I have finished another backlogged game via Rogue’s Adventures. You can read my latest Final Thoughts below and also on my gaming blog on Game Informer.

Developer: Telltale Games

Publisher: Telltale Games

Release Date: Episode 1: November 25, 2014, Episode 2: March 17, 2015, Episode 3: June 23, 2015, Episode 4: August 18, 2015, Episode 5: October 20, 2015

There’s a now-infamous puzzle in the first episode of Telltale Games’ 2012 The Walking Dead adventure game where you have to find and put batteries in a radio. It’s ridiculously simply to the point of insulting, but I remember thinking “Hey, at least we got a classic inventory puzzle in this otherwise very narrative-heavy game.”

Since then, Telltale has doubled-down in their unique subgenere of adventure game that tells an incredibly solid story filled with choice-driven dialogue and action-packed quick-time events – and almost no actual puzzles. Their latest adventure, Tales from the Borderlands, exemplifies this philosophy to the point where I feel like I’m watching a series of cutscenes at least half the time.

And yet, the story is good. Really, really good. It begins as a classic thieves tale and zany con-artist scheme and expertly weaves together a fantastic mix of cultures and players within the Borderlands world to create a truly memorable and fun experience. I ranked it #8 on My Top Ten Games of 2015.

For the first time in a Telltale adventure, we get to play as dual protagonists, Fiona and Rhys. Fiona is a native Pandoran, an orphaned thief with a good heart and a sassy sister. Rhys is a corporate stooge working for Hyperion in the orbiting space station Helios. Thanks to an elaborate con being pulled by Fiona involving a valuable vault key, Rhys tries to take advantage and the two become embroiled in a much bigger plot.

The first episode, “Zer0 Sum” does a fantastic job setting up the tone, characters, and nice balance of action, comedy, and drama that would continue throughout all five episodes. I waited until all five episodes were released to play it; I can’t imagine having to wait nearly a solid year from playing the first episode to the last.

The plot is intricate but never confusing, and the cast of characters is kept relatively small, while still including a ton of really neat cameos for Borderlands fans. The high-speed chase and fight scene climax at the end of Episode 3, “Catch a Ride,” was especially fun and noteworthy.

The Borderlands series is best known for its humor. Like South Park the series doesn’t shy away from crass dick and fart jokes, but also layers in incredibly clever satire, social commentary, and complex callbacks.

For example: near the beginning of Episode 4, “Escape Plan Bravo,” Rhys has to talk his way past a pair of male guards. You can choose to say, “Sup, ladies? Talking about boys?” The guards reply with a smart, quippy remark about discussing casual misogynism in the workplace, then turn it around by saying that yes, they were in fact talking about boys as one of them was finally marrying his boyfriend. It’s a fantastic mix of gut-busting humor and smile-inducing comments that keeps the story engaging throughout the 10+ hours.

Dialogue is snappy and fun with that classic Telltale timer giving you a constant sense of urgency. Nearly every Episode also has at least one major action-sequence involving quick-time events. The only other Telltale adventure I’d played was that first The Walking Dead game, and I remember being occasionally frustrated by some of the quick actions I had to take. Not so here, where the movements are well integrated into the action, very easy to pull off, and your targeting reticle always starts practically on top of the target.

I would almost complain that it was a tad too easy, but then I remember how terribly immersion-breaking it is to fail one. I only failed a handful of times in the entire adventure, but the autosaves are far enough apart that it is definitely a pain to replay entire dialogue sessions, and the entire structure tends to break down. I ended up appreciating that they were all easily designed, and keeping the controller in my hands without simply watching events unfold.

A Telltale game lives and dies by its story and characters, and Tales from the Borderlands absolutely excels at both. The voice-acting is top notch from many of the industries now-recognizable talents like Nolan North and Lauren Bailey. Telltale’s art style of exaggerated facial animations works incredibly well with the comedic tone and timing.

I fell in love with the cutesy budding relationship between Rhys and Sasha, the inner conflict and macho attitude by August, the utter badassness of Vallory. And, of course, Loader Bot, my favorite character of 2015.

Even if you’re not invested in the uniquely goofy world of the Borderlands games, Tales from the Borderlands is a solid, light-hearted romp that will make you laugh out loud and appreciate a damn fun story. If you can accept the matching light gameplay elements, it’s definitely one of the best games of the year.

Pros

• Amazing writing, pacing, and voice acting
• Nice mix of action and dialogue
• Great use of established Borderlands characters and continuity
• Not a single weak Episode
• Each Episode has an incredible opening credits sequence
• LOADER BOT

Cons

• Barely any puzzles
• Very few opportunities to walk around and explore
• Auto-saves are annoyingly infrequent
• Most choices don’t seem to matter all that much

Final Say: The Telltale narrative adventure is brilliantly grafted into the zany Borderlands world, excelling with witty writing and fun action.

Watch our sessions live on my YouTube channel every Sunday night beginning at 9:30pm Central. Subscribe and catch up on previous episodes!

• Session 1 Recap
• Session 2 Recap
• Session 3 Recap
• Session 4 Recap
• Session 5 Recap
• Session 6 Recap
• Session 7 Recap
• Session 8 Recap
• Session 9 Recap
• Session 10 Recap
• Session 11 Recap
• Session 12 Recap
• Session 13 Recap
• Session 14 Recap

What happens when the players get ahead of the DM’s preparations? Panic and chaos, mostly.

I’d gotten far enough ahead in prepping “The Lost Mine of Phandelver that I hadn’t had to do any major work in weeks. By ‘major work’ I mean building out the maps in Roll20, finding pics, creating tokens, creating character sheets, etc.

Every week I do about an hour of prep work. This mostly consists of notes to myself regarding the specific section of the adventure we’re in. I like to write out longer dialogue sessions so I don’t have to “um” and “uh” may way through ad-libbing, for example.

Unfortunately due to the general busyness of the holiday season, our sessions finally caught up to me. At the last minute we decided to move our normal Sunday session up a day earlier, and I spent a good chunk of the day making the titular mine – the final area of the adventure.

Wave Echo Cave is a mega-dungeon, a large area with over a dozen rooms with various creatures, loot, and other treasures and dangers. Thankfully I’d already found and downloaded some great-looking battlemaps that someone had created, and had spent the painstaking time to line them up to Roll20’s grid. I still had to get all the tokens placed, roll hit points, set up dynamic lighting, and create a few new character sheets for unique NPCs.

Since the dungeon is a bit open-ended, I felt like I had to do the whole thing just in case. I got about 90% finished and called it good enough. And of course, my players (newly leveled up to 4) stumbled on that last damn 10%.

For those familiar with the “Lost Mine of Phandelver” and the associated map for Wave Echo Cave, my players went directly North out of the starting area. The initial cavern was a fun bit of role-playing as I had Gundren lead them in, then become inconsolable when he saw the body of his dead brother. Getting the magical boots off of him proved a funny bit of multiple failed persuasion attempts.

The dungeon allows for multiple paths right at the start, which is cool. What’s not cool is my damn players trudging in a singular direction!

They went through the corridors of Area 2. Dynamic lighting was a spiffy tool here. They saw the stairs to the Northeast (leading to Area 9) but went West instead, where they ran into the Ochre Jelly. The Jelly was a cool monster, but no match for a party of fully healed level 4 adventurers.

Then they headed North to Area 10, where they refused to have anything to do with the ominous dark pool (don’t blame them there). They headed East toward the door in Area 11. Listening at the door provided them with some voices inside, but they decided to move on and continue even farther North. At this point I started getting nervous. I had literally not built anything in Rooms 19 or 20, and lacked character sheets for certain important NPCs.

Sure enough the party turned the corner and headed West, then tried to open the giant door there. At this point panic ensued.

I’ve been running virtual tabletop games for about eight months now, and doing D&D for almost four. But I was completely unprepared for the PCs to waltz up the side of the dungeon and enter this…important room. They discussed matters while I openly joked about my failings, and quickly tried to build the room up, realizing that there was no way I had time to make a complex character sheet in Roll20 on the spot.

Thankfully fate smiled on me, and Kethra the rogue critically failed to lockpick the door, jamming her lock inside and rendering the door useless. I’m honestly not sure what would’ve happened if the players had succeeded to go in there. I could’ve just said the door was sealed, just said no, or let them enter and try to wing it. I was disheartened at this whole zippy journey, as they essentially did this same tactic with the last dungeon, Cragmaw Castle – getting to the big bad boss fight early on. And Wave Echo Cave is a massively cool dungeon!

Afterwards the players went East and could see a bugbear and a drow. What I should have done, I now realize, is have the dark elf notice the super obvious torch Miri was holding and have that trigger the room before the players ever got any farther.

Another problem with dynamic lighting is the players simply move too fast for me to keep track of  (I was literally flipping through pages trying to keep up with their progress). I may have to reinstate Fog of War on a per-room basis just to slow them down.

Fighting erupted in Area 18. It started out simple enough. Two of the three bugbears were below in a pit and had to climb up, while the weapon-less drow fled to the North. Miri ran after him and tackled him to the ground, while Kalinaar actually handcuffed him to his own wrist after dealing with the bugbear.

At this point I was feeling slightly vindictive, and with the drow under attack I had his warning cries carry down to Area 11 – the room of voices the PCs had passed by. Just as the PCs thought they were dealing with the last bugbear, another five of them showed up, using dash actions to close the distance.

Even with Talus’ fog cloud it was a protracted, painful fight. Miri spent all her ki points, most of Talus and Kalinaar’s spell slots were used, and Kalinaar was very nearly rendered unconscious when he was surrounded by three bugbears. Hilariously, Kalinaar had to fight one-handed the entire time, still hand-cuffed to a very pissed off drow that tried unsuccessfully to grapple and attack his captor, until finally exhausting himself.

It was a long, but fun battle, as the players had to use lots of different tactics, flanking maneuvers, and positioning to emerge victorious. Obviously I’ll have the rest of the dungeon completed by next week, and I’m thankful that things worked out in the end. I will definitely bow my head to the sage DM advice that if the players can screw something up, they will. In this caseL inadvertently reaching the one piece of the dungeon that was Still Under Construction!

Watch our sessions live on my YouTube channel every Sunday night beginning at 9:30pm Central. Subscribe and catch up on previous episodes!

Follow @RoguesAdventure for live tweeting and screenshots, join the Rogue’s Adventures Steam group for updates, and Follow me on Twitch and Subscribe on YouTube for videos.

• Season One Recap
• Season Two Recap
• Season Three Recap
• Season Four Recap
• Season Five Recap

Season Six represented the inevitable decline in my overall gaming time. For the previous three Seasons (a year and a half) I’d been able to play through about 145 hours worth of backlogged games in a 6 month period. That doesn’t represent my total gaming time, just the amount I was willing to set aside for Rogue’s Adventures.

As my daughter gets older and transitioned from infant to toddler to young kid, that time has naturally dwindled. On top of that I began freelance writing for several websites as well as putting a lot more time and effort into my blog and central hub at RogueWatson.com.

Despite all of that I was still able to play quite a few games this Season. I adjusted my goal from 7 hours a week to 5, giving myself more time in between games. My new goal was a little over 100 hours, and I managed to just squeak that in.

The theme this season was recent indie games. Every single game was released in the last few years, with Ori and the Blind Forest, Hand of Fate, and Tales from the Borderlands releasing earlier this year in 2015.

Season Six Schedule

(Google Sheet Link)

• Ori and the Blind Forest – 10 hours in 9 days = 7.77 hrs/wk
• Unepic – 21 hours in 23 days = 6.39 hrs/wk
• Child of Light – 11 hours in 16 days = 4.81 hrs/wk
• This War of Mine – 12 hours in 11 days = 7.64 hrs/wk
• Broken Sword 5 – 12.5 hours in 17 days = 5.15 hrs/wk
• Gunpoint – 4 hours in 3 days = 9.33 hrs/wk
• Monaco – 10 hours in 14 days = 5 hrs/wk
• Hand of Fate – 11.5 hours in 14 days = 5.75 hrs/wk
• Tales from the Borderlands – 11.5 hours in 15 days = 5.37 hrs/wk

Total Hours: 103.5 (Estimated 112.5)

Total Average Hours per Week: 6.36

Six hours a week doesn’t seem like a sharp decline from last year’s 7.25 average but over a 6 month period it definitely adds up. I’m surprised I still made it well over 5 hours a week, though Gunpoint‘s very short run time probably helped inflate that number quite a bit.

Thanks to some much shorter games on average, I was still able to complete the same amount of games as last season, despite spending about 35 less hours. Yay indie games!

Season Six Stats (with last Season’s numbers)

• Tweets by @RoguesAdventure: 340 (501), Total tweets: 5, 449
• Total Number of Screenshots Taken: 1,936 (1,984)
• Average Number of Screenshots per Game: 215 (220)
• Most Screen Captured Game: Tales from the Borderlands 669 – 1/3 of my total screenshots this season and a new record! (Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag 643)
• Total Games Completed: 9 (9)

Season Six Rankings

1. Ori and the Blind Forest – Beautiful, poignant, challenging, and fun, Ori is easily one of the best metroidvanias I’ve ever played.
2. Tales from the Borderlands – The Telltale narrative adventure is brilliantly grafted into the zany Borderlands world, excelling with witty writing and fun action.
3. This War of Mine – Effectively combines the emotional toll and physical danger of war with a strategy layer of managing survivors and resources.
4. Monaco: What’s Yours is Mine – A brilliantly designed and cleverly themed top-down cooperative stealth game that’s much less fun to play by yourself. 
5. Hand of Fate – Despite some frustrations, Hand of Fate successfully layers in 3rd person combat into a highly randomized card-based tabletop adventure.
6. Broken Sword 5: The Serpent’s Curse – A satisfying, if overly long, fifth entry that has the fun characters and varied puzzles of the venerable adventure franchise.
7. Child of Light – Ubisoft effectively distills all the best elements of a traditional JRPG into a fun and beautiful 10-15 hour package.
8. Gunpoint – Rewiring security in this 2D stealth-puzzler is a blast, but it’s too short to fully embrace more advanced levels.
9. Unepic – An interesting 2D action-platformer-RPG with a few too many problems that keep it from indie greatness.

