Offspring Fling is a fun little sidescroller that I discovered by chance on Steam. Although a fairly lightweight outing, I found the game a fine way to pass a rainy Sunday afternoon.

A pastel slideshow sets the stage. You are an adorable rabbit creature rearing a clutch of even more adorable baby rabbit creatures. One day, a giant gecko accosts your home, scattering your offspring across the forest. It is up to you to find your children and escort them back to safety.

It’s not Shakespeare by any stretch, but neither is “save the Princess” or “collect all the Chaos Emeralds.”

The core mechanics are simple. You can jump, you can pick up things, and you can throw things. The “things” in question are generally your offspring, whom you are tasked with ferrying to the exit of the level.

June 12, 2013 Radiostorm Reviews No comments

I would love to run The Blakros Matrimony as a module.

Like Fortress of the Nail before it, the scenario has a steep diplomatic angle. The players are tasked with attending the wedding of Michellia Blakros, a daughter of the notorious Blakros family. Rather than serving as bodyguards for the event, however, the brave Pathfinders instead inherit the mantle of ambassadors. A wedding of this clout has attracted many powerful figures from across Golarion, and it is up to the players to schmooze these potential allies of the Society.

The first two-thirds of the adventure are entirely social. The group is provided a list of pertinent nobles, merchant lords, and public figures who are in attendance of the wedding, and they must garner their favour by the time the bride and groom say “I do.”

June 4, 2013 Radiostorm Pathfinder, Reviews No comments

I was initially supposed to run Fortress of the Nail at Gryphcon this year, but my table was dissolved due to a lack of players. I ended up playing Secret of Mana on my brother’s laptop for four hours instead, and the scenario was filed away in my big box of Pathfinder stuff and quickly forgotten about.

Earlier this month, I was waffling over what scenario I should run next at Dueling Grounds when I stumbled on my stapled-together artifact from Gryphcon. Lacking any better options, I decided to give the adventure another shot.

I’m glad I did.

Zarta Dralneen, sultry Chelaxian liaison to the Pathfinder Society, has gone missing. The circumstances of her disappearance were established in an earlier scenario in the season, but her location hasn’t been discerned until now. She is found awaiting execution for treason at a Hellknight citadel in Varisia, occupied by the law-bound Order of the Nail. It is up to the Pathfinders to bring proof of Zarta’s innocence to the citadel and escort her to safety.

May 25, 2013 Radiostorm Pathfinder, Reviews No comments

After my enthusiasm for the previous two installments of the Shades of Ice trilogy, I had high hopes for the thrilling conclusion. Set in the rugged wilderness of the north, it seemed an apt repose from the confined urban environments of Written in Blood and Exiles of Winter. Also, there was a strong potential for wooly mammoths – always a bonus!

Unfortunately Keep of the Huscarl King wound up being a massive disappointment. I was bored, my players were bored, and I think the universe even became a little bored for having to accommodate this slog.

The trajectory of Keep of the Huscarl King is more straightforward than the prior two scenarios in the trilogy. The scholar Skagni has revealed to you the location of a weapon of ancient power in the Realm of the Mammoth Lords. It resides in the ruined fortress of a legendary Ulfen warrior once known as the Huscarl King. The Shadow Lodge intends to claim this weapon for their own purposes, using it’s power to garner an advantage against the Pathfinder Society. The players must race on foot to the ruined keep, contending with Shadow Lodge agents, territorial native Kellids, and tundra beasts along the way.

April 27, 2013 Radiostorm Pathfinder, Reviews No comments

This scenario is kind of mean.

Not unfair, mind you. I don’t think there’s any encounter in Shades of Ice: Exiles of Winter that tips the balance of power too steeply in the game master’s favour. There are no inescapable death traps or plot devices that funnel players into tactically miserable situations.

But mean. Definitely mean.

Exiles of Winter picks up where Shades of Ice left off. Having learned that the lost scholar Skagni is being held in a Shadow Lodge stronghold in Irrisen, the players hop on the first caravan to the lands of the Baba Yaga. Disaster strikes as a band of marauding ice trolls kills their escorts, leaving the players with the daunting task of infiltrating the walled city of Whitethrone on their own.

