I thought I’d put up a message a few days ago, but apparently not. It’s exam-season for me right now, so I’m concentrating on revision, which means I don’t have much free time at the moment. Plus, when I do, I want to spend it away from my room where I’ve been cooped up reading all day, rather than on the PC.

My last exam’s on the 15th, so hopefully should be back to normal after that.

“L-look at you h-hackers, a p-p-pathetic creature of m-meat and b-bones…”

No, I haven’t suddenly turned into Gareth Gates, that’s the near infamous line quoted to you during the Sound Test part of the install to an all-time PC classic that nobody bought:

System Shock - PC (DOS)

System Shock is a name many PC gamers might know, a cult classic from 1994, that brought so many new ideas to PC gaming, that the reason it flopped sales-wise is still a mystery. The game itself is a first-person action/adventure game. If you want it that way. Or it could be a first-person shooter. Or a purely puzzle-based first-person adventure. One of the innovations System Shock included was the ability to assign four ‘levels’ to different aspects of the game, such as Puzzles and Combat. A ‘1′ would practically remove it from the game, for instance in Combat, enemies would ignore you, and be killable in one hit. A ‘4′ in Puzzles would give you the hardest variations of the puzzles available and set a time-limit on the game.

The reason for a potential time-limit is that the game is set on the Citadel space station orbiting Earth, circa 2072. The rogue AI, which you helped to remove the ethics-restrictions on, SHODAN, has taken over the station, killed or zombified the inhabitants, and plans to strike the Earth with the station’s giant mining laser. Thus, it’s up to you to thwart SHODAN, and also to survive.

The environment is rendered in full-3D, in comparison to Doom II’s 2.5D graphics, which allows you to perform a variety of actions not found in most games of the time, such as looking up and down, climbing surfaces, crouching and leaning, and more. There was even mouse-based aiming, numerous amounts of digital speech, and high-resolution graphics.

Look! Real 3D! Take that Doom…and your sweet, sweet deathmatch and..oh, yes, System Shock forever!

So, aside from the technical marvels, what makes System Shock so fun to play? Darting from corridor to corridor, low on effective ammunition, SHODAN contacting and taunting you at every step, the game is an early example of the survial horror, except viewed from a first-person perspective. It’s hard to beat the adrenaline rush the game can give you at times, and the, using an ominous-looking headset, the gameplay changes entirely, as you get sent into cyberspace.

The Internet: Apparently it *is* actually a series of tubes.

The cyberspace areas of the game can best be described as a wireframe version of another PC classic, Descent. Without wanting to spoil the plot of the game, I advise getting used to the different controls, as cyberspace is used to open locked doors and the like, as well as combat certain enemies. And yes, the plot. Unravelled over time via the personal logs you find dotted around the space station, you get to follow the last days of the crew of the Citadel, hearing their panicked voices contemplate what’s to come, and how they try to figure a way to defeat SHODAN, and was a device picked up in System Shock 2, and of course, the spiritual successor to the series, Bioshock.

You can also zoom the playing screen to full-size to remove that pesky inventory. Who needs health when you have a laser-gun?

Overall, System Shock is a game that needs to played not just because it shows how far PC games have really come in the past 14 years, which aside from advances in graphics, is not very much, but also because it’s cracking good fun to play as well.

Pros: Amazing content, even for today. One of the best computer-game villains ever.

Cons: Outdated graphics, one annoying platform jumping section near the beginning, tricky to get running on modern PCs.

So, had a busy couple of days, as usual for the end of the week, though more than usual due to exams on Thursday and Friday.  Saturday evening was taken up by Doctor Who and a work night out, so it’s up to today to make up for what we’ve missed. The first being this lovely piece of equipment, courtesy of Soshi Kenpachi over at his Tek Upgrade blog:

Wait a second…I’ve seen that before somewhere…

Anyhows, enough of that silliness, and on to the mini-review, as Mr Kenpachi has gone into it in almost as much depth as the card can possibly have discussed about it. A 0-cost, non-unique, concealed-optional, stun-remover is pretty darn nice. In order to offset that rather nice effect, it’s character-stamped to Dickhe.. Iron Man. Of course, as I’ve digressed with all of the character-stamped plot twists and locations so far, it’s an ample card for Mystique, Shapely Shifter to use and abuse.

