From Nibelheim to Midgar

Isn't technology a wonderful thing? Now that it's been a few years since Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children's release, by the time Square Enix gathers enought momentum to make a remake of Final Fantasy VII, the technology they would need to arrive at a product of the quality of Advent Children would be several times cheaper than when Advent Children was in production.

Talk about profits. I mean, noit that Advent Children wasn't made with technology, that at the time, was already two years old. Given that they've laid down a certain CG-Anime style already, they don't really have to push anything technically. They'll have more time to focus on recreating the gameplay elements and they'll have more time to think about the profits, and the marketing.

Note: Dirge of Cerberus, Last Order, and Advent Children double as extended marketing material, aside from being franchise products in their own rights.

People will gobble it up and throw their savings at the thing, if the remake ever gets done.

Speaking of technology, I found two videos on YouTube that build-up on the effect that the FFVII PS3 Tech Demo did.

You see, Crisis Core, apparently properly ends it's tale with it's hero's death. In the ending, you see Zack and Cloud in that heartwrenching moment near Midgar. Yep, it's that tradgedy where they were short of the safety of the Midgar slums by about a few hundred yards. Here's that moment as it was originally presented to in classic 32bit PS1 FFVII:

Then here's that moment in the ending of Crisis Core with spangly Advent Children graphics.

Also, here's a follow up "secret ending" bonus in Crisis Core where you see Crisis Core cut to FFVII proper. It may look like the tech demo at first, but watch it until the end. Psycho, crazy, I'm-still-messed-up-from-Nibelheim-I-think-I'm-Zack Cloud actually speaks in this.

FMVs like these, along with Advent Children, and that opening in Dirge of Cerberus that looks like Advent Children (the evacuate Midgar from Meteor-fall scene), makes it hard for any geek who's played through the first one to not hope in his heart-of-geeky-hearts that an FFVII remake be made.

Now if only they made ruby slippers for geeks.

Whodda Thunk? PS3 outsells Xbox 360 and NDS

After months of bashing, and recieving it's fair share of intertube lulz, the PS3 is finally managing to make a dent on the competition. Would you believe that last January, after the holiday smoke settled, the PS3 actually outsold the DS and the Xbox 360?

The DS I can understand why, after all everyone and their dog/hamster/object of affection already has one, the sales has to slow down some time right? As for the Microsft, man they must be seething right now. Especially since some group claims to have nailed the actual figure of the Xbox 360's failure rate: 16.4%. That means that if you purchase an Xbox 360, you've got more than a one in ten chance that what you're gonna get is a dud.

I think I know why PS3 sales went up. It's 2008 already. People are already preparing of Metal Gear Solid 4 and Final Fantasy XIII. I mean, what other reason would you spend that much on a console? Loco Roco 3 you say? Well, yeah, maybe, but still.

Weekend Manga: Creepy Organs

Look, a lady!

You know what Magic: the Gathering needs right now? Female professional players.

Not that there aren't any already. It's just that they don't really have a presence. In quantity I mean, not in quality. After all, American Player Melissa DeTora beat Gabriel Nassif during the 8th round of ProTour Kuala Lumpur; that's a sign of quality right there if there ever was one.

Honestly, I'm really starting to root for Melissa. If anything, Magic needs another breakout celebrity. Kinda like the Sliver Kids (Chris Lachmann and Jacob Van Lunen) of Two-Headed Giant fame. You know, the zero-to-hero type cinderella story. WotC really needs the good press, since they haven't been handling player relations very well lately (tournament cancellations and all that).

So, that said, good luck Melissa! Win Kuala Lumpur!

Timmy: Overrun!

About a week ago, I read on the Bennie Smith's column over at Starcitygames that green hero, Jamie Wakefield, had a problem with the power level of elves in the new standard.

Laugh as much as you want, you can't really blame the guy. As Mr Smith said, Wakefield isn't really a hundred percent into the game, so being aware of tournament results is something that I'd expect to come in last in Wakefield's list of priorities.

Anyhow, all you Wakefieldian players out there, yes, all you Timmies, if you'd allow me a few seconds of your time and listen to me for a while, I'd like to tell you a few things. I'd like to ask you to stop testing all your RW Giant decks for a moment, and go back to the color that Timmies love the most: Green.

