Sam and Max: Freelance Vids

Sam & Max Hit the Road is the funniest adventure ever crafted. Yes. It's funnier than Monkey Island, funnier than Bone, funnier than my aunty. Sam and Max: Freelance Police, was supposed to be even funnier, but was quite unfortunately murdered by Darth Vader. Not everything was lost though, as Obi Telltale Kenobi is currently working on the new (episodic) Sam and Max game, and as I am presenting you with a genuinely silly and quite pointless (but relevant) video...



Now, am I nice or what? I am also helping you find out more about the cancelled Sam and Max game and the brand new Steve Purcell webcomics.

For further adventuring you could have a look at my reviews of Apprentice, And Then There Were None and Telltale Texas Hold 'Em. To get back at rotten ol' Darth try Star Wars Battlefront 2.

Related Tags: Sam & Max, Sam, Max, Sam and Max, Freelance police, Hit the Road, Lucasarts, Game, Games, PC Game, Adventure, Adventures, Adventure games, Steve Purcell, funny, video, weblog, Entertainment, PC Games

The Spore of the Sims

The Sims was an innovative concept that almost got canceled, avoided such an unfair fate, and now is Electronic Arts' major cashcow, and quite a nuisance for both hardcore and aesthete gamers. The Sims also helped establish Will Wright's fame as both a talented and a money-making games designer, thus earning him the right (and above all the funds) to further experiment with the gaming medium. Spore is the name of his next project, and it truly feels like the evolution of open-ended gaming (or digital playing). Spore could be the most important game yet. Just take a look at the video. It's almost 36 minutes long (35'47'' to be precise), but what else would you except from a game that has you starting as an amoebae and after a few stages lets you control solar systems? You'll be watching gaming history in the making. It's funny too.

Related Tags: Spore, Will Wright, Maxis, PC Game, PC Games, Game, Games, Video, blog, weblog, Entertainment, video games, video game, Sims, Electronic Arts, The Sims

Board Game Review: 'Space Hulk 2nd edition'

Space Hulk 2nd edition is apparently the 2nd edition of the 1st edition Space Hulk, which was published by the massive miniature making 500lb gorilla, usually referred to as Games Workshop. Thus, the setting of the game is none other than the dark, sci-fi and quite gothic 41st millennium. A time of war, theocracy, aliens and incomprehensible gods, war, famine, war preparations, battles, war and 80s music. And as war seems to feature quite heavily in the imagined year 40,000, a war inspired game shouldn'’t come as a surprise to anyone. The fact that humanity of the distant future is struggling under the boot of a rotting vegetable-Emperor, is quite irrelevant to Space Hulk 2nd edition being a war-themed board game and not a wargame. The Alien, Aliens etc craze that raged throughout the late 70s and 80s should explain the overall feeling/aesthetics of the board game, that are glorified in the following picture (directly scanned from the rulebook):

Silliness aside, the Warhammer 40000 universe, Space Hulk's setting, is a very rich in detail and well-portrayed world. An unholy bastard of a fantasy and sci-fi setting it may be, but also one of the better gaming worlds around. Space Hulk 2nd edition (Space Hulk henceforth) is accordingly one of the better board games around. Perhaps the best I'’ve ever played, and one I can'’t recommend enough. It might be difficult to track, but at least it's easier to find than the really obscure first edition, and it will not cost you a fortune. When it was released, some 10 years ago, it was actually great value for money. You bought an -almost- huge box that contained:

- a 36 page full-color rulebook
- a 52 page full-color mission book
- 10 Space Marine Terminator plastic miniatures of the usual Games Workshop quality
- 20 Genestealer plastic miniatures
- dozens of high quality counters
- almost 100 beautifully illustrated board sections
- 7 dice

Space Hulk'’s game mechanics are rather simple, but extremely atmospheric and varied (that'’s what a 52 page long mission book is good for). Each player (in this two-player game) controls either the tough-as-nails and hip as anything from the 80s Space Marine Terminators, or the Giger-esque, fast and numerous Genestealers. After sides are picked, the players battle it out using the missions (and dice and miniatures) provided, over the modular cardboard terrain, that represents the narrow corridors of an ancient and derelict spaceship. The rules are simple, simpler than the first editions'’ (no stopwatch, just actions/time units per turn for example), but really interesting and appropriate. For example: the Terminators player can'’t see the Genestealers models, but only blips on his radar, represented by small counters his opponent places and moves over the board. Each counter can stand for either one, more or even none of the aliens; this of course can only be revealed when the Space Marines establish eye contact with the blip. Pure genius and a prime example of how atmospheric Space Hulk is.