With the upcoming metagame likely to involve a lot of Hulk beatdown decks, having Mystique up front, and non-stunning (and thus, not receiving breakthrough as well) will mean a much tougher time for your opponent to try and finish the game at Turn 4/5, the time Mystique is able to come into play.  Of course, there’s only going to a maximum of four of these cards in your deck, so they need to be used sparingly, but coupled with Iron Man’s other legend-content revealed this week, Stark Armory, you’re much more guaranteed to be able to accrue those +1/+1 counters, and thus beef up Mystique to avoid too much of a beating in the later turns. There’s also the fact that your opponent is going to be forced into tactical decisions of when to use cards such as Righteous Anger, as recovering Hulk to attack again may be a waste if the person he’s attacking can just avoid being stunned.

Actually, it looks like Iron Man could be a rather potent character for Marvel Universe. Shame he’s a di…rector of S.H.I.E.L.D.

So, we’ve had two previews come up now, the first being the real version of the S.H.I.E.L.D Helicarrier:

Not pictured: This Helicarrier is in fact on it’s side having been hacked again, and speeding towards the ground.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t crash and burn into New York City like it should do, but I think we can just about forgive it, due to that rather tasty card-text. Popping three of your S.H.I.E.L.D Agents/ 2 Agents & Squirrel Girl back into your hand, which makes them ready to recruit all over again is a small price to pay for the ability to attack the support row, and have that sometimes-vital +2 ATK, whilst the card is safe and sound of course.

The cost may seem slightly restrictive, but on Turn 3, you can flip this card over once there’s three resources, pick up your 3-cost combination of past characters, and then recruit them all over again for endurance burn, saving you some characters for later turns. Let’s not forget Squirrel Girl allows you place a 1-cost S.H.I.E.L.D Army character into play alongside her, which means you’ll potentially have 6 endurance burn for the start of the turn, as well as the extra character on the board. It’s a small bonus, but I’ve learnt never to turn my nose up at the small bonuses.

The next card is:

Is it really smart to wear a metal helmet during a lightning storm if you’re a robot?

An odd card this one. The effect in the card-text doesn’t really scream “7-drop” to me. And to be honest, by Turn 7, you shouldn’t, in my opinion, have a very large hand. At this stage in the game, most Plot Twists should be spent, characters used for +1/+1 boosts etc. So, this card to me has rather limited potential, especially as it’s not all the cards you discard, but just the S.H.I.E.L.D characters you discard that go towards the ‘X’ amount.

From the looks of things, S.H.I.E.L.D will have two strategies to play around with; the off-curve swarm, and a more standard on-curve featuring the ‘big names’, as I have no doubt Nick Fury will see at least one other version, and Iron Man’s down for legend status, so I’d guess a 6-drop as well at the very least.

We’ll just have to wait until tomorrow’s preview to see how things pan out, so adios for now.

…for today’s preview, which is coming from The Fallout Shelter guys over at VS Realms, I thought I’d speculate on what today’s card could be:

It could be, you never know.

Some teasers about the set after Marvel Universe have emerged online, and rather than explain it in an inefficient manner, here’s the announcement from Vssystem.com:

VsSystem Update: Marvel Evolution
By David Humpherys
4/22/2008

Marvel Evolution continues in the same vein as recent releases and will contain increased content. Featuring 275 cards in the same rarity distribution as the Legends sets, Marvel Evolution will introduce several new mechanics, including the keywords Shift and Energize, bringing with them new ways to play and use your favorite characters.

