“My constellation is THAC0. Get it?”

Much ado has been made about the impending fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons. (“5th Edition” is not its official name as of yet; the project’s codename is “D&D Next.”) Aside from the expected rules changes, what’s really notable about this is that publisher Wizards of the Coast is crowdsourcing this edition of D&D. They’re attempting to take into account the various ups and downs players have experienced over the past few decades, especially the outrage over rule changes in the 3rd and 4th Editions. Using all of this fan-supplied information and a series of special playtests, their aim is to create a new, definitive form of D&D that’ll unite the warring camps and also bring in a lot more new players.

I can certainly understand longtime fans’ anger at major rules changes, especially the rapid ones during the 2000s. Aside from often throwing rules and strategies you were long familiar and comfortable with out the window, these changes meant your sourcebooks and stuff were now out of date and needed to be replaced. Sure, you didn’t have to go out and buy all of the new material, but you could usually forget about new products supporting the previous system. That’s a big problem, especially for gamers who’ve invested a lot of time and money into D&D. There’s a lot of players who simply quit playing, or moved on to more popular RPGs like Pathfinder.

As to how the D&D rule changes affected me personally, I had it a bit easier than most. I played a lot of D&D as a kid, but then fell out of the game for about twenty years. The reissued red box rekindled my interest in Dungeons & Dragons about a year ago. The game I’m currently playing in (as a tiefling wizard) is using 4th Edition rules and characters derived from the Essentials books. There’s a few players in our group who are new the game, and in my case, someone who hadn’t played in nearly two decades. As such, I wanted to start on the ground floor along with everyone else. I barely remembered the rules from Advanced D&D 2nd Edition (when I last played), so I didn’t mind the heavy revisions in 4th Edition.

Not only that, 4th Edition and its Essentials companion line made it easier for newbies and more advanced players to cooperate in the same game. That seems to be the modus operandi in Next, albeit to a much larger degree. Wizards of the Coast have implied that fans of rulesets as far back as 1st Edition will be able to comfortably play side-by-side with adherents of later versions, like 3rd Edition. That’s a pretty big gap in terms of playing styles.

All of this is a ways off, of course. If Next comes out in late 2013, for example, that’s certainly better than the ridiculous three-year span between 3rd Edition and its update, 3.5. But it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see this new version hit shelves in 2014. All of the playtests and feedback required for a project of this magnitude will result in a long period of quality control, but if the end result is a superior product, then I have no problem waiting.

My current game will not be “upgrading” to Next when it comes out, to the best of my knowledge; our DM has a tremendous wealth of 4th Edition material which should keep us incredibly busy for years to come. I haven’t invested as heavily in 4th Edition as most players, but I’ve still purchased a considerable number of books and accessories in order to play and enhance the game. If moving to Next requires a complete overhaul of my D&D library just to play, I will not be pleased. Comments from Wizards of the Coast seem to indicate that this will not be the case, but we won’t know for sure until Next is released.

In the meantime, hopefully I can gain access to some of the playtests. My local hobby shop will almost certainly host a few Next Encounters games, too. Time will tell, but I think that Next could be just the shot in the arm that D&D needs.

(Now if only they’d bring back Dragonlance…)

Believe it or not, I never owned any of the famed Nintendo Game & Watch series; my cousin had Balloon Fight, but playing that was about as far as I got. The LCD games I owned were all made by Tiger Electronics. I started with generic fare like Baseball and Bowling before moving into adaptations of popular console games, but I played the hell out of ‘em all the same. A few of my friends in elementary school had LCD games, too, so we’d often play them during lunch or recess, passing the games around so everyone could try them. The games were tough as nails, and more focused on pattern memorization than any real gameplay. While the other kids laughed at me and went home to play Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest on their NES, at least I had the LCD version to amuse me.

I owned a few others: Double Dragon, Gauntlet, and Karate King come to mind. Moving beyond the Tiger sphere, my brother had a few Acclaim and Konami LCD games, like NARC, Gradius, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Basketball (yeah, you read that right). But of course, my favorite LCD game should come as no surprise:

(photo from The Mechanical Maniacs)

And look, it even features the same crappy US boxart from the NES game! Sure, it sucked in comparison to the original Mega Man 2, but it was the only way at the time I could get my Mega Man fix whenever I wanted. Surprisingly enough, I never had the Mega Man 3 LCD game back then, which is a shame since the NES original remains my favorite video game of all time.

