Showing posts with label games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label games. Show all posts

To Go (Unknown Armies) Review

To Go (Unknown Armies)
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To Go (Unknown Armies) ReviewIt's rare that I come across a role-playing game that expands my mind like Unknown Armies has. It's even more rare to find a prepackaged adventure or campaign for any RPG that can blow your mind as much as the RPG itself does. To Go is a full campaign for Unknown Armies that sticks the dynamite right in at the base of your brain and twists the detonator.
What's it about? Here's the back cover blurb:
"For a decade, the occult conspiracy known as Mak Attax has been infusing America with magickal power, one super-size fast-food meal at a time. Now the symbolic batteries of the nation are charged up and crackling. The seven chakras of the American body politic have come alive, and the great kundalini serpent is winding its way across the landscape. The lords of the occult underground are riding its tail, fighting for a prize so big nobody even knows what it is. And this is no mere street saga. All the heavy hitters are stepping up to the plate, while the ascended archetypes of the Invisible Clergy choose sides and dispatch their avatars to the front lines. The stakes have never been higher and when the dust settles, your cabal of mystic high-rollers will cast the dice."
Basically, To Go is a road movie and all that it entails. The PCs go chasing after the kundalini spirit from coast to coast, with episodes in seven cities along the way. Each city symbolizes (as a chakra point) some element of America so the events that take place in those cities tend to be metaphors. This is sometimes subtle (in the episode dealing with justice) or gaudy (in the episode dealing with luck and fortune). The thematic connections between the events and the locations they take place in is a really nice touch.
The overall feel of To Go reminded me a lot of Neil Gaiman's American Gods in theme and tone. There are also a good deal of gonzo Hunter S. Thompson moments as well. I like the kitschy feel the campaign lends itself to. I can easily imagine the PCs in road trip mode, driving across the Nevada desert in a beat up old sky-blue Chevy, listening to some static-y easy listening station on the radio. The spaces between the main episodes in the cities a GM can fill with his own ideas, and once you start grooving on the riffs the campaign itself is laying down, you can come up with some really whack scenarios to lay on your PCs. Driving across the U.S. can be a very surreal experience!
The opportunities for role-playing in the campaign are numerous and sometimes quite involved. There is plenty for good group of players to chew on. All the major NPCs are well developed with real motivations and goals. Even the minor NPCs provide good characterizations. One thing I like about the characters in Unknown Armies scenarios is, when they're crazy, they're really crazy. Some of the characters in To Go are pretty funny (despite being dangerous lunatics). This fits well with the sort of black comedy you often seem to find in Unknown Armies scenarios.
There are a couple of set piece action scenes, but this isn't Feng Shui and I wouldn't try to play it that way. If your players are taking the Unknown Armies approach to violence seriously (that is, try to avoid a fight) they'll probably come through unscathed (though a couple of times, you just gotta do what you gotta do). But really, this campaign is all about the role-playing and the bulk of the episodes give the PCs plenty of tough choices and interesting moral questions.
Another thing I like about this book is the art. There isn't a lot, only one full-page piece per chapter. But each picture is a snapshot of events in the chapter. The done in a clean, comic book style, that is both detailed and efficient. What I like about it is the pictures follow four "PCs" through the campaign - a big bald tough guy, a sort of skateboard chick, a guy in a suit, and an old granny. As the campaign develops, so do these characters (in the pictures). By the last picture, a couple of them are bandaged from injuries taken earlier in the campaign. The diversity of the characters suggests the comedy inherent in the kind of cabal of characters likely to get involved in an Unknown Armies campaign. Very effective artwork if you ask me.
I can't find too much wrong with this campaign. Maybe I'm biased. Having written something like this myself, I know how hard it is to write a full campaign for publication. Perhaps the only fault could be the railroading necessary to all prepackaged campaigns. In To Go, the plot rails aren't so rigid anyway, and Stolze gets away with it mostly by simply setting scenes and goals for the characters and letting everyone go to it, then figuring out the results afterwards. This is not a campaign for beginning GMs. Given the kind of leeway the PCs have in resolving events in this campaign, the GM had better be able to deal with the unexpected.
The other sticking point might be the power level. To Go is written for the "cosmic" level of play, and assumes the PCs (and thus the players) are familiar with the way things work in the Unknown Armies world. Actually I don't think this is such a problem for a crew of smart players who are into UA, but it could present a bit of a learning curve to newbies (though zooming around that curve could be fun!)
I hate Greg Stolze because he's so damned good! I want to write like him! He catches the essence of the UA game world and puts it all into this campaign. To Go is a real gem and I'm looking forward to running it.To Go (Unknown Armies) OverviewFor a decade, the occult conspiracy known as Mak Attax has been infusing America with magickal power, one super-size fast-food meal at a time. Now the symbolic batteries of the nation are charged up and crackling. The seven chakras of the American body politic have come alive, and the great kundalini serpent is winding its way across the landscape. The lords of the occult underground are riding its tail, fighting for a prize so big nobody even knows what it is. And this is no mere street saga. All the heavy hitters are stepping up to the plate, while the ascended archetypes of the Invisible Clergy choose sides and dispatch their avatars to the front lines. The stakes have never been higher and when the dust settles, your cabal of mystic high-rollers will cast the dice.This massive campaign packs more action, adventure, horror, and mystic intrigue into one book than anything Unknown Armies has done before. It's an epic that takes you through the spiritual power centers of America and beyond, to a final confrontation in a reality like nothing on this globe of earth. What will you risk to change the world?

