Product Review: Dollar Store Gloves

As the weeks tick on by and we slide into winter, the weather here in Vancouver has noticeably taken a dip in temperature. I’m wearing more layers and pulled my wooly hat out of storage, but my fingers have been suffering.

I have a lovely pair of leather gloves that I’ve used regularly the last few years. They’re stylish and compfortable and go really nicely with my Rocketeer jacket. But I can’t use my phone with them on. Which is an issue now that I’m playing Pokémon Go again. My fingers go swiftly numb at evening raids or when I go out at 11pm to hit a few PokéStops to refill my items. Don’t judge me!!!

So when a fellow PoGo player recommended some warm gloves that had touch friendly finger tips, I was curious. When he said they were from the local dollar store and cost less than a large coffee, I was suddenly very cautious. One more night of frosty fingers was enough of a push for me to risk not being able to afford a coffee though, and I went to the store and grabbed a pair. 

I picked out a pair that have the capacitive material on the thumb and index finger, as well as little grip dots on the palm and and palm side of the fingers, including thumb. They fit well but felt very thin.

And I love them! I’ve used them a few times now and they really are warm enough. My fingers feel great and given how thin they are, I can still easily hold my phone and play the game, even landing curve ball throws when needed. The grips are great and I feel like I have a secure hold on my phone. I don’t drop touch inputs, though, obviously, my fingers are now a little thicker, so texting is sometimes an issue, but then texting is always an issue for me. 

The gloves are also small enough that they easily fit inside a pocket. They don’t feel bulky, and they just live in my backpack beside my battery bank and charge cable now. 

As mentioned above, my pair has the capacitive material on thumb and index, but there was also a style with the middle finger included. Those didn’t have the grip dots on them, so it’s a trade-off. I do sometimes find myself tapping or scrolling with my middle finger and nothing responding, but I’m training myself to stick to what I have. 

I’m usually of the opinion that anything that is too cheap to be any good is often just that, and you’re better off spending a like extra for a lot more. But these gloves are wonderful, and so incredibly cheap. 

If you’re out playing Pokémon Go on these chill evenings, or just like to use your phone while out and about in the cold, then grab a pair of these.

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Inis

I'm not usually one for games that fall into the "dudes on a map" category of board games. I've never been good at strategy, and find it hard to see those critical moves in map games.

But Inis is based around Irish mythology, with card art by Jim FitzPatrick, an artist I grew up seeing in my text books throughout my schooling. I had to at least have a look. And thanks to a local convention, I got to try it out with a friends copy before I took the plunge myself. As it turned out, it took me about 16 hours before I owned my own copy.

I fell madly in love with Inis from the moment I played it. It is a legendary experience, full of magical moments. Win or lose, I always have a great time playing it and come away with great tales to share.

Inis is an area control game. It's a battle of wits to be in command of territories on a modular map that changes every game. You can declare your intent to become King and win once you meet one or more of the three possible victory conditions.

Inis is a drafting game. You have to react every turn to the cards you end up with in every turn from a tiny selection of possibilities. There are only 17 Action Cards in a full four player game, with four dealt to each player every turn and the last one burned, or placed to one side. Rather than keeping the hand delt to you, you pick one, and pass on the rest. You keep doing this until you have a hand of four cards. This gives you some control over the cards you have every turn.

Inis is fast, easy to learn. The rules are intuitive and allow the game to flow nicely, though your first combat takes a little work to get through. Once you see one play out, combat is a breeze as well. The strategy layer is clean and clear, and really accessible. I never felt overwhelmed by Inis, though I still love seeing the amazing moves other players manage, and learn from every game.

In my experience, Inis always results in excitement and laughter, whether you win or lose. At the end of almost every game I've played we've talked about the amazing actions or surprises that each player managed in the game while we're packing up. The final, winning move is nearly always an epic play, resulting in whoops and cheers regardless if you end as High King or defeated clan.

It's also one of the very few games I have played that genuinely work in all its player counts. Lots of games claim 2-4, or 2-5, but really only work with 3 or 4 players. Inis works with 2, 3 or 4. My 2-player game was an incredible head to head, filled with fast card play between two players that had played the game a few times. The whole game lasted a hair over an hour and felt really good.

The board and cards are beautiful to look at, evocative and full of colour. The components are fantastic, with really nicely detailed minis to represent your clans. One of the molds has a great moustache too.

Thanks to cutting back on new board games this year, I've played Inis more than any other game in my collection in the last seven years since moving to Vancouver. While at SHUX in October, I ended up teaching the game to nine different groups of people, resulting in about 30 new players, and played in four of those games.

This is easily my most treasured board game right now. I crave another game like some sort of addict. After over a dozen games played, I might even win a second time!

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XCOM The Board Game

I got into the XCOM franchise of games from Firaxsis with the modern relaunch in 2012. It's one of the few games I played a lot of when I got my new PC in 2013, even recording a YouTube series that included a squad of my friends defending the world from X-ray threat. Claire and I also enjoy watching another YouTube play by XCOM expert player BeagleRush, who plays at a level so far above me it's like someone who previously had never heard music listening to a full live symphony every week, and just like that hypothetical fellow, I thoroughly enjoy it every week, but have no idea how it's all done.

When Fantasy Flight Games announced an upcoming board game, I was mildly interested, but assumed it was going to be a miniatures strategy game mimicking the mission gameplay from the video games, and I am terrible at those. So, when previews started arriving, I grew more intrigued, as the designer Eric M. Lang decided to present a game focusing on the base management and global phase of the game instead, and I love that stuff.

XCOM The Board Game is a one to four player co-operative game where the players take on the four key roles of the XCOM Project command.

The Commander looks after global concerns, deploying Interceptors, while also keeping close track of the shared budget, and demanding that other roles "stop buying so much stuff!" Sending too few Interceptors results in UFO's staying on the board, harrassing everyone. Spending too much money has disasterous results on global trust in the Project, because clearly if you can't balance the books, you shouldn't be battling the mooks.

Speaking of mooks, the Squad Leader is in charge of the troops, assigning soldiers to missions and defending the base from attacks. Their role is most obviously critical to success, as successfully completed missions accelerate the chance of the final mission being triggered. But unlike some other roles, when things go bad for the Squad Leader, they go really bad, as soliders die and are taken away from possible combat rotation until the Commander can afford to buy them back.

The Chief Scientist spends their time researching new technology to upgrade the various roles in the game, providing new armour to the Squad Leader, the alien element Elerium to the Commander, or Alien Alloys for their own department, among others. While it is the most relaxed of the roles, it is also, aguably, actually the most vital to overall success, as it is the Scientist who keeps everyone else going when the chips are down.

Finally, there is the most interesting role in terms of mechanics, and also the most controvertial in terms of what it brings to the table, the Central Officer. Their role is to deploy satellites to orbit, but mostly to relay information to the other players. They do this using the free to download app, available on most popular devices and operating systems.

The app has caused some waves among core tabletop gamers, as some seem to feel that a board game should be without electronic attachments, especially one that isn't included in the box. To that, it's worth noting that:

• Games have often come with nontraditional elements, from Atmosfear's videos to Scattergories' clockwork timer.
• Everyone has a phone or tablet these days. Access to the app is unlikely to be an issue with even just minor effort.
• The tasks of the app could be replicated with cards or dice, but only with extreme complexity in set-up and execution, and lots of limited-use components.

The XCOM game app lays out initial set-up, acts as a tutorial and rulebook, controls the game difficulty, what aliens you'll face and where your home base will be located. Relayed during play through the Central Officer, it tells players when to perform actions, from drawing cards to deploying units, and puts every such action under a tight time limit. The game has been built with the app in mind from the ground up, not tagged on halfway through developement, and it shows. It makes complex elements remarkably clean, while adding a tension and excitement that a deck of cards or roll of some dice could not.

Despite having those very seperate roles, communcation and player interaction is vital toward the success of the XCOM Project. Table talk is encouraged, especially during the Resolution Phase. The game is broken into two distinct phases, Timed and Resolution. The Timed Phase is, as you could guess, timed. The app tells you how much time you have to complete the task assigned, from a comfortable 30 seconds, to a few frantic moments. During the Timed Phase, players will commit their units to tasks, or chose cards to put into play, but nothing gets resolved. No dice get roled.

All the dice action happens during the Resolution Phase. This is not timed, allowing players to talk about how things went last round, and plan for the next, as well as activate cards for a wide variety of effects. It's a nice bit of downtime for everyone involved, allowing players to relax, grab a snack or use the washroom. It reminds me of something I heard about in relation to action movies. It's can't be go, go, go action for a full 90 minutes because you'll exhaust the audience. That's why so many great action movies have laugh-out-loud moments, or quiet, somber character pieces. This makes XCOM a much more relaxing game to play than other timed board games, such as Escape The Curse of the Temple or Space Alert.

I've had the joy of playing XCOM: The Board Game a lot recently, and with a wide variety of people, both friends and gamers I had only just met, thanks to a recent convention. I've taught the game to about a dozen or so people, and I can confidently say that it's remarkably easy to teach once you've had a game or two of practice. Pro Tip: Start with the dice rolling, in a broad generalisation. It gives a good basis for understanding why everything else happens. After a quick overview of how the game works, the first round covers most quetions that come up, and the game flows smoothly after that, even for new players.

XCOM is a fast, fun and intense. It's a fantastic co-op game that eliminates any possibility of "Expert Instruction", the possibility of a co-op game becoming a single player experience with viewers. Each player has their very specific roles, and while there is sometimes room for short discussion, the decision falls to the active player, often leading to tough choices that at least feel like you have ownership of that choice, even if it's the lesser of two evils. Actually, it's always the lesser of two evils.

It's a pity that all the rules are in the app. The box includes a single sheet for setup, but no paper rule book. While everything is in the app, it's not convenient for quick referencing rules. Relatedly, there are a few rules that the initial tutorial doesn't touch on, requiring players to search through the ap for answers to questions about exact mechanics or timing. This hurts especially when the tutorial seems to teach everything, while not actually doing to. Also, while most steps during the Resolution Phase will remind players to complete all elements of each step, one or two are missing, such as when a continent drops into full panic (the orange zone), you should move any UFOs in that continent to orbit. This is mentioned in the rules, but not the screen that asks about each continents status.

I love playing XCOM The Board Game, but it's not for everyone. I have a hard time getting it onto the table, and it's highly dependant on who shows up for games night. Anyone that has played it enjoys it, but not everyone is hungry for a second run. If you enjoy some tension in your games, a fun co-op experience and the truth that you will fail far more often than you will succeed, even on Easy, then XCOM might be for you.

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Sheriff of Nottingham

Now listen. I'm an honest guy. I've never tried to sneak anything past an offical representative of the State in my life. So when I tell you this, you should believe me. I know what you just saw, I saw it too, so I'd never try to do anything funny. Honestly. I really do have four apples in this sack. NO! Don't shake it! You'll shoot someone's eye out... Well... Crap.

In Sheriff of Nottingham, you take turns playing the titular Sheriff, inspecting the other players bags of totally legal goods and judging their honesty as they pass through you gate. The merchant players are trying to move goods through to their stands, staying safe with legal, but low value, goods, or taking risks by trying to get contraband, illegal but higher value items, into town. At the end of the game, the player with the highest value of goods and coin in from of them wins! Easy.

Sheriff of Nottingham is a hilarious bluffing game about bribery and smuggling. The core gameplay comes in the Inspection Phase, after everyone has chosen their goods, loaded their bags, and passed them to the Sheriff. At this point, players can bribe, bluff and cajole the Sheriff to leave their bag alone or open someone else's. If the Sheriff opens a bag with undeclared goods in it, the player who owns that bag must pay a penalty. However, should the Sheriff open a bag containing exactly the declared goods, then the Sheriff pays the owner for the inconvenience. Risk/reward for all involved!

It's great when you have a bag full of apples and you bluff the Sheriff into open your bag by trying a bit too hard to shift attention to someone else. Equally, it's frustrating when you realise that the Sheriff is very likely to hand back your bag, loaded with an honest-to-goodness four bread, a missed opportunity to move those two silk you've been holding for two turns.

The rules in Sheriff of Nottingham are surprisingly light, making it a wonderful starter game for getting new people into the hobby. Set-up is fast, hindered only by the massive number of cards in the deck making it tough to shuffle. Turn sequence is printed on each of the player cards, so once each phase is explained, the turn is easy to follow.

The key to Sheriff is in player interaction. Players can try to convince the Sheriff to open another merchants bag, or bride the Sheriff to leave their bag alone. There are few hard rules to this phase. You use your poker face and wits to bluff and read other players, talking as fast as you can to convince the Sheriff to open a suspect bag, or questioning a shady merchant about the contents of their suspiciously quiet bag of three chickens.

A cunning player can try to get other players to gang up on a merchant, pooling small amounts of coin from each of their purses to pay the Sheriff to open another players bag, knowing that the coin those players spend weakens them more than the coin you sacrifice. A cunning Sheriff could take a bribe from everyone, knowing that the large sum of coins they got individually vastly outweighs any potential income from the meagre contraband any individual merchant got through the gate. Oh the fun you will have!

And that's what this game is, fun! If you're looking for a fast, light game that will have everyone laughing, then Sheriff of Nottingham is the game for you. If you have a group of players that are willing to role-play a bit during the Inspection Phase, then all the better! It's hilarious to watch someone get caught with two crossbows in their bag, and desperately try to explain it away in character! Or listening to characters grow over a few turns, from honest apple-pickers to nefarious mead runners. A highly recommended game that has been hitting my table an awful lot since I purchased it. It's just so easy to get in to and you can happily play two whole games of Sheriff before moving on to other games and not feel worn out.

A few things before I wrap up here. There is a free App available for Android and Apple devices, and it is well worth grabbing and using. It includes a timer for the Inspection Phase, which is helpful, but it is great for totalling the final score. As well as adding up the values of all the goods on each palyers stands, the player with the most and second most of a good gets bonus points, with ties getting divided up among those on matching scores. The App takes care of all that math, including working out the bonus from Royal Goods and any promo cards you might have. You can update players scores each round, or wait until the end and score everything at once, as I like to do. This keeps the game moving during the bulk of play, rather than interrupting each round to add in scores.

Finally, there is one rule that is worth highlighting. During the End of Round Phase, players should draw back up to six cards in hand. Although not explicitly mentioned in the rule book, players should only draw new cards from the face-down pile, not either of the two face-up discard piles. This keeps new cards cycling into play continuously, as well as stopping players from simply drawing a bunch of goods that were confiscated that round. This rule isn't even mentioned in the official FAQ, but is stated as a rule in the excellent Watch It Played How To Play video (Link is to the moment the rule is mentioned). It's arguable then that this isn't an official rule, but having played with and without it, I will always enforce this, as it enhances the gameplay significantly.

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Legendary Encounters

Deck building games were a massively popular genre for a while among my friends. I say "genre", but really, it was just a single example. Dominion was hugely popular for many months, and several of my friends picked up one or both of the base sets, along with keeping up to date with the expansions. But as with many things in life, other interests bloomed as deck building grew stale. The last set I played from Dominion was Prosperity, and despite owning a copy of Dominion and the Seaside expansion, I hadn't played it or any other deck building game in the three and a half years I lived in Canada.

Until the start of November last.

While visiting my friend Karen in California for her wedding, her and her then soon-to-be husband Sean pulled out Dominion while we were hanging out the evening before the wedding. As soon as we opened the box, I was hit with a wash of memories; Sinead destroying us with Cutpurse and Pirate Ships; Aidan running massive, complex, deck-milling combos with Throne Room; that first time Gar brought it over, and I dismissed it because I wasn't in to Magic or that kind of game.

Before the evening was over, I was hooked back into the deck building games, and I wanted something new.

Legendary Encounters is a 1-5 player co-op deck builder from Upper Deck. Players take on the roles of Technician, Marine, Scientist or Synthetic, among others, and recruit characters into their decks to battle the alien xenomorph and complete Objectives.

Yes. You read that correctly. You battle the H.R. Giger designed, bane of Ripley's existence, sleek, silent, terrifying creature with acid blood from the Alien series of movies. And it is awesome!

Let's just get that out of the way right off the bat. This game is fantastic! I've played it twice solo and a bunch of times in multiplayer, and every game was thrilling, terrifying, nail-biting stuff. The theme is put to great use, as you really start to feel like the aliens are everywhere, creeping through the Complex, an unseen, unknown threat that is still right in front of you the whole time! It's in the room, man! It's in the room!!

Players can choose to play with set Objectives and Characters that represent a specific one of the four movies, or mix and match for an unexpected combination, like Dallas and Bishop battling the alien Clone. So far, I've only played the Alien and Aliens presets, so I haven't tried the random mix yet. Presets definintely feel like the movies they're inspired by, with characters, events and threats popping up that are familiar to fans.

A players personal deck starts with some basic cards, and buy, or recruit, new characters into their deck from a shared HQ of five face-up choices out of the Barracks Deck. The Barracks Deck is made up of four smaller decks, each representing a single character from a particular movie, so the Aliens version would have Bishop, Hudson, Hicks and Lieutenant Ripley. There are four Ripleys in the core set, one for each movie; Warrant Officer, Lieutenant, Sister and No. 8. The instructions book even suggests that you might find it fun to play a game with a Barracks full of Ripley's! I'm totally up for that!

The Hive deck represents the aliens in the base. Similar to the Barracks, the Hive is made up of smaller decks, this time each one related to an Objective in the current game. Again, each of the movies has its own set of three Objectives that are built around key scenes or events in the movies. Unlike the Barracks Deck, I'm not going to give an example of what's in the Objectives deck, or the related Hive deck, and I'll explain why in a moment.

Each turn a card from the Hive deck is placed facedown on the rightmost space in The Complex. If there is already a card in that space, it gets moved along the Complex to the left, opening up a space for the new card. All cards in the Complex travel in this fashion. Should five cards already be in the Complex, then the leftmost card drops down into the Combat Zone when a new card is added. If it's still facedown at that point, it now flips to reveal what it is.

Character cards in your hand provide abilities, but also Recruit Points and Attack Points. Recruit Points are spend to purchase new characters from the HQ. Attack Points can be used to scan rooms in The Complex. When you scan a room, you flip the Hive card there, and it can then be attacked on this turn if you have enough remaining Attack, or a future turn.

The players win if they complete all three Objectives and lose if they all get killed.

Legendary Encounters is a great game to play solo or with friends. My first two games were solo, something I rarely do, but I wanted to learn the rules ahead of teaching others. I actually really enjoyed playing it by myself. It works well, though I don't have a lot of solo play experience to compare it too. My other games included three and four player ones, and all those were great! In the first multiplayer game, one of our players got facehugged early on, and ended up with a chestbuster. That promptly killed him, so we broke out the Alien Player deck and let him have a go at that. It was vicious. He destroyed us. He was terrifyingly powerful, and we struggled to stay alive for as long as possible, by it was a futile effort.

Although it plays mostly as a full co-op game, Legendary Encounters also allows for an Ash-inspired hidden traitor mechanic, where one of the players might be working for the Company. Fittingly, when we tried this, the player playing the Synthetic turned out to be a traitor! He won, but just barely. It was an exciting game right up to the last players final action.

The best feature of this game so far is in the Hive Deck. During set-up, aliens from an additional Drone Deck are added to each of the mini Objective Decks, one for each player, so in our 4-player games, we had four extra aliens in each of the three mini decks, for a total of 12 additional threats! The Drone Deck has all sorts of monsters within, and the Hive is already filled with terror. Which brings me back to something I touched on briefly earlier.

DO NOT LOOK THROUGH THE HIVE DECK IN ADVANCE!

Don't read through the cards when you open the game for the first time. Don't look at them while you're setting up the game for play. Don't rob yourself of that thrill. It really is something else, something unlike anything I've ever experienced in a board game before. It's an amazing feeling when you flip a Hive card in the Complex and find something utterly new, or uncover something with no explaination of how you can deal with it, so it just sits there, slowly crawling along The Complex towards the Combat Zone. You have to trust in the game that you're not utterly screwed. Or maybe you are, and that's fine. Maybe you've been playing the game like a board game, where Characters are just resource cards to be used and discarded, and suddenly Legendary Encounters makes you pay for your hubris. Amazing!

Everything about Legendary Encounters is polished. The machanics are clean and clear, while allowing for exciting combos from both players and the Hive. The art is good overall, though noticably shifts from flat, comic book styled cards to something much more detailed and better painted, like a comic book cover piece. Card layouts are clear, apart from the affiliation logos, which I feel could have done with being made just 50-75% larger. The box is huge, leaving loads of space for expansions, and includes foam blocks to fill that space and stop cards from falling around. They also included divider cards for clearly separating all the mini decks that make up the game, which is much appreciated.

And then, finally, there's the play mat. I'm not gonna lie, one of the top reasons I picked this up was for the playmat. I had heard good things about the game, but the play mat pushed me over the edge. It is gorgeous! It's designed to be in the center of the table, laying out all the various decks, discards and locations. More games need to take this path over a board where possible. I do love my playmats.

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Cancelling The Dino Apocalypse

When Evil Hat Productions announced they were KickStarting a series of pulp novels set in their Spirit of the Century universe, I was all over it like fleas on a gorilla! I jumped at the chance to support this endeavour to produce new stories in the genre I love so much. While the KickStarter resulted in a whole slew of novels by the time it wrapped, it began as a trilogy by Chuck Wendig. Since then, the first two of the Dinocalypse trilogy have been released, Dinocalypse Now and its sequel Beyond Dinocalypse.

The Dinocalypse trilogy follows the adventures of the core members of the Century Club as they battle strange creatures from beyond time, lead by the villainous Gorilla Khan in his attempt to take control of the world from the hands of man. Dinocalypse Now takes place in the 1930's, while Beyond takes place... elsewhen. I don't want to spoil anything.

Chuck Wendig does a great job of recreating the action of the classic novels that were written when pulp ruled the book stands. The first book opens in the middle of the action, and barely lets up from then until the last page, sending the heroes jet-setting from tall cities of secret lairs. Mysterious artifacts, impossible devices and wondrous weapons from ancient worlds are all presented in classic pulp fashion.

But it is the characters that shine through all else. As well as the larger task of wanting to save the world, each gets their own personal goal. Some simply want to prove themselves more that their progenitor, others want to impress their colleagues, while more simply want the fame and glory. They are real people with real emotions and desires, and they can be hurt, both physically, with punishing blows, and emotionally, with humiliating defeats.

Everything in these books is paired down to a sharp point. Chuck Wendig manages to set up more inthe opening pages than some authors manage in opening chapters. We immediately get a sense of who we're up against, and what's at stake. When the twists and reveals come, it simply reinforces what's already there, rather than taking the story on a wild, unexpected tangent. Dialogue is equally sharp, with every character having their own voice, reading sufficiently differently from each other throughout the story.

The two books available in the Dinocalypse trilogy so far are a blast, taking readers on a thrilling ride through a suitably epic pulp adventure. I have no doubt that the final volume, Dinocalypse Forever will be equally as exciting when it hits bookshelves and e-readers everywhere in 2014.

Edit: The original upload of this post had a mix-up with the names of the second and third books in the series. It has been corrected here. Annoyingly, I didn't notice, despite the correct titles clearly visible on the embedded cover art. Sorry for any confusion caused.

Steel Yourself For Adventure

On January 1st, 1900 a group of people were born across the world that would go on to be a little more than human, a little faster, a little stronger, a little more intuitive. As adults, they would form the core members of the Century Club (along with a talking gorilla, but that's for another story), an organisation whose mission is to protect the world from the evil that lurks in the Shadows. They would stand tall against the darkness, becoming a beacon of hope and of honour. Those who met them would call them heroes, those who knew them would call them friends.

But even heroes and friends have to spend time growing up, learning life's hard lessons and allowing events to mold them into the people the world will come to love. Few heroes start adventuring in their twenties or thirties, and in the world of Spirit of the Century, the best start out as daredevil teens who have a tendency to get themselves into more trouble than your average kid.

Sally Slick and the Steel Syndicate is an action packed Young Adult novel from author Carrie Harris (Bad Taste In Boys) set in the world of Evil Hat Productions Spirit of the Century roleplaying game. It follows the release of other books set in the same world that focus on the same heroes, but later in their adventuring careers, including the first of this wave of pulp adventure novels, Dinocalypse Now, by Chuck Wendig.

Sally Slick and the Steel Syndicate follows the adventures of The Century Club's premiere inventor and gadgeteer, Sally Slick, during her first brush with the world beyond her home and away from racing tractors and tinkering with engines in her fathers garage. In this pulp action novel, Sally is just sixteen years old and unaware of her potential, or her future as a globe trotting adventurer with her childhood friend and co-star, Jet Black.

This first book, in what I hope becomes a series, is a fantastic introduction to the world of pulp heroes and villains, packed with fresh takes on classic tropes. I really, really don't want to spoil a single moment from this book, but if you're a fan of the pulp genre you'll enjoy the twists and turns the story takes as our heroes battle the bad guys to save not the world, just a family member who has fallen in over his head. If you're a fan of the Spirit of the Century world, either from the roleplaying game or the previously published novels, then you'll love seeing the characters grow over the course of the story from imaginative children into the heroes you already know.

There was much to squee loudly about over the course of Sally and Jets adventure, for new and old fans. Reveals were masterfully executed, especially... well... especially one in particular that had me smiling with joy and slapping my head that I hadn't seen it coming, despite the setup that suddenly seemed so obvious! Villains are suitably nefarious, action scenes are daring and dramatic and characters are incredibly well realized, leaping fully formed into my minds eye.

"But Dennis", I hear you asking, "what about if you've never played Spirit of the Century, or read any of the other books in the setting?" First of all, it's Denis. One "n". The French spelling. Secondly, and more important, however, is the fact the Sally Slick and the Steel Syndicate is just simply a great book. The story is fun and fast paced, the central characters are all well crafted, and each gets their time to shine, while even the secondary characters seem more rounded than some big-budget movie supporting cast (I'm looking at you, "Man of Steel").

Sally Slick and the Steel Syndicate is the perfect introduction to the world of the pulp adventurer for the young reader, and a wonderful addition to any library that might also contain Flash Gordon, Doc Savage or The Shadow. It's an easy read, without ever being too basic, an action story that gives its characters time to develop between rounds of intense and masterfully written conflict.

If Carrie Harris is a new name to you, you'll be keeping an eye out for her work after reading this. If Sally, Jet and The Century Club were unfamiliar titles before starting this adventure, then you'll find yourself seeking out their other tales of daring and heroics before you even reach the final page.

Movie Review: Dredd 3D

Last night I went to see the newly released Dredd 3D, based on the 2000AD character and world of Judge Dredd. I wasn't sure what I was in for to be honest. I'd seen one or two clips, but generally avoided anything about the movie. All I knew was that it was going to be ultra violent, in 3D, have slow motion action scenes and star Doctor McCoy from Star Trek 2009 and Sarah Connor from the TV series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Very quickly after the movie started I learned that the entire cast and crew had clearly been assembled very carefully. From the few main characters, through the disposable single-scene walking corpses, to the choice for director, costume designer, Special Effects team and composer, every aspect of Dredd is lovingly and painstakingly rendered from someones imagination onto the big screen. And it shows. In every scene.

Judge Dredd's home of Mega City One is pulled back from the epicness of the comics incarnation to something closer to the modern view of a dystopian city. It is more open and brighter than the comics, with the huge mega block apartments dominating the skyline. I don't have an issue with this rather dramatic change. I've never had a problem with updates to ideas that were originally created 20, 30, or even 40 years ago, especially when the medium portraying the material is different from the original source. X-Men got their black leathers and Spider-Man's biting spider was genetically engineered, not radioactive. It's no big. The story is the important part.

The main plot of Dredd is that the title Judge and a newly assigned rookie have to go into a mega block, deal with a minor problem and then leave. Except things don't go as planned and Dredd and the rookie get trapped inside, fighting for their lives. However, the far more interesting story is the growth and development of Dredd's new sidekick, a fresh-faced young Judge on her first, and possibly last day. Karl Urban does a great job delivering Dredd's one-liners and grimaces, but Olivia Tirlby stole the entire movie for me. She was spectacular in the role of rookie Judge Anderson, and really sold the slow changes in Anderson's personality over the course of the movie, from a Judge who had never seen real combat to a meaner, tougher, deadlier one by her final scene.

I still dislike 3D. It's a gimmick that just is not going away, despite a friends assurance that it would be a short-lived fad many years ago. I dislike the uncomfortable glasses I have to wear over my own glasses[1], or the extra surcharge slapped onto ticket prices for a feature I almost entirely believe adds nothing to the final movie apart from eye strain and a potential headache. However, I really enjoyed the use of 3D in Dredd. Not only did it make the slo-mo action scenes have more punch, but director Pete Travis actually used the 3D to help tell the story in certain scenes, revealing different layers of the image slowly by moving from one depth to the next, or moving through a scene by changing the focus, not moving the actual camera itself. I genuinely believe that this is the first time I felt the 3D was used to positively enhance the story-telling in the movie. I enjoyed the 3D in The Amazing Spider-Man, but only because it was used in some clever ways, but it still didn't add anything to the final product. I would have happily watched Spider-Man in 2D had I the option, but with Dredd I'd recommend the 3D version to everyone.

There have been few movies lately that even scratch the levels of violence in Dredd. The slo-mo gun fights allow for spectacularly violent moments of gore, but everything is presented in an almost animated, cartoon fashion, with bright colours and bright red blood splatters. People die in bloody messes, and in their dozens, but it's hard to be shocked by anything due to how it was all presented. In fact, the slo-mo means that there are very few actual shocking moments, instead telegraphing everything at painfully slow speed so that you can almost feel every impact. During these moments, you can hear the entire theater holding their breathes, followed by a loud "Oooh" once the impact hits. If you've seen the movie, you know exactly the scene I'm taking about!