By the late 1990s, LCD games had dropped in popularity like a stone, since the Game Boy was cheap and games for it were plentiful. LCD games are still around, but most of them are far worse than you could imagine. They’re little more than shitty cash grabs found in the impulse buy sections of big-box retailers. The big exception to this rule, however, is in the board and puzzle game genres. Games like chess or sudoku are very hard to screw up, as the rules really haven’t changed; program them in, and you’re good to go.

I lost my collection of LCD games long ago, much to my annoyance. I poke around on eBay from time to time trying to find a deal on some of my old favorites, and I’ve managed to score worn copies of Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest, Mega Man 2, and (finally) Mega Man 3. They’re often missing the battery door, but that’s an easy fix: I just bought some non-licensed Tiger games for a few bucks, and Frankensteined ‘em for spare parts.

In the early 2000s, I did manage to find a few of Nelsonic‘s old Nintendo wristwatch LCD games, like Zelda and Super Mario Bros. Surprisingly enough, they were rather cheap, and still in the boxes! (No, they weren’t knockoffs. I checked.) Their appeal didn’t last long, but they were still a cool novelty. I ended up trading them away for some other game, I’m sure. They just didn’t grab me the way the Tiger games did, despite the awesome Nintendo characters. (The tiny controls on a wristwatch didn’t help, either.)

With the underground popularity of “demakes” like Halo 2600 and Super Smash Land, I think the time is ripe for LCD adaptations of more popular games. C’mon, who wouldn’t want to play an LCD Portal or Uncharted?

About twice a month, I play in a Dungeons & Dragons campaign with a group of my friends. We have a party of seven, which is a bit large for most adventures, but our Dungeon Master is skilled at amping up the challenges accordingly.

Anyway, my character is a tiefling wizard. The tiefling race offers some intriguing storytelling possiblities, and as for the magic-user vocation, my choice of that class was twofold. One, I’ve never played a wizard before; In the past, I played thieves and occasionally a paladin. Secondly, when my current game started, the group already had a thief, two fighters, a ranger, and a cleric. (A paladin joined us two months ago.) They definitely needed some magic-based support.

My character and our party’s ranger tend to stay out of the melee and fire off attacks targeting multiple foes or causing area effects. This is all well and good, and I’ve managed to annoy quite a few enemies this way, but the amount of damage I actually inflict is trivial.

You see, much of a wizard’s life consists of waiting around to grow more powerful. I’m currently at level four.) This is not a knock against our DM, nor the adventures we’re playing in; this is common drawback to all magic-users. While wizards start out with the ability to target more than one foe at once, it comes at the cost of barely scratching them.

Other party members are routinely dealing out over twenty points of damage; I’m lucky if I can break ten. I do have a few more powerful spells, but they’re all dailies; that means I can only use them once per day in-game. If we’re exploring a dungeon and I use a daily power early on, I can’t use it again until we’re finished with the entire area. (Camping out in a creepy dungeon is not wise.)

My area-effect spells are becoming more useful as enemies go stronger, since my attack powers aren’t nearly as effective. I’ve convinced enemies to attack on another, confused them, and even immobilized them. That makes them easy pickings for our fighters, so I’m least I’m helpful in that regard. Otherwise, I’ll just have to settle for hiding in the shadows, plinking enemies with ice shards and electric shocks.

At least until I hit level five. Then I can finally cast Fireball.

But I digress. Today’s spotlight is on Kirby’s Dream Course. Fellow blogger Mister Raroo has been waxing ecstatic about the latest two games, Kirby Mass Attack and Kirby’s Return to Dream Land, and it reminded me of one of my favorite games in the series. I’ve been a Kirby fan since day one, and it’s unacceptable that Kirby’s Dream Course never made it past a single installment.

Nintendo’s Kirby series is quite long lived, with new titles still coming out on a regular basis. While most Kirby games are simple platformers, the little pink puffball has often ventured outside his comfort zone to try out other game genres such as racing, fighting, pinball, and even golf.