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Sacred Ground II (Penumbra D20) Review

Sacred Ground II (Penumbra D20)
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Sacred Ground II (Penumbra D20) ReviewThis is a good book not as great as the first one but a great buy for the money.Sacred Ground II (Penumbra D20) OverviewUnearth the divine secrets of the deities in these four sacredsanctuaries. Sacred Ground 2 presents 112 more pages of holysites to use as PC home bases, as settings for your next adventure, oras lairs for your characters' most powerful enemies. Each entryprovides location maps and fortifications, NPC stats and backgrounds,and plot ideas to bring the site to life. This plug-and-playsourcebook includes: Hai Shen Gong: Avibrantly colorful Middle Kingdom temple sits atop a wind-blastedcliff overlooking the crashing waves of the dark sea below. Thehead priestess personally attends to the fiery beacon that warnsships away from the dangerous shoals. CrecheHospice: A small country estate houses an unfinished templecomplex and the headquarters of the Creche Knights. The hospice ispilgrimage site, hospital, garrison, and inn all at once, but alsoa prison for an entity called the Blasphemer, which prophesies thatother creatures like itself will soon rise to plunge the religionsof the world into chaos. The Oracle: Thisancient mountain tower is kept by mystics dedicated to the Lady ofFate, and is home to the goddess's oracle. At the request ofsupplicants, this young girl can plumb the depths of history andunravel the threads of destiny. EarthbloodGrove: On the edges of civilization is an old-growth stand ofhardwood trees with the reputation of being haunted and filled withstrange fey creatures. Those concerned with such things know thesecret of the forest: it is a druidic grove with a powerful naturalrelic hidden in its heart.

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Break Today (Unknown Armies) Review

Break Today (Unknown Armies)
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Break Today (Unknown Armies) ReviewThis is one of the most fun reads I've had in while. The book describes what is in essence an occult conspiracy run by fry cooks of Mickey D's. The background and characters would not be out of place in a mage, or feng shui campaign.Break Today (Unknown Armies) OverviewHey, foodtube -- have some fries with your universal transcendance! The bizarre occult conspiracy known as Mak Attax wants to upsize your soul, one fast-food burger at a time, until we all go dancing out the doorways of the luminous clown's thousands of mystically aligned restaurants and into a bold new future of magickal enlightenment. The men and women of Mak Attax are dreamers, cranks, agitators, crackpots, idealists, saboteurs, poseurs, fanatics, and everything in between. The rest of the Occult Underground thinks they're either complete losers or the most dangerous threat the world has ever faced. But no matter what the Maks hang tough, wash their hands regularly, and serve up a value meal of mojo their way.Contents include: The Mak Attax Story - Major GMCs - Assorted Crews - New Artifacts - New Rituals - New Archetypes - Four New Magick Schools: Anagram Gematria, Plutophagy, Herpemancy, and Geomancy - Rules for Familiars - Scenario Hooks - And 100% Pure Canola Oil.

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Demihuman Deities (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons/Forgotten Realms) Review

Demihuman Deities (Advanced Dungeons and Dragons/Forgotten Realms)
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Demihuman Deities (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons/Forgotten Realms) ReviewThis is the third book dealing with deities in the Forgotten Realms. This is the only book dealing with only demi-humans. If you are running a drow campaign or need information on drow gods it is here. There is also elves, halflings, gnomes, and dwarven gods presented. If there is any demi-humans in your campaign this is a must so that either the DM or PC can have a better understanding of the religions on the Realms as a whole. One problem is that is some instances they refer to the other two books (Faiths and Avatars, Powers and Pantheons) in the series. But neither is truly needed if you are running a demi-human only campaign.Demihuman Deities (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons/Forgotten Realms) Overview

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Digital Culture, Play, and Identity: A World of Warcraft® Reader Review

Digital Culture, Play, and Identity: A World of Warcraft® Reader
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Digital Culture, Play, and Identity: A World of Warcraft® Reader ReviewLike many anthologies, this one is uneven. Nevertheless, it contains some very interesting articles, especially about gender and culture as expressed in World of Warcraft.
My problem with the book, however, is that it purports to have a sort of dual viewpoint, being that all the academics writing about World of Warcraft here are also players. The problem is that none of them, as far as I can tell, have achieved level cap and immersed themselves in the endgame.
Like many MMORPGs, World of Warcraft is many games all rolled into one. There is the leveling game (where you take a new character and head off into the world to have adventures, gradually gaining strength and power as you defeat various challenges). There is the player-vs-player game, where you engage in battles against other players, either in groups or solo. There is the professions game, where you learn to create items in the game and get gradually better and better at doing so, until you can (if you wish) create a business providing services for other players. There is the economic game, where the goal you set yourself involves making as much game money as possible. There are games related to earning what are called Achievements (although these did not exist when this book was being written), and thereby earning yourself titles and/or items such as special in-game pets or mounts.
And there is the raiding endgame. In the raiding endgame, you reach the level cap and play around in small group encounters, gaining skill and gear until you are ready to join larger groups of players, setting off into some of the most intricately designed content in the game. The encounters there are complex and require serious coordination between largish groups of players to defeat. (To give you a sense of the complexity involved, there are some encounters that have taken groups of 25 people numerous attempts to defeat -- and by "numerous", I mean three or four hour sessions twice or three times a week for a month or more.) The organization required to put together a raiding team and keep it going strong for months on end is not trivial.
Most World of Warcraft players at least try out the raiding game; some of them define themselves in part by their refusal to play that game. Different players take different approaches to this raiding game. Some define themselves as "hardcore" and treat the raiding game almost as a job (and they require a group of people to raid with who share the same approach, with the necessary level of organizational infrastructure to support such an approach). Others define themselves a "casual raiders" who seek to experience raiding content as part of what they do, without in any way treating it as "another job". Since the fall of 2008, the raiding game has been available to most players who are at the level cap, at least in a very casual way.
While one can certainly play World of Warcraft without ever raiding, no one can accurately describe the game or the social groups that develop within it without discussing raiding. The vast majority of the authors in this anthology have not reached level cap, and those that have (for the most part, and by their own admission) have hardly scratched the surface of this important part of the game. So much of the game design is built around raiding, so many of the social structures are organized around this activity, that it's hard to take seriously a book about World of Warcraft that doesn't address it.
On the other hand, it's a relief that these authors did not write about something they haven't experienced. Most people who have raided, whether they still do so or not, will confess that it's not really what it looks like from the outside. People raid for a variety of reasons, and the groups they form to support their raiding habits vary a great deal in response to their motivations. It's tiring to read about "raiding" when the writer has obviously never done it, and can't evaluate for herself what her informants tell her about their experiences doing it.
At the same time, the lack of substantive consideration of the "raiding game" leaves a big gap in this book. It's as if someone were writing a book about Major League Baseball and chose to act as if the American League simply did not exist. It's hard to get a real sense of World of Warcraft if you don't talk about the endgame (that is, the things people do in the game once they have reached level cap and determined to keep playing), yet the authors are largely not able to do that, since they haven't gotten there yet.
That's a shame, because the dual-lens of player + academic is a valuable one, and I wish that this book had not ignored such a big part of the game.Digital Culture, Play, and Identity: A World of Warcraft® Reader OverviewExploring World of Warcraft as both cultural phenomenon and game, withcontributions by writers and researchers who have immersed themselves in the WoWgameworld.