Dredd 3D is a spectacle best viewed on the big screen. Whether you believe my opinions on the 3D or not, do go see it in the theaters. It's a fun group experience, sharing in the "oohs" and the "ewws". The cast is strong, the effects are effective and the soundtrack even makes a Justin Bieber track bearable in one scene! Highly recommended.

[1]- I actually solved the problem of wearing the 3D glasses by keeping the really nice and comfortable pair I got attending The Amazing Spider-Man. They are light, soft and I don't even notice I'm wearing them. I brought them along to Dredd as well, which may have contributed to my overall enjoyment of the 3D.

Review: The Dark Knight Rises

Gonna keep this one very, very spoiler-free, so instead of going into detail about what I did or didn't like about the story or elements, I'll just compare it in broad strokes to the two other summer comic-book movies I watched, The Avengers and The Amazing Spider-Man.

The Dark Knight Rises rounds out the summer comic-book movie blockbuster season, and, if reports are to be believed, the Christopher Nolan/ Christian Bale collaboration on the franchise. And it's a fine swan-song. Enjoyable, but not the pinnacle of comic-book movies that some people seem to be claiming. There are huge, tumbler-sized plot holes throughout, some missed opportunities, and it could stand to be trimmed by 30 to 45 minutes.

While Banes voice has vastly improved from when I saw the opening six minutes at the start of Mission Impossible 4 in IMAX, there are still some terribly mumbled scenes, and I missed several lines of dialogue. Worse, I even found it difficult to catch what Gordon was saying in one particular scene, and got two characters completely confused, which led to me not understanding a key plot towards the end of the movie. Full disclosure: No one else made the same mistake, so it my have just been me getting bored at that point in the film.

The Avengers still stands as the best the summer offered. It was the perfect blend of action, character moments and well paced, super-powered fights.

If I'm, being honest, TDKR is probably a better movie than The Amazing Spider-Man for most people, but as a big fan of the friendly neighborhood wall-crawler, my bias has to be taken into account when I say that I had a better time watching Spidey than Batman.

I deconstructed the movie with some friends after, and the general agreement was that it was better than I thought. Take from this what you want.

In summary, it's far from a bad movie (I'm looking at you, Prometheus), but it's nowhere near a great movie either. I feel it will do well in the box-office figures, but given time, people will sour to it as the problems it has sink in or become more obvious with repeated viewings.

Movie Review: Spidey On Spidey

Hi ho, Readers! It's your friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man here! Denis has kindly allowed me to do a guest post on his blog, as we're reviewing the newly released "The Amazing Spider-Man".

I'll try not to be as cliched as to use such adjectives as "amazing" or "spectacular" while writing this review, but one or two might slip in, as the movie was, in my humble opinion, incredible! Director Marc Webb proved himself worthy of the task at hand, living up to the comic action and proving he wasn't just chosen for the comedy value of seeing his name in the opening credits! He did a great job on not just the action scenes, but everything from the softer, quieter moments, to my loud-mouth, mid-fight quips.

I was especially impressed with the choice of cast. There wasn't a weak link among the lot of them, from the always wonderful Martin Sheen to Dennis Leary, an actor who I feel deserves more roles than he seems to get. Andrew Garfield was a great choice to play my civilian identity, and Emma Stone played a powerful and strong-willed Gwen Stacy, pretty much as I remember her...

Sorry. Had to take a moment there. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. The entire cast was superb. My only complaint about the cast, in fact, was that some didn't get as much character time as I would have hoped. Everyone was so strong in their role, I would have been happy to see more time given to any or all of them. My friend Stan Lee gets his best cameo yet in this outing, inciting laughs throughout the theater during his short scene on-camera.

But what of the star himself, me! The new costume is wonderful. I might have to try to get myself a custom version, as the kids will only recognize me in that now. Assuming they didn't hire one of my many clones as the stunt double, the CG me is a great facsimile. It really looked like it had mass behind it, and moved better than previous attempts to fake me on-screen. I was especially impressed with my training scene in the warehouse, which looked like a lot of fun. Special shout-out to whoever reproduced my webs. They had lots of tiny details, and looked great on the big screen. They were especially effective in 3D.

Which brings me to the hot topic of modern cinema. Let's talk 3D.

First and foremost, if you're wondering how I managed to watch the movie in 3D, thankfully, the lenses in my mask are polarized, so I don't have to wear those silly glasses. That's doubly good, as they'd be enormous on me, and I don't have ears to hang them on. Normally, I prefer to see movies in 2D. However, in this case, the 3D was really good!

No, no, no! Bare with me. I know. I usually hate 3D too (As do I- Denis). But it really was used extraordinarily well here (As much as I hate too, I have to agree- Denis). There is a great use of 3D with web-lines in a sewer, and the web-swinging through Manhattan worked much better in the final movie than it ever did in the early trailers. It still wasn't much compared to doing the real thing, but a good try. To be fair, if one hero was going to benefit from 3D, it was always going to be me! I even flinched during one scene, something I haven't done in any other extra-D movie.

Finally, I have to say something about the soundtrack. This is especially worth mention, as I noticed and enjoyed it so much. The score was fantastic, with some noticeably beautiful pieces throughout. It was truly orchestral at times, really adding to the emotion or action on-screen. While my friends in the Avengers still reign supreme as the best super-hero movie overall, I think I deserve the "Best Score" award.

Unlike some, I was a big fan of the earlier Spider-Man movie series. Well, the first two at least. Even then, this one blows those previous efforts out of the water, for story, character and effects. There is so little to complain about for me, despite the fact that it doesn't strictly follow my personal mythology. It really is an exceptionally fun piece of cinema, even if it'll never win an Oscar and I give it two Spidey thumbs-up all the way! Highly recommended.

Applied Correctly, It Could Move The World

A few months back I read this webcomic about an agency to assist the dearly departed who have left something unresolved in this life. I made an off-hand comment that I thought it would make for a great RPG concept: A party of supernaturally sensitive friends that have a Private Investigation firm that caters for the deceased, helping to complete whatever is making their eternal rest restless. The hook was that each week one party member would allow their body to be "rented" by the ghost, becoming a "ghost host" if you will. That player would get to put their normal character sheet to one side and play as someone completely different.

This off-hand comment planted itself in my mind and sprouted roots, slowly growing until I knew I had to do something with it. Originally, I had planned on using my system of choice, FATE 3.0 for the game, but on outlining my ideas to a friend, I was pointed towards something that might work better. The ghost would need some help to find who murdered him, or protect his family now that he's gone. Perhaps someone is messing with an artifact connected to the spirit, or one of his descendants has become a dick and needs to be taught a lesson. In short, the adventures were not going to be straight up hack'n'slash affairs. The ghost needed a team that could function without brute force. He needed someone that could provide Leverage.

The Client
Leverage The Roleplaying Game is based, unsurprisingly, on Leverage the hit series from TNT. I had been a fan of the show since the pilot, instantly hooked on the its unique blend of humour, heist and heat-pounding action. The series follows the adventures of a band of ex-criminals and their leader as they try to make the world a better place one problem at a time. The episodes usually open with a Client explaining why she needs their help, which the Crew succeed at through a heist or caper that inevitably requires last minute tweaking, adjusting or all out replanning to overcome unforeseen obstacles.

