A few months ago, Janice and I rented some video games for our Nintendo Wii. Wii Music was decent, with a wide array of instruments and styles. Since Janice took piano and violin lessons growing up, I was at a disadvantage in figuring out the rhythms and controls. Still, we may eventually buy this game.

Star Wars: Clone Wars--Lightsaber Duels is based on the well-done Cartoon Network television show, the latest installment in George Lucas' space opera saga. The characters and audio clips are taken from that computer-animated series, which is a good tie-in for young audiences.

However, I found that the Wii Remote, or "Wiimote," didn't translate very well to the Jedi signature weapon, and the fights quickly became repetitive. Thus, I unfortunately can't recommend Lightsaber Duels, and I hope for a video game that isn't too complicated or require lots of time or expertise (as Soulcaliber IV or The Force Unleashed seem to).

For now, I'm happy with occasionally playing Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga and the tabletop D20 Star Wars: Saga Edition role-playing game, but a well-done massively multiplayer online game (MMO) such as the upcoming Old Republic could lure me back to that galaxy far, far away. Of course, there's also a small space-opera rival called Star Trek Online, which might get a boost in popularity from the recent film, even if the latter is a continuity reboot.

Speaking of MMOs, while I miss travel powers such as flight in City of Heroes ("CoH"), David I.S., Dexter V.H., and I enjoyed exploring J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings Online ("LotRO"). I don't know whether I'll get as far as I did in CoH (28 out of 50 levels), but I have enough different characters right now to provide different perspectives and glimpses of locations, characters, and monsters from that classic fantasy setting.

Speaking of superheroes, there are a number of promising video games in the works, including DC Universe Online, Batman: Arkham Asylum, and Champions Online. In the meantime, I have Lego Batman and Marvel Ultimate Alliance (for which a sequel is coming) to keep me busy. However, I've been using the Wii Fit more lately, and reading comic books rather than playing games based on them.

Before my recent (and brief) layoff and before Dave and Dex got busy with schoolwork, we played LotRO on Friday nights and/or Sunday mornings, while the rest of the "Dimensional Corps Online" supergroup has been logging into CoH on Tuesday evenings, among other times. Some of my other friends and former co-workers play the same MMOs, but on different servers.

In addition, my face-to-face D&D4e "Vanished Lands: the Faith-Based Initiative" fantasy role-playing group still meets most Mondays. That adventuring party has continued its quest for barbarian relics, defeating numerous ninjas in a Dwarven mountain citadel, creeping through a haunted forest, and defeating a witch and her minions in a strange pagoda.

Meanwhile, the Pathfinder: "Holy Steel" teleconferencing team has finally regained momentum on Sunday nights. That group is in Pi-Ramesses, capital of New Kingdom Egypt, attempting to exonerate its Paladin of charges of treason against Pharaoh Ramses II and fight the cult of Set.

The debate between supporters of Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition and other rules systems such as Pathfinder has continued, and the current Boston-area gamers haven't yet shifted to the D20 Mutants & Masterminds 2nd Ed. superhero scenarios or Star Wars: Saga Edition. So many games, so little time!

edemaitre

Between playing in three different D&D campaigns and my new soul-sucking job, I haven't found the time and energy to blog. Even though I should be sleeping right now I want to at least do something. Since I'm too tired to do crazy, I guess I just amaze you with more tales of my DMing.

In a previous blog post, I stated that I was gonna run Dungeon Crawl Classics 58: The Forgotten Portal. After three sessions, I ran my players through about a third of the module. If it really does take 9 sessions to run, I would have paid $1.77 per session's worth of material. What a great deal! Of course, they might finish it sooner so it might change the total cost per session. I'll inform you all of the final cost per session when's it's done. Spoiler: it'll still be a great deal.

Of course, killing three characters (and writing up/getting used to two new characters) tends to slow things down a great deal. Jack99 was right; some of those combats do need tweaking. Elite Soldiers that are five levels above the party are almost impossible to hit. They can also singlehandly kill 3 PCs in one fight. Certain powers and good tactics would have allowed them to win without anyone dying but you can't always count on that. Luckily, my group has an entire backup squad of PCs so we were able to get through that.

After my player group goes through this adventure, I want to write a detailed review/E-companion/advice/etc. for the adventure. So what do I do in the meantime? Well I can always mine Level Up for material to use. I can't wait to throw a monster with the "Hell Beast" Templete at them I also plan to run the little adventure in it called "The Hill Giant Thane" after they complete this module. I can also screw around with custom treasure. I'm including things called "upgrade crystals" which convert certain level 2 items into level 7 items. It basically means I'm upgrading some +1 items into +2 items.

It turns out that I really didn't have a problem adjusting the story of the module to fit within the campaign. Subtract x and add y and it's all good. It was a lot easier since a friend and I were taking turns DMing this campaign. He had a great set up that was simple for me to follow up on. I will quickly explain the story so far:

Long ago the people of the land worshipped devils and made sacrifices of blood in order to appease them. One day, a great warrior named Karl The Eagle Lord left his home village. He spent many years searching for a way to defeat the devils and stop the blood sacrifices. After countless adventures and trials, he found a great blessed bird. With the aid of the blessed bird, Karl returned to his homeland and defeated the devils. From one blessed bird came many others and from them a great age of peace and propersity came to the land.

But nothing lasts forever. The darken hand of the devils raise again. With the blessed birds nearly wiped out and those in power becoming corrupted by the devils, a new age of blood seems to be at hand. The world's only hope is a band of heros. With the last blessed bird in tow, they search for a way to strike back at the darkness. Their search has lead them to the home village of the Eagle Lord. There they must enter an anceint temple and defeat a corrupted priest. What dangers will they face? Will they survive the challenge? Will the temple hold the key to victory or will it become their graves?

MichaelSomething