We all now that G/X Warrior builds will be something that Spike will love for it's lightning fast aggro capabilities, and the space the Deck skeleton has for spot removal. However, there's a mono-green build that managed to be competitive and it has not a single bf removal in it. It's solution? Overrun.

Here's GPT Shizuoka 7th placer, Shuhei Nakamura's List:

Lands: 23
14x Forest
4x Treetop Village
3x Mutavault
2x Pendelhaven

Creatures: 31
4x Boreal Druid
4x Bramblewood Paragon
4x Chameleon Colossus
4x Civic Wayfinder
4x Imperious Perfect
4x Llanowar Elves
4x Wren's Run Vanquisher
3x Wren's Run Packmaster

Spells: 2
2x Overrun

Artifacts: 4
4x Obsidian Battle-Axe

Sideboard: 15
4x Serrated Arrows
3x Seal of Primordium
3x Tormod's Crypt
2x Cloudthresher
1x Elvish Champion
1x Viridian Shaman
1x Primal Command

Nothing but green, and nothing but smash-face. Timmy enough for you?

Okay, if it isn't, here's what could happen: If you've got a Bramblewood Paragon out, along with an Obisidian Battle-Axe, your Chameleon Colossus is a 7/6 hasted, trampling beat-stick for 4 mana. If you have 4 mana extra you can pump it to 14/13.




If the 14/12 isn't enough to wet your Timmy pants, how about this: if you've got the Paragon out, along with a Perfect, you can create an army of 3/3 trampling Elf Warrior tokens. Cast Overrun a turn later and you're one happy puppy.

Amusing isn't it that the monetarily cheaper Overrun is actually better than Garruk in this deck? More than that, the Packmaster's in the deck! w00t!

Death Note Special One-Shot Out

This week's weekly jump included a special one-shot of Death Note. Having said that fortuitous bit of news, can I get a "squee" from all the Death Note fan-people out there?

The issue is a must read for folks as it's a continuation of story. Of course, since it's a one shot, you might be left moist and wanting. Anyhow, I personally like the issue for this super-genius character who has an obsession with Tarot card tower making.

He's fun.

The Boiling Rock gets a deadline.

Good news from TVshowsonDVD.com. According to one of their articles, the third volume of the Season 3 DVD set of Avatar: the Last Airbender will be out by the 6th of May.

This means that "The Boiling Rock: Part 1" and "The Boiling Rock: Part 2" should air on TV before then.

This is basically a confirmation from another source (aside from Amazon.com) of the DVD's release date. Still late, yes, but at least the estimates for the wait for the new episodes is now before mid-May.

Yes, the wait still sucks.

8-bit Cross-stitch for the win

A site called Sprite Stitch is currently gaining massive popularity with the gaming community because their Luigi Hates Mario project got featured on Kotaku.

Now I like Mario as much as the next gamer alive during the days of famicom, however I prefer their Rockman bosses project. They've got stitch charts up.

Huzzah!

I have another reason to enjoy having a girlfriend who's handy with the usual home economics stuffs. Now, aside from the awesome cooking, the beautiful bento boxes, and the handy-during-emergency shirt-sewing, I can also ask her to cross-stitch me my childhood enemies.

I'll attach them to a dartboard as soon as I manage to convince my beloved, or one of my sisters to get me Cutman, or Iceman, or whoever.

Shadowmoor Sighted

Some intrepid surfer on the intarwebs decided to be kind to the magic loving community and share a collection of Shadowmoor packaging shots he ran into.

The boxes are the awesomesaucenessnessiest.

You manage to glimpse at a freakier version of Lorwyn's Greater Elementals (Horrors?), an anthropomorphic blue thing merged with flowers (Oona?), a bad-ass-looking Kithkin (Mistmeadow Skulk and his kin), some sad pathetic Elf, an elemental looking thing, and a mutant Merrow with fish heads. (Does this mean we see smart, devious, malevolent Boggarts?)

So the dark/alternate Lorwyn theory is pretty much pseudo-confirmed. All we have to wait for now are the mechanics - which, according to MaRo, aren't very tribal at all. At least we get more cards of the same type, so the synergy with Lorwyn is there.

Now I'm wondering if they actually changed the colors of each race. For one thing, them Kithkin look awfully white/black to me.