That last genre is where Kirby’s Dream Course comes in. Released in 1995 for the Super NES, the game placed Kirby into the role of a golf ball. Kirby’s Dream Course played like strange cross between traditional golf and miniature golf; the object was to get Kirby into the cup, of course, but in order to do that, he needed to defeat every enemy onscreen first. Players had control of Kirby’s speed, spin, shot type, and other traits, and defeating enemies earned Kirby his famous copy abilities.

With eight courses, and eight holes per course, there was plenty of content to be had. The single-player game was fun enough, but Kirby’s Dream Course really excels in its two-player mode. As you might expect, here you can challenge a friend to the game’s numerous courses. Here, not only can you gain abilities and try to defeat enemies faster than your opponent, but you can also steal their thunder!

So why the hell haven’t we seen a sequel for any subsequent Nintendo console? A new, four-player Kirby’s Dream Course would’ve been a fantastic upgrade. Even a portable version would kick some ass; the Game Boy Advance and DS would have been a good home. On the Wii or 3DS, it would be even better due to the online capability; in this always-connected age, an online Kirby’s Dream Course would be, well, a dream come true.

I give a lot of credit to Nintendo and developer HAL Laboratories for continuing to evolve the Kirby series across many different genres. But in this case, we definitely need to put Kirby back on the golf course. In the meantime, if you’ve got a Wii, you can nab Kirby’s Dream Course on the Virtual Console. It’s a purchase you won’t regret.

In this era of copycat FPS games, quick-buck mobile titles, and violent action-shooters, Japanese role-playing games (JRPGs) have taken quite a tumble. They’re still rather prevalent in their homeland, but not so much stateside.

I grew up on such console RPG heavyweights as Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, and later moved on to sixteen-bit fare like Breath of Fire and the masterpiece that is Chrono Trigger. When Final Fantasy VII came out, the JRPG genre really exploded over here, and while there were plenty of shitty games, there was a flood of great ones to play.

Not so nowadays. JRPG releases are few and far between, it seems, when it comes to Western territories; localization of JRPGs has slowed down considerably. There still seems to be a fair amount of them on handheld systems, but with the Nintendo 3DS not meeting its sales expectations, things may change. (Perhaps the PlayStation Vita will have better luck?)

Since JRPGs don’t sell as well over here anymore, we’re lucky if and when we get them. It really sucks when we get the first part a great series, then get shafted on later games that continue the story. For example, we’re not getting Valkyria Chronicles III, even though we got the first two games in the series.

So why have JRPGs have lost some steam? I’ve got my own theories.

Some gamers are tired of the clichés. For example, many JRPGs feature a silent protagonist who is thrust into a grand adventure and must save the world. Often, the games feature anime-styled character designs, which makes sense considering their pedigree. Finally, turn-based battles were the standard for quite some time, as it was easier for early consoles to process.

Those are the “big three” clichés when it comes to JRPGs. Grumbling about them is fair enough, but many forget that those clichés are often what make JRPGs fun to play. (I hear a lot of complaints about JRPG clichés coming from hardcore FPS fans. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.) It also may be part of a broader push against Japanese games in general.

Quality JRPGs are getting harder and harder to find as time goes on; I don’t think the genre will ever die out, but it’s not the vast field of excellent gaming that it used to be. When it comes at the cost of mobile game quick fixes and mindless action titles, it’s just depressing.

As with its contemporaries, the NEC TurboGrafx-16 and the Sega Genesis, the SNES was yet another system I did not own myself during its heyday. That didn’t stop me from playing the hell out of it over friends’ houses, of course. I was a huge NES fan growing up, and seeing my favorite series (like Mega Man, Mario, Castlevania, and Metroid) all making the jump into glorious 16-bit was a dream come true. (And let’s not forget Mode 7…)

Some of the greatest games of all time made their debut on the SNES. Super Metroid. Final Fantasy VI (released here as III). The start of the Mega Man X series. Chrono Trigger. I could go on and on. All of these titles still hold their own today, and that’s a rare feat, indeed; there’s PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 games that don’t hold up well even a few years after their release!