April 20, 2013 Radiostorm Pathfinder, Reviews No comments

The first movie in a trilogy has its work cut out for it. It has to lay the foundation for the next two installments without seeming incomplete and disjointed. The best science fiction and fantasy films manage to hedge the line between satisfying viewers and leaving them wanting more: A New Hope, The Hobbit, and Batman Begins.

Pathfinder Society scenarios have to follow the same rule. If players aren’t grabbed by the first scenario of a three-part series, they aren’t going to stick around at the table for parts two and three. Although not perfect by any means, Written in Blood engages players well and serves as an apt springboard for the remainder of the Shades of Ice trilogy.

April 13, 2013 Radiostorm Pathfinder, Reviews No comments

Anodyne is unapologetically high concept.

The player is haphazardly thrown into the shoes of Young, a mysterious bespectacled youth who finds himself in a vacant dream-like world. Young is charged by the village elder to defeat terrifying boss monsters and collect magical cards, all with the intent of saving the Briar.

What is the Briar? And more importantly, who is Young? These questions are never fully answered. Those looking for a light-weight and linear gaming experience should look elsewhere. Anodyne‘s narrative is dreary, ambiguous, and steeped in metaphor – not entirely surprising given that the game is named after pain-killing medication.

It’s always a challenge to tackle a game like this. The line between innovation and pretension is a fine one, and even when it’s skirted, it’s difficult to fault a game for being ambitious. Still, Anodyne‘s marriage to ambiguity risks overwhelming all but the most committed players.

February 27, 2013 Radiostorm Reviews 4 comments

The genre Darksiders 2 resides in is a competitive one. Although it seems a cruel yardstick, 3D adventure games will always be measured against the Zelda series. Even though recent installments of their flagship franchise have been decidedly bland, Nintendo established the standards for what makes games of this genre immersive, responsive, and enjoyable.

Although Darksiders 2 meets these standards, it fails to surpass any of them. The result is a competent but unremarkable adventure.

I have to apply special criticism to Darksiders 2 for starting the game in media res. Having never played the original Darksiders, I was completely at a loss. The character of Death was introduced without applause, and the short cut scene that opened the game offered only a skeletal explanation of his background and motivation. Death, being an alien and fiendish character, necessitates elaborate characterization in order to make him a relatable protagonist. Instead, a lack of understanding left me completely indifferent to his story.

February 20, 2013 Radiostorm Reviews No comments

The premise of Half-Minute Hero: Super Mega Neo Climax Ultimate Boy is simultaneously high concept and simple. An evil warlock has discovered a spell that can destroy the entire world. This incantation takes exactly thirty seconds to cast, and you must slay the villain before he finishes it.

Superficially the game’s core mechanics ape those of a classic JRPG. Of course, defeating the dark lord in thirty seconds would be patently impossible in a classic JRPG – thirty hours would be a more likely time frame. To make your task less harrowing, the enigmatic Goddess of Time blesses you with the ability to reset the timer at her shrines for a small sum of gold. Repeatedly using the shrine increases the cost exponentially, so the player has to budget their time and gold accordingly.

February 13, 2013 Radiostorm Reviews No comments

Any discussion of Baldur’s Gate brings with it a lot of baggage. The game is a legend. When it hit store shelves in 1998, it was met with universal praise and vaulted then relatively unknown developers BioWare into superstar status. The success of Baldur’s Gate ushered in a new era of roleplaying games made exclusively for the PC; classics such as Icewind Dale, Planescape: Torment, and Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura all owe their existence to Baldur’s Gate. It’s easy to see why the game is still a household name a decade and a half after after it’s original release.

Recently Overhaul Games, the game development arm of the Beamdog digital distribution service, took up the task of revitalizing the aged title with an enhanced edition. This move was well received by fans of the series. The game had long since languished in digital purgatory due to its age, and Overhaul Games ensured that the rerelease would be playable on all modern operating systems. True to their word, Overhaul Games released Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition for Windows in November of last year, closely followed by a release for Mac OSX and the iPad. Having not touched the game since I was a bright-eyed boy of thirteen, I decided to give it a try.

February 6, 2013 Radiostorm Reviews 1 comment