Shadow of Mordor - Live Action "Trailer"

The live action "trailer" of Shadow of Mordor isn't actually a trailer at all. It's a privately made short film based off of the Shadow of Mordor by Corridor Digital. It's a relatively impressive 7 minute action film centered around what appears to be the main character from the video game of the same name.

Filmed in Utah, the setting gives the viewer the similar visual stimulation that the game does, at least from the open world concept. The acting is as good as it gets when it comes to orcs, and the human protagonist doesn't have much dialog or acting in general. All in all, it seems like a good 3rd party advertisement for the upcoming video game (whether the advertising was accidental or not).

Dragons Trove: Munchkin

    A game of myth and legend, warriors and wizards rule the land, ancient dragons scour the skies, burning villages and taking their valuables, evil necromancers plot to take over kingdoms…..wait, wait, wait! That’s not this game. This game isn’t about role playing and experience points and all that nonsense. This game is about kicking down the doors, slaying the monsters and taking their treasure. It’s about helping your friend out of a jam, only to stab her in the back when it looks like she will win later on. This is

    The premise behind Munchkin is simple enough. Reach Level 10 before everyone else and win the game. How do you reach Level 10? Why, by defeating monsters of course. Now there is a lot of stuff that will happen in-between 1^st Level and 10^th Level. Curses, defeat at the hands of monsters, friends backstabbing each other, and relationships being broken.
    Munchkin is a card game that comes with two decks, Doors and Treasures. The doors contain the monsters, races, classes and curses that the players will encounter. The treasure deck contains all the different kind of weapons and treasures (duh) that the players will use in the game.

    You begin the game as a Level 1 Human with no class (I never get tired of that joke). As you draw cards you will come across various cards that will give you different races and classes. You could draw an Elf card which gives you a +1 to running away (more on that later) and it also gives you the ability to go up 1 Level for every monster that you help SOMEONE ELSE kill. You could draw a Warrior which gives you the ability of Berserking, which allows you to discard up to 3 cards in combat and you gain +1 to combat for every card discarded. 

A typical round goes a little something like this. 

    Draw a door card: Is it a monster? You could get a Level 18 Squidzilla or a Level 1 Drooling Slime. How do you fight? Well, you add up all your current Levels with all the equipment that you have that is in play (that is, sitting in front of you and not in your hand). You could have a +1 Leather Armor (complete with an image of a busty female adventurer wearing a dominatrix style leather outfit), a +2 Singing and Dancing Sword (not usable by a Thief) and a +2 Sneaky Bastard Sword. If you were Level 3 for instance, that would be a total bonus of 8 (3 for Level + 1 for Armor +2 for Singing and Dancing Sword +2 for Sneaky Bastard Sword = 8). So if you were fighting, for instance, the Level 6 Shrieking Geek, you would win that battle (you have to have total bonuses greater than the level of the monster), and go up a level. If you were facing the all powerful Level 20 Plutonium Dragon, you would not be able to defeat this monster and would instead have to try and run away or suffer “BAD STUFF”. 

If you were facing a monster that you could not beat, you could always ask for help. This comes with conditions of course. The person who volunteers to help may want half of the treasure that you would normally get for defeating a certain kind of monster. She may want ALL of the treasure. How badly do you want to defeat this monster and how bad is the BAD STUFF that happens if you fail to defeat the monster? These are all questions that you have to ask yourself.
Now here is where friendships are broken and husbands end up sleeping on the couch. You have just totaled all your bonuses, you have struck a deal with a fellow player to help you and you're ready to strike the final blow, but wait, what’s this? Another player throws down a Flaming Poison Potion which adds +3 to either side, and guess what, he adds it to the monster. Why would he do this to you? He does not want you to go up a level and get closer to winning the game that’s why. This bonus takes you just outside of killing the monster and now you must try and run away or suffer BAD STUFF.   
If you are able to defeat the monster (with no hassle from other players), you collect your treasure (making sure you honor any deals you may have had with other players) and go up a Level. Your turn is now over.