Another big deal was stereo sound. The TG16 and Genesis still had mono sound output, but the SNES made use of the dual sound channels as best it could. The sounds some games coaxed out of that system put many of today’s titles to shame! I maintain that the SNES had the best sound chip ever designed for a video game system: the S-SMP. (I also maintain that the chip is the finest piece of hardware ever made by Sony, even above the Walkman.)

Last but not least…the SNES controller set the standard for years to come. Four face buttons and shoulder triggers was a huge deal back then, but the arrangement was so perfect that even modern consoles still use the same setup with only slight variations. I also appreciated the controller’s wider design and curved edges; I’ve got large hands, so it made things much more comfortable during long play sessions. (Especially during the fighting game era; we all blistered our thumbs when Street Fighter II hit the SNES.)

Like a fine wine, the SNES has only improved with age. If you’re one of those young whippersnappers who only knows Call of Duty or Rock Band, get your ass to the pawn shop and try some Super Metroid. Then you’ll learn just how great games can be.

(On a related note, there’s so much shit celebrating twentieth, twenty-fifth, and thirtieth anniversaries in the next year that I just can’t keep up. So I think I’m going to pass on writing about most of them, and just select a few really important ones.)

Unfortunately, they’re often really fucking expensive.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like you’re forced to pay $50+ for a shitty product. Games like Memoir ’44 are very high quality, and worth every penny. Still, the upfront costs can be quite a barrier to entry, even with games that use cardboard tokens instead of more durable plastic units (I vastly prefer the latter). Larger games like Tide of Iron run close to $100! And when it comes to expansions, those often cost just as much — if not more — than the core game itself!

This becomes even more of an issue when others are not interested in playing the games; then, you’ve wasted a good chunk of change on a box that’ll gather dust on your shelf.

Case and point: one of my favorite wargames is Axis & Allies Miniatures, especially the War at Sea naval version, which I played often at my local hobby shop for about a year or two after the game’s release. I bitched about the pricing structure of the game a few years ago, and it’s only gotten worse. Both the land-based game and War at Sea booster packs retail at $14.99 each now. You’re only getting five miniatures per box (which works out to a ridiculous $3 a pop), only one of which is a rare unit. I imagine the upcoming Air Force game will be even worse, though I’ll end up buying some anyway since I’m a sucker for WWII aircraft. Even though you can easily get the boosters for $9-10 each from online retailers, their worth is still questionable, especially since collectible games require a significant up-front and continuing investment.

Not only is it a big investment for myself, but also for anyone else who’d want to play, and the number of my friends who are into collectible games is a big fat zero. At the end of the day, the high price and lack of others’ interest killed Axis & Allies Miniatures for me. I don’t hold others’ apathy against them, of course. If I could find some good single-player scenarios, I’d be happy, but my efforts have thus far proven fruitless.

I should also point out that I’m three expansion sets behind on War at Sea, and five expansions behind on the land version of Axis & Allies Miniatures. That’s nearly two hundred units I’m missing from the specific forces I was building — over seventy of which are from War at Sea alone — so there’s no financially feasable way I could catch up. I may just pick up some of the little ships for collection purposes rather than gaming.

Moving on to other wargames, we’ve got the same problems. 99.9% of them are designed for two or more players, for obvious reasons. Aside from finding people who are actually interested in the subject matter, I do understand that time is also a consideration, as many wargames take hours to play a single game. I’ve run a few games of the original Axis & Allies, and that can take over an hour just to set up!

I’ve recently discovered that solitaire wargames actually do exist. They’re designed that way from the ground up rather than being poorly “hacked” versions of existing multiplayer games. As such, they’re really beginning to appeal to me. The Field Commander series in particular seems to be right up my alley, with games focusing on the exploits of such legendary military leaders such as Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Erwin Rommel. I ordered a copy of that last game, and I’m looking forward to giving it a whirl. (And no, I’m not a Nazi apologist.) If I dig it, ordering the other games in the series sounds like a no-brainer if I can find ‘em for a good price. And if I can find a solitaire naval wargame, I’d be happy as a pig in shit.

