Wednesday, November 24, 2004
Tainted Monkey Rumbling up the School
So… David still has to watch that elven clip :P Anyway, this update covers 2 recent events, my Anime / Gaming event, and Unhinged, the new magic card set.
Anime-a-thon
Last Friday, November 19th, I had my term-ly anime/gaming event. Unfortunately, not a lot of people came, so the tournament was reduced to a small tournament, but it was amazingly entertaining. First, the gaming.
The tournament was supposed to involve Warioware, then CVS2, then Burnout 3, but since there were only 10 people there including us 4, we reduced it to just a few games of Warioware. The participants have never played it, and there were 2 girls among the participants, so Warioware was a lot more fun, cuz it’s easy and entertaining.
… So that’s it. Warioware was an awesome party/tournament game, so it’ll show up next time as well. We also played a bit of Mario Party, that was also good; played some Burnout 3, not for the tournament, and finished it off with a lot of SSBM. Now, to the anime.
School Rumble 1-3, Bleach 1-3, Gankutsuou 1, and Shinobuden 1-2, but not necessarily in that order. The anime-a-thon was a success, for the most part. Amy requested I show Shinobuden 1-2, since she really liked it, but unfortunately, the rest of the audience didn’t like it. I like Shinobuden, but it has remnants of Bobobo. It’s like Bobobo or Digi Charat but with Ninjas. So in any case, it’s better than Bobobo. I suppose it’s mostly Onkasamaru’s fault, since he’s like Gema Gema but much more obnoxious. Shinobu’s alright, I don’t know if anyone had a problem with her.
Anyway… I’m gonna predict, in order, they liked:
Duy: School Rumble, Bleach, Gankutsuou, Shinobuden
Alan: Bleach, School Rumble, Gankutsuou, Shinobuden
Jason: Bleach, Gankutsuou, School Rumble, Shinobuden
Amy: I don’t know, but Gankutsuou’s last
Myself: School Rumble, Gankutsuou, Bleach, Shinobuden
And…
Wen: School Rumble, Gankutsuou, Bleach, Shinobuden
David: School Rumble, Gankutsuou, Shinobuden, Bleach
At first I was gonna show just 2 episodes of School Rumble, but then I saw ep 3 and I HAD TO SHOW IT. It’s just thaaat good.
Anyway, not a lot of people showed up, but it was fun nonetheless. Just spending time with some close friends is good enough, but next time… I think earlier in the term is better, a few weeks after the general meeting, so that everyone knows about it. So… early February it will be again.
Unhinged
Unhinged is a Magic the Gathering set, just released November 19th, which is another parody set after Unglued. Jason, Duy, Alan and I drafted this the day after, November 20th. So these next paragraphs will be of interest to Wen and David and maybe a few others, but Wen doesn’t read blogs anymore so basically it’s just David, and then the others who were there can read it too and comment about it…
Anyway, I thought unhinged was GREAT! Before it came out, Alan read (without spoilers) that it’s a playable set; Unglued was just a bunch of cards thrown together, while Unhinged has some sort of unity that makes it playable. And it’s true, it’s very playable, and I really enjoy it.
There are some mechanics that I like, some that I don’t. First, it is a pretty funny set, and has some extra powerful cards and a lot of other things that won’t work with other sets. Anyway, back to the cards in a minute.
So, this is the first set where Alan has not read any spoilers for, since we bugged him about that for a while. The drafting process was fun, and my “WHOA WHOA WHOA!” explanation worked (long story short, if we all look at spoilers we would say WHOA! Once a week and not at all during the draft, but this way we save all the WHOA’s for the draft, and they stack up, so we create omni-whoa’s during the draft, which is more enjoyable)……
Anyway, the drafting process was fun. There were a lot of new mechanics, and some crazy cards as well that we shared, and some that we kept secret for extra whoa-ness from the opponents during the playing of the cards. My most memorable new mechanic from the drafting portion was that of the Rocket Powered Turbo Slug. If David hasn’t drafted the set yet, I’ll try to keep it rather spoiler free, so that he can have his own laughter and whoa-ness. Maybe we should just play with him before he sees the cards… makes Laughing Hyena all that much better.
The most memorable card while playing was Alan’s Cheetyface. I’ll just keep it at that. Of course, there were many other funny cards while drafting or playing, but the whole day was full of laughter, and after all was done I was still interested in the set. We bought a box, so we drafted 24 boosters, and nobody really wanted the other 12 so they got defaulted to me. Of the 36 boosters, we were missing maybe 5 rares or so, so we’ve seen most of the set, although I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on those rares.