Ivalice how I love thee

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've been spending much of this morning going through that old FF Retrospective on gametrailers. Much to my surprise, other than the FFVII world, a close runner-up in FF Franchise history to have the most number of games/features set in the same setting is the world of Ivalice.

Since the setting is so robust, and I've been wondering, are there any solid table-top RPGs set in the world of Ivalice?

I spent the last 10 minutes looking through forums, and other than a few Tactics d20 homebrew pdfs that are floating around and a site dedicated to a more miniature-based experience, I haven't had much luck. I can find thread after thread dedicated to Avatar: the Last Airbender adaptations, but to Ivalice, nada. Just a handfull of stuff, mostly using the d20 system.

Below are some of the notable finds. (Not including the pdf I just found on mininova. can't link to that can I?):

• Various Final Fantasy D20 conversions on gleemax
• Ivalice RPG by Returner Games (work in progress)
• The miniature based game by Federal Knight (looks d20ish)
• Ivalice D20

Of all of them, I think I'll try to research on the last link more, or at least get in touch with the guy. I'm giving the last link extra credit since it seemed to have some disagreements with the history of Ivalice as chronicled by wikipedia.

While Squeenix has confirmed that all Ivalice titles so far take place in the same world, they're a bit mum as to the exact chronological order. There are several theories as to which goes first and what happens when, but it's all educated guesswork for now.

For example, Vagrant Story seems most recent since it's a more modern take on the original Tactics, and both share the lack of moogles - the extinction of which was noted in the original Tactics. Of course, that seems to be a bit odd as FFXII (that has moogles) references in it's bestiary a character Vagrant Story, which puts Vagrant Story someplace behind FFXII in the timeline. Confussed? I am.

Now, I'm wondering: should I try to homebrew a system myself?

I'm starting to like the idea that was put forth in Tactics Advance that Ivalice is meleable reality that could be spontaneously created/re-created. If a system could be made to bring a seeming illusion of order to that chaotic re-creation process, and an in-game mythical element could be tied with it or onto it, it could explain away all the timeline confussion. Not that there's a shortage of things to choose from. Of the top of my head theres' the Totema, the 12 Zodiacs, the Espers, the Darkness, the Great Grimoire, so on and so forth.

It could be used as the reason why people from the wrong plane: Cloud; and people from the wrong time: Balthier; keep showing up in the Lion War.

You're talking about storytelling? Rewatch War of the Worlds.

I was surfing around gametrailers.com today for entertainment and general intertubes lulz, and for some reason, the several-months-old Final Fantasy Retrospective feature caught my attention.

I clicked the link, watched several of the shorts, and one particular line that was said in the short about Final Fantasy VII caught my attention. The narrator quoted Stephen Spielberg who apparently, said this:

"I think the real indicator will be when somebody confesses that they cried at level 17."

So, what's so so special about the line? Well it turns out, that at the time -- around 2004 -- Spielberg said that to a class of film students. His stand was that games weren't quite there yet as medium to tell stories.

This got me a bit miffed. So I did what I could to track down that quote of Spielberg on Google. Eventually, it lead me to an article defending storytelling in videogames and that specific videogame CG cutscene, where, it's safe to say for certain that a whole lot of us gamers cried: the Death of Aeris.

I think from the pundits -- and Spielberg's point of view -- a lot of the storytelling moments in videogames fail to stand on their own. The acting always seems off, the lines seem forced, and the camera angles all feel off, but I think the author of the article I linked to hit the nail on the head with these lines:

What has been missed here is the context for the scene that comes from playing the game itself.

The whole base of the discussion on that slide is ludicrous. His contrasting point was the opening section of Kingdom Hearts II. Who would try to compare the two to five hour mix of gameplay and scenes that make up the opening sequence of Kingdom Hearts II and a one minute clip long clip that is shown 40 hours into the 10-year-old FFVII? We don't do this when discussing traditional film. You're not going to find an article out there decrying the state of current film making by taking the "Ride of the Valkyries" scene out of "Apocalypse Now" and trying to deconstruct it without taking the rest of the film into account. And we're not going to start trying to compare the special effects with the first half of "Black Hawk Down" or "Saving Private Ryan". But the essential silliness of this exercise only scratches the surface.

Cutscenes in a game have more to do than an equivalent piece of traditional film. They don't just tell story. They have to support the game, and the game is an integral part of experiencing them.

Yep, context is pretty much paramount if you're going to squeeze any amount of emotion out of videogames.

For example, a 10 minute "History of the Legend of Zelda" audio-video piece from Video Games Live is saw on YouTube once got me to cry. Also, whenever I hear the opening theme of Final Fantasy VII or the smooth piano notes of Kingdom Heart's "Dearly Beloved," I get chills down my spine. I bet that a person completely unfamiliar with Link, Aeris, or Sora wouldn't have a similar experience.

I think that like any other medium, you get out of it what you put in. Games just tend ask for a whole lot more involvement from its audience than movies or books.

Ch-ch-changes

So sad. Reuters reported a few days ago that Namco Bandai Holdings closed around one-fifth of its arcades last thurdsay. Not only that, Sega Sammy Holdings said that they also plan to close around 100 of their arcades.

What's killing the arcades? Not MMOs apparently. No folks, blame the Wii.

You know, I like the Wii as much as the next guy, but coin-op penny-arcades hold a special place in my geeky heart.

This is sad, sad news for me. Here's to hoping that it won't be a trend. *sniffles*

Avatarded

There's this rumor floating around that Episode 14 of Book 3 of Avatar: the Last Airbender, The Boiling Rock Part 1, will air today at around 8:30 pm in Argentina, their time.

This, supposedly from an insider in the production unit that was responsible for dubbing the series into the local language. The "source" claims that the people responsible for dubbing, are actually done with the whole season already. And that they're just waiting for the episodes to air to admire their work.

It's already around 8:44, my time, so I guess we'll all find out in an hour or so. (Accounting for the probable 12 hour difference, and the upload time to the intertubes.)

EDIT: Oh well, it was too good to be true.

Weekend Manga: "Failed Attempt"

Spike: How's white weenie doing?

Go to any Magic: the Gathering forum right now and there's probably a thread discussing the future of the color white.

Why the discussion? Well, that's because popular opinion is that the color white as a whole isn't getting much support from WotC. Sure, every now and then you get an Oblivion Ring, but then you get a vanilla 2/10 at rare. Imagine the expletives you'd be saying if you open that in a pack.

The complaints range from the very simple "white gets bad rares!" to the very thoughtful, "Wizards just seems to be going through the motions with white right now. They finally managed to fix green, now they're trying to figure out how to focus/fix white."

The funny thing is, that despite the debates and the numerous rants about how bad white is right now, the color can still manage to surprise several metagames and place 1st. In that same tournament where a Reveillark deck managed a top 8 finish, this combination of 75 cards posted the best results:

GPT Shizuoka 2008 - Chiba
1st
Ishimura Shintaro

Creatures:
4 Cenn's Tactician
4 Goldmeadow Harrier
4 Goldmeadow Stalwart
4 Kinsbaile Borderguard
4 Knight of Meadowgrain
4 Wizened Cenn
1 Tivadar of Thorn

Spells:
3 Oblivion Ring
3 Griffin Guide
4 Sunlance

Lands:
13 Plains
4 Rustic Clachan
4 Horizon Canopy
4 Mutavault

Sideboard:
4 Soltari Priest
2 Stonecloaker
1 Tivadar of Thorn
1 Wispmare
1 Militia's Pride
4 Mana Tithe
2 Coordinated Barrage

Looking through the list I saw another Japanese 1 of in the form of Tivadar of Thorn. Yes, them Japanese folks love 1 ofs in decks, they seem to draw what they need, when they need it. It's called listening to "heart of the cards." A secret technique perfected by an ancient master named Yugi. Anyhow, what makes Tivadar stand out is that he's white's weenie's solution to the changeling menace. Protection from Goblins means protection from Mutavault, Chamelleon Colossus, Taurean Mauler, and Nameless Inversion. Protection from Goblin Rogues is an added bonus.

Another element that surprised a lot of forum pundits is the presence of Cenn's Tactitian in full force. Most folks deemed that white weenie wouldn't have time to pump creatures with the Tactitian's tap ability. Turns out, you just need him for his cost, and his other ability that lets you block better. The tap ability's just a bonus that ties in with the Borderguard in the deck.

So what else stands out in this white weenie deck? Well, if you hadn't noticed, it has 25 lands. Shintaro must've been pretty much hellbent on using the reinforce mechanic on Rustic Clachan instead of playing it.