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A Beginner's Guide to Second Life version 1.1 Review

A Beginner's Guide to Second Life version 1.1
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A Beginner's Guide to Second Life version 1.1 ReviewWhen I first tried Second Life, I was a little overwhelmed by the complexity of it. Sure, there are help files and forums and such, but I really needed a step by step guide to help keep me from running around naked with a box on my head. This book was just what I was looking for. I highly recommend it. I think I'm going to buy an island today.A Beginner's Guide to Second Life version 1.1 OverviewMillions and millions of people from all over the world have discovered the new virtual universe of Second Life. There you can meet new people, make friends, conduct business, build empires, whatever your imagination can conjure.This easy to use Beginner's Guide takes you step-by-step through the process of going from embarrassingly unprepared "Newbie" to a seasoned resident in no time.Learn how to design an Avatar for your new appearance. You can look like anyone or anything you desire. Buy land, build a house, a fortress, or even an entire city. Buy and island. Create new products and services and sell them to other residents for Linden Dollars, which can be converted to real US dollars. This book shows you how, with step by step exercises, examples, loads of illustrations, everything you need to get started and having fun.

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Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms Review

Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms
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Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms ReviewI'm 40 years old, having been a gamer since I was 10. I'm also a husband, a home-owner, have held a professional job for over years, and I don't personally have any difficulty reconciling my love of fantasy and role-playing games with my normal, day-to-day life. It seems that the author has had difficulty in this, and this book seems to be essentially his rambling and occassionally awkward attempt to find out if it's possible to be both mature and have a love of geeky, escapist hobbies.
If you're someone who put the dice away a long time ago and are wondering whether it's okay to feel like dusting them off again...or if you never were involved in such hobbies and are wondering if it's okay for your significant other to be...then this book may be written just for you.
If you're still avidly into these pursuits, then you may come away from this book feeling a bit unsatisfied. I felt like I'd read a book that said "It's okay for you to be into this stuff", and I was saying, "Well...yeah. I knew that. Thanks." It's still worth reading the book, as he has a lot of enjoyable stories along the way...just don't hold your breath for any deep revelation at the end.Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms OverviewAn amazing journey through the thriving worlds of fantasy and gaming What could one man find if he embarked on a journey through fantasy world after fantasy world? In an enthralling blend of travelogue, pop culture analysis, and memoir, forty-year-old former D&D addict Ethan Gilsdorf crisscrosses America, the world, and other worlds-from Boston to New Zealand, and Planet Earth to the realm of Aggramar. "For anyone who has ever spent time within imaginary realms, the book will speak volumes. For those who have not, it will educate and enlighten." -Wired.com "Gandalf's got nothing on Ethan Gilsdorf, except for maybe the monster white beard. In his new book, Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks, Gilsdorf . . . offers an epic quest for reality within a realm of magic." -Boston Globe "Imagine this: Lord of the Rings meets Jack Kerouac's On the Road." -National Public Radio's "Around and About" "What does it mean to be a geek? . . . Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks tackles that question with strength and dexterity. . . . part personal odyssey, part medieval mid-life crisis, and part wide-ranging survey of all things freaky and geeky . . . playful . . . funny and poignant. . . . It's a fun ride and it poses a question that goes to the very heart of fantasy, namely: What does the urge to become someone else tell us about ourselves?" -Huffington Post

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The State of Play: Law, Games, and Virtual Worlds (Ex Machina: Law, Technology, and Society) Review

The State of Play: Law, Games, and Virtual Worlds (Ex Machina: Law, Technology, and Society)
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The State of Play: Law, Games, and Virtual Worlds (Ex Machina: Law, Technology, and Society) ReviewWhen Judge Richard Posner first called himself and other legal academics "intellectual entrepreneurs," he was at least half-kidding (in a Chicago kind of way). But in recent years the "market" for legal scholarship has become among the most cutthroat in the world. Professors seem desperate to be the first to homestead new territory in any emerging market.
The work of economists like Edward Castronova has demonstrated that virtual worlds constitute a new frontier, ripe for cutting edge scholarship. The authors in this book are staking their claim to its legal issues. But just being the first to a topic does not mean you have anything interesting to say about it. Castronova's work is interesting, but you don't need this book to understand it. The remaining essays in this book reminded me of cyber-squatted domain names. "What will happen?" they all seem to ask, but they don't offer many answers or even interesting speculations.
The real problem here is that law exists to dealing with real-world consequences, while virtual worlds exist to eliminate them. Law may eventually get some traction in virtual reality, but it hasn't happened yet. If you want to be there when it does, don't read a law book - get yourself into a MMPORG. Just don't plan on keeping your job or your marriage.The State of Play: Law, Games, and Virtual Worlds (Ex Machina: Law, Technology, and Society) Overview
The State of Play presents an essential first step in understanding how new digital worlds will change the future of our universe. Millions of people around the world inhabit virtual words: multiplayer online games where characters live, love, buy, trade, cheat, steal, and have every possible kind of adventure. Far more complicated and sophisticated than early video games, people now spend countless hours in virtual universes like Second Life and Star Wars Galaxies not to shoot space invaders but to create new identities, fall in love, build cities, make rules, and break them.