So… new mechanics… I like the ones that have factors outside of the game. Mao punishes you for asking questions; Unhinged does the same, but not for questions, but more like actions and certain keywords. That doesn’t make the magic game silent or anything though. You just have to be more observant with what you say and do and what the other player does.
Other things involve the player’s age or height or other stuff like that. Other cards involve doing actions, such as eating, or armwrestling, or whatever. Oh yeah, another mechanic involves ½’s. Yes, now you can lose or tap for fractional life or mana, respectively.
Another thing I like is how they use the text box. David once suggested that there should be a card that increases every number in the text box by 1. Now, there is a card similar to that. There are other things that deal with the text box, certain numbers in it, punctuation in it, how big it is, etc, and there are things that deal with the picture.
One mechanic I didn’t like (although I think the others like it) is the artist mechanic. It’s something I don’t care about… it’s just another variable. The variables include card color, creature type, etc; now Artists are a variable. “Tap all cards from a certain artist”, “change target’s card artist to another artist until end of turn”, etc… just more to keep track of. I guess it’s okay, but I haven’t built any decks around it.
Also, lots of cards parody other magic cards, or have little references to them. So it’s better if you’ve played Magic many times before and are used to older card sets and certain cards and names of characters. Flavourtext is awesome too.
Then there are a lot of other awesome cards, some really… weird cards, some amazingly powerful cards, etc… but I’ll keep them secret for now, if David and Wen don’t want to know them yet. I think we should play with David one day soon. He’ll enjoy it, even if he’s not drafting it or whatever.
End
So, that’s it for the two main subjects. Anyway, yesterday the world changed. Yesterday, ¾’s of my house (Jason included) stopped playing other games and started playing the one game to rule them all. I opted out, since I wasn’t so interested in it. We already know how Duy’s pre-occupied with FFXI all the time, and now ¾’s of my house is the same. But I’m still here. MSNing. Gonna take over Thousand Year Door. Gonna finish Halo 2 without Alan watching me. I’m still here on MSN. Still blogging away… still making Unhinged decks… 3 done so far ^^ ….
This morning I was supposed to go to class, but I had great dreams that prevented me from going. Had a dream about warcraft, and a dream about driving a really fast car. It was Sugoi!
… Anyway, that’s about it. Tonight’s the CUBE dance, an asian dance at Fed Hall organized by the 6 asian clubs. Somehow I got Duy to go… well, he wanted my credit card #, so we traded it, haha. Anyway, I’m gonna go play some Halo 2 now. See ya later.
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So… David still has to watch that elven clip :P Anyway, this update covers 2 recent events, my Anime / Gaming event, and Unhinged, the new magic card set. Anime-a-thon Last Friday, November 19th, I had my term-ly anime/gaming event. Unfortunately, not a lot of people came, so the tournament was reduced to a small tournament, but it was amazingly entertaining. First, the gaming. The tournament was supposed to involve Warioware, then CVS2, then Burnout 3, but since there were only 10 people there including us 4, we reduced it to just a few games of Warioware. The participants have never played it, and there were 2 girls among the participants, so Warioware was a lot more fun, cuz it’s easy and entertaining. … So that’s it. Warioware was an awesome party/tournament game, so it’ll show up next time as well. We also played a bit of Mario Party, that was also good; played some Burnout 3, not for the tournament, and finished it off with a lot of SSBM. Now, to the anime. School Rumble 1-3, Bleach 1-3, Gankutsuou 1, and Shinobuden 1-2, but not necessarily in that order. The anime-a-thon was a success, for the most part. Amy requested I show Shinobuden 1-2, since she really liked it, but unfortunately, the rest of the audience didn’t like it. I like Shinobuden, but it has remnants of Bobobo. It’s like Bobobo or Digi Charat but with Ninjas. So in any case, it’s better than Bobobo. I suppose it’s mostly Onkasamaru’s fault, since he’s like Gema Gema but much more obnoxious. Shinobu’s alright, I don’t know if anyone had a problem with her. Anyway… I’m gonna predict, in order, they liked: Duy: School Rumble, Bleach, Gankutsuou, Shinobuden Alan: Bleach, School Rumble, Gankutsuou, Shinobuden Jason: Bleach, Gankutsuou, School Rumble, Shinobuden Amy: I don’t know, but Gankutsuou’s last Myself: School Rumble, Gankutsuou, Bleach, Shinobuden And… Wen: School Rumble, Gankutsuou, Bleach, Shinobuden David: School Rumble, Gankutsuou, Shinobuden, Bleach At first I was gonna show just 2 episodes of School Rumble, but then I saw ep 3 and I HAD TO SHOW IT. It’s just thaaat good. Anyway, not a lot of people showed up, but it was fun nonetheless. Just spending time with some close friends is good enough, but next time… I think earlier in the term is better, a few weeks after the general meeting, so that everyone knows about it. So… early February it will be again. Unhinged