Indie games are in a really fantastic place right now. Many of these titles started life as dreams on Kickstarter and blossomed into really memorable, fantastic, and maybe most importantly, compact experiences. As I get older and my game time becomes more and more precious, being able to play through an entire game in the span of a dozen hours (or less) becomes more and more attractive.

Both Ori and the Blind Forest and Tales from the Borderlands made my 2015 Game of the Year list. I like the trend toward playing more recent game – mostly afforded by the fact that I’ve gone through a good chunk of my older backlogged games in previous seasons of Rogue’s Adventures.

This Season was definitely punctuated by bulk sale purchases during Steam sales, particularly during this year’s Steam Summer Sale. Six of the nine games I played this Season were bought during the Steam Summer Sale, which is an incredibly satisfying turnaround.

As my gaming time continues to dwindle each Season, I’m thankful I still have time to play games. Between family life, running an online D&D campaign with friends, and my freelance writing career, Rogue’s Adventures has kept me constantly playing fun games. With so many awesome, big games this last Fall it has been a tricky balance, but I like the interaction and writing that comes from playing through these backlog games.

I’d like to keep Rogue’s Adventures going as long as I can, and hopefully next Season I can maintain a similar schedule and pacing. See you next year, and happy gaming!

Follow @RoguesAdventure for live tweeting and screenshots, join the Rogue’s Adventures Steam group for updates, and Follow me on Twitch and Subscribe on YouTube for videos.

On the latest episode of Super Jump Radio I join a giant 5-person round table discussion on the biggest thing to hit geekdom since Disney bought Star Wars – Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens!

Join me, Chris, Andrew, Stephen and host Cassidee as we compare the Extended Universe, gush about Rey’s badassness, and theorize about the future of the franchise.

Listen to the Star Wars Spoilercast at the link below and subscribe on iTunes. You can also follow Super Jump Radio on twitter.

Read the my full review at Pixelkin

Platform: Wii U

You stand on a cliff overlooking the Grieving Plains. The grasslands and lakes of Primorida stretch out in every direction. Your eyes are immediately drawn to the fascinating native creatures. Humans are the aliens here. The domed city of New Los Angeles is your last bastion of safety in a dangerous world full of tyrants and treasures.

Welcome to planet Mira. Welcome to Xenoblade Chronicles X.

Read the my full review at Pixelkin

Watch our sessions live on my YouTube channel every Sunday night beginning at 9:30pm Central. Subscribe and catch up on previous episodes!

• Session 1 Recap
• Session 2 Recap
• Session 3 Recap
• Session 4 Recap
• Session 5 Recap
• Session 6 Recap
• Session 7 Recap
• Session 8 Recap
• Session 9 Recap
• Session 10 Recap
• Session 11 Recap
• Session 12 Recap
• Session 13 Recap
• Session 14 Recap
• Session 15 Recap

Wave Echo Cave Part 2: The Black Spider revealed! And he’s…reasonable?

“The Lost Mine of Phandelver” is frustratingly sparse when it comes to describing some of its NPCs, but thankfully The Black Spider isn’t one of them. Billed as the overarching villain, the drow has been plaguing the adventurers throughout the campaign, ordering the kidnapping of Gundren and his map, and putting out a bounty for the PCs.

With the PCs’ quick excursion into the NorthWest corner of the mine and battle with the bugbear army in the previous session, meeting up with the Black Spider was the next logical step. 

First they questioned Vhalak, the drow in charge of the bugbears and their prized prisoner. He revealed the current situation in the mine: The Black Spider wants the Forge of Spells, but has been cutoff from the rest of the mine due to a horde of undead. An evil presence seems to guard or covet the Forge, and The Black Spider is currently at a stalemate – even worse now with his bugbears slaughtered.

Thus our silver-tongued villain was fully prepared to do business with the PCs. He offered to trade the last surviving Rockseeker brother for Vhalak as a show of good faith. Then he tasked the party with dealing with the undead menace in the mine.

Sometimes your players can surprise you, as was the case here. In every previous chance I gave them a “way out” or option to work with dubious characters, they’ve refused. Or at least the Paladin has, and the rest follow suit.

In this case they grudgingly accepted the task, promising to deal with The Black Spider at a later time.

In reality the PCs were weakened. They had retreated back to the bugbear’s barracks for a Short Rest (noting the barricaded door to the East) only to stumble on a pack of ghouls feasting on the now freshly-killed bugbear bodies in the collapsed cavern. They were dealt with but Kalinaar took some heavy wounds and both Kethra and Talus were very low on spell slots.

So despite meeting a major villain, they didn’t jump the gun for once, and decided to fight another day. Literally, they retraced their steps back to the mine entrance where Gundren waited in the hopes of getting a much-needed Long Rest.

Before that the party had questioned Vhalak on what he was doing in the cavern. He admitted to searching for a magical artifact in the streambed. The PCs were intrigued and climbed down to search for themselves. An hour passed with no results. I warned them searching takes a solid hour, and just as I was contemplating another encounter during their second search attempts, Miri rolled a critical success, which is what it takes to find the very powerful Gauntlets of Ogre Power. At this point everyone’s gotten at least one Cool New Thing except Kethra, but more treasures await in the mine.

Gundren was overjoyed to see his brother still alive, though Nundro had been physically and psychologically tortured, and wasn’t much help to anyone. I let the PCs get a Long Rest in this relatively safe corner of the dungeon, though with 8 hours passing and no more bugbear army around, the undead have much more free roam over the mine, which could make things tricky…

Next week: the party descends back into Wave Echo Cave, this time with the clear intent to root out the undead infestation, and possibly locate the Forge of Spells itself!

Watch our sessions live on my YouTube channel every Sunday night beginning at 9:30pm Central. Subscribe and catch up on previous episodes!

You’ve already read my Top Ten Games of 2015. Now it’s time for everyone’s favorite annual list. Who doesn’t like getting excited about new games? And holy crap, 2016 looks really freaking fantastic.

Here are my Top Ten Most Anticipated Games of 2016!

10) Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

I missed the original Deus Ex games the first time around, but really enjoyed Human Revolution, Square Enix’s very underrated 2011 reboot. The mixture of action and stealth gave you a bevy of choices in how to tackle each mission. The cyerbpunk setting and themes of augmentation remained interesting and well-integrated into the story and gameplay, and just barely bumped Dishonored 2‘s similar gameplay off this list.

9) No Man’s Sky

Even after Game Informer’s big cover story, I still feel confused as to how No Man’s Sky really plays. It’s an incredibly ambitious indie space simulator that’s been kept under wraps and in development for years – none of which necessarily bodes well. It looks gorgeous and I remain intrigued, but whether it actually releases this year is anyone’s guess.

8) Cosmic Star Heroine

One of my most anticipated Kickstarter games, Zeboyd has proven an incredibly adept developer at capturing that nostalgic and awesome 90s JRPG style. Cosmic Star Heroine looks like an amazing blend of Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy, and Suikoden, with Zeboyd’s signature fantastic pixel art. It got bumped into 2016 so it definitely finds a place on my list again.

7) Fire Emblem Fates

There are very few Japanese franchises I care about, but Fire Emblem is one of them. 2013’s Fire Emblem Awakening was one of my favorite games of the year. It scratches that unique itch of both a tactical wargame and a JRPG, and I’m very much looking forward to this sequel.

6) Torment: Tides of Numenera

For the past two years an isometric, old-school RPG funded via Kickstarter has been my #1 Game of the Year. Time will tell if Torment can reach those lofty goals. Torment: Tides of Numenera is a highly anticipated spiritual successor to the beloved 1999 RPG Planescape: Torment. I’m very interested in trying out the Numenera RPG setting, a fascinating blend of sci-fi and fantasy.

5) Overwatch

For three of the last four years, a Blizzard game has found its way into my Top Ten Games of the Year list. It would be foolish to bet against Overwatch, a shameless Team Fortress 2 clone that utilizes a very MOBA-like roster of characters. I’ve played exactly one free beta week and was pleasantly surprised with how quick and fun it played. Before Heroes of the Storm I hated MOBAs, now I play HotS nearly every evening. Here’s hoping Overwatch can match the successful trend Blizzard has been enjoying.

4) Divinity: Original Sin 2

Inserting the sequel to my 2014 Game of the Year is a no-brainer. Larian ran a very successful Kickstarter for the sequel to Divinity: Original Sin, raking in twice the funds and twice the backers based on how amazing D:OS was. This sequel looks to improve upon the story and gameplay, including an intriguingly expanded multiplayer suite. I see this one easily slipping into 2017, but it deserves a spot on this list nonetheless.

3) XCOM 2

I was initially really bummed when XCOM 2 slipped into 2016, but now I’m relieved. I plan on fully losing myself all over again in one of the best turn-based tactical franchises ever. Firaxis has one an incredible job making the experience both streamlined and complex. I’ve spent over 150 hours in XCOM: Enemy Unknown (and expansion Enemy Within) and this sequel looks like an improvement in every way.

2) “Zelda Wii U”

My Most Anticipated title of 2015 remains near the top, though it’s still frustratingly shrouded in mystery. I fear this will go the Twilight Princess route, with both a Wii U and NX release. I honestly haven’t really enjoyed a 3D Zelda title since Ocarina of Time, and I’m in the mood to fall in love with its classically cartoony world in HD. There’s a lot riding on this one but given Nintendo’s strong showing in 2015, I remain optimistic.

1) Mass Effect Andromeda

There’s very little chance the next Mass Effect title is actually releasing in 2016, despite a far-too-early “Holiday 2016” campaign. Still, it’s bloody Mass Effect, of course it’s #1 on my list. No other gaming franchise comes close to the combination of action, world-building, and character development. It’s the greatest sci-fi setting since Star Wars, but it remains to be seen if the series can truly break free of Commander Shepard.

So many more great games I want to mention that just didn’t quite make the list. I’m still looking forward to Starbound‘s full release, despite multiple years of Early Access and 70 hours played. I’m not supposed to talk about Battleborn yet, but I did very much enjoy its take on a first-person MOBA format. Dishonored was a lot of fun and the sequel looks better, but like BioShock I usually wait for a sale.

I also still have lots of Kickstarter projects to look forward. Grim Dawn has been in development for years, and been sitting in my Steam Library for nearly as long, waiting for its upcoming final release. We should also see The Flame in the Flood and maybe Battle Chasers this year. And hey, how about a sequel to 2014’s fantastic indie tactical game The Banner Saga?

2016 looks amazing, and there’s still tons of games yet to be announced that will probably make my end of year list. Have a great year!

With Marvel’s popular and successful foray into films with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I’ve finally decided to get back into comics. I grew up a big fan of X-Men and other superheroes but haven’t really kept up since the 90s. Thus begins my grand catching-up of the last ten years of Marvel comics, events and stories.

Thanks in large part to trade paperbacks and the digital convenience of Marvel Unlimited I can make relatively quick progress, and I’ll write down my Final Thoughts for each collection here on my blog. Like my gaming Final Thoughts, this will be full of spoilers. You’ve been warned!

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis

Artist: Olivier Coipel

Issues: Siege #1-4, Siege: The Cabal, Siege: Prologue*

*I also read the following tie-ins: Dark Avengers #13-16, New Avengers #61-64 + Finale, Thor #607-609, Siege: Loki One-Shot, Siege: Secret Warriors One-Shot

Finally we come to the end of what I’ll call the Bendis Era of Big Marvel Events. It began with 2006’s Civil War (and really you could go back further to House of M or Avengers: Disassembled), continued into 2008’s Secret Invasion, which gave way to 2009’s Dark Reign, and finally ends with 2010’s Siege.

This age of near constant mega-events would continue to define Marvel comics throughout the next decade, and with the recent success of Secret Wars, I don’t see it slowing down any time soon.

As an event, Siege is heavily embedded in Marvel continuity, specifically the cool but not exactly new-reader friendly Dark Reign. Dark Reign put Norman Osborn as leader of the initiative that was initially created by Tony Stark in the post-Civil War world. He built his own Dark Avengers team, a surprisingly awesome comic that further explored the bad guys-as-heroes dynamic that made Thunderbolts so great.

The political events have largely been a heavy-handed reflection of our culture of fear, and the dichotomy between freedom and security. Drawing parallels between 9/11 and America’s War on Terror is pretty low-hanging fruit to grasp, and nowhere is that more painfully obvious than Siege. Norman invades Asgard under manufactured pretenses, and starts an unpopular war that ultimately brings his reign to an end.

The event is refreshingly condensed. The event itself lasts only four issues, and covers exactly one battle – Norman Osborn’s invasion of Asgard. Osborn invades after retaliating against an Asgardian’s accident that kills a stadium full of people (whoops). Poor Volstagg was only defending himself against some super-powered assassins, sent by Osborn’s lackey The Hood.

Before even asking for permission, Osborn launches the full power of his Dark Avengers and the Initiative at Asgard, which has been floating above a small town in Oklahoma sometime after the Superhero Civil War.

