Seek the Wolf in Thyself!
Sci-fi is my thing, I make no bones about it. I love a good story of group of people exploring the unknown, finding alien monsters, and learning that the universe is much bigger than they thought. Browsing Netflix, I found yet another unexpected gem of a movie – Dark Space. It is a low budget…
Every once in a while, I come across a movie that came in under the radar; that might not get over 60% on Rotten Tomatoes, that I found well written and the story is well told and that I really like. I am not sure what that says about me but there have been some key movies that have done that for me. Pandorum is one of those movies. It was not well received but I really loved thsi8 movie. So much so, that I bought the movie. The Outpost is another. Sunshine is another, however that one has better reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.
From: Pinnacle Entertainment Group Reviewed by: Ron McClung Savage Worlds Science Fiction Companion is a Genre Sourcebook from Pinnacle Entertainment Group. Science Fiction gaming, whether it is science fantasy, hard science or space opera, is one of my favorite types of games to run and play. I don’t know what it is about this genre…
Dawn Adventures 1: The Subterranean Oceans of Argos Prime is a new RPG Adventure from Gypsy Knights Games . The Dawn Subsector is the frontier of the frontier; the fringe of the Clement Sector which has had only a few hundred years to develop. There is a lot of mystery that surrounds what lies in the Tranquility Sector and any adventure based in it needs to have that feel. Dawn Adventures 1, as the name implies, is the first adventure based in the new subsector from Gypsy Knights Games. If adventuring in the politically charged worlds of the Clement Sector is not enough, this is where players go to escape all that and find new ways to adventure.
Back in the early 90s, I got a copy of Nemesis from the local video store and watched it with a group of gamer friends as a movie night kind of thing. We were expecting just another terrible low budget B-movie with very little substance. We were pleasantly surprised by what is now considered a cult classic. It was a great action flick with awesome gun play and a deep story underneath it (although not very original). It turned out to be a very satisfying film. With actors like a very young Thomas Jane, Tim Thomerson, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa and Brion James, and using great sets like the Kaiser Steel Mill in Fontana, CA. and Yuma Territorial Prison State Park, how can you go wrong?
Even with the new incarnation of Traveller published by Mongoose in 2008, players of the game never really had options to truly flesh out their characters. There was no real character advancement system in Mongoose Traveller and the careers seemed cookie cutter, in many ways. It gets even more difficult if you design your own setting, like the Clement sector as many of the careers have to be re-tooled to apply.
I asked John Watts once what TV show he would relate his setting to. I predicted correctly that he feels it was most like Firefly. In many ways, it really has that feel – the grittiness, and the feeling of being a western in space. However, at the same time, it addresses a lot of the things that Firefly and the subsequent RPGs ignored – the realism, the vastness of space and the isolation one planet can feel. It keep a lot of the adventure local, instead of planet hopping across the universe. It is that sense that makes it attractive to me.
Cascadia has proven to be a fairly descent hotbed of adventuring with the previous two adventures in this series and this closes it out in similar fashion. In this adventure, the players have a great opportunity to do something big for the patron throughout the series and be greatly rewarded. Or if things don’t go well, they could end up with a considerable number of enemies and perhaps be blamed for a terrible crime.
It’s pretty hard to find a bad movie I have not seen, unless it is a movie I have simply chosen not to watch. Eliminators turned out to be a movie I vaguely remember as a kid but never saw. There was something about that cyborg on his mobile unit that looked familiar to me. Starring some sci-fi greats like Denise Crosby (Star Trek: The Next Generation), Andrew Prine (Steven from V, the original mini-series), and Roy Dotrice (most recently from Game of Thrones), this movie had a lot of potential. It pulled in a ton of cool elements but never really explored them to their full potential. The acting was fairly poor as well, despite having such well known actors. This was obviously early in their career and they were still trying to find their feet. The name of the movie was an obvious attempt to cash in on Terminator, although it is a terrible name for it.
Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game is a new Miniature Game from Fantasy Flight Games. Star Wars: X-Wing Miniature Game is the first Star Wars game I have truly invested a lot of time and money in since I gave up on Star Wars so many years ago. However, this game is so complete, so easy to learn and so satisfying from a gamer-point of view, I would play it if it was Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, or any other property (although I keep telling people FFG should consider BSG for this too).