The first three episodes seemed to go in a way that I expected the show to when I first started watching it. King Uther was murdered by Morgan at the very start of the show which led Merlin to seek our Uther’s only son, Arthur. Arthur, who was given to a family by Merlin when he was a baby, raised him and treated him as their own along side their real son, Kay. Once Merlin told Arthur his true heritage, Arthur asked his brother if he would go along with him and help him out in his journeys.

So now the first few episodes were of Merlin, Arthur and Kay finding Camelot, establishing it has their seed of power in which they would begin work to make the realm blossom into a great kingdom one day. Merlin spread the word that Arthur would be pulling the legendary Sword of Mars from a stone, lodge atop a waterfall for centuries. This was to help quickly show the people who Arthur was indeed their true ruler and hopefully buy them some time as they continued to build up Camelot and recruit soldiers who would be loyal to Arthur. The second episode is also when Arthur meets Guinevere for the first time, but he quickly discovers that she is to wed a man that he just declared as his champion, Leontes. As we enter the third episode, there is a great deal of tension between Arthur and Guinevere. Arthur has fallen in love with the girl who has been haunting his dreams and acts out on his feelings when he asks her to join him on the beach. The two make the mistake of having sex before she marries Leontes and it takes Arthur a while to get the hint after the wedding that she no longer wants anything to do with him. But he finally does come to the point where he realizes what his pursuit of her could cost him and stops.

Episode four is where things started to get shaken up as events began to occur that any fan of King Arthur would question the series and say, “I’ve never heard it that way before,” as the show portrays their image of Lady of the Lake. At the start of the episode the men are out in the courtyard training when Arthur’s sword gets cut in half. This leads to the discussion that Arthur is in need of a sword created for a King, not just any sword. I honestly thought they were going to take the Sword of Mars and reforge it into the Kings blade. Instead, Merlin goes off in search for a famous blacksmith. Once he finds the blacksmith he learns that the blacksmith requires the person he is creating the sword for, or as he put it, “I’m a Master fucking Blades Smith, not some village forge. My weapons are created personally for the wielder. I need to know how they fight, their stance, how they swing the blade, their personality.” If you’ve seen any of the episodes so far up to this point, Merlin just smiles and politely says, “I can tell you everything you need to know.”

In the end, Merlin has a vision of the Blacksmith killing Arthur with the sword he crafted for the King. Merlin decides it would be best if he took the sword to Arthur without the blacksmith, but the smith becomes offended. The two get into a fight and Merlin, for a short time loses control of his magical powers during the fight and accidentally kills the man from a ball of flame he created out of the smith’s forge. Within moments of the event happening, the Smiths daughter comes to the scene and discovers what happened and grabs the sword as she runs away from Merlin, telling him he’ll never get the sword. As she comes across a lake, the girl hops into a row-boat and decides to go to the center of the lake and toss the sword in, but before she can do this, Merlin cast a spell on the lake, turning the water to ice. As the ice reaches the boat, it becomes capsized and tosses the girl. As she attempts to swim up, her arm becomes stuck as the water freezes around her, leaving the sword above water. Merlin does his best to free the girl, but again, he has lost control of his spell and unable to save the girl. So Merlin creates the story of the Lady and the Lake as he presents Excalibur to Arthur.

While this is all going on, Morgan has been struggling from the over-use of her magical powers and she has fallen ill. It appears in this world of Camelot, magic users are able to use magic, but it comes at a cost. It’s why Merlin has seem not as powerful as we were told in our children tales or those who think of Merlin has a great and powerful wizard. He admits later in the show that he denies himself the joy of using this power, because the cost can sometimes be too high.

During episode 5, Morgan and Arthur are trying to find their own ways of spreading their influence through-out the people. Morgan is attempting to tarnish her brother’s name by telling people he would show up if they met at her place, only to deceive the people and never sent a request to her brother. In addition and without her knowing, the nun who raised her as a child went and paid a mercenary to beat her, so when she came back to the castle it would look like bandits are growing more wild to the point they would even beat a nun during Arthur’s reign.