The attack is bolstered by two key events that Osborn and Loki (the true architect of all these events) have been cultivating – empowering the Hood and all his street-level villains with the Asgardian Norn Stones, and manipulating and exploiting the weak-minded but extremely powerful Sentry. The Asgardians are completely caught by surprise.

Nick Fury’s Secret Warriors, and a newly resurrected Steve Rogers-led Avengers team show up to help even the odds, and turn the battle into a full-on war that each of these big Marvel events loves to depict.

For once the event doesn’t get too convoluted or messy. Only a few key titles had tie-ins, and once again the Dark Avengers series stands out as particularly well-written and drawn, providing insightful backstories that help explain the Sentry’s situation in Siege, as well as the unique dynamics between Osborn, Victoria Hand, and the ever-scheming Loki.

I was a bit confused as to where Bendis was trying to go with Loki. Through dealings with Osborn, Dr. Doom, and The Hood, Loki has manipulated events to create this exact scenario, then appears absolutely horrified when Asgard does in fact get destroyed. When asked by his fellow Asgardians he basically replies “I’m the god of mischief!” as if he’s cursed by his own characterization. It just felt weird and a bit of a writing cop-out for what I thought was building to a grand master plan.

Steve Rogers’ return was also a major let down. While his Reborn mini-series was okay, having his return and meeting with fellow Avengers be surrounded by these events should’ve led to some amazing “Oh Shit” moments. Instead we get a lame shot of Steve looking pissed at the end of issue #1. He finds the other Avengers and has a few lines of dialogue: “Hey you’re back!” “Yep.”

There was never a satisfyingly triumphant moment, and it felt like a majorly wasted opportunity next to such an epic backdrop. The same can be said of Iron Man’s return after his personal “World’s Most Wanted,” on-the-run arc in his solo series.

Thor finally acquiesces and kills the Sentry when they subdue him, though not before Loki redeems himself by powering up the heroes. His reward is for Sentry to kill him. I doubt it’s permanent. Thor throws Robert Reynolds’ body into the sun, and I’m hoping that’s the last we see of mentally-disturbed, dark-side Superman.

So our heroes win the battle and everything goes back to normal. The Registration Act is repealed and everyone just sort of decides to go back to the way things were, paving the way for Marvel’s Heroic Age in the latter half of 2010.

It’s staged very much like an ending and new beginning, but doesn’t feel wholly earned within the context of Siege. I did enjoy the saccharine sweet way in which Bendis ended his initial run on New Avengers, which has always been grounded by Luke Cage and Jessica Jones’ relationship and desire for normalcy. It just all happens a bit too easily given the crazy eras we’ve gone through with the Initiative and the Dark Reign. Siege itself is a fun event, though, bolstered by its simple story, smaller focus, and generally effective and relevant tie-in comics.

Watch our sessions live on my YouTube channel every Sunday night beginning at 9:30pm Central. Subscribe and catch up on previous episodes!

• Session 1 Recap
• Session 2 Recap
• Session 3 Recap
• Session 4 Recap
• Session 5 Recap
• Session 6 Recap
• Session 7 Recap
• Session 8 Recap
• Session 9 Recap
• Session 10 Recap
• Session 11 Recap
• Session 12 Recap
• Session 13 Recap
• Session 14 Recap
• Session 15 Recap
• Session 16 Recap

It’s amazing how much progress you can make in a marathon four-hour session. How about five separate battles, including an epic confrontation with a fireball-slinging Flameskull and his army of zombies?

We started our session a bit earlier on Sunday. At this point “Lost Mine of Phandelver” has lasted us nearly four months, doing weekly 2-3 hour sessions. We’re coming up to a busy schedule for me at the end of January/beginning of February: a gaming convention followed by a family vacation. Wrapping up this campaign and going on a brief but necessary two week hiatus would be extremely helpful to my sanity.

Thus not only did we start earlier, but we ended up going an additional hour later than usual! I was impressed by my players’ energy levels and enthusiasm throughout this session. They were in their element – this entire session was one big dungeon crawl filled with baddies to deal with, culminating in the biggest fight of their lives.

Previously the party had confronted the Black Spider within Wave Echo Cave and learned of the undead blocking his path to the Forge of Spells. They exchanged prisoners for Nundro, and returned to Gundren at the entrance, getting a much needed Long Rest.

Once again they descended into the pit, this time heading toward the Eastern tunnel. They spotted the skeletons in Area 3, and Kalinaar whipped out his Divine Sense to search for any lingering undead. Finding none, the PCs continued on….until the horde of Stirges above their heads swooped down. I rolled a crit for their stealth check, allowing a whopping amount of attacks before the party could even react.

Stirges are relatively week, having literally only 1 or 2 hp and a single attack. But 10 of them suddenly on top of the party proved an interesting challenge. Nearly half of them successfully latched on to their foes, including Talus who was just bragging that he’d never had to spend a single hit dice to heal yet. Miri was the MVP of this battle, with her two attacks able to kill two stirges in a single turn (or even three with Flurry of Blows).

The party headed South and listened at the doors. Kethra’s caution is cursory at best, and she busted through the Western door, spotting more skeletons on the ground. Since the party had just seen dormant skeletons, they were unprepared for the undead that suddenly sprang up when they entered the room, to the tune of nine skeletons!

Skeletons are pretty weak fodder, but a large number of foes gives me a large number of attacks, and many chances to hit. It all comes down to the dice, and while I rolled incredibly well with the striges, not so much here.

Still, the party was somewhat drained from the stirge battle, and after this encounter they needed a Short Rest. This encounter also highlighted the flanking bonus the PCs often forget about, but thanks to Kethra’s Disengage bonus action, she can dance around foes and help grant advantage for other party members. It’s an effective strategy the party would continue to use throughout the evening.

In the opposite door they located a locked treasure chest filled with coins that had been overlooked for centuries – finally some treasure! Kethra picked the lock with ease, then shoved some papers inside and re-locked it, just to screw with the next adventurers. Talus pawed through the papers and gleaned some information on the Mine and the orc attack centuries ago that left it a husk of death. I enjoy these little moments that show off the players’ keen sense of role-playing their characters.

Thanks to the magic of dynamic lighting in Roll20, the party could see the glowing mushrooms of Area 8 all the way from Area 3, and they were drawn to them like a moth to the flame. The ever inquisitive, scientific-minded Talus went in for a closer look. For once Kethra had the cautious idea to use mage hand to examine them, but Talus was far too curious. Once he got close, the mushrooms all shuddered and elongated, releasing toxic gas into the air that begun to fill the room. Talus made the CON save and backed out.

The gas eventually dissipated and Kalinaar decided to test the scientific process by entering the mushroom cavern again. Again the mushrooms reacted and flooded the room, and again the CON save was successful. Satisfied the PCs retreated from the deadly room. They briefly debated over trying to take and keep some of the poisonous ‘shrooms, but ultimately decided to leave them well enough alone.

The party returned to the crossroads at Area 3 (the stirge attack) and went North. The path branched once again in every direction, with a door to the North. Kethra listened and heard scraping and crunching. Everyone prepared for a battle, assumed positions, and they opened the door via Mage Hand.

Inside were a trio of ghouls trying desperately to find any hunk of meat on some long dead skeletons. The battle was over incredibly quickly compared to the previous horde fights, and the ghouls didn’t stand a chance. Sadly it’s another room of baddies with zero treasure, or as Kalinaar so eloquently put it, “a junk room with junk monsters.”

From here the party got rather confused and turned around. Wave Echo Cave is a HUGE dungeon. Now that we’re using dynamic lighting, the PCs only see what their tokens can see, so previously explored areas become dark again. Not to mention the fact that we arrived in Wave Echo Cave two sessions ago.

I had actually anticipated this, and put a clue in the mine tunnels of Area 2 – a recently dead ghoul with acid burns melting away half its body, the sure sign of an Ochre Jelly. I didn’t have any intention of releasing another Jelly on the party unless they really insisted on exploring the tunnels again.

Miri remembered that the tunnel continued to the East as an alternate route, and the party decided to head South. Most of them did, anyway, Kethra found some stairs heading North, and unwittingly stumbled on the ghouls on the Western ledge of Area 9. It is not the first time Kethra has wandered off and gotten them into trouble, and probably won’t be the last.

Four ghouls isn’t that much harder than three. Thankfully for Kethra they had to spend a Dash action to reach her, while she use Disengage and Dash back to the party. Rogue’s do make excellent scouts, or in this case, running full-bore back to the part with slavering undead at her heels.

The ghouls got in some hearty blows, and at one point had both Miri and Kalinaar paralyzed (Kalinaar has a surprisingly low CON modifier for a Paladin, and would spend the entire combat paralyzed). In an act of fitting karmic retribution, Kethra took a vicious blow from the final ghoul, dropping her to less than 10 hit points.

After four combat sequences in relatively quick succession, the party finally got a brief reprieve as they took a big U-turn, heading toward the stockroom in Area 7. The stockroom represents a safe-ish rest area in the middle of the dungeon. Though the party had found seven ghouls since their last Short Rest, they decided they were good enough to continue on without stopping.

Heading North they found the great cavern of Area 9, filled with multiple ledges and skeletons. It was here that Kethra revealed she had stumbled into the Western side, so the party was somewhat satisfied knowing they probably would’ve had to fought those ghouls anyway. Nothing else remained in the cavern, but two hallways lead North. The party took the Eastern tunnel.

When they reached the smelter I got every Dungeon Master’s favorite player phrase: “Oh, crap!” The flameskull is an impressively cool enemy, an animated skull that shoots fire, and and can cast several fire-themed spells as a 5th level wizard (the party are all 4th level at this point).

That would be challenging enough, but it shouted a warning, and eight corpses rose up as zombies. Zombies aren’t all that strong, the PCs were battling them at level 3 back in Thundertree. But a horde can prove troublesome, especially when they provide a meat shield for the flameskull.

“Flamey” as he would be referred to, unleashed a Flaming Sphere in the hallway, hoping to break up the party’s defensive positions. Unfortunately it also deterred the zombies somewhat, and he later had to move it, heh. The party took ranged pot shots at the nearest zombie, and Talus helped construct an illusory wall to further funnel them. Miri and Kalinaar provided a wall for Kethra and Talus, and everything seemed okay. Until the Fireball.

The Flameskull has one 3rd level spell slot dedicated to Fireball, and I unleashed it. 8d6 damage that the PCs can only save for half damage. I had a huge explosion graphic prepared, and my players were horrified – and I was slightly worried after rolling a 30 for damage.

Talus used one of his divination die to auto-succeed his save. Both Kethra and Miri made their saves thanks to solid DEX save modifiers. Fifteen damage still knocked Kethra out, who was still wounded from the ghoul fight. Kalinaar failed his save but thanks to his Gold Dragonborn-ness he took only half damage from fire.

So everyone took a solid 15 damage, and suddenly the entire dynamic changed. A tough fight turned tense, with every roll of the die becoming critical. Tactics had to be carefully planned, and every action decided upon. It was fucking glorious.

The most potent moment came when the flameskull unleashed his normal Fire Ray attack, one at Kalinaar and the other at Miri. They had refused to retreat or move from their defensive position – at one Kalinaar shouted “Hold the line! Don’t back down!” A good roll could’ve downed one or both of them…..instead I missed with both attacks, and everyone exhaled.

The party spent every single one of their healing potions and points of inspiration. I further gave both Kalinaar and Miri a point of inspiration for holding the line about halfway through, and frankly just to help even the odds. I’m not in the business of wiping out the party, and since all dice rolls are public there’s only so much I can fudge. Inspiration is one of them.

We had to actually look up the Death Saving Throw rules, as this is the first time somebody has fallen in battle since level 1. Kethra rolled a 20 on her second roll (Roll20 always rolls twice in case of advantage/disadvantage). I allowed someone to give Kethra their inspiration so she could take the 20 and auto-stabilize and get back into the fight. Talus also used his Fog Cloud to great advantage, giving the party a breather while the the bad guys wandered around lost. The battle finally turned in their direction.

Finally only the flameskull remained, and a concentrated effort from everyone brought it down. In its dying breath it called out to its master, warning him of the intruders it failed to stop, and cluing the PCs into yet another threat within the mine. The party was bloodied, exhausted, and spent – but also triumphant in their most harrowing battle yet (I also screwed it up, as the flameskull is immune to all fire damage, not just resistant).

I also made a note to explain the particulars surrounding a flameskull, since Talus was proactive in immediately casting Detect Magic. The flameskull will revive itself in an hour unless holy water, Dispel Magic, or Remove Curse spells are used. What the party decides to do with that information we’ll have to find out next week.

Four hours and five battles later gave us our craziest, longest session yet, but I’ll be damned if that flameskull battle wasn’t one of my favorite moments we’ve ever done in tabletop role-playing.

Watch our sessions live on my YouTube channel every Sunday night beginning at 9:30pm Central. Subscribe and catch up on previous episodes!

I should really cut down on all these annual blog posts. The holidays are busy enough, and in 2015 I expanded my Top Ten list into ten separate posts, followed by my full Game of the Year awards and Most Anticipated Games of 2016 lists.

It’s all done in self-indulgent fun. My annual Year In Gaming post is probably the most navel-gazing thing I write on here. Part journal entries and part gaming calendar, I recap what I played on a month-to-month basis, and what really stood out.

2015 was the first full year of being a part-time freelance writer, and most of that was spent writing about video games. I maintained my blog both here and on Game Informer, appeared on podcasts, and can now say I’ve been published on Playboy. I also played lots of great games!

