gaming public wasn’t such a bunch of fucking idiots, maybe the system would’ve lasted longer, Sega’s creative output wouldn’t have gone down the shitter, and we’d be playing the Dreamcast’s successor right now.

Oh well. At least we’ve got a massive library of fantastic Dreamcast titles to fall back on. Time for you people to break out Jet Grind Radio or Sonic Adventure in its honor!

Today’s hatred target? The Axis & Allies Miniatures pricing structure.

The Axis & Allies World War II strategy board game has been around forever, but its publisher, Avalon Hill (a subdivision of Wizards of the Coast, which is in turn a subdivision of Hasbro), wanted to capture more of the collectible miniatures game market. Wizards’ Dungeons & Dragons and Star Wars miniatures were already doing extremely well, so in 2005, along came Axis & Allies Miniatures, a speedier combat game featuring lots of soldiers and vehicles from across the war. Starter packs, which contained rules, counters, maps, and nine preselected miniatures, had an MSRP of $24.99. Booster packs of nine random miniatures went for $14.99. While the boosters were guaranteed to have one rare miniature, a few uncommons, and a bunch of commons, the price was still a bit high. Add that into the fact that in order to build some decent armies you really need a starter pack and at least eight boosters, things could get expensive very quickly. Finally, as is the nature of collectible games, new expansion sets released every few months. If you wanted to keep up, you needed a good cash flow.

I got into Axis & Allies Miniatures shortly after its release, and I decided to focus solely on Soviet, French, and German armies. That way, I could have the classic Axis versus Allies combat, and not have to worry about creating full armies for every nation, which would obviously deplete my bank account. Whenever I got a unit from the USA, UK, etc., I’d use it to trade for units I really needed. Even still…it wasn’t cheap. After a while, the tournament scene in my area kinda dried up, so I stopped playing for about a year and a half.

Well, I’m back in the game now, and I noticed that Avalon Hill has changed things a bit. First off, vehicles and infantry are all now in proper scale to one another; tanks are much bigger, as well they should be in many cases. But more importantly…booster packs only contain five units now, instead of nine. The price has also dropped to $10.99. Losing almost half of the units…but the price only dropped by less than a third? Ridiculous. If you buy in bulk, you may end up saving a few dollars in the long run, but it doesn’t help the players who just buy a random booster here and there (like myself).

In 2007, along came the separate Axis & Allies Naval Miniatures game, War at Sea. This was a huge success, with the initial assortment selling out worldwide twice. Like its land-based cousin, starter packs are $24.99, and boosters contain five ships…but back at that $14.99 price point. You’re paying a lot more for the naval game, but getting less units! Not only that, there’s still a single rare in each box, but there’s also only one uncommon! The remaining three are just regular ol’ commons, which upsets the balance found in other sets. Talk about a screwjob.

So what are deal-hunting players to do? If you don’t buy a significant amount of boosters, you’re just not going to have a proper army to play with, even during friendly matches. Part of this is to be expected; it’s a collectible game, so you do need an ongoing source of funds to play. That’s just the nature of the beast. However, the price structure that Avalon Hill has laid out is bullshit, especially for War at Sea. As much as I love my friendly neighborhood game store, I buy almost all of my boosters online. I’ve found websites that routinely sell them for 40% less than MSRP, and that’s not including discounts and specials! Granted, you need to buy a few packs at once to even it out with shipping costs, but you’re still saving quite a bit of money, especially in the long run. And if you’re the type of gamer that enjoys buying cases of new expansions (usually twelve boosters to a box), you can often save well over $50!

The good news is that you and I know to look online for this stuff. (I can personally recommend Noble Knight Games and Cool Stuff Inc.) The bad news is that there’s legions of gamers out there who don’t, and are either spending too much on their miniatures, or getting frustrated and giving up altogether. That’s what incenses me the most; when the goddamn pricing structure is turning people away from the game, then there’s something wrong. C’mon, powers-that-be…fix it!

Explain this to me: how you can have a candy store entitled “Captain Candy,” and not have a costumed superhero mascot out front hawking the sweets? It makes no sense!

I recently got the chance to see the new Star Wars animated film, The Clone Wars. It’s set during the infamous prequel era; specifically, somewhere between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. I think I can sum up my feelings for the film with one word: disappointment.

We knew from the get-go that Clone Wars is nothing but an expanded pilot for the upcoming TV series of the same name. As such, it really does feel like a 90-minute episode, but some of the sequences therein are either too drawn out, or completely unnecessary. The potent video game influence on the film is readily apparent, as well; some movie critics even described the various acts of the movie as “levels”! Watching it, I felt as if I’d played this game about fifty times before.

Some viewers have complained about the rather unique art style in the film; that one I’ll actually leave alone, because a) the artists purposefully tried to create a 3D version of Genndy Tartakovsky’s designs from the original Clone Wars 2D cartoon series, and b) it’s really going to boil down to personal preference. (I, for one, don’t mind the art style at all.)

What I do mind is the subpar animation. While other animated films this year (like WALL•E and Kung Fu Panda) boasted stunning and fluid 3D animation, Clone Wars doesn’t come close. And this from a company world-renowned for special effects? Come on! The walk cycles alone looked like the characters were poorly controlled marionettes. There’s simply no excuse for such piss-poor animation; I’ve seen TV series from smaller companies that look far better.

The prequels were shit upon due to the incredibly poor acting. Fortunately, that’s not a big problem this time around; the voice acting in Clone Wars is quite good, though some of the script choices leave much to be desired. In particular, the writers obviously tried way too hard to make the battle droids funny. We know that they’re not too bright, but they’ve got a way too much “comedic” dialogue assigned to them; some if it’s funny, but a lot of it just doesn’t work. Those clankers are supposed to say “Roger roger!” and not too much else.

Let’s move on to Clone Wars poster child, Ahsoka Tano. Originally, I thought she’d make for an interesting character; she’s an energetic young padawan assigned to the reckless Anakin Skywalker, and I assumed this would continue the black-and-white clashing of ideologies that other master/padawan pairs in the Star Wars saga have had. Well, not quite. While her character is interesting on the surface, Ahsoka manages to become highly annoying within the span of about ten minutes. When they’re not using ridiculous nicknames for each other (she calls him “Skyguy,” while Anakin calls her “Snips”), she’s fulfilling the cliché of “dopey newcomer who causes problems,” complete with campy dialogue. Ahsoka is clearly not supposed to be an idiot, but when she sets off a bunch of proximity alarms that even a blind man could’ve avoided…it’s eye-rollingly bad.

Another problem is the usual “prequel paradox,” as I call it. This a problem with many franchises that make prequels, but Star Wars takes it to new extremes. The prequel paradox is when important characters or events are introduced in a prequel, but we’ve never heard even a passing mention of them before in the original media. (For example, the NX-01 in Star Trek: Enterprise.) In Clone Wars’ case, the paradox is Ahsoka: she’s never been mentioned in Revenge of the Sith, the original trilogy, or anywhere else. Logically, we would assume that she likely gets killed during the war or the subsequent Great Jedi Purge. However, I’ve got a feeling that since Ahsoka is the newcomer that kids are supposed to relate to (not to mention the face of much of the Clone Wars advertising), she’ll survive, and somehow be retconned into the rest of Star Wars media from now on.

On a more random note…what the fuck was up with Homo Ziro the Hutt? Holy shit, I haven’t seen a character that flamboyant since The Birdcage. I can’t help but wonder how many uncomfortable family dinnertime conversations that gave rise to.

While we’re on the subject of the Hutts, the film mangles a longstanding confusion about them. Most people think that the Hutts are a crime clan, when in reality, Hutts are the species, not the clan name. Longtime Star Wars fans know the difference, but casual fans and newcomers understandably may not. Clone Wars makes it even more confusing by referring to the Hutts as both during the course of the film, bouncing back and forth between the two. How the hell did the writers miss that?

Furthermore, Jabba has always been a fan favorite; he was a powerful gangster, a total asshole, and he put Princess Leia in that legendary gold bikini. Clone Wars reveals that Jabba had a son named Rotta. That’s not a problem. The fact that he calls his son “Punky Muffin” most certainly is. What badass crimelord would think up something so inherently stupid? Damn it, George Lucas, leave Jabba alone; you already ruined Darth Vader by making him a whiny bitch.

Alright, enough venting. Let me wrap this up. I suppose if you were a seven- or eight-year-old kid, you might enjoy the Clone Wars film. Instead, if you need to get your Clone Wars cartoon fix, I suggest you check out the original Tartakovsky work.

Happy Labor Day! If you don’t have the day off from work…go home. You should be relaxing, not working.

And now, it’s time to gripe about food. Or, more accurately, drink. During my lunch breaks, I often buy a 20oz bottle of soda on the way back to the office. A favorite of mine is Coke Zero; I don’t drink regular sodas, as they’re horrendously bad for you. Diet’s usually the only option, and while Diet Coke doesn’t taste too good, Coke Zero tastes fantastic. But here’s the rub: 20oz sodas around here come to $1.63 (after tax and deposit), which is pretty fucking stupid. What really gets my goat is that you can usually buy 2-liter bottles for about a dollar! I can’t comprehend the logic behind that pricing scheme at all. The 2-liter bottles obviously use more plastic, and contain more product, so they’re more expensive to produce. Therefore, one would assume that Coca-Cola would want to recoup more of that cost by charging more.

My conclusion? The higher price for the 20oz bottle is nothing but a convenience fee. Most people aren’t going to tank two liters of soda while sitting at their desk. (It’s a bladder adventure you do not want take part in.) But still, cut us some slack for not wanting to imbibe two full liters; we’re still drinking more than a 12oz can, so we shouldn’t be getting screwed out of nearly a buck seventy-five.