According to EA Active, this video may just be the pinnacle of exercise. READ ON TO SEE WHY!

Last week, I gave my background story on why I picked up EA Sports Active, and gave some initial measurements of my fatness. So, how did I fare this week with Active? Did I lose any weight? Did I decide to just hop on a treadmill? Did I realize being fat is awesome in this day and age of triple-bypass surgeries and just binge on doughnuts and whole milk?

…now I want a doughnut… Read more

“Morality” and storylines driven by players’ choices have seemingly become all the rage in videogames these days. A convention that used to be limited to, traditionally, the realm of western RPGs (Bioware’s Baldur’s Gate series were my first exposure to the idea of being “good or evil” in my young gaming career), with the continual bleeding together of genres you will probably find yourself confronted with moral choices in Unreal Tournament 2k10. However, the novelty of “moral choices” is quickly wearing off, as, with most innovations, the industry’s trend for “me-too” has lead to a lot of cut-and-dry, simplistic renditions of morality. So, for the first edition of a new series of posts called “Thinking About Games,” I’d like to explore the problem of morality in games. What’s being done right, what’s being done wrong, and what could lead to innovations for its usage in games?

Two warnings before the jump: First of all, since I’ll be talking about specific instances of games, there will be spoilers (sometimes major) within this post. I’ll be sure to introduce the game I’m speaking of before throwing out plot points, but be aware that even recent games (such as inFAMOUS) are fair game here. Last, but not least: tl;dr. Read more

Many of you have played one of The Behemoth’s more well-known constructions, like Castle Crashers or Alien Hominid.  I would wager, however, that few of you modern gamers are aquainted with Dad ‘n Me, a far earlier collaboration between artist Dan Paladin and Newgrounds creator Tom Fulp.

On Newgrounds, where Sturgeon’s Law is always in effect, the works of Paladin and Fulp are part of the 10% content that is worth dying for.  While you’re waiting for your XBLA remake of Turtles in Time (NSFW; odd it should be that way since it’s a link to this site), give Dad ‘n Me a shot.  It can be methadone to the heroin that is Turtles, holding you over until you can feel the potency of the real fix.

In Dad ‘n Me, players take control of a little skull-faced bruiser who’d like nothing more to visit terrible, bestial violence upon the hapless children of his neighborhood.  He’s been egged on by his father, presumably, who hails from one of this design team’s even older works, Chainsaw the Children.  Like father like son, I suppose.

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I made sure to pre-order Player’s Handbook 2 so that I could review it for MEGATONik as soon as I came back from spring break.  Today, I had plenty of time to peruse the information in its pages, and I now think that Wizards was justified in producing this second volume.  If Wizards of the Coast had instead packed all of the content in the Player’s Handbook 2 into the original Player’s Handbook, the authors and designers would have had to ship sub-standard content in a terrible rush, and the titanic tome would have been daunting to new players–a result totally not in keeping with the mission of 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons.

Instead, we have two books filled with well thought out and interesting material, some of which you have likely heard about.  Perhaps the biggest reasons to shell out twenty-some dollars for the Player’s Handbook 2 are the return of fan-favorite races and classes not present in the 4th Edition Player’s Handbook, like the gnome race and sorcerer, bard, and barbarian classes.

These are excellent reasons to purchase the book.  However, I would like to highlight some of my personal favorite content that hasn’t received much publicity, but will nonetheless be high on my priority list for incorporation into my character designs.  In this way, this article is not so much a review as an examination of several elements found inside the cover.

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The year is 1998. A quiet little hamlet by the name of Raccoon City is having a bit of a zombie problem, a young boy in a faraway land becomes friends with a magical fairy who isn’t quite as helpful as she thinks she is, and a certain theoretical physicist is wishing he had chosen a less stressful career (perhaps space marine?). All of this pales in comparison to the epidemic that swept arcades across the nation, however: a group of adventurer’s were cutting a swath of destruction through hordes of goblins, and, worst of all, the yellow wizard needed food…badly!
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These days, it seems like zombies are always just around the corner. Sure, my paranoia could stem from the growing popularity (and my own subsequent exposure to these mediums) of zombies in games, movies, and books, but I figure that it never hurts to be prepared. As such, I’ve developed a list of game characters that I feel would help me not only survive the zombie apocalypse, but turn the tide and give Earth a new hope for a zombie-less future.

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tl;dr Web comics have become far more viable as a form of storytelling and entertainment in the past ten years. Some comics, like XKCD and Penny Arcade, are so popular that their authors can live off the craft. Here are a few web comics that are not yet well known, but show great promise.

A loligoth is fine too…

Thanks in large part to popular, self-sufficient web comics like Penny Arcade and XKCD, the web comic medium as a whole has gained new legitimacy as a method of storytelling and entertainment. After all, nobody can deny the positive effects of Holkins and Krahulik’s Child’s Play organization (which has donated millions to charitable causes worldwide), and the internet-directing influence of Randall Monroe (don’t write Google Video comments when tired or drunk).

On the other hand, there are a some web comics out there that have the potential to be just as good or just as influential, but haven’t quite picked up a following yet. Here are three that you’ve probably never heard of, but are nonetheless worth checking out.

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tl;dr The D&D Insider subscription service is expensive, but features few disadvantages and a lot of benefits. The Compendium rules database can streamline combat for lazy players (barring the very seldom-occurring technical difficulties), the Bonus Tools all cut down on a DM’s prep time (but could be more efficient if certain features were combined and fleshed out), and the Dungeon and Dragon magazines provide excellent supplementary information to help in both power-gaming and role-playing (and both are largely without flaw).

Because every article needs a header image

This past year, Wizards of the Coast capitalized on the release of its newest edition of the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game by coming up with all sorts of new supplements to go along with the core materials.

One of these is the D&D Insider subscription service. In keeping with MEGATONik’s broadened focus, I reviewed all the features D&D Insider currently has to offer. You decide whether you should fork over the money for this service in addition to any other supplements you want to buy in paper or digital form. After all, it does add up. Read more

Well, ok, second best. The best video game related trade I ever made was when I traded my cousin Will a bunch of beanie babies for his Dreamcast. I almost feel bad for swindling him so hard. But, this is about my second best trade ever, which was trading in Fable 2 straight up for Grand Theft Auto IV. Because, even though I made a 2-hour round-trip to get Fable 2 at midnight, stayed up ‘til 7 A.M. playing it, and let it consume my life for about two weeks, I have now come to loathe Fable 2. It has nothing to do with the game’s genre or any of the technical aspects of the game (its control scheme, meh graphics, HORRENDOUS load times, etc.); from a technical aspect I pretty much enjoyed the game. No, my main beef with Fable 2 is how it fails so utterly and completely at one of its highly promised intangible features: the ability to emotionally engage a player.

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The console wars, where the scarring battlefield of two or more different factions of gaming zealots identify themselves under a unified corporate banner in the hopes that their choice of gaming machinery will somehow be the one saving grace of their identity. I am a veteran of many of the original console wars, the worst one in my memory was the one that occurred between Sega and Nintendo back in the early 1990s when it was Super NES vs. Genesis for the “king of 16-bit” crown. It is only through the wisdom that I have gained in my 25 years of gaming that I know now how wrong these idiotic battles are.
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