While this is going on, Arthur is holding his first tribunal in Camelot. During his travel he came across a village where a mob was about to hang a man. They learned that the man in question killed his “landlord” and refused to give him his payments. The villagers dislike what Arthur is doing, but his goal is to influence the realm and show them his justice is spreading and all villages and towns need to follow the same rule as Camelot. Without ruining the tribunal and the choice that was made, Arther and his men go to great lengths to uncover the truth and the cause of why the man killed his landlord and refused to pay him.

Finally, Friday’s episode was an interesting show that combined three separate stories and interwove them together, making it so each story met at the end. Merlin and Arthur’s Knights set out to Arthur and Kay’s old home searching for the library their father built. A few of the men questioned this act, but Merlin simply explained, “We have an armory to equip fighters. Books are weapons for the mind and Camelot needs a great library. The books we are after are worth more than gold right now.” While on this journey, the men question Merlin about his powers and why, if he was given this gift, doesn’t he use it more. We see toward the end of the episode that Merlin has begun using magic a little more, small things, but simple. “Warriors must learn to fight and learn to suppress their rage. So should you learn to control your gift and suppress the urge.”

Guinevere gets word that her father is dying and rides off alone to pay him a visit. Once Arthur hears of this he chases after her, explaining his is only escorting her because she is the wife of his champion and not for any emotions they once shared. But, as you can guess, toward the end of the episode we see some emotions come back between the two as they kiss, but realize it was a mistake, again.

Morgan is presented with an issue as some people come and accuse her of harboring a murderer as they accuse the nun of setting the nunnery on fire and killing the girls sister. Morgan holds her own tribunal, similar to Arthurs in the previous episode, but she only has herself to make the judgement and not a group of people like her brother. She is left with a touch choice of protecting the woman who raised her and has given her guidance since arriving, and being undermined by these people making the claim that the nun is a murderer.

All in all, I would say I’m pleased with the direction the show is going. It’s not at all what I expected, but I am still enjoying it. The drama seems to be about right and according to IMDB the first season only has four episodes remaining and the way the show is currently going, I know I’ll be looking to see when season two is expected to air. It seems like Starz is doing a great job at creating one new show after another. So hopefully they won’t have any budget issues like HBO is known to have from time to time with their great shows. (i.e. Rome)

With today/yesterday/apparently over a week ago for some guy in Canada. The Adventurer’s Vault was released, hopefully providing a nice supplement to the lack of magical items and various adventuring gear that 4th Edition so desperately needs.

Thanks to a thread on the Gleemax forums, one person in Canada received his book over a week ago, and he was nice enough to answer various questions we common folk had about the new material. Trying to read up on some of the various things that should be introduced, such as the new aclhemy ability, airships, and battle standards.  

Wait.. what? Battle standards? Really? Geez

The only thing that draws to my mind is this, I still remember a when WoW first introduced battle standards. I was told by a friend that they no longer are in the game, so I take his word for it. However, the issue still remains. One of the biggest complaints I hear from so many Dungeon and Dragon fans, outside of there not being enough material yet for them to make the conversion from 2nd/3rd/3.5 to 4th edition, is that it feels so much like a MMO. “Like a table top version of WoW”

I was one of the first adapters to 4th edition, I knew it was a little shaky, and I knew it has some minor flaws. I have yet to disagree with any of the complaints the other people are making However I like the system, not for the simplistic aspect of the new rules. Not for all the things they have done to make it seem more “easy going,” for the most part I just like how they have done the new classes, and races.  It’s complicated getting out of the old mind sets of the older rules, where magical items or certain feats would make or brake your character. You would long for that deadly battle with the dragon, but not so much to see if your group would be able to defeat the dragon, not because you wanted to be the hero to save your group on the brink of destruction, but because you wanted the dragons horde of treasure. With the longing for that new magical item that would allow you to bring pain and misery to your foes that stood before you.