Though not as many as last year. I mentioned in my last recap of Rogue’s Adventures that I generally have less game time these days.

Since I enjoy recording my play times and my game library, it has helped me cut down on buying new games – which is painfully easy when you primarily play on PC thanks to rampant Steam sales. I played less games in 2015 but overall my “Progress Index” improved this year, so I’m pretty satisfied.

Progress Index is how Backloggery.com measures your finished-to-unfinished games ratio. Currently I maintain a Beaten ratio of about 63%, which has held fairly steady all year.

On to the monthly breakdown!

January

Screenshot by me!

For last Christmas my wife and I bought ourselves a Wii U, and January was dominated by games like Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. Mario Kart ended up being the biggest winner for us, as we could have a blast playing locally and online together. I’m a huge fan of Smash but playing online loses much of the fun compared to local multiplayer, and it didn’t quite hold my interest as long as I would have wished.

I was still knee-deep in Dragon Age: Inquisition as well, and I wouldn’t actually end up finishing until March. I love BioWare’s RPGs and DAI had a lot of neat stuff going for it, but like a lot of long RPGs, it just didn’t hold my interest in the last dozen or so hours. Multiplayer was neat but the grind to getting better weapons and classes was horrendous. My friends and I played it much less than Mass Effect 3‘s similar offering back in 2012.

Rogue’s Adventures: Portal 2

February

I totally bought into the Evolve hype and convinced all my friends to get it. The asynchronous combat and multiplayer is a neat idea, and the gameplay definitely scratched that cooperative Left 4 Dead itch pretty well (made by the same developers, after all). Sadly it just had no legs. Where Left 4 Dead offered campaigns in addition to survival and versus modes, Evolve‘s gameplay was always central on the hunting of the monster in a large arena map. I enjoyed my time with it but like Titanfall last year it only lasted maybe a month, and was quickly forgotten.

February also saw the release of a massive update to 2D craft ’em up Starbound. I’ve a weird history with Starbound, having played back when it first hit beta in 2014, then again here. I have huge months-long gaps in my play history, but it’s always fun when I return and check out all the new updates. Still, it’s been two damn years, are we ever going to get a final release?

Rogue’s Adventures: Cthulhu Saves the World, Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, Risk of Rain

March

I beat Dragon Age: Inquisition just before the release of one of my most anticipated Kickstarter games – Pillars of Eternity. Going from one huge RPG to another can take its toll, but Pillars was absolutely amazing, and would eventually go on to become my #1 Game of 2015. The old school tactical combat was infused with just the right amount of modern game design, and Obsidian’s captivating writing was on full display.

In March I also started up an online tabletop role-playing group via web cams and Roll20.net. My friends and I previously tried Pathfinder in 2014 and really enjoyed it, but this was the first time I was behind the driver’s seat as the Dungeon Master.

We actually started with Shadowrun Fifth Edition, as I fell in love with the setting thanks to the recent tactical RPGs. We’d run four total missions over the next four months, three of which were written by me. It was a lot of fun (and they’re on YouTube), though Shadowrun‘s rules are incredibly complex and somewhat frustrating, and we’d move on to Dungeons & Dragons in September.

Rogue’s Adventures: Shadowrun: Dragonfall – Director’s Cut

April

April was dominated by Pillars of Eternity. I’d eventually spend 70 hours over three months, finally completing it in June. These giant RPGs take me several months to complete – but I still love them.

In what has become an odd annual tradition, I also picked up the previous year’s Skylanders game, Trap Team, when it hit a deep discount. Skylanders is a lot of fun, the figures are neat, and they make for fantastic cooperative games. Overall I didn’t enjoy Trap Team quite as much as 2013’s Swap Force, but we still ended up buying a bunch of new Skylanders, and had to have all the traps. We’d actually end up getting this year’s Skylanders Superchargers as a Christmas present for each other – along with way too many new figures. Total number has crawled above 50 now….

Rogue’s Adventures: Retro City Rampage, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

May

Summer’s are notoriously slow for gaming, though May was more of the calm before the storm for a surprisingly busy June.

The 2nd half of Broken Age was finally released – a year and a half after part 1! I actually went through and replayed the first half so I could familiarize myself with the story and crazy cliffhanger. Part 2 was fun but it reused a lot of environments and characters from the first half, and the story ended up being pretty disappointing compared to the exciting lead-in from part 1.

Rogue’s Adventures: South Park: The Stick of Truth

June

June gave us the annual Steam Summer Sale, where I picked up a crapload of indie games that had released in the last year or so, many of which I would play for Rogue’s Adventures in the latter half of 2015. June also saw the release of several great new games, like Splatoon, MASSIVE CHALICE, and Heroes of the Storm.

Splatoon took over my Wii U (which had grown quiet in the last month or two) and I delighted with its fast-paced, light-hearted combat and infectious 90s aesthetic. Even the single-player campaign was a blast. Sadly it wouldn’t quite hold my attention, mostly as I couldn’t convince any of my friends to jump in (and its friends-matchmaking system was abhorrent anyway). Fun game that really burned bright for several weeks, though.

I started up a game of MASSIVE CHALICE, and I enjoyed its XCOM-style battles and unique generational army enough to rank it as #10 on my Game of the Year list. A great example of a Kickstarter game that delivered on its premise in a decent time frame, and was particularly enjoyable to watch being built thanks to the wonderful bi-monthly “team streams” over the last year.

Rogue’s Adventures: Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag

July

I jumped into Heroes of the Storm toward the end of June, after it had been released for several weeks. I’ve always particularly loathed MOBAs, but never played a Blizzard game I didn’t like. The latter won out, and my friends and I got completely sucked into HotS.

The faster-paced style, team leveling, and multiple maps with varying objectives all helped elevate the genre into something I could really sink my teeth into. Like Hearthstone last year, my multiplayer gaming time was nothing but HotS for the entire rest of the year, and I awarded it my #2 Game of the Year slot.

In July I also received an iPad for my birthday. Not only could I stop having to borrow my wife’s to use Marvel’s digital comic service, I could finally play my own tablet games. I’m a big board gamer so being able to play my favorite games like Small World online or versus AI was absolutely amazing. Many of them are available on PC, but something about the tablet’s handheld, tactile nature make board games much more enjoyable.

Rogue’s Adventures: Ori and the Blind Forest

August

Some of my Agents of XCOM, plus the DLC hero Zhang.

August was a pretty slow month. I was still playing Heroes of the Storm just about every evening, and I wouldn’t be buying a new game until next month. I used this opportunity to play through yet another run of XCOM.

Thinking XCOM 2 was just around the corner in November, I wanted to finally play through the Enemy Within expansion pack. I’d played over 100 hours of XCOM, but hadn’t played since the expansion’s release. I normally play on Classic, but dialed it back to Normal for fear of my rusty skills and new mechanics. Those fears were unfounded, and I blazed through with flying colors, customizing all my soldiers after characters from Agents of SHIELD. XCOM is so damn great, and I’m crazy exited for the sequel in another month (my #3 Most Anticipated game).

Rogue’s Adventures: UnEpic

September

If you said Diablo 3 would become one of my most played games of the year, I would have…well shrugged probably. Blizzard has done an amazing job with the post-launch updates over the years, and September saw a big patch come in that made their Seasonal play even more interesting. It also awarded a HotS mount if you made it to 60, so lo and behold my friends and I fired up Diablo 3 again, and it was still a blast. Diablo 3 now sits as my most played game of all time at just over 300 hours over the last three years.

In newer game news, I got Super Mario Maker on launch and couldn’t have been happier. It was everything I had hoped – a wonderfully intuitive editor, and a 2D Mario game with endless content and variety. It also used the gamepad and touchscreen really well. I’d often simply sit at the couch watching football while making Mario levels. My #6 Game of 2015.

Rogue’s Adventures: Child of Light, This War of Mine

October

We started playing Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition using the published adventure included in the Starter Pack, “Lost Mine of Phandelver.” Using a published adventure helped cut down the extra work I had to do building maps and writing scenarios.

It worked incredibly well for my group, and the relatively new 5E rules were great for us. Many rules were simplified and streamlined in smart ways, and I had plenty of freedom while still rarely needing to consult the rulebook. At the time of this writing we’re just now at the very end of the four month long campaign, and we definitely plan on doing more in 2016. You can watch us on YouTube and read my weekly recaps.

I don’t normally buy platformers at launch but I was asked to review Yoshi’s Woolly World. It ended up being an incredibly fun experience. The yarn aesthetic was fun and meshed well with the world and mechanics. Unlike the frustrating difficulty of Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze, cooperative play was light and fun. I’m pretty sure my wife ended up playing it even more than me.

Rogue’s Adventures: Broken Sword 5: The Serpent’s Curse, Gunpoint

November

Screenshot by me!

The holiday season is always crazy busy for gaming. November was especially grueling with awesome big game releases, three of which would make my Game of the Year List – Yo-Kai Watch, Fallout 4, and Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void.

Trying to play all of them simultaneously was futile, though Yo-Kai Watch definitely won the battle by having my 3 year old daughter adore it and love watching Daddy play. Might be a big reason I loved that game as much as I did – but it also scratched that Pokémon itch in some fun and unique ways.

Starcraft and Fallout were tricky to balance – remember I’m still playing Heroes of the Storm this whole time as well. Sadly we never really got back into Starcraft‘s multiplayer, it was pretty much just the single player campaign that held my attention. My time with Fallout 4 would continue to be spotty throughout the year. Now in January I just passed the 30 hour mark, despite having it for over 2 months!

Rogue’s Adventures: Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine, Hand of Fate

December

Remember how I wasn’t even going to play Yoshi’s Woolly World, then got it at launch to review? The exact same scenario played out with Xenoblade Chronicles X. I’ve been super down on non-handheld JRPGs in the last few years, and shocked myself when I not only enjoyed Xenoblade, but consider it one of the best games of the year. I even enjoyed it more than Fallout 4, which is absolutely insane given my love of that franchise.

Otherwise December mostly came down to finishing games, like Starcraft‘s campaign and Yo-Kai Watch. The only new games I’d get for Christmas were that year’s Skylanders and Disney Infinity games. Basically if a game offers great couch co-op, it’s an easy sell for me. This is our first Disney Infinity game and mostly I’m fairly unimpressed. I was hoping for more built-in game, but it really emphasizes building and customizing. Skylanders remains a solid experience, but mostly I’m still playing Xenoblade!

Rogue’s Adventures: Tales from the Borderlands

I played a lot of great games in 2015. More importantly I had a lot of fun experiences I could share with friends and family. I’m continually thankful of gaming’s power to keep me in touch with best friends that live hundreds of miles away, as well as an outlet for my wife and I to sit side by side and goof off together. And recently it’s yet another way I can bond with my young daughter.

I hope gaming continues to mature and evolve as an industry and a culture. Right now we’re in an awkward transitory phase with lots of embarrassing push-back. I love seeing new game concepts that grow beyond Games as Entertainment, and pushes them into Games as Art or simply emotional experiences. That being said, I’ll always love blowing shit up with buddies. Here’s to blowing more shit up next year!

With Marvel’s popular and successful foray into films with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I’ve finally decided to get back into comics. I grew up a big fan of X-Men and other superheroes but haven’t really kept up since the 90s. Thus begins my grand catching-up of the last ten years of Marvel comics, events and stories.

Thanks in large part to trade paperbacks and the digital convenience of Marvel Unlimited I can make relatively quick progress, and I’ll write down my Final Thoughts for each collection here on my blog. Like my gaming Final Thoughts, this will be full of spoilers. You’ve been warned!

Writers: Jeph Loeb (Hulk), Greg Pak (Incredible Hulks)

Artists: Ed McGuiness (Hulk), Paul Pelletier (Incredible Hulks)

Issues: Hulk #19-24, Incredible Hulks #606-611, Fall of the Hulks: Alpha, Full of the Hulks: Gamma, Fall of the Hulks: Red Hulk #1-4, Fall of the Hulks: The Savage She-Hulks #1-3, World War Hulks One-Shot

“There’s Too Many Hulks” sounds like a silly parody, but that’s pretty much the exact story concept Marvel ran with in 2010.

Planet Hulk and World War Hulk set the stage for some of the best Hulk-related stories ever. Marvel let Hulk rest on his haunches for a bit, introducing a mysterious new Red Hulk that was seemingly stronger and smarter, and had his own agenda. He would star in his own solo Hulk series beginning in 2008, and started out mostly sub-par.

Meanwhile the mantle of Incredible Hulk passed to Hulk’s son, whom we thought died on Sakaar because he wasn’t even born yet when his mother melted into lava at the end of Planet Hulk. Instead, Skaar inherits the powers of both Hulk and Caiera, allowing him to survive and grow up on the war-torn planet before making his way to Earth.

Neither of these storylines are totally necessary to understanding Fall of the Hulks, which in turn introduces a new Red She-Hulk and Savage She-Hulk, bringing our total number of Gamma-powered heroes to….well too damn many.

And yet, it’s super fun. The story is silly but also classic comic book fare, with an evil cabal, a master plan, and lots of fun twists. But it’s filled with awesome action sequences and some really incredible art, especially the Incredible Hulks series, drawn by Paul Pelletier of Marvel Cosmic fame (Annihilation: Conquest and War of Kings).

Fall of the Hulks starts off relatively slow and somewhat confusing. Even as someone that had been reading both main Hulk-related series, I was a bit lost as to how Red Hulk was involved and where his allegiances and motivations lie.