Observations aside, since word broke that it got first spot, folks have been trying out variations to the deck. Not that the deck itself isn't already a take on kithkin weenie before Morningtide was released.

Some are trying out Ajani Goldmane to place more emphasis on combat phase via the granted vigilance and +1/+1 counters. Others have thought it best to combine the weenie deck with the counterintuitive Wrath of God. The idea is that Kinsbaile Borderguard loves a reset spell anyway, so why not put it in your deck? Also, there are those who choose to go with the theme and are slaving away at getting the Ballyrush Banneret to work (much to the chagrin of those who think the deck's curve is good enough already).

Will the deck live past this one tourney? Who knows. Other archetypes are already coming out of the woodwork. There's the Bitterblossom-control archetype that's red/black instead of blue/black. And then there's the Pat Chapin-hyped mono-black Rogue aggro that allowed for Bad Moon to finally see competitive play again. I mean, who knew it was good with Marsh Fliter and Oona's Blackguard? *rolls eyes*

There's also the tier 1 staples in the form of Dragonstorm; the various builds of black/green, the ever popular RG mana ramp; the faeries of the green, black, and blue variation; and the many forms of changeling aggro. That's a lot of possible roadblocks right there.

On paper, the power level of the deck seems sub par compared to the staples, however, you can't deny a 1st place finish. I urge all the spikes out there to give this archetype some thought (because I'm not one of you, I'm a scrub) or better yet, some tweaking. Maybe it does indeed have the legs to be competitive.

Where's Countryside Crusher?!

4th ed: Tieflings on talk shows and Campaign resources

I don't know about you, but using flash cartoons to hype up your latest gaming product seems like a good idea to me.

The latest cartoon on the mothership's site is very informative and has convinced me to allocate some DSL bandwidth for the torrent of the PDFs come the realease of the books.

I know, piracy contributes to terrorism and all that, but as long as most RPG books in my country are only available through one sole distributor, I'd rather be an international cirminal and be guilty of intellectual propery theft.

Anyhow, if you're curious about what we know so far about Dungeons and Dragons 4th ed use your internets and torrent up these titles: Wizards Presents: Worlds and Monsters, and Wizards Presents: Races and Classes.

As for the "Campaign resources" part of the title above, here's the story. I was looking through several forums, and after sifting through several posts and browsing through the blogs that forum folks have listed on their profiles, and I ran into this place: The Campaign Builders' Guild.

It's basically a community of talented and intelligent people with way too much time on their hands, all willing to lend a helping hand if ever you find yourself in need of some help when it comes to fleshing out your RPG Campaign. Yes, you can no longer give out excuses like, "I'm sorry players, I want to run one, but my homebrew rules aren't panning out."

Go forth young storyteller! Create!

Does this count as Porn?

I was looking around for model swords on google -- an activity that most geeks with weapon fixations love to pursue -- when I ran across something that is borderline awesome and something that is borderline pornographic.

Here's what happened.

When I surf, I usually tend to just right-click several items that turn up on Google off the bat, without even reading the description.

The first tab that opened led me to the awesome.

I ran into some company called honestdragonchina that is manufacturing a copy of the sword that Cloud used in Final Fantasy: Advent Children. Yes, we've all seen huge-ass sword remakes before, but what's cool about this one is that it seems to have copied the "assembly" function of the sword/sword-set that Cloud used in the movie.

So after appreciated the craftsmanship involved with such an expensive and complicated shelf display, and mourning over the fact that it's only made of high-grade wood and not some aluminum alloy, I hotkeyed alt-tab, and lo and behold:

Tell me, does this count as porn?

Quotable Quotes

In the recent edition of Official Playstation Magazine, Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core director, Hajime Tabata answered questions regarding the direction of the much loved Final Fantasy VII franchise. Amusing that he wasn't asked much about Crisis Core specifically.

Anyhow, he said a few things that got fan-boys(and girls) wetting their pants:

"The possiblity for a remake may become greater if, for instance, the schedules of the original members of the Final Fantasy VII development team, such as Kitase and Nomura, open up"

Did you year that? He said they might do it.