The roleplaying game follows this mechanic, allowing the players to put together a Crew of skilled experts to solve a myriad of problems that the GM, or Fixer, will throw at them over the course of a session.

The following review is based solely on the book itself and my impressions from reading it. I have yet to play it, so I'll try to avoid making judgements related to actual play here. It's also worth mentioning now that I have never actually played anything using the Cortex or Cortex Plus systems, the later of which is the system Leverage is built on. With that out of the way, on to the meat of our story.

The Caper
The Visuals: The first thing that is obvious about the Leverage RPG is how pretty it is. Everything is clean and bright and I was particularly taken with the choice of blue print on a white background as the primary colour scheme throughout. It's clean, effective and eye-catching. That's just a personal thing. Blue is my favourite colour, and I think plain white backgrounds work well enough that they should be left alone. Photos and screen shots from the series are used extensively throughout the book, breaking up long blocks of text and keeping things interesting.

The System: Prior to reading Leverage I was not familiar with the Cortex or Cortex Plus systems in any way. Years ago, a friend had bought me the Serenity RPG as a gift, but I never really read it or tried it out. I love the Firefly, the series it is based on, but had no real interest in reading the RPG. As it turns out, Cortex Plus is my kind of system!

Like FATE 3.0, Cortex Plus is, at it's core, a system for telling stories and having a good time. It is reasonably light on mechanics, instead allowing players and GMs to focus on the collaborative story-telling side of RPGs than the combat focused, hack'n'slash of other systems. There is no rule for moving 6 squares in order to flank an opponent, but there is nothing stopping you from describing how you managed to use the crates in the warehouse to sneak around him and FLANKED d6 him.

Characters are equally clean, maintaining the tight focus on story driven, rather than dice controlled, adventures. There are six Attributes, five Traits and a handful of Distinctions and Talents, giving you an absolute minimum of things to keep track of and allowing you to concentrate on the task at hand, ruining the baddies day. There are no lists of skills covering most of the page, no weapon bonus' or damage modifiers, there isn't even a health track!

The play mechanics are blissfully simple. Regardless of what you do, you always role at least two dice, one for the Attribute you're using, the other for the Trait. You can role more if the scene allows and players are encouraged to elaborate on the scene for additional dice,like in the FLANKED d6 example above. Regardless of how many dice you role, you only total the highest two in most cases.

Things get interesting, but not complicated, when you start including Assets and Complications and spending Plot Points to effect the scene, but basically the Cortex Plus system is designed to keep everything flowing along and the players having a good time.

So far so good. The system takes the gameplay I enjoy and runs with it. But there's one key element still to come, one unique feature that sets it apart from other games.

In any good caper, and all RPG adventures, nothing goes according to plan. The Crew must think on their feet to solve complications as they arise, avoiding the FBI that just appeared on the scene; dealing with the armed mercenaries that everyone had previously thought were just gym-enthusiast office workers or by-passing the biometric lock on the safe that they were told had been installed in the 1930's!

In great capers, like Leverage or Oceans 11, the seemingly unexpected situation was planned for all along. The Crew had called the FBI to arrest the bad-guys in the act; the lunch everyone saw the office workers enjoying had been laced with a sleep inducing (but not dangerous. We are good guys after all!) narcotic; and the Hacker had uncovered the invoice for the new safe while reading the bad guys private emails, equipping the Thief with the appropriate gear.[1] Events like this are usually explained in TV and cinema through the magic of the Flashback. Now, you can too!

The Hook: When the Crew is stuck in a difficult situation, with the enemy closing in all around, sometimes things just seem hopeless. That's exactly the moment when the Mastermind smiles, looks the baddie in the eye and throws in a new, unforeseen Plot Point. The baddie swings around and, expecting his own band of highly expensive thugs to be at his back, is dismayed to find himself looking down the barrel at a HIGHLY TRAINED d8 POLICE OFFICER d6. Turning back to the Crew, his jaw drops. Where the cornered heroes once sat is the supposedly disposed of crate of baby milk formula containing unlicensed cheap ingredients that have caused nothing but harm to hundreds of babies in the poorer district of the city. The Crew themselves are nowhere to be seen.

How did all this happen? That's what Flashbacks are for. Flashbacks are the Hook that Leverage uses to reel in its players. Linking in to events in the adventure, Flashbacks allow players to go back in time and alter or add to a scene that occurred previously. Remember when the Hitter took out those thugs in the garage earlier? They happened to be the ones tasked with disposing of the evidence. Or how about the start of the previous scene when the baddie walked in on the Grifter talking on the phone. Thought she was talking to the rest of the Crew, didn't you? Nope. Calling in a tip to the local authorities regarding some unscrupulous dealings.

Flashbacks give the players a level of control over the outcome of events that seemingly go against them. Leverage is an RPG where success is always the only option. The question is, how interesting and exciting can you make the journey toward that destination be for yourself and your Crew mates? As in the series, Flashbacks allow you to establish character traits from events that occurred at an earlier point, sometimes earlier that day, sometimes in your characters life before the game, or even as far back as her childhood! Similarly, they allow the players to wrap up loose ends after the Job is completed. How did the Thief know that the head body-guard was sleeping with the baddies wife? These things are story elements that make the game fun and exciting, and very similar to the show.

Again, so far so good. Everything about the game seems to be geared toward my preferred  play-style. The new elements that the game uses to distinguish itself against the competition read well and seem to be enjoyable Assets. But, in the world of Leverage, where there are Assets, there are Complications.

The Twist
Leverage The Roleplaying Game is based on the hit series from TNT. This is important, and bares repeating here upfront. Not only does it give the RPG an immediate audience of fans who enjoy the show and RPGs, but it also means that there are probably a few sales that will go to fans of the series that have never owned, seen or played in an RPG. This in turn lends itself to my first and biggest problem with the book.

As an experienced role-player, I am familiar with how to read RPG books and how such books are laid out. While I never hold issue with seeing "What is a Role-Playing Game" on one of the first pages in any RPG (in fact, I love reading how different authors try to explain the basics in a single paragraph to people who have possibly never heard of such a thing. Always amusing), I don't feel I need to be hand-held throughout the text. I'm an adult reader, and consider myself smart enough to figure some things out alone. There are several moments in the book where the author stops to explain who "you" is referring to in this section. Other times, I almost feel like I'm being talked down to, having basic concepts over explained, in overly simplified terms. The whole thing comes off rather amateurish feeling at times. It feels like this is written by a fan of the series as a home-brew game, rather than what it is; a thoroughly play-tested, proof-read, professionally designed, published document. There are moments when the author is chatting to the reader in an informal, friendly fashion that make those sections sound like a blog posting.

Should I blame the author for this? Or marketing? Actually, I've chosen neither. I don't particularly like it, but I have to look at it in the light of what this is. A licensed product that needs to appeal to everything from non-role-players, through first-time GMs, to experienced veterans (for the record, I fall somewhere between the latter two).

The other fault I have with the book is related to content, and, like the language used, is a by-product of something else. Leverage The Roleplaying Game is clean, clear and concise, thanks to it's use to the Cortex Plus system. It forgoes detailed charts and situation modifiers for story-telling and genuine thrills. The downside of all of this is that it's surprisingly easy to explain everything in a short amount of time, or in this case, ink.

The Leverage RPG book comes in at just over 200 pages thick. Less than Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Masters Guide at 224 pages and half of either Spirit of the Century or the recently released Dresden Files RPG, both of which clock up over 400 pages! This is great, right? Yes, and no.