To attempt to simplify things: Red Hulk starts out as a grudging member of the Intelligencia, a cabal of evil villains lead by MODOK, Doc Samson,  and The Leader, along with some D-list villains like The Wizard and Red Ghost. Hulk does not exactly have a great rogue’s gallery, and the Abomination was actually murdered by Red Hulk back in the opening issue of his series.

In the lead up to Fall of the Hulks, Red Hulk gets a fun crossover with X-Force. Well, not technically a crossover as it’s solely within Hulk’s series, but it’s a lot of fun – Wolverine scratches Red Hulk’s eyes out, blinding him! It also introduces a vicious and powerful Red She-Hulk, who’s identity is also shrouded in mystery.

Meanwhile a few months before Fall of the Hulks, a new Incredible Hulks series begins. The series stars the odd father-son team-up of a Hulk-less Bruce Banner and his half-alien son Skaar. Since Red Hulk beat Hulk and siphoned off his power several issues ago, Banner can’t transform any more. Skaar wants to kill his father for leaving him in a hellhole on Sakaar. Thus we get a few issues of Banner training Skaar, including random guest stars Juggernaut and a fellow father-son team of Wolverine and Daken.

It eventually comes to light that the Intelligencia (an embarrassingly bad/awesome name for an evil team-up) created Red Hulk and later, Red She-Hulk. Red Hulk soon starts working his own agenda, and I’ll be damned if Jeph Loeb doesn’t find make him a compelling character. I was mostly uninterested in Red Hulk throughout his first 12-issue volume. A new inner monologue and more thoughtful process improves the character immeasurably.

The Intelligencia’s first task is to capture all the smartest people in the world (which I was quick to notice, are all men) and drain their brain power, eventually siphoning it into MODOK. The main story of Fall of the Hulks involves their capture of Reed Richards, Hank Pym, T’Challa, and Hank McCoy, which is a great excuse to involve the Fantastic Four, Avengers, and X-Men.

The story flips back and forth between Red Hulks’ point of view in Hulk, and Banner’s point of view in Incredible Hulks. It’s far from seamless – unlike say Messiah Complex which ordered each of its four crossover series into chapters. Here you have to either look up a reading order, or go by publication date. It gets even more confusing with the limited series Fall of the Hulks: Red Hulk, which gives additional backstory on Red Hulk and his relationship with the bad guys.

Then there’s a very tangential addition of the Savage She-Hulk. That would be Bruce Banner’s daughter from a War of the Sexes-style future with super-powered amazon women. It’s dumb and Lyra is a minor side character at best. But the action is fun, and it bleeds into World War Hulks pretty well. Ironically the original She-Hulk, Jennifer Walters, would be side-lined for much of this entire gamma-powered arc.

Even with a reading order the events get muddled and confusing. Provided you don’t try to dive too far into the actual Whys and Hows of the story and focus on the action and characters in each moment, it’s quite the ride. The explosive battle on the Intellgencia’s helicarrier makes up the entire setpiece for World War Hulks. The cabal’s plan goes off as they’re able to harness gamma and cosmic rays to produce their own hulk-army.

It also has the side effect of hulking out every hero in the area, leading to some really silly, yet crazy fun battles. Again the art really shines here as the interpretation of each hero’s hulk form is quite brilliant – Thor resembles a D&D Cloud Giant, Wolverine looks like a hairy shadow demon, and Cyclops gets big glowing eyes all over his head.

The best part of the story is that our characters actually grow, and their situations change dramatically. In Hulk, Red Hulk is stunningly revealed to be Thunderbolt Ross, Banner’s old army General nemesis, and Red She-Hulk his daughter and Bruce’s wife, Betty Ross. The fact that Marvel kept this under wraps for nearly two years is impressive. The reveal takes an entire issue to explain how it all came together, and I found it decently satisfying.

At the end Red Hulk fights back against the Intelligencia, and in a weakened state is finally captured by the Avengers. Since his title was selling very well at the time, not only does it continue, but he gets a spot on an Avengers team!

Grek Pak’s Incredible Hulk run also gets a satisfying conclusion to the Skaar arc. At the end of World War Hulks, all that gamma energy has to go somewhere, and Banner knows he’s the only one that can absorb it. He’s transformed into the Hulk again, finally, and Skaar siezes his chance to fight and kill him.

The battle is an amazing knock-down drag-out fight that takes place over an entire issue. Pak infuses just the right amount of action and gravitas with the emotional punch of a kid who had an abusive father, now realizing he’s fighting his own son. In the end, father and son embrace, and it feels earned. I might’ve choked up a bit.

I really wish the story arc had utilized a better order and numbering system to make reading easier. It’s a really fun experience and a great way to mash all these old and new gamma-powered heroes together for some big battles and emotional gut punches. Even if you know nothing of Red Hulk or Skaar or A-Bomb, both arcs tell a complete and satisfying story, with some truly amazing artwork.

Watch our sessions live on my YouTube channel every Sunday night beginning at 9pm Central. Subscribe and catch up on previous episodes!

• Session 1 Recap
• Session 2 Recap
• Session 3 Recap
• Session 4 Recap
• Session 5 Recap
• Session 6 Recap
• Session 7 Recap
• Session 8 Recap
• Session 9 Recap
• Session 10 Recap
• Session 11 Recap
• Session 12 Recap
• Session 13 Recap
• Session 14 Recap
• Session 15 Recap
• Session 16 Recap
• Session 17 Recap

A final showdown with the Black Spider, meeting the leader of the Undead, and finding the Forge of Spells brings Wave Echo Cave and our four-month long campaign to a close.

First the party had to deal with the flameskull. Though the guardian undead lay defeated, they learned it would rise again in an hour. Without the proper spells or tools to prevent its rejuvenation, the party had to go into D&D: Mythbusters mode involving the nearby smelter.

I don’t exactly have the extended lore or concrete details regarding flameskull regeneration other than if it’s destroyed the pieces will reform. However, I imagine if you can trap it in an effective manner, it would still be trapped. The flameskull has access to powerful fire magic, but that does it little good when its melted into liquid metal!

I was impressed with the way the party came together to work the smelter and agree on how to deal with the flameskull. It was a great act of improvising a solution, and I definitely allowed it to work – later teasing that the creature was banging against the inside of the smelter in impotent rage.

The task dealt with, the PCs retreated to the nearby barracks for a Short Rest. They planned on continuing East and dealing with the flameskull’s master, presumably another powerful undead. But the Black Spider wasn’t idly sitting by. One of the advantages with having a live DM is you can make a dungeon a truly living, breathing thing that reacts to the party’s actions.

In this case I had the doppelganger disguise as Nundro and lead the party back to the temple, where the Black Spider could properly thank them for eliminating the Flameskull and its army. Fake-Nundro melted into the doppelganger form, briefly taking on Vhalak’s persona to give the party further aggravation and surprise. I got my nice little villain speech in from Nezznar the Black Spider, and we rolled for initiative!

I was quite worried about this one. The Black Spider is a mage with four giant spiders, two bugbears, and the doppelganger – an army that totals well beyond the “Deadly” rating for a party of four level 4 PCs. To make matters worse the party had only Short Rested; they were not nearly at full strength.

But Fog Cloud is a hell of a spell, and my players are nothing if not resourceful. The fog cloud rendered the giant spiders and Nezznar useless for several rounds while everyone dealt with the bugbears and doppelgangers – all of whom got in some powerful attacks on Miri and Kalinaar.

The PCs heard the door opening and realized Nezznar might be fleeing to the South. Talus and Kethra dashed back out and around to meet him there. Splitting the party in the middle of a fight is not something we’ve really done yet, and it made for a neat dynamic as two different battles were waged.

Somehow Miri and Kalinaar stayed alive – barely, and the doppelganger, bugbears, and one of the giant spiders lay dead at their feet. The fog cloud proved critical in keeping the spiders at bay. The monk and paladin would retreat back around to join the others.

Meanwhile Nezznar popped out of Invisibility and tried to mow down the rogue with Magic Missile – not realizing the rogue was also an Arcane Trickster armed with Shield. A back and forth spell battle ensued between he and Talus, which at one point devolved into staves bonking into each others’ shields.

Nezznar took heavy damage, including a crossbow bolt from Kethra and a spear from Kalinaar, and his spiders joined the fight too late to save him. With his dying breath he warned the players about the coming apocalypse, and how his people needed the Forge to fight what was to come – a tease for our next campaign!

Afterward it was a simple manner of cleaning up the spiders, and the party proved triumphant in one of their most difficult and protracted fights yet. It took over two hours! An epic boss battle indeed, even if the actual boss was not nearly as deadly or frightening as the flameskull.

Since any self-respecting party searches for loot after a big battle, I highlighted the glowing emerald eyes of the large dwarven statue in the temple. The rogue immediately scampered up the statue to pry them out. I gave her a free investigation roll but didn’t let on why. She didn’t make it, and prying them loose triggered the collapse of the entire temple, nearly downing half the party. Thankfully nearly everyone made their saving throws…except Kethra (shades of the fireball last session, though she didn’t go down this time).

Talus investigated the emerald and saw it was a fake, but our ever optimistic rogue thought to keep it in case she could swindle a merchant into buying it (they only found one, the other was lost in the rubble).

The damage was scary but ultimately the party could retreat back to Gundren and Nundro at the entrance for a Long Rest, and relay their battles with the dwarven brothers.

All that remained was the Eastern side of the mine. The party satisfyingly passed by the smelter with the angry but trapped Flameskull inside, and found the scorched buildings. Sensing a slight tingling of undead in the Southern building, they entered and found Mormesk. Mormesk was a former wizard of the mine turned evil wraith. He was none too pleased, though he tried to task the party with killing the guardian of the Forge for him.

Kalinaar would have none of it, of course, and unleashed a huge amount of damage with his various Paladin spells and abilities – over half the wraith’s life. Despite Mormesk getting to go first, Talus used a divination die to force the wraith to miss with his powerful attack, and it was destroyed before even making it a full round. The party looted his chest full of coins and found a mysterious map of the Dessarin Valley, and a Dwarven stronghold called Tyar-Besil.

To continue our clean-up of the mine the party headed north and found a spectator guarding the Forge of Spells. Spectators are basically low-level beholders, which still makes them quite the threat. This one however was slightly deranged, and believed the mine to still be in use despite all the undead roaming around.

The party caught on quickly to the situation, and Kalinaar calmly told the Spectator that its services are at an end. A successful Deception check later, and the Spectator nodded and simply disappeared. “The last wizard has died….of natural causes!” The Forge was theirs, and the nice loot that came with it.

Wave Echo Cave has been cleared. The Forge finally lay open to the Rockseeker brothers, the Black Spider has bee eliminated, and the undead forces laid to rest. The PCs have made an important impact to Phandalin as the mine can be reopened for use. Most importantly, we finished our first complete Dungeons & Dragons campaign, had a blast.

Tune in next week for a brief epilogue and a full recap of our four-month long adventure next week!

Watch our sessions live on my YouTube channel every Sunday night beginning at 9pm Central. Subscribe and catch up on previous episodes!

With Marvel’s popular and successful foray into films with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I’ve finally decided to get back into comics. I grew up a big fan of X-Men and other superheroes but haven’t really kept up since the 90s. Thus begins my grand catching-up of the last ten years of Marvel comics, events and stories.

Of course, occasionally I may even explore comics outside of Marvel if they come highly recommended or simply peak my interest. Like my gaming Final Thoughts, this will be full of spoilers. You’ve been warned!

Writer: Jay Faerber

Artist: Scott Godlewski

Issues: Copperhead #1-5

The “Western but in Space” is always a fun setting. One of the reasons I was drawn to the original Starcraft, aside from my love of strategy games, was its grungy space theme. These settings evoke the freedom and anarchy of a Western setting, while infusing aliens and future technology alongside the familiar Western tropes.

So Copperhead‘s alien-Western setting isn’t exactly unique. What sets it apart is actually just how eager it jumps into all the tropes and stereotypes of the Western, while still having a ton of fun with them. Also, aliens.

Copperhead starts with a new Sheriff arriving in the old backwater mining town of Copperhead. Clara Bronson, like most folks in town, is looking for a fresh start from a mysterious (most likely tragic) past. She also has a son, a young boy named Zeke, whom she’s extremely protective towards. Sheriff Bronson is sullen, gruff, and serious – traits we often see in a Western badass, but rarely in women (not to mention that women are never the stars of Westerns. And single moms? Forget about it).

She’s partnered with Budroxifinicus “Boo,” who’s large, furry, and looks a bit like a giant gerbil or hedgehog. He’s equally serious and sullen. He was passed over for the job of Sheriff, and he’s none too happy about being deputy to the new human in town. There’s some interesting teases and brief flashbacks to a war fought between the two races, which humanity won thanks to the creation of artificial humans.

Sheriff Bronson barely gets time to get settled when a domestic dispute erupts at the Sewells. The Sewells talk and dress like your typical white trash squabblers, except they’re green, one-eyed, four-armed aliens. The comic likes to inject these fun little differences, reminding you that this ain’t your typical Western, even though just about every character and plot device very much is.

The main plot follows a horrifying homicide and investigation that occurs at the Sewells later on, as Bronson and Boo work to track down the Who’s and the Why’s. We meet the town doctor, a lecherous drunk whom I enjoyed immensely. There’s the owner of the mine, a Colonel Sanders-looking asshole who thinks the police along with everyone else in town work for him. The most interesting is Ishmael. He’s an “artie” and represents the lone gunslinger trope, fending off hordes of Natives (seemingly feral insectoids) while protecting Zeke.