Getting my wargame fix without breaking the bank is a difficult challenge, but I’ve found one possible outlet: there’s an online version of Memoir ’44 now. I’m not big on online gaming, especially the pay-for-play type, but this seems like a pretty good deal. Since you can play for free for a few hours before deciding if you want to lay down cash, I guess I really can’t complain too much; it’s worth trying out, at least, and it would certainly solve the problem of finding other wargame players. I just prefer tactile pieces to a glowing screen, ya know?

Make no mistake; this is the way media is moving forward, and we are powerless to stop it. Unfortunately, it also really sucks. You know me; I’m a fervent proponent of physical ownership over intangible licensing. But the cloud model actually takes things an ominous step further.

With most digital distribution models, you pay to download the content, which may or may not have usage restrictions via DRM. If whoever you purchased it from decides not to offer that content anymore, or worse, closes up shop, you at least have your downloaded copy to enjoy.

Not so with the cloud model. Now, you’re not even paying for the content itself; you’re just paying for access to that content. Which means that whoever’s hosting your library can remove content at their whim. And if they go out of business? Your media is now gone, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

A split between the two models would be best; Amazon’s recently-launched Cloud Player works this way. You can stream stuff all day and night, but it lets you upload your own files and download files purchased through Amazon. Now you can have backups of all of your stuff, and still enjoy it on the go from any Internet-enabled device. (Apple will be launching something similar as part of iTunes.) That kind of setup I don’t have a problem with, and I can only hope it becomes the standard. The only downside is that you have to pay a lot more if you’ve got a large media library, and many of us do.

I know physical media’s on its way out in favor of content providers having much greater control and telling you exactly what you can do with your media, but damn it, I’m going to hold out as long as I can. Hey, if vinyl LPs are still around, I think my CD collection will be safe for quite sometime.

For further reading on this topic, especially as it relates to music, check out the following two pieces by Vince Neilstein over at MetalSucks:

• Amazon Beats Apple and Google to the Cloud, Launches “Cloud Player” Music Streaming Service

• Amazon Cloud Player to Record Labels: “Fuck Off!”

I’d also suggest that you read the comments on those pieces. Aside from the usual Internet flamebait and trolling, there some interesting discussion happening there.

Few of my friends were into D&D, but you didn’t need a large group to play. Many of my games were just me and one other person…aside from the Dungeon Master (DM), of course. My last big experience with D&D was a group of us playing in seventh or eighth grade; we had a party of five or six, I think. (I’m trying to remember this shit as best I can.) The game went well for many months, but then things went off the rails, at least in my case. In yet another stunning example of my “friends” being two-faced, I had to attend a family gathering one weekend and miss a play session. So, the rest of my group informed me when I got back that they had killed my character, looted his corpse, and that I would not be welcome to join them again. Dicks. That was really the final straw, and as I moved on to high school and college, I had other things to occupy my time. For my RPG fix, I stuck with video games like the Eye of the Beholder and Dragon Quest series.

So where am I going with all of this? The fact remains that I have not sat down and played D&D proper since the early 1990s, much as I would have liked to. However, I recently came across a new product that D&D publisher Wizards of the Coast has released. The official title is the Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Roleplaying Game Starter Set, but I immediately recognized it as a new version of the classic red box.

The return of the king.

See, the red box is how the basic D&D set was packaged back in the 1980s. The iconic logotype and Larry Elmore cover art is permanently carved into many a fan’s mind; I remember the ads for the set appearing on the back of comic books. Adventure modules and other products were also packaged in similar red boxes along with other colors, so again, this design is a big part of D&D history.

I never had the red box growing up, though I always wanted it. The first complete D&D product I actually owned was The New Easy to Master Dungeons & Dragons Game. Prior to receiving that boxset for Christmas one year, all I had was character sheets and dice. That’s right, I didn’t even own the Player’s Handbook. Pretty sad, huh? Hey, when you’re a kid functioning on an extremely limited allowance, those expensive sourcebooks were constantly out of reach. Fortunately, my friends and I just passed ‘em around during gaming sessions.