Even at a paltry 200 pages, Leverage has an unprecedented amount of filler. The whole last chapter, The Record, is a synopsis of every episode from the first two seasons in game terms. It is filler of the highest order. It still doesn't beat the Stargate SG-1 RPG level of filler where they produced game supplement books of the series episodes in seasons, but it's pretty close. Add to this seven pages of examples of locations that seem to be just stating the obvious, and you have over 30 pages of material that I don't need for any game I run myself. Not just don't need, I don't have to read over or even look at them!

The question then becomes, should they have printed a book of only 170 pages? The problem is that the less you print, the less you can justify charging, and the less buyers will be willing to pay. At some point you have to charge enough to cover the costs of printing, or cut the quality of printing to match the cut in price. Given the high quality of printing on show in the book, maybe having that filler is a necessary evil (there's a villain for a Leverage game: A company deforesting whole areas just to print books twice as big as they need to be so they can charge more and increase profits!).

The Mark[2]
Having read through the book, I find that Leverage The Roleplaying Game stands as a wonderful, beautiful introduction to the world of criminals, capers and roleplaying games. It has it's flaws, but nothing is ever perfect, and the flaws seem to be easily ignored, or simply don't do much to effect the overall quality of the product. The system is a joy to read and learn about, even if I haven't had the opportunity to actually playtest it myself yet. I look forward to using it either in a game based in the Leverage setting, or in my own world of body renting ghost detectives. If you like telling a great, fast paced, rules light, collaborative story where it can be more important to be cool and funny that effective, then Leverage The Roleplaying Game is for you. Like the show, the book is great fun to look at and belongs on any gamers shelf that enjoys story driven games like Spirit of the Century, Dresden Files and Doctor Who.

The Flashback
Over the course of this review I have mentioned things like FATE 3.0, Spirit of the Century and Dresden Files. FATE 3.0 is the system that runs Spirit of the Century (SotC), the only game I've ever successfully run a full campaign in. I have long been a fan of the system and associated games, owning the limited edition hardback print of SotC, as well as having preordered and purchased the enormous Starblazer Adventures, a book big and heavy enough to kill someone with, and most recently picking up the Dresden Files RPG (DFRPG), the most recent iteration of the FATE 3.0 rules system. FATE, SotC and DFRPG are all by Evil Hat Productions, and I had long been aware of the names associated with them. Fred Hicks, Rob Donoghue and Ryan Macklin are three of the very short list of games designers whose names I would recognise[3].

I purchased Leverage The Roleplaying Game, got home and started reading through it. As is usual, I skipped the credits page and skipped right to the good stuff. It was only after I was most of the way through the book before one of my friends pointed out the crossover in creative minds between Evil Hat and Leverage. I was stunned I had never heard about it before, but there you have it. Sometimes, it's not what you like, but who you like[4]!

[1] - In terrible capers, it is revealed that all the supposed complications and bad luck and events that went against the team were entirely planned and nothing was accidental and the Crew perfectly predicted exactly how the baddie would act, such as Ocean 12. Don't do this.
[2] - See what I did there? The final mark for the review. The Mark. Gettit? Yeah, it was a terrible pun, but I couldn't resist.
[3] - Before anyone says anything, yes, I know there are a lot more people involved in the making of an RPG, but they're just the names that stick out to me. Sorry if you feel left out. Console yourself in the knowledge that even if I didn't name you, I am eternally grateful for the amazing job you did on my favourite games.
[4] - Huge shoutout to the design lead and author of Leverage The Roleplaying Game, Cam Banks. Great job, man! Hope you're not too hurt by my negatives toward your work. Just remember, don't get mad, GET EVEN d10.

Review: Splinter Cell: Conviction Co-Op Story Ending

An open letter to Ubisoft, re: Splinter Cell: Conviction Co-Op Story Ending

Fuck you, Ubisoft. That was uncalled for. Awesome? Yes. Amazing? Yes. Fun? Yes. The perfect ending? Totally.

Still doesn't make me feel any different towards you lot for pulling that shit.

Fuck you very much,

Sincerely yours,

Denis.

Review: Splinter Cell: Conviction Co-Op Story

He's a tough American ninja spy with a mean attitude and a meaner pistol. He's a stereotyped Russian that is effectively identical to his partner save for red goggles and his accent. They fight terrorists!

Splinter Cell: Conviction delivers a fast, action packed single player campaign that takes you on a rock'n'roll ride through Ubisofts answer to Jack Bauer. But Sam Fishers story is only a portion of the complete story presented on the game disc. Before Fisher, there was Archer and Kestrel.

Archer is an agent of Third Echelon, Sams old unit. Kestrel is Archers Russian double, an agent of Voron. They get thrown together to stop an arms deal going down in Russia in a story taking place just before Sam Fisher is called back into active duty. Their story spreads over four huge chapters, each one divided into three to four large combat areas. Each of the chapters are much larger than the single player campaign chapters, but on top of that, there is now two players trying to bumble their way through the darkness to the checkpoints. Because of this, I have already invested much longer in the co-op story than I did on either of my runs through Sams story, and I've only just finished the third chapter. Chapter two alone took the better part of four hours.

I have an interesting outlook on the co-op story, thanks to the two people I'm playing through the campaign with, and how we play.

Aidonis and I play split-screen. We share a screen, couch, and verbal sparing. When one of us fails, the other sees exactly what we did wrong and can jeer and insult about how they'd never get caught like that. With Rubber Cookie, we play on Xbox Live. We have the full screen to ourselves, and have to rely on much more talking to tell each other who is moving where and what cover is safe.

Aidonis doesn't own the game, so his only practice and experience is playing co-op with me. He doesn't have the best weapons or upgrades, or the experience of the single player game. This made the first chapter particularly eventful, involving lots of running from mobs of guards and restarting over and over. Rubber Cookie owns the game and is going through the single player campaign at the same time as the co-op. He first experienced the trademarked goggles in co-op, but had a fully upgraded Five-Seven from the start. We got through the entire first chapter without a single restart, and the first stage without even being detected.

Of course, it also helps that I'm further on in the story with Aidonis, so we're learning the maps and patrol patterns through trial and error. By the time I get there with Rubber Cookie, I know the place like the back of my hand, pointing out and using all the hidden ledges, convenient shadows and overhead pipes. It helps. A lot. Practice makes perfect, and all that.

The co-op element of Conviction is, in a word, stunning. I could happily leave the review there and hope that you take my word on it. But I won't. To only play Sams story would be criminal. Ubisoft have created a complete set of maps unique to the co-op story, rather than recycling the single player maps. The co-op maps allow for a lot more teamwork, striking from the shadows simultaneously to eliminate hostiles distracted by conversations of their beautiful families and the upcoming vacation time. Foolish guards. Don't they know they can never get a happy ending? We're the heroes here!

Mark and Execute is used to full effect in co-op. A single melee takedown charges both players Execute ability. Two players with two upgraded Five-Sevens can mark eight guards in an area. When one presses Y, time slows to allow the second player to assist in a Dual Execute, taking down any of the eight marks in sight in one flurry of suppressed fire. Even in a situation where one player can see more than just the four marks he has tagged and the second player is not in line of sight to anyone, that one well placed player can execute as many marks as he has sight to by himself. Also, while a single melee kill grants both players their Execute command, using it only exhausts the one belonging to the player that initiated the action, even if the second player joins as part of a Dual Execute. This allows both players to mark four more guards and immediately take out potentially eight more as long as the second player can engage his still active Execute order! In an absolute best case scenario, that's 16 kills in a matter of seconds. But even getting ten kills this way is a rush to the system, and gets the heart pumping with adrenaline.