With this new system, magical items are still important, and when you get them, they help define your character, instead of being the very definition of your character. People have stated with the new at will powers they feel like they are playing the Rogue in WoW, just standing there pressing the button for sinister strike, and every now and then pressing the one for eviscerate. I respond, “But in the older versions of D&D, didn’t you still do just that? Instead though you would simple say, “I want to swing at the target?”?

When you look at it in that perspective, it’s still the same thing, and sadly a tad bit boring. If you try to mix it up, pick at-will powers and other abilities that you don’t have to use on every attack, you can feel like you’re doing more. In a way you can alone can help shape the battle. With my current character, I have a level 4 Rogue of awesomeness by the way his name is Shingo, after one of the best Ninjas out there! His goal is to get in, do some damage, move out, and come back in from another angle. However, he has various ways to get out of trouble, and if I see a friend in trouble, I have a few abilities that will help setup a situation so my friend can get away and regroup himself.

The battle standards how ever, I feel like they really are wanting to turn it into a table top mmo. Hopefully with the next book that comes out in November, maybe they can steer it down a path that doesn’t make people think, “Is this a MMO?”

So when you walk away from hours of murdering people virtually, you might also walk away with a bit of knowledge. Floyd makes some very good examples of way it could be done, and ways that I’m sure most of us have been affected by, and may not have even know.

If you’re sitting there, waiting for your food to finish cooking, why not check it out, it can’t hurt that much, can it?

As per the norm at GenCon, Magic the Gathering seemed to be the dominate card game, although not by much. It seems that they now have half of the tournament hall, while Upper Deck had the other half. It’s kind of a weird setup, because Wizard no longer runs the Magic event, instead a company called Past Time Games runs all the magic events at GenCon. Been that way for a few years now I’ve noticed.

Anyways, most of you have heard of Magic The Gathering before, and I’m sure you know that World of Warcraft has their own trading card game. I’ve played it before, and it’s not really a bad game, pretty decent system. There just isn’t anyone really in my area that plays it, so I haven’t looked into it much after I learned how to play.

Yugi-oh is still Yugi-oh, your deck consist of some of the craziest card names out there, and through some odd force can combine to create even more absurd creature names that would give any Scrabble judge a brain aneurysm just trying to comprehend the thought behind the name.

As my friends and I roamed the vendor hall, we came across a few new card games we wanted to try. Now these aren’t CCG’s or TCG’s, just normal type of card games. Example, the first one we tried was called Fishing For Terrorist. Basically, Go Fish on crack + making fun of the FBI/CIA.  You play the role of an agent from your agency, and ask a particular player “Have you heard anything about insert one of the terrorist names here activity?” I suppose you don’t have to say that, but it helps make the game a little crazy. If someone says yes, you collect the terrorist from them and capture them. If they say no, you draw from the deck. (Ask for a 3, get told to go fish). They also added crazy event cards, counters, the ability to steal other terrorist, and the whole goal is to have the most terrorist by the time the deck runs out to see who wins. Fun little game when you and some pals are bored.

The next game we tried was made by the same company, so expect something odd.  This game was called Red Dragon Inn 2. It can also be played in combination of Red Dragon Inn, and the thought behind this game is, what the adventurers do after dungeon crawling in say D&D.  You play a character of a particular race, I remember I was a half-orc. You have your cards, some gold, and cards that consist of different alcohol. I guess if you break it down, you’re characters are gambling, playing cards and drinking. The entire goal of the game is to be the last player with gold and not drunk. It was interesting, but $35, so we didn’t pick it up.