As digital worlds become increasingly powerful and lifelike, people will employ them for countless real-world purposes, including commerce, education, medicine, law enforcement, and military training. Inevitably, real-world law will regulate them. But should virtual worlds be fully integrated into our real-world legal system or should they be treated as separate jurisdictions with their own forms of dispute resolution? What rules should govern virtual communities? Should the law step in to protect property rights when virtual items are destroyed or stolen?

These questions, and many more, are considered in The State of Play, where legal experts, game designers, and policymakers explore the boundaries of free speech, intellectual property, and creativity in virtual worlds. The essays explore both the emergence of law in multiplayer online games and how we can use virtual worlds to study real-world social interactions and test real-world laws.

Contributors include: Jack M. Balkin, Richard A. Bartle, Yochai Benkler, Caroline Bradley, Edward Castronova, Susan P. Crawford, Julian Dibbell, A. Michael Froomkin, James Grimmelmann, David R. Johnson, Dan Hunter, Raph Koster, F. Gregory Lastowka, Beth Simone Noveck, Cory Ondrejka, Tracy Spaight, and Tal Zarsky.


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Play Between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture Review

Play Between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture
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Play Between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture ReviewIn her book on the MMO gaming world, Taylor brings an ethnographic approach to the game Everquest. Through interviews and personal experience, she gives an insight into the gaming world that portrays it for the rich, complex, social world that it is. A gamer herself, Taylor does an excellent job shining new light on the "frowned upon" gaming world. She also goes beyond the gaming world to show how things are connected through the internet and "in real life" to things within the game.
As far as this being too "basic" in covering the genre - this wasn't aimed to be a book only for advanced gamers. For those of the academic world, who have no experience whatsoever with games, the chapters provide sufficient information about the games to allow understanding. The summary/analysis is as comprehensive as it is rich. There are parts that she could have gone further and I do hope she does write a second book (although she does have articles on this topic as well).
All in all, this is an absolutely fantastic book for academics (or just interested people) who want an ethnographic approach to the gaming world that treats it not as a deviant, subersive "alternate" reality. Gamers and academics alike can appreciate it. Think Jenkins' Textual Poachers (written about the fan world) for gamers.
I sincerely hope this is the tip of the iceberg for this serious academic research into the community, social aspects of MMOs.Play Between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture Overview

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Weep (Unknown Armies) Review

Weep (Unknown Armies)
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Weep (Unknown Armies) ReviewI'll be sincere, I wasn't very impressed by Unknown Armies.
Yes, it was a good book and wasn't expensive, but after tons os modern-conspirational-supernatural-horror-RPG, the things that made UA shine didn't justfy all the hype for me.
But the sourcebooks are another matter.
I would call most of them masterpieces and the ones not included at this category, just great.
I would rate Weep in the first category.
It's not just a adventure module but a book full of ideas, inspirations if you mind, that can put a SOUL not just in UA, but in any other similar RPG setting.
If I have any complains about this book is:
* They are so good thay I just can't decide which one use first.
* Now I MUST buy the next UA sourcebook "Ascension of the Magdalene" ;)
Thank you for all the people of Atlas Games.Weep (Unknown Armies) OverviewYOU DID IT.There's no such thing as a safe decision. When the chips are down andyou have to make a choice, somebody's gonna get hurt somehow, andyou're the one they'll blame. All you can do is clutch yourrationalizations to your chest and sprint for glory.Here's six spins on the wheel of destiny:* "Swap Meet" by Rick Neal: The Avatars of the Merchant are ready to deal, if you're ready to pay. * "Garden Full of Weeds" by James Palmer: In the heart of the city, even nightmares live in fear. * "Stoon Lake" and "Drink to That" by Greg Stolze: Can you find the courage to do the wrong thing? * "A Few Of My Favorite Things" by John Tynes: The gun, the bible, and the flag built this nation, but they're tearing it apart. * "The Green Glass Grail" by Chad Underkoffler: This town's got six kinds of trouble, and there's a bullet for every one of 'em.

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Developing Virtual Reality Applications: Foundations of Effective Design Review

Developing Virtual Reality Applications: Foundations of Effective Design
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Developing Virtual Reality Applications: Foundations of Effective Design ReviewVirtual Reality is a subdivision of computer graphics and the latter is intensely mathematical. But this book eshews a mathematical bent. Instead it offers a sweeping survey of recent [2008-9] applications of VR. You can easily read this and get a good understanding of where VR is being used. The survey spans both academic and industrial/commercial efforts.
The book is also aided by a heavy use of illustrations, many in colour. Quite appropriate given that we are talking about graphics. The figures greatly help the understanding of the text.
One interesting subtopic is augmented reality. Where typically a user wears a special pair of glasses and walks around the real world. Depending on her location and perhaps orientation, the glasses communicate wirelessly with a GIS-aware database that downloads information to be displayed in an overlay fashion on her vision.Developing Virtual Reality Applications: Foundations of Effective Design Overview
Virtual Reality systems enable organizations to cut costs and time, maintain financial and organizational control over the development process, digitally evaluate products before having them created, and allow for greater creative exploration. In this book, VR developers Alan Craig, William Sherman, and Jeffrey Will examine a comprehensive collection of current,unique, and foundational VR applications in a multitude of fields, such as business, science, medicine, art, entertainment, and public safety among others.

An insider's view of what works, what doesn't work, and why, Developing Virtual Reality Applications explores core technical information and background theory as well as the evolution of key applications from their genesis to their most current form. Developmental techniques are cross-referenced between different applications linking information to describe overall VR trends and fundamental best practices. This synergy, coupled with the most up to date research being conducted, provides a hands-on guide for building applications, and an enhanced, panoramic view of VR development. Developing Virtual Reality Applications is an indispensable one-stop reference for anyone working in this burgeoning field.


Dozens of detailed application descriptions provide practical ideas for VR development in ALL areas of interest!
Development techniques are cross referenced between different application areas, providing fundamental best practices!
Includes a media-rich companion website with hours of footage from application demonstrations


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Powers & Pantheons (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Forgotten Realms, Campaign Expansion/9563) Review

Powers and Pantheons (Advanced Dungeons and Dragons: Forgotten Realms, Campaign Expansion/9563)
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Powers & Pantheons (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Forgotten Realms, Campaign Expansion/9563) ReviewLooks like the others who wrote reviews here don't uderstand the point of Powers and Pantheons. It's supposed to be part of a trilogy of books that detail the Forgotten Realms pantheon, the third book being Demihuman Deities. If your characters run all over the Realms, then the whole series is recommended. If not, Faith and Avatars, and (probably) Demihuman Deities will be more than enough.
My one gripe with the whole series is I don't think the specialty priests were playtested, or playtested enough. Some of them are overly powerful and can run roughshod over a campaign. To all DM's I caution, look carefully at the description of a particular specialty priest before allowing them to be PC's.Powers & Pantheons (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Forgotten Realms, Campaign Expansion/9563) Overview

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Hush Hush (Unknown Armies) Review

Hush Hush (Unknown Armies)
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Hush Hush (Unknown Armies) ReviewUnknown Armies surprises more and more with every release. In the 'core' rulebook I had found the Sleepers to be the least interesting of the occult groups at play. After reading through Hush Hush, they are my favorite. This book is rife with plot and game seeds and introduces some insanely skewed NPCs. UA has such a great mix of pop and sub culture icons that certain elements of the book are noticeably derivative. This does not lead to a mess of regurgitated references but plays off them (see if you can spot the darker twist on Being John Malkovich).
This book gives you great command over how and why the Sleepers operate. They are men in black cleaners of the occult world.
Hush Hush is not without some flaws but is still a great supplement for UA. With Stratosphere, PostModern Magick and now Hush Hush the fertile UA universe is rife for destruction.Hush Hush (Unknown Armies) OverviewIf I die in my sleep, at least I'll know who did it. The Sleepers are the bedtime-story bogeymen of the occult underground. They keep the existence of magick a secret from the mundane world, lest the sleeping tiger wake and devour us all. If you make too much unnatural noise, if you leave witnesses to your workings, or if you just can't shut your pie hole about how you can melt your face on command, the Sleepers will come for you in the deeps of night and tell it you straight: hush hush, little mage, for dead men cast no spells. Listen close and you can hear their secrets: stories of the sleepers, true and otherwise; recruitment, training, and ops; safehouses, personnel, resources, and case files. But keep it to yourself — or else.

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Write Your Way into Animation and Games: Create a Writing Career in Animation and Games Review

Write Your Way into Animation and Games: Create a Writing Career in Animation and Games
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Write Your Way into Animation and Games: Create a Writing Career in Animation and Games ReviewBefore I can properly apply the book (which is textbook format, though a lot more interesting and fun than normal textbooks) here's a little background. I'm a lifelong writer, just now getting serious about publication, with an abiding passion for film (particularly animation) and video games. While I'm not bad on the designing end of the spectrum, writing is definitely my stronger suit. I researched screenwriting and animation writing in my teens, but, figuring I'd learn all this in film school (all of which accepted me, none of which helped me pay) I never took it seriously.
Fast-forward a few years. I'm still in love with writing; it's still a creative pursuit at which I excel (assuming I work very hard and polish each piece); I still love film, but that expensive hobby understandably got pushed onto a back burner. A few weeks ago, I began to wonder seriously, not idly as I've done for years, about what I could do to write for animation and games. Coincidentally, I stumbled across this book.
"Write Your Way into Animation and Games" is a fabulous resource for beginners, and even intermediates depending on what you're looking for. I was frustrated by the first chapters, which cover screenwriting basics and how to craft a simple story. I read them anyway (in case skipping would cause me to miss something). And I have to say, the advice is clear, concise, brief, thorough, and necessary. It was material I'm highly familiar with, but once I banished the "been through this before" conceit, the refresher did very well for me. I'd urge anyone not actually working in animation (not that you'd be picking up this book if you were) to please go over it. It's a little irritating at times, but the information is still valuable.
After the basics, it delves progressively deeper in terms of technique and resources. The information on animation writing, from script format to page count to dialogue and action balance, was fantastic. Without setting out any unbreakable rules, it gives a very clear idea of expectations and guidelines, which is much, much more helpful that something along the lines of "you always have to do this exactly this way."
My only disappointment--and it was fairly minor--was a relative lack of gaming resources. Writing for games and for animation is obviously very similar, but I was more interested in games than in animation at this point. I wish it had been more balances, or even biased in favor of game-writing. That said, given the amount of information and resources in this book, that really was a minor disappointment.
"Write Your Way into Animation and Games" is set up like a textbook. At very rare times, it reads like a textbook, but it's still a lot more interesting than most of the textbooks I have/am dealing with now. If the format would, for some reason, put you off, don't worry about it. This isn't dry reading. The writing is professional but vibrant, and bursting with examples (which I definitely need.) I can't promise this will be a perfect read for any beginner. But, overall, this was a really great guide for me, and I know I'll be using it in the future.Write Your Way into Animation and Games: Create a Writing Career in Animation and Games Overview
Launch your career in writing for video games or animation with the best tips, tricks, and tutorials from the Focal press catalog--all at your fingertips. Let our award-winning writers and game developers show you how to generate ideas and create compelling storylines, concepts, and narratives for your next project.