In typical board game review fashion let me also inform you, that each game (match?) lasts for about an hour. In not-so-typical fashion I'’ll let you know a small fact: Space Hulk has been successfully ported to video game format. Take a look here. This video game even had a PC and console FPS sequel. Fancy, that.

Oh, and concerning my grading of Space Hulk, I guess ...

that's a (nine and a half) out of (ten).

Related Gnome's Lair articles: Class Struggle and Zombies!!! Board Game reviews, Museum Monday #3, Freedom to Board Games


Related Tags: Board Game, Board games, review, reviews, Games Workshop, Warhammer, Warhammer 40k, Warhammer 40000, Space Hulk, Space Hulk 2nd edition, entertainment, Miniature, Miniatures, Space Marines, Genestealers, wargame, wargames

Magritte on Revolution

We've all heard the banter, as well as the rumors on the Nintendo Revolution, or whatever they decide to call it. But, what would a famous surrealist think of the whole matter? Most probably something along the lines of the following picture, that was shamelessly snatched from somethingawful.com (more precisely from here). Enjoy it. It's free.

Related posts: The Nintendo Revolution FAQ, a silly Revolution rumor, Nintendo DS Lite
Not-so-related posts: 30 free games, The Call of Cthulhu games feature
100% irrelevant posts: Warhammer tactics, Zombies!!! Board game review

Related Tags: Nintendo Revolution, Nintendo, Revolution, Rumor, Magritte, Surrealism, Art, Humor, Rumors, Video games, game, games, weblog, Parody, funny, fan art

Hardcore retro-speccy cheating code

You think the Gameboy is retro hardware? Pfff! Think again dear. The Spectrum is (almost) the only true, hardcore, special retro stuff, that can chew your obviously adolescent self and your handheld and spit you out in tape-format. Cartridges. Pah! Modern stuff. Not good enough. With 'cheats' that require you to press a-b-b-b-left-a-up-up. A kid could do it you know.

Not in the old days though. No, you had to program yourself (or at least copy someone else's code) out of gaming trouble. For example: Heroquest for the Spectrum. A tough little game by Gremlin, apparently based on a Games Workshop and MB concept. How could you move your character at full and not randomly determined speed? The same way you can now. By typing the folowing listing and running it before the game:

10 REM GNOMISH HEROQUEST HACK
20 CLEAR 24575
30 LOAD ""CODE 16384: LOAD"" CODE
40 POKE 34151, 182
50 LET MC=USR 28030

That's all. No silly random button pushing, and for further retro reading, I would either propose a piece on Atari Flashback, or something on C64. If, on the other hand, all you want are C64 game walkthroughs, then please do take a look at this.

Related Tags: Sinclair Spectrum, Spectrum, Speccy, Hack, Listing, Game, Games, Cheat, Cheats, retro, Heroquest

a gnome's humble February

Those of you (all three of them) that have been following the evolution of Gnome's Lair must remember my discontent for the lack of categories-support from blogger.com. This has been remedied, and now, thanks to the excellent services of labelr, you can gasp with amazement when looking at my oh-so-gnomish categories. (Ahem... They are on the left... the left sidebar, that is... Well, there is only one left sidebar...Oh, dear...forget it)

Everybody else will be hopefully interested in learning what February's articles were all about (to take a look at January's click here). Well, here are the links to those I consider the more important and/or interesting. For the rest, you can still use the monthly archive or navigate by using the brand new and aforementioned categories.

February on Gnome's Lair. A modest selection:

30 (more-or-less) excellent and hand-picked free games for your downloading pleasure.

Warhammer tactics: 6th edition diverting.

Lots and lots of Warhammer rumors.

A (PC) review of 'Telltale Texas Hold 'Em'.

Features on Warhammer based video games and Call of Cthulhu cross-genre gaming.

Grim Fandango 2 rumors and of course quite a bit on Bone 2 and Telltale.

The start of the Museum Monday serial posts: MM#1, MM#2, MM#3.

A call for Half Life 2 mod beta testers and a nice and rather retro Doom 3 mod.

The not-so-bright future of Atari.


Related Tags: gnome, weblog, blog, games, game, review, reviews, preview, previews, feature, features, link, links, Warhammer, Lovecraft, adventure, adventures, adventure games, telltale, Call of Cthulhu, Atari, mod, modding, mods, Doom