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Saturday, April 16, 2011

The House of the Dead: Overkill Wii

RELOAD!!!!When rookie AMS Special Agent G, who originally appeared in the first House of the Dead game of which Overkill is a prequel to, is forced to team up with loudmouthed ladies' man Isaac Washington, a Bayou City detective on a quest for revenge, blood, brains, and bodies fly. The two guys curse and shoot their way through endless zombies--actually mutants--as they chase after crime lord Papa Caesar, the man responsible for the whole mess. Along the way, you'll encounter Varla Guns, an ex-stripper with her own vendetta against the sinister villain, and blast your way through wave after wave of hilarious and terrifying mutants, including hobos, football players, rednecks, backflipping clowns, nurses, and more.




As is typical with light-gun games, the action is entirely on rails, so you don't have any real control over your path through the mutant-infested backwaters of Bayou City. You do, however, have some peripheral vision if you move your crosshairs near the edge of the screen, which helps you to pick up power-ups like grenades, health kits, golden brain collectibles, and the coveted "slow mo-fo mode," which slows time down to a crawl for maximum carnage. Each mission takes place in a specific set piece that has been cast in the grindhouse theme, from hospitals to carnivals to plantation houses, and at the end of each you'll duke it out with a freakishly large supermutant in a battle to the death.


The degree of difficulty ranges from level to level but is more often easy, especially if you've got the help of a friend thanks to the two-player co-op mode, which is very nicely set up so that a partner can join at any time. Most enemies fall to your firepower in only a few shots, and even the bosses are huge pushovers once you learn their simple and predictable patterns.
Ultimately, The House of the Dead: Overkill is incredibly fun and entertaining. With a large cast of heroes and villains, brilliant writing and voice acting, and some of the best visuals available on the system, I would say that Overkill is one game that no one who likes this kind of gameplay should miss.









Monday, April 11, 2011

Dungeons and Dragons

Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is a fantasy role playing game that exists since the mid 1970s. Over the years it has gained a lot of popularity, and at this point it is by far the most popular pen & paper role playing game in the market, with book and equipment sales of more than $1 billion and more than 20million people that have played it, according to wikipedia.



The game is an open-ended and story-based, governed by a very complex set of rules that take a while to master. D&D requires at least 4-5 participants to be interesting, one of which is the Dungeon Master (DM). The rest of the players each assume a character and typically form a group. Each character has some statistics that represent what they can do, as well as backgrounds that merge into the story.

The Dungeon Master is responsible for providing the setting in which the characters act. The DM is the one narrating the story and playing all the non-player characters (NPCs) that appear in the plot. The DM also describes to the players the environment, the actions that happen and how the story evolves. (S)he is the one providing challenges to the players to overcome, as well as helping them when needed. To do all the above requires an intimate familiarity with the game rules as well as a creative spirit. A good Dungeon Master is the key to having a nice experience while playing the game.


There is a lot of literature that has been developed around the game. Whole fantasy worlds have been created and thousands of novels have been written describing stories that take place in these worlds. These books often act as inspiration to help the Dungeon Master create the stories for the players.

To start playing the game, a group of players needs 3 books. The Player's Handbook contains the core rules of the game that everyone needs to know. The other two books, the Monster Manual and the Dungeon Master's Guide are important mostly to the DM. In addition to these core rulebooks, there are tons of enhancements and additional tools available to help enhance the playing experience.




Other than these books (which you have to read before starting to play!), all you need is few sets of dice, pen, paper, maybe some miniatures and a lot of imagination!






Thursday, April 7, 2011

Taboo

Taboo is one of those rare jewels among board games that while being extremely simple in its rules and concept, it provides to be extremely fun while playing it. It is essentially a word - guessing game; some players try to describe some words while their partners try to find out which word is being described every time.

The game requires a minimum of 4 people to play, split in teams. Each player picks up a random card with words, when their turn comes. He then tries to describe the top word in the card to their teammate(s). Below the word to be guessed there are several words that are usually extremely helpful in describing the keyword on the top. The rules of the game forbid the usage of these words or their derivatives while describing.


The fun part comes usually from the improvised descriptions players use to bypass the restrictions of using the forbidden words. To do that, they often employ techniques as referring to common past experiences they have had with their teammates or people they all know about. Thus the game often degenerates into re-living the memorable moments of the players' common past, which tends to be very entertaining. The game is fast paced as there is a time limit and each team tries to guess as many keywords as possible within this time limit to earn more points.


Find more information and user reviews about Taboo on Amazon: