Tagged: RPG

The Rocket Rangers Need You!

  • Uncategorized
  • July 1, 2013
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Cubicle 7 Entertainment has released a teaser image for their upcoming game, The Rocket Rangers.

“It’s an alternate history pulpy retro-sci-fi space opera planetary romance. It’s throttled up rocket packs burning radium on the long blast to the farthest reaches of the Solar System. It’s hunting thunder lizards in the upland jungles of Venus. It’s battling Ancient Martian killing machines piloted by the Deutsche Marserkorps across the baking red deserts of Mars. It’s exploring the deadly skies of Jupiter under the constant threat of Europan disintegration. It’s RAY gun wielding heroes bulls-eyeing mutants in the blasted ruins of Io” -Ken Spencer, Rocket Age Line Developer

Stay tuned.

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About Cubicle 7 Entertainment:
Cubicle 7 Entertainment are the creators of high quality roleplaying and card games such as The Doctor Who Card Game, The One Ring, Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space, Primeval, The Laundry, Victoriana and Cthulhu Britannica.

Learn more here.

Review: Dissidia 012 [duodecim]

Drawing upon their rich history, Square Enix’s Dissidia 012 [duodecim] places a “Who’s Who” list of well loved characters from their “[[[Final Fantasy]]]” games into a novel setting – a combination of a role-playing game and a fighting game. Any “Final Fantasy” veteran may think about who would win in a fight between Lightning and Sephiroth, and now you can find out.

This may seem like an uneasy marriage, but it works. If you’re used to traditional fighting games like “[[[Street Fighter]]]” or “[[[Tekken]]],” this is very different. First off, combat is in three dimensions with aerial attacks as well as ground-based. Direction is automatically locked on to your opponent or power-ups. The RPG side of this pits characters in the middle of an eternal battle between Cosmos and Chaos. The focus is on combat, and you’ll have to go through different offensive & defensive techniques, as well as evasion. While the fighting engine is simple in principle, because of the high number of variables, execution can be tough. Along the way, you’ll be able to upgrade your weapons, armor, as well as swap out different attack techniques.

There’s also a “fighting only” option, but if you’re looking at this in the same frame of mind as a traditional fighting game, you’ll be slightly disappointed. You choose which character you want and match by match (no “best out of three” stuff here), you select your opponent. The opponent’s skill level is evenly matched to yours, and while this is fair, fighting games are usually not fair. There’s also no sub-boss or boss opponents, but any shortcomings Dissidia 012 [duodecim] may have as a fighting game are made up by the fact that any experience you rack up in the fighting area carries over in the RPG.

Square Enix graciously provided a free copy of this game for review. Thanks, guys.

‘Leverage’ Leaps from TNT to RPG

  • News
  • April 17, 2010

leverage-the-ro-md-1892614We here at ComicMix adore Leverage and have been eagerly awaiting tie-ins to the TNT dramatic series co-created by John Rogers. The first such product was announced this week with Margaret Weis Productions scheduled to release Leverage: The Role-Playing Game in June. The RPG will allow players to assume the roles of series regulars Nate, Elliot, Parker, Hardison, and Sophie while attempting to scheme and outwit their targets.

The Quickstart Job, a 16-page full color single scenario adventure, has been designed for June release to act as an introductory game.
 
The Leverage RPG will use the Cortex system as its foundation, and the 192-page, full color core rulebook will give players all the basics. The sourcebook Leverage: Grifters and Masterminds is due in September.  The 112-page full color trade paperback will include expanded rules for staging heists, planning capers, and working cons. 

The second season ended over the winter and will be released on DVD May 25 while the 15-episode third season is scheduled to begin running in June.

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Review: Futurama: Bender’s Game

On the heels of The Beast with a Billion Backs comes the third installment of the four [[[Futurama]]] direct-to-dvd films in [[[Bender’s Game]]]. It’s difficult to take these movies in as “movies” because they all feel like three or four episodes strung together (in fact, that is how they will be released on Comedy Central later this year) but they all seem to have a central storyline or element that runs through the entire feature and ties everything up in the end. For this film, that element is the [[[Dungeons and Dragons]]].

The film starts off as the younger of the Planet Express staff (Cubert, Dwight and friends) are geeking out in a game of D&D and acknowledge that Bender was built without an imagination (really?). This comes back later on in the film for a bit of a [[[Wizard of Oz]]]-like twist in which the whole crew gets sucked into Bender’s imagination. The B-Story here is that Leela has anger issues and is issued a shock collar that goes off when she has a violent thought. All this and another sidestory about the Professor’s actual son (hint: it’s not Zoidberg).

The great thing about Futurama is that, unlike [[[Simpsons]]], it has whole parts of an episode where you aren’t slapping your knee with laughter, but still enjoying it for the story and characters. There were a few knee-slapping moments in Bender’s Game, but overall, the episode isn’t on par with any episode of [[[Family Guy]]]. There isn’t as much character development here as in previous films, but some great moments with each of the characters, and as mentioned; just fun to watch.

Not many names in the way of celebrity cameos here. There is a brief stint with George Tekai which was quite funny, and friend of the series Rich Little stops by, but nothing like David Cross or Brittany Murphy of the previous movies. Though there is plenty for fans of fantasy RPG to get their jollies off, there is very little references to previous Futurama episodes. [[[Bender’s Big Score]]] was riddled with nods to the series, and even the last film had lots of in-jokes for the more diehard fans. Gary Gygax gets a mention at the end of the film, with a clip from his cameo on an older episode after the credits which is nice, considering how much of a role D&D has in the film.

Overall, this is probably the weakest of the Futurama features, with the least amount of characters and knee-slapping moments (no appearance by Zapf and one line from Calculon). The features on the DVD are worth the buy alone though, with bloopers from the voice actors, tons of featurettes, and even a Character Fusion Machine. Worth a buy for fans of the series, but don’t expect Bender’s Big Score. Rating: 6/10

Buy Futurama: Bender’s Game on DVD and Blu-Ray on November 8th!

Kotaku: “Where Are Our Comic Book Games?”

  • News
  • August 28, 2008

For hardcore videogame fans, Kotaku is like an online CNN. They almost always get the news first. And they cover everything. From Halo 3 to weird Japanese titles that will never be released elsewhere. That obssessiveness has made them one of the top gaming websites.

So it was with great pleasure, that I read Luke Plunkett’s “Screw Comic Book Movies, Where Are Our Comic Book Games?” feature and see it become one of the most popular stories on the site. He argues that the gaming industry is ignoring a gold mine of great concepts and visuals for licensed games. Ignoring the heavily franchised superheroes, he cites Hard Boiled, Planetary, and The Goon among others. And made some nifty looking imaginary box art.

Since Kotaku is heavily read by both fans and the industry, I’m hoping his cry for more comic based games yields some results.

I would like to point out that he forgot to mention The Darkness, which basically falls under the type of game he’s talking about. It got good reviews and was a solid, if not runaway, seller. And there was a game released based on Bone. Which didn’t fare as well.

And if I could throw my 2-cents in, I think Mark Waid and Barry Kitson’s Empire would make a wickedly deep Japanese style RPG. Or ComicMix’s own Hammer of the Gods. ComicMixers, give us your suggestions in the comments.

 

R.I.P. Erick Wujcik, Game Designer

  • News
  • June 10, 2008

Sad news from Kevin Siembieda at Palladium Books:

Beloved role-playing game designer, Erick Wujcik, passed away Saturday evening, June 7, 2008. He died from complications related to pancreatic and liver cancer. Kathryn Kozora, his sweetheart of more than 30 years, and other loved ones were at his side.

Erick was diagnosed with cancer in late November, 2007 and given 6-8 weeks to live. True to Erick’s indomitable spirit and zest for life, he proved the doctors wrong by lasting more than six months. Most of that time was spent with friends and loved ones.

Erick Wujcik’s accomplishments are many.

To the role-playing game community, Erick is best known for his many RPG games and contributions to Palladium Books®, including The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles® RPG, several TMNT® sourcebooks, After the Bomb® RPG and sourcebooks for it, Ninjas & Superspies™, Mystic China™, Rifts® China One and Two, Revised RECON®, Wolfen Empire™ and many others. He is also famous for Amber® Diceless, the first truly “diceless” role-playing game, published under Erick’s own label, Phage Press. Erick also published Amberzine® and founded Ambercon™, a series of conventions celebrating gaming, friendship and the world of Amber, hosted at numerous locations around the world.

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Dragon and Dungeon magazines fold

  • News
  • April 26, 2007

tsr82306-8342927Paizo Publishing and Wizards of the Coast today announced the conclusion of Paizo’s license to produce Dragon and Dungeon magazines effective September 2007. The final issues will be Dragon #359 and Dungeon #150, both of

which will contain special content commemorating the history of these magazines. Dragon and Dungeon have been the backbone of Paizo Publishing for five years since they spun off from Wizards of the Coast’s periodicals department in 2002, and both magazines have been an integral part of the RPG publishing world for decades.

The magazines have a long history of publishing comics content, including Phil Foglio’s What’s New and Aaron Williams’ Nodwick.

“Today the internet is where people go to get this kind of information,” said Scott Rouse, Senior Brand Manager of Dungeons & Dragons®, Wizards of the Coast. “By moving to an online model we are using a delivery system that broadens our reach to fans around the world. Paizo has been a great partner to us over the last several years. We wish them well on their future endeavors.”

Subscribers should go to Paizo to learn more about the future of their subscriptions. Multiple options will be available for customers whose subscriptions extend beyond the final issues of the magazines. 

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