Write Your Way Into Animation and Games provides invaluable information on getting into the game and animation industries. You will benefit from decades of insider experience about the fields of animation and games, with an emphasis on what you really need to know to start working as a writer.

Navigate the business aspects, gain unique skills, and develop the craft of writing specifically for aniamtion and games. Learn from the cream of the crop who have shared their knowledge and experience in these key Focal Press guides:

Digital Storytelling, Second Edition by Carolyn Handler Miller

Animation Writing and Development by Jean Ann Wright

Writing for Animation, Comics, and Games by Christy Marx

Story and Simulations for Serious Games by Nick Iuppa and Terry Borst

Writing for Multimedia and the Web, Third Edition by Timothy Garrand

* How to break in to the industry and have a career in writing for animation or videogames.

* How to fine tune your narrative, characters, world, and dialogue--with this comprehensive guide to writing.

* Companion Web site includes all of the key multimedia and resource components from the original Focal Press books.


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Playing Video Games: Motives, Responses, and Consequences (Lea's Communication Series) Review

Playing Video Games: Motives, Responses, and Consequences (Lea's Communication Series)
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Playing Video Games: Motives, Responses, and Consequences (Lea's Communication Series) ReviewHow far video games have come since Pong and Space Invaders. The contributors to this book undertook serious analyses of current popular video games, some 25 or so years since those early games. The book is not about the technological aspects of how games are written. Though some chapters have brief explanations. Instead the focus here is on higher level issues.
These include asking what makes a game addictive; something which is certainly not of abstract academic interest. By now, the display resolutions are so fine, and the updating of the scenes so smooth that a player might be able to immerse himself into a virtual environment. A willing suspension of disbelief indeed! The emotions of a player are studied, as a clue to addiction.
Another aspect is the rise of Massive Multiplayer Online Games. These involve collaborative and competitive efforts between many human players, in an environment run on central servers that their machines login remotely to. The social mores of some MMOG universes are explored. On this topic, much more can probably be written than what the book only relatively briefly covers.
Playing Video Games: Motives, Responses, and Consequences (Lea's Communication Series) OverviewFrom security training simulations to war games to role-playing games, to sports games to gambling, playing video games has become a social phenomena, and the increasing number of players that cross gender, culture, and age is on a dramatic upward trajectory. Playing Video Games: Motives, Responses, and Consequences integrates communication, psychology, and technology to examine the psychological and mediated aspects of playing video games. It is the first volume to delve deeply into these aspects of computer game play. It fits squarely into the media psychology arm of entertainment studies,the next big wave in media studies. The book targets one of the most popular and pervasive media in modern times, and it will serve to define the area of study and provide a theoretical spine for future research.This unique and timely volume will appeal to scholars, researchers, and graduate students in media studies and mass communication, psychology, and marketing.

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RPG Maker for Teens Review

RPG Maker for Teens
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RPG Maker for Teens ReviewThis book which begins with a fairly extensive history and background of RPG games (beginning with simple classics such as Nethack), describes the skills and planning needed for their preparation; and covers in some detail the development of a teen's own game in the easy to use $60.00 programming environment RPG Maker VX (a 30 day trial is available over the Internet) and various free graphics tools used to supplement this development environment. The book carefully proceeds to give instruction in developing a role-playing game that could easily be understood by a teen or any other novice as well as developmental and historical outlines of this genre to all who might be interested. The biggest barrier to entry (or long-term use) is the cost of RPG Maker VX; but less powerful tools available for free might have limited the scope of games possible to create with this book.
--Ira LaefskyRPG Maker for Teens OverviewMake your RPG ideas come to life! RPG Maker For Teens shows teens and other beginners how to create their very own role-playing games, sword-and-sorcery quest games that feature turn-based combat, inventories full of unique weapons and armor, and fierce monsters prowling in dungeons. Using RPG Maker VX, a complete computer game application software, means that prior programming experience is not required. You'll follow easy-to-understand instructions and hands-on tutorials as you first build a sample game, and then your very own RPG as you work your way through the book. With RPG Maker For Teens, you'll learn everything you need to create fun, fantasy RPGs that you can play and share with others, including how to build a game world, invent characters, stage battles, put together quests, and edit and publish your finished game.
From the Author: 10 Quick Tips to Getting Started with RPG Maker
Create a new project and name it something distinct.Your first step in your new project is to declare the size of your map.Right-click on the map name in the panel list and select Map Properties; there you can change the dimensions of the map.
Draw your major landforms or interior structure.From the menu, select Mode > Map or press F5.Use the Pencil, Rectangle, Ellipse, or Flood Fill tools to place tiles on your map where the ground, floors, and/or walls would exist.
Using the Pencil tool, draw major tile elements, including impassible forests, grass, fences, buildings, and so on. Add more detailed tile elements as you go, including hangings, decorations, boxes, props, and more.
Create more maps that fit the outline of the game you want to make, including interior and exterior maps to be explored.
Now place Events.From the menu, select Mode > Events or press F6.Start by placing your player starting position.Then add transfer events from the current map to subsequent maps.Add non-player characters (NPCs) the player can dialogue with.You can add Door, Inn, and Treasure Chest quick events wherever you believe them necessary.
Decide where you want Enemies. If you want Enemies ambushing players all over your map, open Map Properties and set Troop Encounters.If you want to prompt encounters physically, place NPCs that instigate Battle Processing (Tab 3 of the Event Commands dialog box) on Player Touch.You can even set the NPC to run at the player by setting Autonomous Movement Type to "Approach."
Decide who you want to start in the player's party by editing the Database.From the menu, select Tools > Database or press F9 and navigate to the Actors tab.You can also change their abilities in the Skills tab and their professions in the Classes tab.
Edit or create custom Items, Weapons, or Armors in the Database.You can edit or create custom Enemies there, also.
Fine-tune the look of your game in the System and Terms tab of the Database.You can also edit or create custom graphics and import them into your game.Some graphics to consider modifying include player characters, NPCs, enemies, objects, map tiles, the title screen, and the Game Over screen.Likewise, you can edit or create custom sounds for your game.Study the music and sound effects listed in the System tab of the Database for audio you might want to adapt.
Test your game thoroughly.You should test after each new element you add to save you editing time later on.After you've tested your game thoroughly, have someone else test it for you.If your game passes the test, go to File > Compress Game Data to publish your game to an executable file.Distribute your game on the Internet or burn it to CD-ROM so that other people can play it.


