OK, not so much gold as live, but I wanted alliteration.

The first few games to be released through Gleemax are now available for a free trial period. So far, they have:

• RoboRally, the classic game of programming robots, who then run into things and blast each other
• Axis & Allies, the classic WWII strategy game
• Vegas Showdown, a relatively recent Avalon Hill bidding/tile placement game about running your own casino
• Desktop Tower Defense, that addictive flash game you’ve been able to play for year
• Guillotine, the take-that card game nominally about the French Revolution
• Acquire, the classic game of being one of the best board games ever designed
• Magic: The Gathering Online, packs not included in the free part, so probably the same as always

There’s some really excellent stuff there, and the few reports I’ve read have said that the interface is pretty slick (since it was programmed by the GameTableOnline people.) When I have some time (ha!) I’ll try to dive in. I play Acquire on my PDA several times a day, so I’m curious how the Gleemax version stacks up. And I’ve been meaning to try Vegas Showdown for a while now, so this seems like a good way to do it.

The whole Gleemax thing is still totally confusing. Obviously, they’re planning to charge for these games at some point. But does it somehow relate to the fee I would pay if I joined D&D Insider, since Gleemax is supposed to be the social networking portion of the Digital Initiative? Will there be a separate membership for Gleemax games, or Gleemax in general, that just adds on or overlaps? There’s no obvious clue, but hey, at least there’s some free games up for the time being.

May the Fourth be with you!

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Wha? What the hell am I doing here you ask?

It’s quite simple really, I felt like reviewing a Video Game and this here site here actually covers that particular niche better than mine (Obligatory shameless plug? Check.)

So we’re cool? Cool!

Ok, here’s the thing. My lovely wife is currently gone for a few days, working as a consulting Speech Pathologist in the Frozen Wastelands of Northern Quebec (I’m from Montreal if you don’t know me.) This leaves me to guard the fort with my two very adorable children: My 6 year old son and “4 and half” daughter.

Since my wife is out there getting paid consultant fees, I decided that we could afford some new games for our consoles (PS2 and Wii) and that it was my duty as caring father to provide my kids with quality interactive entertainment.

(Chatty pauses, expecting lightning to strike him while he weaves all that BS into a hopefully entertaining narrative.)

Long story short, we got Mario Kart Wii from the local EBGames (along with a Disney Princess Game and a DDR game.)

By the way, they were “selling” Mario Kart Wii for 10$ in exchange for a copy of Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario Strikers or Mario Party 8. I don’t know if the Stateside EBGames offer this deal but it’s ongoing in Baconada (Obligatory Canadian Bacon reference? Check!) Read the rest »

The Big Picture: Incan Gold is a light push-your-luck game with an Indiana Jones-esque theme that is suitable as a nice filler for serious gamers and as a mainstay for family gamers. Essentially, you and the other players search through ancient Incan ruins for treasure, trying to avoid all manner of traps and dangers along the way. Incan Gold, designed by Alan R. Moon and Bruno Faidutti, is an American remake of the game Diamant. The game supports up to 8 players, and plays in about 20 minutes. Its short length allows for multiple rounds to be played back-to-back, and given how fun the game is, you will be hard pressed to resist doing so.

The Details: Each turn, every player is forced to make a choice: “Do I stay or do I go?” While that might sound a bit simple (and it is), the decision is oftentimes agonizing, and hence the brilliance of the game. Read the rest »

Somehow this year’s FCBD almost slipped by me- there seems to be a palpable lack of buzz around it this year, and I’ve barely seen it mentioned in any of the comic blogs. Has the event become tired and worn? Has the emphasis shifted from corporate level advertising to stores doing their own things to promote it? Who knows!

Anyway, the list of comics is at the official site, as always. Usually I try to pick up some more obscure titles to get into new stuff, and generally fail (either because the store is being stupid or the store is picked clean before I can rouse myself from bed.) Maybe I’ll make it a FCBD tradition to try a new comic store every year.

General: Iron Man is a faithful fun-filled adaptation of one the most flawed heroes in comicdom. Tony Stark is a womanizing, irresponsible, hard-partying, smug son of a bitch, but he’s super-cool. His ascendancy into superherodom doesn’t necessarily change that, it just gives him a sense of obligations and duty. His origins remain true in spirit, but updated to a more modern context.

Plot: Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is the wunderkind industrialist inventor arms dealer that keeps America safe with the help of his dedicated personal assistant, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). He and his military liaison Jim Rhodes (Terrance Howard) head to Afghanistan for an arms test. During that foray, his assumptions about his arms and their role in America’s defense are sorely tested. Tony then vows to make a difference, with the help of his own genius and Stark technology. Along the way, his dubiously moral business partner Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) seemingly works to balance Tony’s newfound conscience and the Stark bottom line.
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Found over at Gaming Report. Hit the jump for the full list. As usual, there’s some good stuff in there, along with a healthy dose of WTF? (For example, Bankruptcy is one of the worst games I have ever played, and yet, there it is…)

Like last year, I intend to cover the awards ceremony at Origins.

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I had not originally planned to pick up Grand Theft Auto 4 anytime soon, but when your wife asks you to go out and buy GTA any hesitation would be a grievous offense. We got it for the 360 because we don’t own a PS3, and also because achievements are our console gaming lifeblood. Now I hadn’t actually been following any pre-release information for this game, aside from viewing one of the trailers about 6 months ago which made me laugh because of the “GetaLife” building and other parodies of famous New York landmarks. So essentially, this was as clean a slate going into a game as you can get these days and when you consider that this is the fourth in a series and the follow-up to such a wildly popular game.

The game starts up with a beautiful in-game cinematic intro that feels so much like a movie that you begin to wonder if you bought the wrong thing, this could be entirely due to the fact that they’ve skillfully placed credits into the beginning of the game, I assume this is to make things easier for the lawyers. The beginning pretty quickly introduces you to the main character and the overall feel of the game, both visually and through the excellent audio, and addresses one of my main gripes with the game’s predecessor. In GTA3 I felt that there was very little prompting to actually get involved in the plot, of the hours and hours of time I spent in that game, almost none were spent advancing the in game plot because I simply had more fun running around and playing with the world that was there. With GTA4, you are hit smack in the face with the plot, which I imagine will be a gripe for many people as they are forced to sit through at least 15-20 minutes of initial set up plot to get to where they can run around and go crazy. Read the rest »

Obviously, Joe and Hill-rod are correct about video games!