Even though I was originally introduced to D&D with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (as that’s what my friends had), I enjoyed the basic set’s simplified version of the rules as it enabled me to play games faster. The only time I functioned as a DM was when I created some basic adventures for my younger brother in order to teach him the game. He favored paladins, which I don’t even think were included in the basic game; I just used my knowledge of the advanced rules to shoehorn them in. At any rate, it made for some interesting battles. I wish I still had that damned boxset, but who the hell knows where the sands of time have taken it.

Sorry, I was rambling again. The point is that the new red box has rekindled my interest in D&D, and I was able to score one at nearly half off of its $19.99 MSRP. (Gotta love abusing bookstore coupons.) Aside from the 1980s nostalgia factor, it also brings back memories of the previous boxset I had due to the scaled-down rules and quests. The solo adventure in there reminded me of a the old Choose Your Own Adventure books, albeit with dice and whatnot. Weird, but that’s a smart way to set things up for new players, I suppose. I’ve been out of the game so long that I qualify as a newbie, so it’s very useful to me, regardless. I have heard that once the few adventures inside the new red box are used up, the product is practically useless. Still, it’s not a total waste if it helps get me back into the game.

I’m well aware that it’s going to be difficult and annoying to find a campaign, but I’m going to redouble my efforts this time. A few of my past concerns have been partially addressed, such as the time constraints. The D&D Encounters program may solve that problem. The setup is absolutely perfect for my needs; it’s an hour or two of gaming a week, structured around enemy encounters. That would neatly fit my schedule…if, of course, there’s any nearby retailers that participate. One of my local shops used to run Encounters, but the DM had to give it up due to his work schedule. Perhaps I could convince someone else to replace him?

I’ll also attempt to strongarm a few victims suckers friends into trying it out. Maybe some of the folks I used to play card games way back when would be interested. If that fails, I’ll bite the bullet and scour the Internet to find local players. Hopefully there won’t be too many stereotypical unwashed basement-dwellers, but I’ve found that as with many hobbies, they’re the exception rather than the rule. I’ve heard that many players run campaigns online, using Skype or similar programs to communicate in realtime. That’s certainly an option, but I’d much rather get out of the house and play face-to-face with others. Still, playing online is definitely better than not playing at all.

Aside from finding other players, I also need to make sure they’re willing to teach new players; namely, me. I’ve read up on the current rules via the red box and a borrowed Player’s Handbook, but D&D is a game where it’s much more effective to learn by doing. Patience and nerds often do not mix, but I can’t help but try. Last but not least, I’d prefer to stay within my own age group. No offense, but I’m not going to hang around a bunch of damned kids.

I know I’ll get made fun of for this. But to be perfectly honest, I don’t give a shit about the social stigma attached to D&D anymore. I’m a grown man, so others’ opinions of my leisure activities rank somewhere on page eighty-six of The Book of Important Things in Life, between “Comparing the Shape of Your Feces to Famous People” and “Measuring Blades of Grass for Fun.” Since most of my interests are ones not shared with others anyway, it’s not like this is anything new for me. There’s going to be a bumpy road ahead on my way back into this whole D&D thing, but perhaps my perseverance will pay off this time. And if it doesn’t work? No harm done. I’ll just find something else to do and move on, as always.

Anyone want to join me?

I don’t understand it. Most of the “complaints” come from the diehard Xbox Live crowd, as a way to denigrate the rival PSN service. (2006 called, and it wants its console wars back.) The concept is rather self-explanatory: cross-game chat lets you talk with players in one game, while you (or others) are playing another. So if you’re playing Halo 3, you could yap with a friend playing Mass Effect 2, for example.

Still, there’s a few PlayStation 3 owners who whine about cross-game chat, as well, and I just don’t get it. Why would you want to talk to someone playing a different game than you? I can certainly see the use in talking to someone in the same game, especially in first-person shooters where you’re part of a team. But different games? Shouldn’t you be focusing on the game you’re playing? If you need to talk to others, then obviously, your game isn’t holding your attention…so why are you even bothering to play it in the first place? It’s clearly not that good. Or perhaps this is yet another example of our increasingly media-saturated culture, where people simply cannot focus on one thing. Either way, it’s fucking sad.

Focus, people…focus!