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Wii Fitness For Dummies Review

Wii Fitness For Dummies
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Wii Fitness For Dummies ReviewI was not sure what to expect from a book called Wii Fitness for Dummies, but I decided to take a chance on it. I'm glad I did. As the busy mother of teens, I have not played video games in years. A friend of mine told me the Wii had several new exercise games and suggested I give it a try. The problem with the games is that they have so many options and for someone inexperienced, it was frustrating to try to set up your profile with all the information before getting started and to understand what the different measures mean. For example, in the setup, the Wii rates your balance. Why? This book explains that.
It was also helpful to have the detailed verbal descriptions of how to do the exercises. I found it difficult to pick up on some of the exercises watching on screen (like the step routines). The step-by-step (no pun intended) instructions in the book were very helpful for many of the exercises, particularly the ones for Jillian Michaels Fitness Ultimatum 2010, which uses the Wii remote for some of the strength training exercises. The authors are personal trainers, so I felt comfortable following their recommendations on how to do the exercises correctly. The book also includes a lot of photos to show correct positioning.
Before getting the book, I was a little concerned that because they were personal trainers, it would be geared toward people who were already avid exercise enthusiasts or fitness experts, but it really addressed people with varying fitness levels. I do have some health concerns and I also appreciated that the authors took time to note when an exercise might not be appropriate with someone having a particular health problem. This likely spared me a lot of joint injuries!
Another good thing about the book is that you don't have to read it from cover to cover to get started. The chapters are broken down by game and include a "getting started" section for each game, so you can just turn to the game you have and get started. I also liked the bonus chapters at the end, with the list of accessories available for the Wii fit and suggested "free style" type routines. A lot of the accessories would have been hard to find without the book.
It was also well written, which is more than I can say for a lot of Dummies books. (I bought one on Pressure Cooking that was terrible.) I've been trying to convince my mother to get a Wii so she can do some basic exercise in her home that might also be fun for her, and for her, even turning the Wii on would be a challenge, so I like that the book has instructions on how to navigate through the different menus.
Exercising with the Wii is not quite like exercising at a gym (for one thing, it can actually be fun), and it helps to have a book that addresses the complexities of exercising while standing on a small rectangle, for example! I do question the editor's choice of a cover photo. The authors go out of their way to stress the importance of wearing the right clothing for exercising, and those loose sweatpants with the strings at the bottom are not in line with their recommendations at all.
It is also very cool that you can get it on your Kindle.
Wii Fitness For Dummies OverviewA fun and friendly guide to enjoying the benefits of video games with actual fitness results!
Lose weight, find serenity, and tone your muscles while playing a video game? It's almost too good to be true! Yet, the Wii offers all of that, with fitness games that focus on losing weight, achieving balance and building strength. Written by an author team of Certified Personal Trainers, this friendly guide is aimed at anyone who is eager to take advantage of combining the fun, interactive, and motivational aspects of video games with traditional fitness activities.
You'll learn how to use Wii Fit Plus, EA Sports Active and other games as part of a sensible workout routine and lifestyle. The authors guide you through best practices for doing the exercises and explain how to incorporate a variety of other activities to maintain long-term results.
Wii Fit Plus and EA Sports Active feature different fitness games that focus on losing weight, achieving balance and building strength
An author duo of Certified Personal Trainers guide you through combining the fun, interactive aspect of Wii fitness with traditional fitness activities
More than 100 color screen shots serve as helpful examples for performing the routines safely and effectively

Using this instructional and innovative book, you'll be fit with your Wii!