The last game we all tried was actually one produced by one of our friend, friends. Got it? This game was called Burosh. This game was definitely a twist on poker and dice. I believe the max players was six, you have one playing card deck with a few extra cards that are wilds. The playing board is a nice wooden board, that is a big hexagon with hexagon tiles for the game board. I’m not sure if I can explain this game without showing you how to play it, as it sounds confusing even in my head.  You roll a d6 (six sided die) and place it on the game board. If it is next to any of your dice, all the surrounding dice gain a point up to 5. If it is next to enemey dice, they all go down one, to being removed if below 1. If your die number ties any enemies around it, you challenge that player. Basically you try to have the best poker hand to beat them. The catch is, lets say you have a 2, and your challenging an enemy against a die that is a 2. You are only allowed to use a max of 2 cards to make your poker hand.

There you go, once again, goal is to have more points than the other plays once all the spots on the board are taken and no one else can play a die.

So there you have it, the card games I encountered last week. Oh, and in my swag bag for attending GenCon, I had a booster pack of what you see above, which is weird.

A web show based on a hilarious premise – a normal guy sucked into Zelda! Well… he was beating off to the fairy while playing Zelda on the NES… and choaking himself with the controller cord. But it makes for a great origin story!

I highly suggest checking it out – funny shit: Legend of Neil

Why Video Games

The Spring Of Your Life Is Here

We Heart You For Ever

So, with the blockbuster movie pulling in obscene ammounts of cash, and everyone talking about the Dark Knight, I’ve had the question of Batman vs. Ironman come up more than once. I think Marvel hit a home run with Ironman, and DC/Nolan with Batman as well. I’ve made my peace with what I perceved as ‘cheese’ in Dark Knight (bat-sonar!? Gordan’s speach to his 8 year old?!). For me, when it comes down to it, these movies are SO different that comparison is difficult. SO… let it boil down to personal preference! Im going to make some polls listed below to turn this arguement into a democracy and see who turns out on top!

[poll id="10"] [poll id="11"] [poll id="12"] [poll id="13"]

With no strong desire to be punched in the face, but already currently in the middle of the second A Game of Thrones novel, A Song of Ice and Fire. What was I to do? Another friend recommended I get the Audio Book and try it out. So I did, I had a 9 hour drive coming up in a week, so I picked up the audio book to check it out.

My final conclusions? I only wish all audio books put as much effort and care into re-creating the books as Orson Scott Card did with the company that made his audio books. They casted several voice actors to play the parts of the different characters. You had the main reader for Ender, and if he was involved in a quick conversation with another person, the reader would change of the pitch of his voice to suit the other character.

Once I finish my current book, I plan on picking up a copy of Ender’s Game. Then I’ll be able to do a compare and contrast of each to see which I prefer. So far with the audio books, I’m on the third novel in the Enderverse series, Xenocide.

They have added some new ways to switch your attacks and new ways to make doing attacks easier. You can now use the mouse wheel to roll between different melee attacks and at the bottom where the potion bar use to be, now you can place your skills for easier use. (Now where have I seen that done before…)

As with all old titles being brought to new, the game play, point of view and everything else we loved from the previous titles will look exactly the same, but with fancier graphics! However, from the game play video I saw, there does appear to be much more gore…. much more! I’m talking during the boss fight, the boss picked up one of the players, ate his head right off the body, tossed the body.  The original Mortal Kombat would be proud.

There are some new classes, although as of right now they have only stated Witch Doctor and Barbarian. Along with apparently the option to finally make either sex of any class. As they showed off the female Barbs and Witch Doctors standing next to the males for the boss fight.

Environment looks to have a play in the game play now, as they exampled the Barbarian hitting a wall and watching it come falling down on top of a group of monsters.

So my final thoughts? Does it look good? It looked just as I said, Diablo 2, better graphics, more lighting. But I loved Diablo 2 and the graphics, so yes I think it looks good.

Game play? Once again, looks pretty solid, although I’m not so sure I’m a fan of the new easier skills.

Will I go to the midnight sale of Diablo 3 like a crazed little kid?  Duh!

Oh… one last thing.  One of the Witch Doctors spells, Wall of Zombies!  That’s right, a whole fucking wall of Zombies going for your brains!