Was the drawn card NOT a monster? Well then the card goes into your hand and you can either LOOK FOR TROUBLE or search the room. If you Look For Trouble, you can play a monster card that you may have in your hand and fight it. Now make sure you don’t play a monster that you can’t kill (somebody else may take care of that for you tee-hee-hee). If you don’t want to Look For Trouble, you can just search the room, which simply means that you take another door card (face down so other players cant see) and put it into your hand.  Your turn is now over.

    
    
    The game creates memorable moments that will be talked about for gaming sessions to come. A few days back, my gaming group and I were sitting down to a nice friendly game of Munchkin (is there really such a thing). It was early in the game when I came upon a monster that I could just barely beat. Earlier, I had insulted my wife (in game of course) and she decided to take her revenge on me. She played a bonus on the monster against me, and for good measure, her brother played another bonus against me taking me WAY outside the realm of possibly defeating the monster. There were a lot of insults and curse words thrown around that night. In the end, I got my revenge however when I went on a streak of defeating monsters and playing rare cards that allowed me to go up Levels and I ended up winning the game (+1 bragging rights).
Munchkin has almost infinite replayability to it. Not only is every game that you play new and unique, there is over a dozen expansion packs available. Everything from Munchkin Zombie to Munchkin Bites (horror themed) to Munchkin Cthuhlu (any H.P. Lovecraft fans will love this one). They even have ones based on the popular web show by everyone’s geek crush Felicia Day, The Guild, to a game based on Robert R. Howards Conan The Barbarian. Whatever your taste, there is a Munchkin for you. Star Munchkin, Munchkin Fu, Super Munchkin and the best part is, you can actually mix all these sets together! You can become a Zombie Cleric (now there is a strange combination) by mixing classic Munchkin and Munchkin Zombies. It holds infinite possibilities for your gaming pleasure. 

So if you’re looking for a no frills night of gaming, with simple rules that leads to a lot fun and laughter, then Munchkin is the game for you. I highly recommend this game to you guys and I give it 5 out of 5 Munchkin Heads (that means it’s good).

Until next time fellow gamers, keep on geeking on!

Dragons Trove: Dungeons and Dragons Clue

Hello everyone and welcome to another addition of Dragons Trove. Now I love table top gaming, and I’m always on the lookout for something truly weird and out there. Today I will be talking about a mash up that none of us every saw coming, makes no sense at all, but looks really cool none the less. That game is Dungeons & Dragons Clue by ThinkGeek.com (which is one of my favorite websites to visit by the way).

Now the original Clue is outlawed in my house. Why you ask? Well because my beautiful wife can win a game of Clue in just a few rounds that’s why. Are her deductive skills outside the realms of normal human being? Or is she just a really good guesser? I don’t know, I’ve never been able to figure it out myself. I do have an electronic Clue game that makes it a little more difficult for her to figure it out so quickly and I’ve actually won a few games playing that one.

Dungeons and Dragons Clue really got my attention because, despite never being able to win a game of Clue, it’s one of my favorite traditional board games from my youth. I loved feeling like Sherlock Holmes, deducing who did it, with what weapon and where. I’m also an avid Dungeons and Dragons fan, though I have not been able to get a steady group together for years.

Here is the blurb about D&D Clue from the Think Geek website:

TORDEK IN THE DRAGON'S LAIR WITH THE FLAMING BATTLE

AXE. It's a dark night, when the group assembled at the Archmage's castle. What started as a wonderful dinner party has turned into a ghastly scene. The Archmage has been murdered (by a doppelganger, no less). The doppelganger hides amongst the group hoping to escape, but it didn't count on two things. First, the castle is magically sealed until the murderer is caught. And second: you're on the case! So it goes, with Dungeons & Dragons Clue. Dungeons & Dragons Clue plays just like classic Clue, but with a whole heap of D&D crammed into it. Gone are the basic playing pieces and standard weapons. They've been replaced with all new metal pieces: 6 player characters and 6 wicked weapons. The board's been overhauled, too. Oh, and then there are the Monster Cards. Those cards will shake up game play even more. Get your cloak on, light the candles, and get ready to find the Archmage's killer in the awesome Dungeons & Dragons Clue.  Monster cards? In Clue? Yep, you read that right. That’s just one of the many things that have me excited about. Just look at the cool pieces that come with the game. Heck you could take the miniatures and easily use them for your D&D game.