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Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames (Charles River Media Game Development) Review

Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames (Charles River Media Game Development)
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Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames (Charles River Media Game Development) ReviewThis is a good book. It suffers from having multiple authors in that it lacks the consistent tone that most writng books have, but all the writng is still good.
It is focused on the interface betwen the writer, the game, and the team, and is long on cautionary points. It will be of value to anyone who is writing, producing, or leading all or part of a game team, particularly if they lack practical experience.
If you are only interested in a book about writing for games, Lee Sheldon's 'Character Development and Storytelling for Games' is probably a better choice, but if you are intending or actually writing game, or working with a game writer, this is a good read and a potentially vital resource.Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames (Charles River Media Game Development) OverviewAs computer games become more and more like Hollywood productions, the need for good story lines increases. Research shows that stories are highly valued by game players, so today's studios and developers need good writers.Creating narrative--a traditionally static form--for games is a major challenge.Games are at their heart dynamic, interactive systems, so they don't follow the guidelines and rules of film or T.V. writing. Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames addresses these issues and is the first book written to demystify this emerging field. Through the insights and experiences of practicing game writers, the bookcaptures a snapshot of the narrative skills employed in today's game industry.This unique collection of practical articles provides the foundations to the craft of game writing. The articles, written by members of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) Game Writing Special Interest Group, detail aspects of the process from the basics of narrative and nonlinear narrative to writing comedy for games and creating compelling characters. Throughout the articles there is a strong emphasis on the skills developers and publishers will expect a game writer to have. The book is suitable for both beginners and experienced writers, and is a detailed guide to all the techniques of game writing. This book is an essential read for anyone wishing to get into this exciting field, particularly for new game writers wanting to hone their skills, and film and T.V. scriptwriters who want to learn how to transfer their skills to the games industry.
From the Editor: Tips and Tricks
Game Writing was the first book by the IGDA Game Writing Special Interest Group, and remains its most popular. For writers new to games it's an indispensible guide, and for experienced writers it's full of tips and tricks from some of the industry's most successful game writers.

Here are a few extra tips for anyone interested in writing for games.

Stories Don't Make Games.A lot of people say to me, "I've got this great idea for a game..." and proceed to tell me a plot outline for a story. Many of the stories I hear would work better as a book or a film than a game, but even in the cases that would make a great game, there's nothing I can do to make that story become a game. Videogame projects are big business, and unlike movies, they don't begin life as a story outline. The story is something that is either developed along with the game, or that is added later. You can't start with a story and expect to finish with a game.
If a Job's Worth Doing...So you can't have your great story idea turned into a game. What should you do instead? The short answer is: find a way to make your own game. If you aren't a programmer, this probably means teaming up with someone who is, or using off-the-shelf game creator software. Don't worry too much about the quality of your first game, because if you want to be a professional game writer you're committing to work on lots of games, and you should try to learn from every project you work on. If you only want to work on big-budget videogames, then game writing might not be for you.
Start Small!It may sound obvious, but don't try and run before you can walk. A lot of people working on their first game story have plans to create an epic forty-chapter role-playing game with myriad twists and turns. But seriously, are you really going to be able to make a game that big as your first project? Try writing your game story as a novella or a screenplay first. If that sounds like a lot of extra work, then you're not ready to work on a game that big, because writing a game script is more work than writing a book or a screenplay. Instead, aim for something much smaller--a short story, or the equivalent of one episode of a TV show. You'll have a better chance of finishing what you start.
What Does the Player Do?Creating stories is harder work than most people give credit, and game stories have an extra problem--the player has to have something to do. You need to make sure that events in your story imply activities that the player will enjoy doing, otherwise, you're not really making a game at all.
How Much Can the Player Do?Also, you have to be realistic about how much choice you can offer the player. You might want to allow the player options at every step of the plot--but then you'll need to develop and test all of the possibilities that this implies. This is a lot of work! Fortunately, Game Writing has many ideas that will help you think about empowering players without generating extra work.
Game writing can be rewarding work, but it is still work, and anyone who hopes to succeed in this exciting and challenging field needs to be prepared to rise to the challenge. There's no better place to start than Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames.

Chris BatemanFounder, IGDA Game Writing Special Interest GroupEditor, Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames


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The Meaning of Video Games: Gaming and Textual Strategies Review

The Meaning of Video Games: Gaming and Textual Strategies
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The Meaning of Video Games: Gaming and Textual Strategies ReviewNot only is this an extremely interesting, readable account of textual strategies in video games (and associated media), but it's a model Kindle edition. The footnotes are hyperlinked and many of the cited web-pages in the notes can also be accessed directly from the Kindle. Even the index is hyperlinked. In the index, the original page numbers are retained but linked to the right locations in the Kindle edition. Somebody put a lot of attention into this and it makes this the most usable Kindle edition I have.The Meaning of Video Games: Gaming and Textual Strategies OverviewThe Meaning of Video Games takes a textual studies approach to an increasingly important form of expression in today's culture. It begins by assuming that video games are meaningful-not just as sociological or economic or cultural evidence, but in their own right, as cultural expressions worthy of scholarly attention. In this way, this book makes a contribution to the study of video games, but it also aims to enrich textual studies.Early video game studies scholars were quick to point out that a game should never be reduced to merely its "story" or narrative content and they rightly insist on the importance of studying games as games. But here Steven E. Jones demonstrates that textual studies-which grows historically out of ancient questions of textual recension, multiple versions, production, reproduction, and reception-can fruitfully be applied to the study of video games. Citing specific examples such as Myst and Lost, Katamari Damacy, Halo, Façade, Nintendo's Wii, and Will Wright's Spore, the book explores the ways in which textual studies concepts-authorial intention, textual variability and performance, the paratext, publishing history and the social text-can shed light on video games as more than formal systems. It treats video games as cultural forms of expression that are received as they are played, out in the world, where their meanings get made.

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Writing for Animation, Comics, and Games Review

Writing for Animation, Comics, and Games
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Writing for Animation, Comics, and Games ReviewMore than a few years ago, I had the extremely good fortune to be mentored in the art of animation writing by Christy Marx, who told it like it was about the biz and taught me all about the basics in great detail. Now a professional myself with credits as an animation production coordinator and writer, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book. Not only does it cover all the ground she taught me about animation writing with the same depth and care, it takes on comics and videogames, two mediums which have become more and more intertwined with animation over the last two decades -- something which is taken into account throughout the book. Whether you're trying to figure out if any or all of this areas are for you, or just looking for a better understanding of the business, this is an excellent primer.Writing for Animation, Comics, and Games Overview

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