Bronson has a huge problem with arties, and I definitely felt shades of Blade Runner. The artificial humans were created as infantry units for the war, and apparently one of the treaties created after the war was to recognize their rights. We never get a solid look at Bronson’s backstory, so it’s difficult to emphasize with her feelings and general outlook. Between her, Boo, and Ishmael, there’s a whole lot of serious drama and very little moments of levity.

The plot is completely wrapped up in the five issues included in Volume One, and leads to the fun twist of Mama Sewell becoming Zeke’s new babysitter, despite her and Bronson having a literal knock-down, drag-out fight in the first issue. At the very end we’re teased with a scary-looking dude in prison looking at a picture of Clara, presumably her baby daddy?

Copperhead does quite well mining the Western. It derives a lot of enjoyment from pulling out familiar tropes, both in plot and characters. I dig the low-tech sci-fi setting and the idea of tons of alien races eking out an existence together. Having the Sheriff be a woman and a mom is a unique and enjoyable twist, though she’s a tough character to like. The artwork is nice, and the action sequences, while rare, where particularly well staged. But I’m not sure Copperhead does enough to set itself apart from the stream of other excellent Image comics like Saga and Rat Queens.

Watch our sessions live on my YouTube channel every Sunday night beginning at 9pm Central. Subscribe and catch up on previous episodes!

• Session 1 Recap
• Session 2 Recap
• Session 3 Recap
• Session 4 Recap
• Session 5 Recap
• Session 6 Recap
• Session 7 Recap
• Session 8 Recap
• Session 9 Recap
• Session 10 Recap
• Session 11 Recap
• Session 12 Recap
• Session 13 Recap
• Session 14 Recap
• Session 15 Recap
• Session 16 Recap
• Session 17 Recap
• Session 18 Recap

We recapped our four-month long campaign in about two hours.

The final Epilogue & Recap session is something we’ve been doing since our Shadowrun tabletop days. First, it gives me a chance to elicit feedback from my players on elements of the game they liked or didn’t like. It helps me as a DM tailor the gameplay, story, and structure more towards everyone’s liking.

Second it offers a way to pull the curtain back on events and let everyone see the How’s and Why’s of the adventure. In this case I even went through all the dungeons and turned off fog of war and dynamic lighting. We all poured over the dungeon maps together for fun, and discussed how they tackled various situations.

And finally it simply gives me another week to prepare for our next adventure! In this case we’ll be transitioning from “The Lost Mine of Phandelver” right into “Princes of the Apocalypse.” “Princes of the Apocalypse” was published in Spring of 2015, and takes place directly to the East of Phandalin in the Dessarin Valley. It even includes specific plot hooks to get the players to travel East as they uncover, well, evil. I very much enjoy utilizing the official published adventures, thanks in large part to not having to make any maps, and only having to convert them into Roll20.

It’s tricky to do a write-up of a massive recap episode. For the epilogue I staged it like a closing cutscene, with the PCs returning from the mine as heroes, and Gundren opening the mine and dedicating it to his slain brother. Sildar remains in town and becomes the sheriff, and he rounds up a militia to root out the Cragmaw goblin tribe (whom the players didn’t wipe out).

The PCs will have some downtime in between adventures, and the Player Handbook suggests a few things they can do that could actually have gameplay benefits, like gaining proficiency in a new skill.

We were able to fly through the recap and I learned a lot of useful information that will help me prepare for our next campaign.

The PCs made it to level 4 (almost 5), and we’ll be continuing with the same group into “Princes of the Apocalypse.” This means that the party will be slightly overleveled at the beginning, but still very adjustable. The nice thing about being a DM is you have the power to change literally anything, and I’m feeling more and more comfortable with the ruleset and the material to be able to modify and impose some neat additional story-telling moments and modifications.

Before we signed off I had each player recount their favorite moment from the adventure (begins at 2:10 in the recap video):

Talus (Reese) – The encounter at Old Well with Hamun Kost, whom I made a former colleague at the Red Wizard school with Talus. This put Talus in a moral dilemma in not wanting to kill him, and put he and Kalinaar at odds in a delicious bit of role-playing. (Session 11)

Kethra (Raymond) – When the Doppelganger at Cragmaw Castle held Gundren Castle, and Kalinaar called her bluff – only for it to slit Gundren’s throat! Everyone agreed this was an amazing moment, and made even better by the PCs having only just found a scroll of revivy to revive Gundren and get the hell out! (Session 14)

Kalinaar (Chris) – The meeting with the green dragon, Venomfang, since Kalinaar was the only one that spoke Draconic. He was the only one that had an idea of the conversation between the cultists and the dragon, and the only one that could talk the dragon down after the fight! (Session 10)

Miri (Heather) – The very first battle when Miri sets the tone for her monk when she uses an unarmed strike to rip a goblin’s face off. So much face-ripping was soon to follow! (Session 1)

Fun Stats:

• Total Length: Four Months, 18 weeks, 45 hours
• Average Session Length: 2.5 hours
• Shortest Session: 2 hours
• Longest Session: 4 hours
• Wave Echo Cave took four sessions, 12 total hours
• Total Experience Gained: 5566 (Level 4, quite close to 5)
• Best stat: Never missed a single week!

Big thumbs up to Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition. The streamlined rules and flexibility worked incredibly well for our group. “The Lost Mine of Phandelver” was a fantastic intro mini-campaign that I heartily recommend, and works well for a springboard for low-level PCs.

We’ll be taking a two-week hiatus due to PAX South 2016 and a family vacation the following week. Then we’ll fire up “Princes of the Apocalypse” in mid-February and continue our characters’ journey into the Forgotten Realms. Note our new earlier start time of 9pm Central. Subscribe to my blog and on YouTube to stay current on our adventures!

Watch our sessions live on my YouTube channel every Sunday night beginning at 9pm Central. Subscribe and catch up on previous episodes!

Read the full article at Pixelkin

Yo-Kai Watch may be designed and marketed toward kids, but that doesn’t make it a simplistic game. Follow these quick tips and suggestions and you’ll be on your way to solving the mysteries of the Yo-kai around Springdale.

Crank-a-kai Everyday

You’ll soon discover one of the best treasure rewards in the game—those colorful Crank-a-kai coins. Return to the machine by the tree at the Wildwood Shrine where you got Whisper at the beginning of the game to insert them. Most of the time you’ll get a random item, but rarely a Yo-kai will pop out. There’s a rare chance you could get a very powerful A or even S-rank Yo-kai early on. Since you can use it three times a day, use it every day!

Read the full article at Pixelkin

I have finished another backlogged game via Rogue’s Adventures. You can read my latest Final Thoughts below and also on my gaming blog on Game Informer.

Developer: Stainless Games

Publisher: Stainless Games

Release Date: May 21, 2015

In the immortal words of Dr. Ian Malcolm (paraphrasing): just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Sometimes that applies to remakes of classic 90s video games.

I was a big fan of Carmageddon back in the day. The violent destruction derby combined standard racing with large, fully explorable zones. Racing through checkpoints was only one of three ways to win.

The others involved either destroying your fellow racers, or running over every poor pedestrian that wandered into range of your four-wheeled death machine. It was silly, over-the-top violence that was very 90s and very fun. An expansion pack added more fun, while a middling sequel suggested that the magic may have already died a bit.

Skip ahead to our current Kickstarter-addled, nostalgic fueled age. Stainless Games bought back the rights to their beloved car-smashing series and jumped onto the Kickstarter bandwagon back in 2012. An official remake was in the works.

Carmageddon: Reincarnation was finally released three years later after a hefty dose of time in open development via Steam Early Access. The result was a buggy, poorly optimized mess that I initially shied away from, despite being a Kickstarter backer. Thankfully a few months of post-launch patches and support have stabilized the gameplay and the result is a briefly nostalgic, but ultimately forgettable experience.

Carmageddon: Reincarnation works hard to capture every little detail and quirk of the original, from the goofy sound effects to the grotesque splattering of the pedestrians. Entire levels are remade piece by piece, while every unique and fun car design returns. It’s a fun trip seeing familiar racers like Screwie Lewie, Max Damage, and The Brothers Grimm in their iconic vehicles.

Unfortunately the transition made the floaty controls even worse, to the point of constant frustration that just about ruins the entire experience. Even when driving on asphalt with a very heavy vehicle I still spun out of control on a frequent basis. Drifting is an absolute joke, and only useful if you want to do a complete 180. If you’re driving on dirt, grass, or snow, which many maps employ, forget about having any semblance of control once you take the slightest nudge in any direction.

Tight controls are kind of important in a racing game, and Carmageddon: Reincarnation completely fails in that regard. Thankfully the game isn’t all about racing. Many courses quickly turn into a destruction derby fest, and the AI is all too happy to fight back. The new real-time damage and repairs look fantastic, though I found the actual parts flying back into your car as you repair on the fly to be incredibly distracting.

Your own destruction comes swiftly and often. Recovery and repairs cost credits, which are earned by doing good things like hitting other cars and people. The ratio of getting destroyed is completely out of whack, however. Early and mid-game especially I was constantly getting destroyed, even when upgrading my armor and driving supposedly tougher-ranked vehicles.

Since you advance through the career mode by earning credits, every death and blow sustained costs you progress, making many scenarios more frustrating than fun. In the latter half of the game I abandoned racing entirely since it didn’t pay out enough credits. Career mode simply unlocks additional courses and gameplay modes, while allowing you to unlock new vehicles by destroying them. I did enjoy unlocking new vehicles far more frequently than the original game, and being able to customize their paint job is a nice touch.

The new gameplay modes are a unique addition to Carmageddon: Reincarnation. Ped Chase and Checkpoint Stampede both create really fun “Chase After the Thing” scenarios, forcing everyone into chaotic death zones. Fox ‘N Hounds is Carmageddon‘s version of playing Tag, as one player is “It” with a countdown timer, while the others try to touch you (Unfortunately the AI flounders at catching a half-way decent player).

Other modes were a slog that I soon skipped every time they came up. Death Race focuses on just doing laps around a track. Given Carmageddon‘s aforementioned terrible controls, this focuses on entirely the wrong elements of gameplay. Car Crusher seems like a good idea – get the most kills. In practice it’s utterly frustrating as even if you win you end up repairing so much damage that it’s just not worth playing in Career mode.

Carmageddon: Reincarnation also brings back the goofy power-ups and weapons that would make Super Mario Kart raise an eyebrow. Power-ups include weapons like death rays and mines as well as ongoing effects, such as lunar gravity, frozen opponents, and pinball mode. The insane effects reinforce the goofy, darkly-humorous tone of the game. But often the effects compound the already poor controls – good luck trying to drive at all under the bouncing, twirling effects of lunar gravity.

Multiplayer was completely dead, so I was unable to give it a try. Unsurprising given its poor reception upon release. I have a mid to high-range gaming PC but had to scale the graphics back to medium as high was completely unplayable. I also experienced frequent crashes and lockups, one of which completely locked up my entire PC, which I don’t think has happened since I built it two years ago.

As a pure racing game Carmageddon: Reincarnation is far too frustrating, with floaty controls and power-ups that often further derail your driving. As a car-smashing game it retains the fun of the original, though I wish the ratio of destroying enemies versus being wrecked yourself was far more favorable – it feels utterly impossible to play a lighter weight vehicle and even attempt to destroy other cars.

The new gameplay modes are a mixed bag, but I’m glad they added them in addition to the Classic Carma – of which only wrecking opponents is really enjoyable. Carmageddon: Reincarnation is built for fans and only hardcore fans may be willing to forgive its many issues.

Pros

• Fun nostalgic trip for fans of the original
• Large levels are fun to explore off-track
• New vehicles and gameplay modes are welcome additions

Cons

• Awful, frustrating controls
• You always feel far more weaker and vulnerable than your opponents
• Some of the new gameplay modes don’t work well
• Multiplayer is dead
• Numerous crashes and freezes

Final Say: Frustrating controls and frequent crashes prevent this nostalgic remake from stepping out of the shadow of the original 90s car-smasher.

With Marvel’s popular and successful foray into films with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I’ve finally decided to get back into comics. I grew up a big fan of X-Men and other superheroes but haven’t really kept up since the 90s. Thus begins my grand catching-up of the last ten years of Marvel comics, events and stories.

Thanks in large part to trade paperbacks and the digital convenience of Marvel Unlimited I can make relatively quick progress, and I’ll write down my Final Thoughts for each collection here on my blog. Like my gaming Final Thoughts, this will be full of spoilers. You’ve been warned!

Writers: Mike Carey, Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost, Matt Fraction, Zeb Wells

Artists: David Finch, Terry Dodson, Ibraim Robertson, Greg land, Mike Choi

Issues: Second Coming: Prepare, X-Men: Second Coming #1-2, Uncanny X-Men #523-525, New Mutants #12-14, X-Men: Legacy #235-237, X-Force #26-28*

*Also read the Second Coming Revelations trade, which includes X-Factor #204-206, X-Men Second Coming Revelations: Blind Science, X-Men: Hellbound #1-3

“You’ll feel it, Hope. Like nothing you’ve ever felt before. It’l be like a switched turned on inside you. Like a fire. And once that fire’s lit…everything will change.”

Remember how much I gushed about how awesome the mega crossover X-Men event Messiah Complex was? Well the two-years in the making sequel, Second Coming, makes that look like crap. Which is to say it’s bloody amazing.

X-Men: Second Coming finally brings Hope, the young mutant messiah, back into our timeline. At the end of Messiah Complex Cable took the first mutant baby born since M-Day forward into the future to escape danger (even though just about every future scenario is super dangerous). Bishop, on a quest to prevent his own apocalyptic future, hunts them down through time. What followed was a pretty nice two year arc of Cable as a tough-love dad with Hope growing up knowing only war, danger, and survival.