 This looks like a game I can get a lot of fun out of. I really want to know how the Monster Cards change up the classic Clue game play and what other D&D tropes make its way into the classic board game. There is a reason why this is in the Number 1 spot on my Board Game Amazon Wish List. So if there is anybody out there that wants to get me a little gift.......

So that’s Dungeons & Dragons Clue in a nutshell folks. If you have any question or you want to know more you can always email me a rnigro1020@gmail.com or head over to http://www.thinkgeek.com itself and have a look around. Keep gaming my friends. 

Risk: Walking Dead Survival Edition

First thing’s first… This is the meanest board game I have ever played. Do not play this if you have anger problems as there are Non-playable characters that will ruin your day. Ruin it! Yes, you read that right. There are NPCs in this board game. Evil, brooding NPCs will turn your sure victory into an un-fun slaughter. Secondly, this game takes hardly any time in comparison to the original Risk: maybe 2-1/2 hours. Third, I’ve only played this game twice, and the first time, after it was over, we realized we had been playing it incorrectly in a way that screwed me over. Day ruined. Ruined!

Risk: Walking Dead starts like a standard game of Risk, only the NPCs (Walkers) get placed first. Cards are drawn randomly to show where their pieces get placed, and everyone else posts up in the open territories on the board. Simple enough. Then, more Walkers spawn, and sometimes they spawn in territory you possess. When this happens, you have to fight them off, Risk style. Sometimes you win. When this happens you get to keep the territory you call yours, minus whatever pieces you lost in battle. Sometimes you lose, costing you the territory. Ruined it!

At the beginning, if you have any Risk background, the board looks easily conquerable. That is, until the end of the first round comes and you realize you’re missing half of your original pieces yet you haven’t even attacked one of your actual opponents. This is the point where you cuss the board out for deceiving you. Then, for the next few rounds, more Walkers spawn at even more locations, making it nearly impossible to move on. It’s extremely hard to fight forward when you have to keep turning around to fight backwards. This game plays nothing like the original. It shouldn’t take you very many turns to realize your “opponents” aren’t your actual opponents. Your little brother sitting across the table, who swore to destroy in under five turns, now hangs his head solemnly. Out of the four of you playing, only one of you is not unhappy. And don’t worry, the game will change that for him too. Ruin it!

The game also ends semi-randomly. It doesn’t conclude with the total annihilation of your enemies. That’s seriously impossible in this game. There’s an Event Card that gets drawn somewhere between the 5th and the 10th turn. When that card gets drawn, whatever turn you are on is your last one. Now, instead of slapping your way through the hoards of zombies, you quickly realize the only way to score enough points is to destroy your neighbor. The same neighbor that helped you defend your territories when Walkers were walking over you will now look at you like a backstabbing traitor as you slowly roll over his one piece territories as if he was nothing. Even victory doesn’t feel like victory. Because it’s not. To win this game you have to be the least losing player.

Other than the inevitable lack of trust you’ll earn by playing this game, and the probable PTSD, it’s a great game. It’s coming on every camping trip I take for the rest of my life, strictly because it takes so much less time than it’s Original or Star Wars counterparts. I’ll give this game Four out of Five stars for gameplay, Five out of Five stars for making my little brother cry.