So, for the sake of that hi-def FFVII that you've all been wanting to see, keep bombarding Kitase and Nomura with e-mails until FFXIII and Versus XIII goes gold ("going gold" is jargon for "done, finito, ready for selling). That way, they might consider pushing through with your little obsession.

Waiting sucks

Since Nickelodeon is incredibly delayed with their air-schedule of Book III of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Canada's YTV -- our last hope for up-to-date Avatar -- decided to re-run Avatar from the start, we'll probably have to wait until mid March or early April to catch a new episode of Avatar.

The new title is rumored to be "The Boiling Rock" by the way, and it's said to be a two part shindig. Current popular speculation regarding the episode is that it's a "great escape" story, focusing on all the characters that have been captured by the Fire Nation so far. I'm thinking that most people supporting this theory just plain miss Suki. The other theory is that it's a firebendiny-avatary-element-mixing-training episode where Aang learns to bend lava.

Personally, I'm hoping it's a White Lotus episode. We seriously need a big reveal when it comes to that secret organization. I mean, come on, there's been enough teasing about it across so many episodes.

Yes, I like Iroh, the old fart. Sue me.

Anyhow, given the long and tiresome wait, I'm willing to bet that the next volume of Heroes will air earler than the new Avatar episode (NBC did promise march-ish). Who knows?

Damnit, this avatard is going through Avatar withdrawal and he doesn't like it.

Johnny: Reveillarking back and forth

Since it's been spoiled, people have been going gaga over the 4/3 flying elemental named Reveillark. Particularly because of Reveillark's very potent "when I leave play" ability.

With that in mind, do me a favor and imagine that you have a sacrifice outlet in the form of a suspended Greater Gargadon, a Nantuko Husk, or even a Mirror Entity that you intend to use to set your all your creature's power and toughness to zero. Got that in your head? Good.

Okay, now that you have those elements, check out the possible interactions that Reveillark has with either of the cards that are pictured below it.

Yes, you can go infinite with it.

As long as you can maintain a sacrifice outlet, you can endlessly recur a creature from your graveyard into play. This allows for Soul Wardens to gain you infinite life, for Mogg Fanatics to kill people for you, or for singleton Merrow Witsnipers to deck people. Nevermind the possibility of seeing a returning Martyr of Sands, a back-from-the-grave Mulldrifter, or a Venser gone mad.

Furthermore what's nice about the Reveillark combo is that it's flexible enough to allow you to take your deck in different directions.

Choosing Saffi as a Reveillark partner allows you to go either green/red/white or green/white/nlack. Red and green gives acces to burn, acceleration, and other ways to sacrifice your creatures - Thermopod for infinite mana anyone? Black, can help out in the tutoring and disruption department. It can also help with getting stuff from your hand to your graveyard. Who thought Oona's Prowler could be used primarily as a discard outlet instead of a 3/1 for 2 beater?

Body Double on the other hand, let's you bleed into counterspell/control territory - something that's always nice.

Surfing around the mtgsalvation forums, I ran across a list that somebody got from a Japanese tournament. The mix of 75 cards bellow supposedly managed to snag top 8.

Creatures:
4 Mulldrifter
4 Mirror Entity
4 Reveillark
4 Riftwing Cloudskate
3 Bonded Fetch
3 Body Double

Spells:
4 Prismatic Lens
1 Mind Stone
3 Condemn
3 Momentary Blink
4 Wrath of God

Land:
5 Island
4 Plains
4 Adarkar Wastes
4 Wanderwine Hub
3 Faerie Conclave
2 Calciform Pools
1 Urza's Factory

Sideboard:
2 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
2 Draining Whelk
2 Sower of Temptation
1 Stonecloaker
3 Teferi's Moat
1 Mystical Teachings
4 Flashfreeze

Amazingly, going the Body Double/Mirror Entity route seems to have simplified things given that you can stack so many copies Mirror Entity's ability with X=0.

All I'm waiting for now is for someone to experiment with a more aggresive Blue/Red/White version that uses the Elemental tribe for Smokebraider and Incandescent Soulstroke based acceleration, that has Elemental Harbinger to search for stuff, and Greater Gargadon for inevitability. Yes, it may not be efficient, but the point is, the combo is so open, that it can go that route. Amazingly, WoTC printed all the tools to do so.

And here people were complaining that combo was dead.