Along with Mark and Execute, Convictions other new feature gets a vigorous workout in co-op. Last Known Position is in the single player story, but I found it much more important in the co-op. Basically, if you get spotted by the guards, but then duck behind a corner, through a window or into a patch of inky shadow out of sight, a "ghost" image of your character appears where you were last seen, representing the guards belief that you are in that general vicinity. You need to haul ass away from that spot before they descend on you for that time you put a bullet in Kevin's head in the last section, leaving his kid without a father and his wife without a husband, but with an extra ticket to Aruba. With the Last Known Position ghost, you and your counter-terrorist teammate can set up some incredibly fun, clever and hilarious situations making use of Remote Mines and the ragdoll physics engine.

One problem I do have with the co-op story is the actual story. I'm hard pressed to tell you anything about it. Why are they in Russia? What type of WMD are they after? Who is the badguy? Mainly, this is because plot and exposition are doled out at the start of each chapter, as in the single player story. But the co-op chapters take much longer to get through, so I've already long since forgotten what I was told in the previous chapters introduction. In the single player story, I could follow the events. I got plot cut-scenes every half hour or so. I knew who or what I was after. In co-op, it can be three hours between these cut-scenes. I have to rely on the projected signposts throughout the maps and the objective marker to tell me where to go.

It doesn't help that I'm also playing a multiplayer experience, and it seems to be human nature to chat with your partner over the bits where we're not actually expected to do anything but sit and watch.

But it is great fun, regardless. I just can't fault it beyond my own inability to pay attention to cut-scenes. Every mode can be played either split-screen or over Live. And besides Story, there is Hunter, Face-Off, Infiltrate and Convictions answer to Gears of War 2's Horde Mode, Last Stand. We haven't even touched these yet. We haven't finished the Story. There is so much gameplay left on the Splinter Cell: Conviction disc. When we get around to trying the other modes, I'll post about them too. But it might be a while. I plan on playing the heck out of Story first.

Review: Splinter Cell: Conviction Single Player Campaign

I never got into the Splinter Cell series before the latest incarnation. Mainly I attribute this slip to not owning an original Xbox, where the series seemed to be most popular, but I also blame a late developing interest in stealth-based gameplay, born mainly out of the excellent and recently mentioned Rainbow Six: Vegas series. In fact, the last Splinter Cell, Double Agent, was released in 2006, the same year as the first R6:Vegas, and Conviction comes two years since the sequel to Vegas was released in early 2008.

The R6:Vegas series drew me into the Tom Clancy shared universe of games, and my game collection now includes EndWar, a Real Time Strategy game played using a capable and enjoyable Voice-Recognition system in conjunction with the controller, and H.A.W.X, a fantastically fun and thrilling arcade-style flight simulator, favouring action and basic controls over a hyper realistic style. So far, I've skipped on the two Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfare games, but the upcoming Future Soldier looks interesting enough for me to look forward to it's release. It didn't take much to pull me into Sam Fishers story as well, and Ubisofts marketing reeled me in, hook, line and sinker.

Because I've never played any SC game previous, I was worried about difficulties following the story. Conviction is strongly tied into the earlier games in the series, and characters and events are key plot points in the newest incarnation. Thankfully, Conviction has a wonderful, visual method of relaying key events, projecting Sams memories onto the surrounding world. It's a neat feature that works really well. This projection system is also used to mark objectives, lighting "Execute These Two Guards" or whatnot onto the nearest building. It is assumed that these projections are a hallucination of Sams aging mind.

The single player experience is accomplished and polished.  Interesting flashforward moments hint at Sams inevitable fate (spoiler alert: it's Alzheimer's). A few levels break from the standard pattern of "1) Infiltrate building, 2) Kill guards, 3) Get to objective". These play out as set pieces, often adding a unique gameplay feature exclusive to that level. The whole experience is cinematic and action packed, and there were times when I really felt like I was playing a summer blockbuster Hollywood movie, in particular, the Bourne Identity.

I loved the twists and turns the plot goes through. The story is engaging, if a little ridiculously over-the-top at times, but I was never lost. In fact, I tore through the eleven chapters in the "Daring Adventures of Sam Fisher, Modern Ninja" in just two days on Normal difficulty. I would have finished it in a single sitting, but at 2am Saturday morning I realized I was a) making stupid mistakes that got me killed time and time again, and b) painfully close to the ending. Saturday morning, I completed the rest of the game in a little over an hour.

Does this mean that the game is short? Well, yes. But is that a negative comment. No. Definitely not. I had a half day from work, collecting the Shadow Edition of Conviction around 2pm and playing it for the entire day. I took a break to head back into town, get some air and enjoy the late afternoon sunshine, and a second break to have dinner and watch Mythbusters. But I did put in probably eight good hours of gameplay, exclusively in the single player campaign. That's a good time for the first playthrough. And it was only the first.

I restarted the campaign on Realistic Sunday, finishing that Monday afternoon. I was going through levels I had seen just 48 hours earlier, but playing them completely differently. Where I had struggled on Normal, I was cruising through on Realistic. I was seeing the ledges I could hang from, the dark shadows I could leap out of, the perfect sport to stand at to Mark and Execute four guys with Sams typical ninja precision. And this time around, I was using my gadgets. During my earlier play, I was sticking to the trusty silenced handgun and brute strength. Head shots and neck snaps were silent, swift, and clean. Loud explosions, regular EMP blasts and the magnesium burn of flash-bangs were the signature of my second run. In general, the bad-guys knew I was coming, but only for the brief few moments they were alive before my silenced automatic rifle perforated their poor, misguided bodies. It was messy, but fun.

Mark and Execute is a new gameplay feature Conviction brings to the table. After performing a melee kill, Sam gains the ability to mark a number of enemies, from two to four depending on the weapon at hand. Once marked, the chevron above their heads can be seen through walls, regardless of how far away they move. If they are gray they are out of line of sight or range, and red means they can be executed. At any time you can press Y to perform an instant, guaranteed kill on all red marks. During development I thought this sounded stupid. I thought it removed the skill from the player, reducing it to "Press Y now". In reality, it is exhilarating to mark four targets, then hang from a balcony while they walk their routes, finger hovering over the Y for that moment all four are standing in that one sweet spot. Or mark targets through a door before kicking in the door, killing the guard behind it, then slamming Y to cleanly execute the other four without alerting anyone. Instead of removing the skill from the player, it moves it. Should I use my hard-earned skill now, or will I need it later? Can I get past these guys without it? Can I use a gadget? Aw, to hell with this! SLAM, pop, pop, pop!

Speaking of gadgets, Sams new goggles are awesome. The ultra-sonic ping that reveals enemies through walls and floors is beautiful to listen to. I love it so much that it's my new text-message tone. The EMP device is fun to use, as it plunges the area into darkness while disorienting enemies, making them easy targets for a melee kill.

All told, Splinter Cell: Conviction is a thoroughly enjoyable single player experience. The varied methods of moving through a map allow for a surprising level of replayability in what is otherwise a railroaded story. Even twice is not enough to see everything a single map offers. The ability to go back and replay individual maps is much appreciated, and I loved replaying some of the set pieces. The reward quickly stops being about just finishing the level, and becomes finishing it undetected, or in some interesting way.

But all that is just the tutorial for what is arguably the true heart of Conviction. The Co-op story, following "The Adventurers of Intrepid Duo Archer and Kestrel". I'm currently playing through this with Aidonis on split-screen at my place or Rubber Cookie over Live. Keep watching for a future post on what I think of this part of the package (spoiler alert: it's Alzheimer's).