Unhinged is a Magic the Gathering set, just released November 19th, which is another parody set after Unglued. Jason, Duy, Alan and I drafted this the day after, November 20th. So these next paragraphs will be of interest to Wen and David and maybe a few others, but Wen doesn’t read blogs anymore so basically it’s just David, and then the others who were there can read it too and comment about it… Anyway, I thought unhinged was GREAT! Before it came out, Alan read (without spoilers) that it’s a playable set; Unglued was just a bunch of cards thrown together, while Unhinged has some sort of unity that makes it playable. And it’s true, it’s very playable, and I really enjoy it. There are some mechanics that I like, some that I don’t. First, it is a pretty funny set, and has some extra powerful cards and a lot of other things that won’t work with other sets. Anyway, back to the cards in a minute. So, this is the first set where Alan has not read any spoilers for, since we bugged him about that for a while. The drafting process was fun, and my “WHOA WHOA WHOA!” explanation worked (long story short, if we all look at spoilers we would say WHOA! Once a week and not at all during the draft, but this way we save all the WHOA’s for the draft, and they stack up, so we create omni-whoa’s during the draft, which is more enjoyable)…… Anyway, the drafting process was fun. There were a lot of new mechanics, and some crazy cards as well that we shared, and some that we kept secret for extra whoa-ness from the opponents during the playing of the cards. My most memorable new mechanic from the drafting portion was that of the Rocket Powered Turbo Slug. If David hasn’t drafted the set yet, I’ll try to keep it rather spoiler free, so that he can have his own laughter and whoa-ness. Maybe we should just play with him before he sees the cards… makes Laughing Hyena all that much better. The most memorable card while playing was Alan’s Cheetyface. I’ll just keep it at that. Of course, there were many other funny cards while drafting or playing, but the whole day was full of laughter, and after all was done I was still interested in the set. We bought a box, so we drafted 24 boosters, and nobody really wanted the other 12 so they got defaulted to me. Of the 36 boosters, we were missing maybe 5 rares or so, so we’ve seen most of the set, although I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on those rares. So… new mechanics… I like the ones that have factors outside of the game. Mao punishes you for asking questions; Unhinged does the same, but not for questions, but more like actions and certain keywords. That doesn’t make the magic game silent or anything though. You just have to be more observant with what you say and do and what the other player does. Other things involve the player’s age or height or other stuff like that. Other cards involve doing actions, such as eating, or armwrestling, or whatever. Oh yeah, another mechanic involves ½’s. Yes, now you can lose or tap for fractional life or mana, respectively. Another thing I like is how they use the text box. David once suggested that there should be a card that increases every number in the text box by 1. Now, there is a card similar to that. There are other things that deal with the text box, certain numbers in it, punctuation in it, how big it is, etc, and there are things that deal with the picture. One mechanic I didn’t like (although I think the others like it) is the artist mechanic. It’s something I don’t care about… it’s just another variable. The variables include card color, creature type, etc; now Artists are a variable. “Tap all cards from a certain artist”, “change target’s card artist to another artist until end of turn”, etc… just more to keep track of. I guess it’s okay, but I haven’t built any decks around it. Also, lots of cards parody other magic cards, or have little references to them. So it’s better if you’ve played Magic many times before and are used to older card sets and certain cards and names of characters. Flavourtext is awesome too. Then there are a lot of other awesome cards, some really… weird cards, some amazingly powerful cards, etc… but I’ll keep them secret for now, if David and Wen don’t want to know them yet. I think we should play with David one day soon. He’ll enjoy it, even if he’s not drafting it or whatever. End So, that’s it for the two main subjects. Anyway, yesterday the world changed. Yesterday, ¾’s of my house (Jason included) stopped playing other games and started playing the one game to rule them all. I opted out, since I wasn’t so interested in it. We already know how Duy’s pre-occupied with FFXI all the time, and now ¾’s of my house is the same. But I’m still here. MSNing. Gonna take over Thousand Year Door. Gonna finish Halo 2 without Alan watching me. I’m still here on MSN. Still blogging away… still making Unhinged decks… 3 done so far ^^ …. This morning I was supposed to go to class, but I had great dreams that prevented me from going. Had a dream about warcraft, and a dream about driving a really fast car. It was Sugoi! … Anyway, that’s about it. Tonight’s the CUBE dance, an asian dance at Fed Hall organized by the 6 asian clubs. Somehow I got Duy to go… well, he wanted my credit card #, so we traded it, haha. Anyway, I’m gonna go play some Halo 2 now. See ya later. |