Meanwhile with Xavier’s school destroyed, the X-Men relocated to San Francisco. Then when shit hit the fan, Cyclops moved everyone to the island of Utopia – arisen from Magneto’s old Asteroid M that had crashed into the ocean (Namor is a useful ally to have around).

Cyclops, who’s grown into a real wartime general that makes even Magneto bend the knee, also restarts X-Force as a mutant black ops group, tasked with trying to kill the bad guys before they can do more harm. It was a very bloody, very violent series with some spiffy art.

And at some point Marvel started up a mostly unnecessary but surprisingly decent New Mutants series. All of this means that X-Men: Second Coming, like all X-Men stuff is densely mired in continuity and current events. This makes it both off-putting for anyone trying to jump in, but rewarding for fans following the X-Men’s dire saga in the last few years. I’m in the latter camp, so I absolutely loved it.

Like Messiah Complex in 2008, Second Coming‘s event takes over four separate mutant-related series, all done by different writers and artists. Each one is clearly labeled as Chapter 1, 2, etc, making reading order a breeze. It also throws out trying to keep each one separate and unique, opting instead to tell one long, flowing story.

It’s a bold choice, requiring everyone to buy or subscribe to each series at the time. It works very well when reading them together years later in a trade paperback. The Second Coming TPB is incredibly comprehensive, with 15 total issues, while a supplement titled Second Coming: Revelations includes the lingering outliers (and is actually well worth reading).

Cable and a now grown-up Hope (thanks to more time-travel shenanigans) finally return to our present time. Their appearance alerts both the X-Men and Bastion’s anti-mutant army, the Purifiers.

Bastion was introduced in X-Force following the Messiah Complex storyline, and he ascends as the primary villain. His first act was to resurrect all the old anti-mutant villains from the X-Men’s past such as William Stryker, Graydon Greed, and Cameron Hodge. It’s a nifty cabal of evil, made even more deadly by Bastion’s direct overmind-style control of everyone. Also he’s an android with a goatee, which is just a fantastic look.

Bastion’s machinations are teased throughout 20+ issues of X-Force, and it finally comes to a climactic head in Second Coming. The Purifiers are hundreds of soldiers strong, and they go after Cable and Hope in full force. Cyclops responds by sending out multiple teams to bring them in to Utopia.

Wolverine, X-23, Angel, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Psylocke, and Magik get in two awesome battles with an army of Purifiers as they try to meet up with Cable and Hope, who attempt to run and go to ground, Terminator-style. The rest of the X-Men learn about X-Force when they notice people like X-23 just straight up murdering people. Nightcrawler in particular has a huge problem with this, and Cyclops begins taking heat from his fellow mutants that lasts throughout the entire series.

During the second battle with Stryker and company, they fire a special weapon, sending Magik back to Limbo and spinning off a whole separate X-Men: Hellbound mini-series. While completely separate from Second Coming, it’s a fun pseudo-sequel to the end of New X-Men.

It stars an odd but fun team from several different X-titles on a rescue mission to hell: Pixie, Cannonball, Dazzler, Trance, Anole, Gambit, and Northstar. It expands on the animosity between Pixie and Magik. Also, Gambit as Death makes for a cool plot point and callback to many years ago when Gambit submitted to Apocalypse.

Meanwhile Cyclops sends the New Mutants team on the offensive, attempting to strike back against the Purifiers. We get another awesome large-scale fight with powers flowing left and right and dramatic moments everywhere. Karma violently loses a leg in the fight with Hodge. The team only perseveres when Cypher convinces Warlock that it’s kill or be killed.

They learn about Bastion’s towers, but are too late to discover his backup plan: trapping the X-Men in Utopia in a giant sphere. First he tries to eliminate Hope before she gets there. The X-Men have a plan: they learn that Bastion can track Cable thanks to his TO virus, so they set up a decoy and split up Hope with Nightcrawler and Rogue.

The decoy team gets hit hard, including a missile from a jet that kills Ariel, who had teleported in to deliver Rogue. Cyclops is a pretty impressive war-time general and absolutely unafraid to get his people killed. It’s been a quieting evolution to his character, and strangely satisfying.

Bastion himself doesn’t take the bait, and goes after Hope directly. Now that Rogue is in control of her powers she has some awesome moments fighting Bastion with multiple X-Men powers, but it’s not enough. Nightcrawler ultimately sacrifices himself to teleport Hope away at the last moment…while Bastion’s arm is through him. Kurt!!

It’s a shocking moment, particularly when they killed Ariel and I thought “okay, people will die but it’ll be minor mutants we don’t really care about.” Nightcrawler is obviously a huge character, and they subtlety telegraphed his demise by focusing on his shock at seeing X-Force in action, as well as his strong faith in Hope as the mutant messiah.

Everyone meets up back in Utopia, and then the sphere envelops them all as part of a coordinated attack. The planes are destroyed, Cerebra is cut-off, and the sphere completely isloates the X-Men (and much of San Francisco) from the rest of the world.

We get brief cameos from the Avengers and Fantastic Four, as a giant city-sphere is not something to be taken lightly. There’s little they can do on the outside but scratch their heads.

Inside, the X-Men find a second smaller sphere that’s actually a time-portal that starts shuttling in future sentinels from a time when mutants were driven extinct. Remember the dark future framework surrounding the film X-Men: Days of Future Past and the badass adaptive sentinels? They’re here in full force, and ready for some crazy epic fight scenes. It’s a shame they kept the awkward name “Nimrods” to describe them, though.

Lots of crazy moments are included here, and at least one issue is just fight scene after fight scene with barely any dialogue. Thankfully the art is incredible, I loved each artists’ interpretation of the characters and action. Mike Choi’s art in the X-Force issues are particularly breath-taking. Though Rogue’s outfit in particular tends to get awkwardly sexed-up depending on the artist.

Hellion loses his arms. Colossus has his arm broken in metal form. Mulitple high-powered X-Men get to completely let loose with their powers, like Storm’s lightning storm. Magneto gets out of his sickbed from bringing Kitty Pryde back to Earth  afew issues ago in Uncanny X-Men (who’s sadly fridged throughout this story) and destroys multiple nimrods with one blow.

With tens of thousands of nimrods set to come through, the X-Men have only one plan – send a team into the timestream to destroy the source, the master mold.

Cable has one time-travel jump remaining (the Chekov’s Gun of this story) and leads X-Force plus Cypher into the mutant-less cyber-future, where we’re treated to brief but cool echoes of the original 80s Days of Future Past story. We’re treated to splitscreen fights between present and future as both teams battle, and it’s an orgy of amazing art and action. They finally manage to get Cypher into Master Mold, where he rewrites it, destroying the sentinel factory.

Only one threat remains, Bastion himself. (Actually the entire Purifier anti-mutant faction still exists and would pose problems in the years to come). Bastion is hell-bent on destroying Hope, and his evolution from calculating to passionate obsession feels earned, and leads to a fantastic final boss battle. Predictably Hope fully lets loose with her mutant powers (which seems to be everyone’s, “She’s all of us”) and Bastion is finally destroyed once and for all.

It was an incredibly hard-fought victory. The future team find out that only non-organic matter can make the return trip through the time-portal (Terminator rules!) so Cable sacrifices himself to the TO virus, becoming fully organic and transporting the team through before he succumbs and dies.

It’s heart-breaking for Hope to lose the only ally and father-figure she’s known her entire life – and also cliché and predictable. Of course the mentor dies so the trainee can fully evolve. You even hear Cable’s speech I quoted above during her climactic battle, Obi-Wan style. But I didn’t care. It’s all so damn fun and uplifting, clichés be damned.

The X-Men survive one of the most thrilling stories I’ve ever read in comics. Even the tangential X-Factor tie-ins (included in Second Coming: Revelations) are fun and action-packed as they fend off a full-on Purifier attack. X-Force is dissolved, only for Wolverine to turn around and create a new team completely off the books, starting a new Uncanny X-Force series. At the end several new mutant signatures are detected, signifying a new hope for mutantkind (and a new series in Generation Hope).

X-Men: Second Coming is easily one of my favorite X-Men stories ever, but it absolutely requires a ton of back-reading and setup to fully understand. As a climax to the last two years of story arcs it is incredibly satisfying. The chapter layout works well and even the constant artist change for each title brings a fun but consistent depth, rather than the jarring differences seen in Messiah Complex. Highly recommended for mutant fans.

I should start by apologizing for the lateness of this post. My original idea was to update my blog every night with all the crazy festivities of each day of PAX South. Instead we ended up spending all day and evening (minus dinner out) at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in downtown San Antonio. That’s about 9am to midnight. The hotel wi-fi was just not up to snuff for uploading pictures, so I resigned to the occasional twitter updates and pics throughout the weekend.

Then on the way home I caught a whiff of the con crud/PAX pox. Then yesterday was my daughter’s birthday. So yeah, excuses, I got ’em!

But no more! It’s time to break down PAX South 2016, and my personal experience with this unique gaming convention.

Day 0

I arrived in San Antonio, Texas Thursday Evening. It’s a four drive South by Southwest from Ft Worth. Despite timing it around rush hour I didn’t run into any traffic thanks to a sexy tollway that takes you completely around the gridlock that is Austin. It’s an easy drive, but a long one.

I picked up one of my best friends from the airport and we checked into the hotel, the Riverwalk Plaza Hotel. It was a few blocks West of the convention center, and we quickly found that we could travel along the actual riverwalk to go to and from our hotel and PAX.

We elected to grab dinner first at Whataburger, and met the great Leif Johnson! Leif is a freelance games writer whom I really admire, and chatted with on twitter. He was in town visiting family and was gracious enough to join us and hang out a bit. Very cool!

That evening I had learned of a pre-PAX party at the Geekdom, a tech/nerd friendly event center, which basically means a room with tables and chairs.

It was packed! We got there a little after 9 and already all the free beer had been consumed, and everyone had settled in to various tables and board games. It was cool seeing so much gaming going on, but intimidating in such a close space!

Thankfully we found some friendly folks and an empty table opened up. We played some games of Sushi Go, a fun little deck-drafting game, before calling it a night. We were tired from traveling and looking forward to a busy weekend.

Day 1

The riverwalk is a beautiful little area of downtown San Antonio, lined with lots of restaurants and night life. During the morning hours on our walks to the convention center it’s eerily calm and quiet, with only the occasional jogger running past.

We saw very few PAX-people that took this scenic route, but when you go back up to the surface streets, it was absolutely packed full of excited nerds and geeks! In fact, we actually missed the entrance the first time and walked all the way to the rear entrance of the convention center before doubling back.

We met some more old friends in line directly in front of us. Lots of local Texas people come to PAX South – it’s awesome having a large gaming convention that you don’t have to fly several hours to get to!

I had zero issues getting my media pass and getting inside, and we went directly to the Keynote Speech, hosted by game designer veteran Cliff Bleszinski. The middle-aged designer once known as “CliffyB” is still a gregarious personality, full of profanity-laced tirades and celebrity name-dropping bravado. But he’s also a veteran businessman and a savvy social critic, and made for a really fun and insightful speech.

From there we ran up to the 2nd floor to get in line for the Gaming in Education panel. The majority of my freelance writing is done for Pixelkin.org, and this panel couldn’t have been more relevant to promoting games as a positive force. Middle school teacher Ashley Brandin performed an excellent and highly academic one-woman panel on the benefits of applying gaming concepts to the classroom. Look for my breakdown of the whole thing in a few weeks!

After that it was all abut the Expo Hall. I had front-loaded my appointments so my Friday was completely stacked full of games and interviews. I used zombies to kill other soldiers in Moving Hazard, made tough choices in Stories: The Path of Destinies, and had a lengthy conversation with the Product Manager for Black Forest Games while we mowed down goblins in Rogue Stormers. I also had a nifty backroom meeting and co-op session with Grey Box and their upcoming free to play spaceship arena shooter Dreadnought.

In between one-on-one with developers and PR I also walked around a bit, stopping at a few booths to play a game or ask questions. Some of my appointments took a full 30 minutes or more, while others I was able to jump in, play the game and talk to a representative in far less time. Talking to enthusiastic indie devs instead of PR reps was a particularly delightful experience.

Note, stay tuned for future articles about the individual games I played!

They close the Expo Hall at 6pm, so we went back out to the riverwalk and got a bite to eat at a simple Texas-themed diner. Beer and quesadillas, is there anything better? Okay, how about returning to the convention center for all the board games you could ever play?

PAX boasts a really fun tabletop area where you can simply check out a game from their library of hundreds to play with friends or even strangers. I had met several old friends there and we were ready to unwind and play some games. Still, complex games after an exhausting day of PAX can be a bit tricky, and we’d learn our lesson the next day (Five Tribes is a pretty neat game, though).

Day 2

We attempted to meet at a place near the convention center for breakfast, but it had a line out the door. McDonald’s breakfast it is! I had some morning appointments but thanks to the efficiency of the PAX staff, I was never worried about getting anywhere or lines taking too long.

Saturday was an even longer day, with only one short break taking us away from the show floor – the Firaxis XCOM 2 “Mega-Panel.” With XCOM 2 releasing only a few days away there wasn’t exactly a lot of new information they could share. Instead they focused on the modding tools they’re incorporating via Steam Workshop and the designer of the beloved Long War mod for 2012’s XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

Unfortunately it was incredibly boring. They went into the highly technical, under-the-hood aspects of modding, and soon half the audience was nodding off (a dude behind us was literally snoring). We got no actual live gameplay. At the very end they treated us to the opening cutscene, which was neat to see on a big screen. But quite the disappointment overall.

After that it was back to the Expo Hall. Throughout each day we’d grab lunch whenever we could, and they had food areas set up everywhere, which was nice. The food was about as you’d expect, overpriced and pre-packaged, but hunger is the sweetest sauce.

Saturday was about half appointments and half just walking around exploring. I had an extended interview with Mike Rose of TinyBuild, who graciously introduced all four of their new games at the show floor, one of which had only just been announced the day before. The Dallas Society of Play had a booth of several indie devs from my stomping grounds in the DFW area, including Polyknight Games’ flying explorer InnerSpace and Fermenter Games’ co-op twin-stick shooter Neighborhorde.

Color Thief was a delightful puzzle game of manipulating colors, while Knight Squad featured eight player arcade action as we all chased after the grail while killing each other. Silly fun local multiplayer games was a major trend that kept popping up, and these games showed especially well on a crowded show floor with plenty of eager gamers ready to play.

I finally got to try VR for the first time! Marble Mountain is an unofficial remake of the original Marble Madness. You guide a small ball through a series of environmental hazards. The HTC Vive added a remarkable level of immersion, and I only felt the effects briefly during the exciting moments when the marble rolled quickly down or rocked past on rails.

I also got to meet up with Pixelin writer, frequent podcaster, and all-around badass Simone de Rochefort, where we promptly nerded out over the games we saw.

Once again we left for dinner after the expo hall shut down, and we ate on the riverwalk. More Tex-mex? Why not. We returned and played several more board games that evening, because board games!

Day 3

With all my appointments finished and having seen most of the games being shown, the last day was all about tabletop board games.

PAX South has garnered a reputation as being particularly indie and tabletop gaming friendly. Board games were everywhere on the show floor, being demo’d as prototypes by hopeful designers and being sold by big and small vendors.

One of the coolest areas was the PAX South Indie Tabletop Showcase.

This area was home to half a dozen indies that had won the right to be included here by submitting their games to a judging panel. There was a neat variety including a word-card game, a dungeon-themed bidding and auction game, an asymmetrical dungeon-crawler, a tactical card-battler, and abstract color-matching tile placement.

Board games are in a really cool place right now and I’m a big fan of getting people together to play games at the table. The Indie Showcase showed off a lot of cool new ideas, at least two of which I quickly ran to Kickstarter or Gamecrafter to throw in my support.

Board games can also take a while to actually play, especially if you’re learning. Sunday went by quickly, even when some designers gave us a fast-track demo (shout-out to the friendly guy demo’ing Pirate Den – you were awesome!). I felt like I could have spent twice the time and seen and played even more games, but time marches on and 6pm hit soon enough. After yet another tex-mex dinner on the riverwalk (at least we went to a different place each time), it was time to bid farewell to San Antonio.

I didn’t quite see everything but I did see almost everything. I spent the majority of my time at the Expo Hall, which was admittedly exhausting. PAX is actually a lot more than just the show floor, with the PC and console freeplay rooms, concerts, handheld lounge, tabletop tournaments, PAX Arena, etc.

I dabbled in a few things just to see what they were, but ultimately none of it really held my attention the way talking to indie devs or playing new games did. With the big exception of the tabletop area, which is deliciously open until midnight on the first two days!

PAX South 2016 was an absolute blast. I’m incredibly thankful that Texas has its own Penny Arcade Expo and that I could combine a business trip with meeting and hanging out with friends. I definitely plan on attending next year!

My family has a big thing for Disneyland. My mom spent her formative childhood years growing up in Southern California. Many of her favorite memories come from day trips to the park.

The cool thing about Disneyland (and what Disney purists tend to mention every chance they get) is that it’s been around since 1955, with many of its original rides still intact and operational. It’s an impressive feat, and really special for that generation that can return and share those experiences with their grandkids.

My wife and I also got engaged on our last trip to Disneyland in 2010. I proposed right in front of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle.

This trip was my four year old daughter’s first visit to Disneyland. It was also her first plane ride and first time leaving our home state of Texas. And all of this merely a week after I had an exhausting weekend trip with PAX South!

Day 1

We arrived mid-day Sunday at the Grand Californian Hotel. It’s the closest to the parks – you can actually walk directly from the hotel to Disney’s California Adventure. Since we had the little one we headed over to A Bug’s Land, a fun little kid-friendly zone designed specifically for preschoolers.

California Adventure used to be a tough sell compared to its bigger cousin Disneyland, but in the decade-plus since it’s opening they’ve added a bunch of great Pixar themed zones and rides and made it much more kid-friendly.

We had an early dinner at Trattoria and had the fortune of catching the mid-day parade, which was full of Pixar floats and characters, much to my daughter’s delight.

We walked around a bit more than turned in and put the little one to bed. A three hour plane ride can take a lot out of you. My mom offered to watch her for the evening so us “kids” (my wife, my sister, and me) could enjoy the park’s night life.

Despite having gone to Disneyland a number of times growing up (I believe we figured out this was my fifth trip) I’d never spent much time in the park after dark. It’s pretty awesome! Sunday the park was open until midnight and the crowds cleared out.

My sister met a local, season-pass holding friend in Disneyland and we managed to practically walk on to four different rides in the span of about two hours – Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, Indiana Jones, and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. We tried to squeeze in the Matterhorn but it was temporarily closed, and we were exhausted.

I was very thankful for this opportunity as my daughter wouldn’t have ridden any of those rides, and that ended up being my one chance to ride most of them.

Day 2

On Monday we wanted to get going early for the Magic Hour. Staying in one of the Disneyland hotels means you can get in the park an hour early before it’s open to the public. The day switch off between early admission to Disneyland and California Adventure. Monday’s was California Adventure and we were determined to jump on the newest and most popular ride, Radiator Springs.

Well any parent of a young kid knows how they can slow you down. By the time 8am rolled around we were still standing in the security line. Meanwhile my dad and sister and made it onto the ride – only to have it break down! They would sit there while we made it all the way into the park and the queue line, but eventually they unloaded it. They did it special raincheck fast passes that let them (and my wife and I) back onto the ride at any time.

So we ran over to California Screamin’ and jumped in. Early morning is still a great time but these few days would end up extremely crowded with temperatures in the upper 80s – ugh! We did not leave Texas desiring warmer weather!

Screamin’ is a lot of fun, my wife particularly enjoyed it and wanted to jump on it again, though the line was already significantly longer when we got off. We met back up with my mom and daughter who had spent more time in A Bug’s Land.

We all went to Ariel’s Undersea Adventure, a delightful little slow ride that takes you through the whole movie with singing and animitronics. I think it’s only a few years old but it’s an example of an excellent younger kid ride that California Adventure desperately needed. My daughter and mom and would end up riding it a second time while the rest of us skirted back to Car’s Land to take advantage of that fast pass, and waltz right up to Radiator Springs.

Radiator Springs is a Cars-themed ride. The first half takes you through a bit of the town and residents of the film, while the second is a thrilling race outside. It’s a neat combination and a fun ride, but I certainly would never wait more than 40 minutes for any ride, and it was consistently a 60+ minute wait. Yay for fast passes and morning break downs!

Afterward we met up again and headed over to Hollywoodland to meet Elsa and Anna. The Animation Academy has one of the neatest queue lines I’ve ever seen, with multiple giant screens showcasing classic musical numbers along with sketches, storyboards, and computer templates. Very cool!

My daughter’s a bit shy. She completely clams up when the big costumed characters are around (she likes seeing them, just not being near them). I was a bit dismayed that she acted the same away around a pair of princesses (well, Elsa’s a Queen technically). She later claimed she enjoyed meeting them, and to their credit they were extremely nice.

We finally headed over to Disneyland for lunch. Half the family had yet to see the main park at this point! My sister had gotten us reservations at Carnation Cafe right on Main Street.

Right when we got out we caught a special parade for Superbowl Champion Peyton Manning, who was waving along with his kids on a special float. You know that old joke when asked “You just won the Superbowl what are you gonna do now?” Apparently they really do go to Disneyland!

At this point it was hot as balls and queue lines were long everywhere. Who would’ve thunk it would be so hot and crowded on a Monday in February?

We made it over to Toontown to explore Mickey’s house. My daughter wanted to meet him and was super shy again, but she loved seeing him. We tried doing Gadget’s Go-Coaster but the ride spins around the queue line, and after a few go-arounds she gave us a big NOPE.

We’d split up again with my wife and I back on parental duty while the others went to the other side of the park. We retreated to Tomorrowland and got fast passes for Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters, then did some shopping.

I really enjoy collecting the pins and displaying them on a worn lanyard. I had about half a dozen from my last trip in 2010 and ended up more than doubling that amount this trip!

We met back up with the family and enjoyed riding Alice in Wonderland, one of the better classic slow rides. It was one of my daughter’s favorites, and we’d end up riding it again the next day.

Dinner was at the Blue Bayou, the restaurant inside Pirates of the Caribbean that we always have to eat at. It’s really good food too, lots of gumbo, jambalaya and seafood plates. It’s also quite dark and my daughter ended up falling asleep!

We took advantage of her sleeping in the stroller and took turns jumping on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, then Astro Blasters. The Paint the Night Parade was going on and she slept right through it, but I was determined to watch the whole thing in full on our last night tomorrow.

Day 3

Tuesday was Magic Hour for Disneyland, and the ride to jump on is the 60 year old Peter Pan. This time we got up and going early and were actually among the first inside the park.

We all huffed it through the castle only to find Peter Pan temporarily closed. Rats! We jumped on the vastly inferior (and overly creepy) Snow White’s Scary Adventures, followed by Alice in Wonderland. We then checked Peter Pan and it was open – with the line out the castle! Peter Pan is notoriously popular with a minimum wait time of 30-40 minutes. We’d already lost our fast window.

We did the classic It’s a Small World ride, a perennial children’s favorite. It’s also a good one to do early as that line has zero shade! Thankfully we jumped on quickly and my daughter was entranced with all the singing dolls.

Tuesday was also the hottest day, and the sun was rapidly doing its job. We opted to wait in line for Storybook Canal, a brutally tiny queue line that just bakes in the sun. Disney has done a poor job updating the old queues with so much as an umbrella, and we were sweltering.

It’s a cute ride through some miniatures but my daughter mostly just wanted to travel through the whale from Pinocchio.

We droopily grabbed some water and went over to the much more shaded line at Finding Nemo’s Submarine Voyage.

This is a great example of updating an older, classic ride by fitting in a modern film and using some fancy animations to show the characters. The submarine is immersive and fun and my daughter got a real kick out of it.

We split up for lunch and did some shopping. I enjoyed the Star Wars shop in Tomorrowland. Star Wars is pretty damn popular again and the shop was bustling. I even built my own lightsaber at this awesome little station they had set up.

Watch out for a pair of stormtroopers that patrol Tomorrowland! Saw these guys on both days we were in that section, hassling people and scaring kids. What a great job.

With the heat still oppressive and my daughter getting cranky we decided to retreat back to the hotel for a mid-day rest. We had grabbed fast passes for the now-popular-again Star Tours, but it was temporarily closed when we tried to go and we’d end up not going at all. That and Peter Pan were my big regrets this trip, and both due to bad timing on broken rides.

We briefly entertained going down to the hotel pool but we were ultimately too tired from getting such an early start each day. Instead we moved our dinner reservation up and had a nice, if incredibly long dinner at Catal in Downtown Disney.

Downtown Disney is the fun section of shops and restaurants that runs the length between the old Disneyland Resort and the two parks. We’d spend a few hours on our fourth day exploring the neat shops – mainly the Lego store and the gigantic World of Disney gift shop.

Newly refreshed we wanted to spend some more time in the park in the evening. Sadly dinner took forever (almost two hours) and by the time we got back it was almost time for the parade. The park was still annoyingly packed and finding a decent spot proved tricky.

The Paint the Night parade was probably the highlight of the whole trip for me. Remember, I hadn’t spent much time in the park in the evening and I don’t remember ever seeing the night parade.

It was absolutely incredible. My daughter was ecstatic the whole time. Giant moving floats for Beauty and the Beast, Monsters Inc, Cars, Frozen, Toy Story, The Little Mermaid and more combined animated displays with lights, moving parts, and characters in a fantastic display, all set to memorable classic songs. Just fantastic.

We had a bit of time on our last day, our travel day home. We spent a few hours exploring Downtown Disney and doing some shopping. The Lego store wasn’t all that big but the displays were impressive and appropriately Disney-themed.

Despite the strange crowds and freak heat wave we had a great time. It was a blast taking my daughter on her first big vacation trip and I know my folks had an amazing time getting to share this experience with their kids and grandkid.

Disneyland is a unique park that you can go back to decades later and be both delighted with the updates and nostalgic with the classics. My goal is for my daughter to form these same nostalgic memories with the Happiest Place on Earth.

Read the full preview at Pixelkin.org

Eleven days. That’s how long I could survive on my own. Well, I wasn’t completely alone. The dog had proven loyal and helpful. He was a walking backpack and alarm system. But he was no match for the pack of wolves I ran into when night fell just outside a ruined church. Eleven days.

The Flame in the Flood is an intriguingly named survival-crafting game. Several ex-BioShock developers formed an indie team and ran a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2014 (which I backed). Now you can play the fruits of their labor right now via Steam Early Access, with the official release coming February 24.

The only mode available in Early Access is an Endless Campaign. It’s literally impossible to win – just try and survive as long as you can. Meanwhile the natural killers of hunger, thirst, and exposure are always just a step behind you.

Read the full preview at Pixelkin.org