Anyhow, those too "Spikey" to bother trying to assemble the pieces to get the combo going, relax, Momentary Blink still loves Reveillark. You see, what's ultimately nice about Reveillark is that it doesn't have to go infinite to get you the win.

She said, she said

These women think that if you have a penis, are over 20, and are playing videogames, you are a man teen or a child-man. Yes, they have ways of coming up with funny names.

This other lady though, would have none of that. After all, what about all those humans with vaginas that are over 20 and love playing videogames? What are they? Just plain escapist?

Another case of she said, she said - when women argue over feminism. (Or at least, when it goes overboard. As the uppity bitch said, "Xboxes are toys afterall.")

Nostalgia Wins! Chrono Trigger sells for over 1K

An extremely collectible copy of the SNES classic, Chrono Trigger sold for over one thousand dollars over at eBay the other day.

Proof that there's a niche out there that present day RPGs aren't filling? You bet. Proof that there are a lot of geeks out there that earn way too much? Definitely. I mean, look at what this guy did with his Xbox 360 Elite:

See? Way too much resources, and of course, talent. If you can afford to spend over a thousand bucks on a game that can be played via easily accessible emulation software, you definitely can afford to jury-rig your $500 entertainment/game system.

Vorthos: Radha, Warrior Princess

I know the deck's been talked about for weeks now, and I'm well aware of the fact that every monkey and his uncle's been fiddling around a mix of 75 that contains Bramblewood Paragon, Obsidian Battle-Axe, and a random assortment of warriors/elves. However, I feel the urge to blog about the deck not because it is potentially competitive, or it's damned fun to play, I do so because of it's undeniable Vorthosian nature.

Yes, a deck that could be potentially competitive, and still full of vorthosian theme-love and geeky 90s TV references.

So, to jump straight into it, take a look at the deck-skeleton bellow:

Firstly, they're all women. Secondly, they're all warrior-women. Lastly, one of them is the Heir to Keld. If you're not hearing the Xena, Warrior Princess theme right now, think of this moment as my attempt at cuing the music for you.

[Ta dada ta dad a tum tamtamm...]

So, you've got Xena in the form of Radha. That's pretty much required, as Radha would likely be the only Legendary Creature in the Deck. Also, being a heir to Keld doesn't hurt either.

Gabrielle is probably any one of the three other warrior elf hotties -- probably the Paragon. Staff weapon? Check. Odd armor? Check. Lesbo aura? Double-check.

The remaining ladies could be counted as any number of numerous blade-weilding feminine fighters in the show. You know, those scantily clad ladies that often gang up on Xena and Gabrielle at the start of the show, and yet somehow end up on their side by the end of it? I mean, the ones that are there mainly to attract audience members with testosterone.

I'd like to go through Google right now and make a card to character comparison using a "Characters of Xena" fan-site that I might find. Just for the sake of Wren's Run Vanquisher and Imperious Perfect having character analogues and all that. However, doing so will probably make me feel a bit too dirty - all that implied lesbian love and all that. So, here's a link naughty peps, knock yourselves out.

The Obsidian Battle-Axe pretty much counts as a generic Xena-verse weapon. Too bad it isn't as stupid-broken as that returning flying chakram of doom that Xena actually uses.

The Keldon Marauders that show up in some lists obviously count as Xena's flunkies, so amazingly they're still in theme. The random assortment of burn/pump spells that make their way into deck lists can be explained away by counting them as funky 90s TV special effects unique to New Zealand, so all the non-permanents are still in theme.

As for the non-elf/warriors cards that show up in deck lists so far, most of them still fall into theme. Both the Chameleon Colossus and the Taurean Mauler fit well in the Xena-verse as that particular planar existence isn't short on shapeshifting titans and magical bulls. The same could be said for the much hyped Countryside Crusher.

Basically, as competitive as the list gets, as long as Radha's still there, the deck is still essentially a souped up Vorthosian theme deck that can kick ass and take names. Funny, no?

All of that aside though, what I love most about the deck as it shows up on several MtG related forums so far is the odd choice for some to include this card:

In the right build the Elvish Handservant is only slightly slower than a 2/2 for 1 mana. For Vorthosian purposes, he counts as the bitch-slave of the warrior ladies. Going with the theme, in the Xena verse he'd probably be this guy...

...and everyone knows how surprisingly useful he was during some of the warrior princess' misadventures.