Leviathan's uber Top Five RPG-apalooza

I’m beginning my annual winter roleplaying game this year, and I have to say I’ve picked been a good one: Fallout 3. For the next couple of months I’ll be relishing the Washington Wastelands by picking pockets, blowing up cities, and just causing general havoc.

As you all know by now, I'm sure...I have excellent taste. So I've decided to rank the top five video game RPGs I’ve played. Actually…let’s say ‘of all time’. Yeah, that's better. Although my sample size is only around 75 games total, only half of which were finished, you can feel safe in taking this list to the bank, depositing it, and getting all your money back in this top five list of pixilated RPG pleasure. I only play the best. That means no Nintendo.

5) Lands of Lore II: Guardians of Destiny.

I don’t know why this gem of a game has been forgotten. Sure, its got that cheesy late ‘90s real video capture with, at best, B-level acting. But the story for this complex game involves gods, demons, oracles, even a town of cat-people. Plus you’re cursed by a witch and randomly shapeshift from wise-cracking human, to pigmy lizard, to grunting monster lizard. Instead of going for the standard semi-medieval, or far future, period like so many games, Lands of Lore II goes for almost Greek-like world view of gods, monsters, and demons all living together. Its great.

4) Panzer Dragoon Saga.
This game was the sole reason I purchased a Sega Saturn. And, though the Saturn graphics are horrid, I played through this sucker twice. All you need to know about the game is that you ride a shape-shifting dragon and fly through a future destroyed world where everything has been genetically modified. Very Japanese. But the great story involving you, your pet dragon, and a 5,000 year old GMO’d girl named ‘Azel’ is phenominal. Most of the true die-hard Sega fans agree with me on this one, if you try to buy this game today you’re going to pay at least $200.

3) Ultima Underworld II.
In 1992, a year before Doom supposedly ‘invented’ the first-person shooter, Looking Glass Studios (rest in peace) brought out the real-time gem known as Ultima Underworld. Though UWI was technically great (you could jump, look up, down, fly), the story was rather simplistic – get out of the underworld. With UWII, Looking Glass kept almost the exact same graphics and interface, and focused on creating a great story that greatly expanded our knowledge of the major villain in Ultima 7, released just prior to UWII. In this game you explore many other worlds that the Guardian has conquered, you also can truly customize your character, being either a spellcaster, ranger, or in my case, a thug who punched his way into saving the world. Although there is only one ending, during the game you can kill whomever you want, and the spell system of runes instead of reagents is wonderful, as is all your items having their own unique slot.


2) Skies of Arcadia.

You’re Vyse, a teenage kid with love for swashbuckling adventure. You live on a planet made of many tiny floating islands. Your best friend, Aika has just watched a Moonstone fall on nearby Shrine Island. What do you do? Go cartoon teeny-bopper adventuring, of course. At the end of your travels you’ve been to the moon, discovered ancient technology, and fallen in love. Yeah, its very Japanese, but its also very Pirates of Dark Water. Finding treasures, interesting characters, Oh, plus you’ve got ship to ship battles!


1) Mass Effect.

Take Blade Runner, mix it with the Fifth Element, add a little BSG (all this has happened before) and finish it off with KOTOR-style character interaction, and you’ve got the absolute best RPG ever, Mass Effect. At the start of this game you’re trying to find an ancient beacon left by an extinct race. At the end, you’re humanity (et al.’s) only chance for survival. Although its got a great, original story, what really sets this game apart is its depth. You want to know the history of the Citadel, your character, Mass Relays station? No problem, just go to your character terminal and read the pages and pages of background text. BioWare must have dedicated countless hours to writing history, tech specs, and character details before releasing this game. Another plus: although it unabashedly steals from plenty of known sci-fi memes, it uses them to weave together a story that feels, at least to this rpg-er, extremely original.

UNI Panther Pushers

Unfortunately, it looks like two important players for UNI have been busted for marijuana: Johnny Gray and Victor Williams. Johnny with ‘intent to distribute.They both have been dismissed from the team.