Destiny Beta

   

     What can I not say about Bungie's new meticulously thought out Fiesta en mis pantalones! Bungie is reaching out to every platform this time, from PS3 to XBox One. Destiny has the promise of not only keeping the franchise alive but showing that they can do something other than Halo and be good at it! The Beta only let you go up to level 8 but every minute that you were stuck in Russia was an amazing time, whether you were doing story missions or just utilizing the free world time. There was always someone else around to help or be helped.

     The character creation was one of my favorite points. For a console "MMO" this actually had quite a bit of options, not as many as an Elder Scrolls game, bust a lot none-the-less. After playing around with the character creation for a time you got to head into the game.

     The scene starts off with a "Ghost" finding you and bringing you back to life, as a Guardian. You are being chased by the Fallen, a group of creatures that looks a bit like alien scavangers. Once you escape their grasp you have to find a ship to get you to The Tower.

     The Tower is a safe meeting place for all players. It is a place that has shops and class masters so that you can obtain items that are meant for you character, though, like in Borderlands, you usually get better weapons by completing harder missions and joining public events. Once you costumize your character to your liking it's time to head back out to the unknown.

     Though it was just beta, there was still a lot of content for this console MMO. The special event and missions that were playable one day only on the moon showed the capatacity of Destiny. On launch there will be multiple planets you can fly to at anytime to do any missions, or roam around and help others out. As always with Bungie there will be continuous updates and extra content added to keep the players happy. I was so pleased with this beta I had to change my underwear 3 times, take that as you will. All-in-all, Bungie has really hit the mark and once again raised the bar on the online first-person shooter genre.

-beta played on xbox one

Sunset Overdrive

     "Can you survive the many dangers? Can you help others survive? Can you save Sunset City? Can you? For the love of god CAN YOU? Of course you can, it's a f***ing video game."

     

     After watching the opening of this new Xbox One exclusive I wonder if it's a quirky new take on Dead Rising or actually something that might be more interesting.

     Set for Release in the UK and Australia as well as the US, Sunset Overdrive has everything a zombie right wing conservative would want in a game.  Of course we use the word "zombie" loosely, it's actually based upon an energy drink that has transformed nearly the entire population of Sunset City into a variety of toxic mutant creatures from your grandmother's attic.  Well minus the attic, but still from your grandmother's house.  With Insomniac using an updated version of their own secret recipe engine, the game is open world with a metric butt-ton of options to choose from when it comes to getting from point A to point Z and all the letters in between.

     The options don't stop there, you will be able to wall-run better than the pilots on Titanfall and grind your way across banners, rails, and power lines like your playing Jet Set Radio!  You'll also be able to customize your special abilities and use an arsenal that was most likely put together by your uncle Bill.  Regardless of who the maniacal devastating weapons came from they are more than enough to get the job done and have fun in the process.  Insomniac says they will keep the content updated post launch with new events and items.  There will also be something called Sunset TV during the game featuring the voice of the developer.  

     With it's comic book like quips that pop up after a big attack, a tear of joy will roll down your cheek.  All the promise and fun Sunset Overdrive looks to provide in my life means that it will be sitting in my download que sooner rather than later.  Look for this amazingly shiny game online and at your local retail store on 10/28/2014!

A Look to the Past - Beowulf: The Game - $3

Imagine... 

An angry and spitefully strong Nordic deity creates a video game for Xbox 360 with all the glory and grandeur one would expect from a god. Then, that norse game falls in love with Dynasty Warriors and they make a beautiful baby game together with all the best parts of one another. Then that game grows up and meets up with Gauntlet Legends at a night club, goes home to Gauntlet's hotel, and accidentally makes another baby video game. This baby game grows until just about adulthood before every version of Dance Dance Revolution kicks its door and impregnates it with a puppy litter of terrible, barely thought through video games.

“Beowolf: The Game” is the half-wit, retarded 3-legged runt puppy of that litter.

I want my $2.99 back.

(Also, I’m going to find a better picture to post. This one isn’t very clear.)