That sucks. Those two players accounted for over 50% of pass completions this year. Johnny Gray had streaks of greatness when returning punts. Hopefully they’ll still make a run in the playoffs.

Yes, division 1aa (FCS) football has playoffs, thank heavens.

Noah at Two Months

Noah's been out of the womb for two months now. So far he's seemed to enjoy himself, but boy is he hungry all the time. When he's not trying to get food he seems to be really baffled with the world. Bright lights, sounds, his own hands, etc.

Bran Van Nostalgia

Gosh. I have no Idea why Bran Van didn't become the biggest thing since Beck. Its a shame.

I guess they got fairly popular in EU, since there are a lot of home-made vids from folks in France. I like this one a lot.

I have the power!

And my first son-justified-but-completely-self-indulgent-purchase is...
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That's right. Castle Grayskull beeiaatches! I found it for $10 including 7(!) Masters of the Universe figures with all their swords, comics, and add-ons. Battle armor He-Man, Skeletor, Man At Arms (aka Waste of Time), Orko, and a bunch of others I can't name.

Notice the laser is still on top? Heck, the trap door even works.

Some history. Before I went to kindergarten my entire play-world involved whatever games I could think of for me, my younger sisters, and other various farm animals. Games like old tree-trunk space-ship adventure, church songs to cows, and twirl a cat in a bucket filled our afternoons. Then, within the first week of starting kindergarten, kids with a TV that got something other than PBS told the rest of us about He-Man, and his daily trials with Skeletor.

And they had lots of toys, magical toys.

I'm sure GI Joe was big at that time too. But that never really interested me. He-Man, after all, was the Master of the Universe, not some rinky-dink planet. Universe is always better in my book.

Back to the toys. Of course as a kid, especially in our little class, you had to have the coolest toys to be the coolest kid in class. Most everyone else had at least heard of He-Man and had a couple of action figures to play in the games. I remember being behind the eight-ball so bad that I brought some toy bird to play along as Sorceress. Someone told me later that Sorceress was a woman. I didn't know that.

I wanted to get Castle Grayskull so bad my Kindergarten year I cut it out of our 1983 JC Penney Christmas catalog and hung it on my wall.

Needless to say, for better or worse, no Grayskull for me that year. Or any other year. It became quickly obvious to me that I wasn't going to be the coolest kid in class. Grayskull probably wouldn't have helped anyway.

Now, 25 years later, Grayskull is mine. I mean Noah's.

...jealous?

Pumpkin Fields

The Fields Fam went to Anamosa this past weekend to see the 20th annual Jones County Pumpkin Fest. Funny, I didn't know about the previous 19. Like most festivals, this one started with a 5k 'pumpkin run'. Which, being a glutton for punishment, I decided to run. I haven't run once since Noah's been born.
It hurt. Not a good hurt either. The race itself was beautiful. Anamosa's a hilly town, and this 5k hit some pretty decent ones. We even ran next to the Wapsipinicon River for about a mile. It looked very pretty, but (and I'm not kidding here) the Wapsi stunk like pure sewage.

My entire family, sans dad and Hilary, also ran. Mom, being a lightning bolt finished 2nd in her age category. She was very happy. Below is a picture of all the winners of the race, including mother. I didn't even place.


The largest pumpkin in Jones County this year was a respectable 1,400 lbs. Not bad. Last year Jones County had the second largest pumpkin in the world at almost 1,700 lbs. I wonder what they do with those things after the fest.

Magic Money

I was at a conference the last couple of days, so I intentionally payed no attention to the news. Nothing but karst topography and groundwater interactions. What a trip.

...and what a difference a couple of days makes. Listening to radio on the way home, I heard that we got ourselves into a predicament where we drastically need investors from other countries to 'have confidence' in our markets to keep us afloat. The radio talking heads thought that confidence was eroding.

Ya think?

Who would have confidence in a system that gives loans to people based on no money down and no proof of income? A person that believes in 'magic money', that's who. You see, with magic money, the its the money itself that makes value and goods. Much like Dumbledore conjures up entire banquets in Harry Potter with a flick of his wand.