This may be my first ever case-buying of VS System cards I do. I’m so freaking pumped by this news, it’s unbelievable. It’s practically everything I’ve wanted from past sets rolled into one, and I really can’t see this being a bad set at all.

I love yooooooou UDE.

Ahem…

60 x S.H.I.E.L.D Agents.

I then remembered that you only draw so many cards a round, and this wouldn’t work, but the premise is like this:

Every time you recruit one, your opponent loses 2 endurance. So let’s look at the maths:

Turn 1: 2 Endurance

Turn 2: 4 Endurance (6 Total)

Turn 3: 6 Endurance (12 Total)

Turn 4: 8 Endurance (20 Total)

Turn 5: 10 Endurance (30 Total)

Turn 6: 12 Endurance (42 Total)

Turn 7: 14 Endurance (56 Total)

So, with seven turns of gameplay, you could whittle your opponent down to 0 endurance, without ever entering into combat. You’d always have more characters than them by Turn 3 or 4, and can simply reinforce with no problem. Finally, you’ll never miss your drop.

So, what’s needed is to add into the fray a way to get cards into your hand as quick as possible, by Turn 4, as that’s when you start to drastically get diminishing returns. Something like Birthing Chamber would help, as would Damocles Base.

There’s some danger to be had from Scarecrow, Chiroptophobic, but whilst that reduces board presence to nothing, it also fills my hand up again, ready to place the cards into play again.

Once I have more of a concrete idea of what cards are in Marvel Universe, I’ll be sure to come back to this, as it seems like a great win-condition to pull on an unsuspecting opponent.

First off, for those of a politically correct nature (and located somewhere where the age of consent is more than 16) the 16-year old comment is about how long Squirrel Girl’s been in the comics business for (1992-2008), so don’t get on any high horses.

Now, on to business! The next wave (no, not that Nextwave) of Marvel Universe previews is up, and it was worth waiting until 2am to get them:

Iron Man realised next time he should put boosters somewhere more…useful next time.

The first one, Stark Armory, obviously works well in synergy with Iron Man, and will form part of his Legend tretament. However, rumblings are already afoot for the fact it looks like it can easily slot into a Doom Patrol/Horsemen of Apocalypse deck, and help 5-drop Apocalypse from reaching his much-wanted twenty +1/+1 counters. There’s also, yet again, the possiblity of using Mystique, Shapely Shifter to adopt the Iron Man name, and take advantage of some hitherto unavailable +1/+1 counters. With Stark Armory being playable from Turn 3, that’s two counters that can go on Mystique for the combat phase of Turn 4, which is nothing to be sniffed at, as she’ll be 10ATK/8DEF, comparable to a 5-drop. Plus, on Turn 5, she’ll get a third counter, giving her yet again, just a slight edge, which sometimes can make all the difference.

“This is my moody chair. Do not disturb me whilst I am using the moody chair.”

Nick Fury’s up next, and though he had a card in Marvel Legends, this one panders more to the Nick Fury character himself, being concealed to emulate his behind-the-scenes activities, and his ability to place troops into the battlefield without question. Already, the prospect of a Golden-Age team up with Multiple Man and Sentinel Mark IV is looking very appealing, as well as a team-up with the modern X-Men for some instant Fastball Special goodness.

She was never this scary in the comics. Well, unless you were Dr. Doom or Thanos.

This is one card that I know some people were fervantly wishing for in this set, and they weren’t disappointed. This preview, and the one following came from Rian Fike’s awesome Full. Body. Transplant. and I know he’s been waiting for this card for a long time. Squirrel Girl continues what appears to be the S.H.I.E.L.D theme of amassing the board with Army characters, and if this vein continues with such great cards for doing so, some games are going to need wider tables. A shame there wasn’t any humorous flavour-text, but I’m not going to complain, especially if this card means the rest of the Great Lakes Initiative get to appear.

“Quick! Fire ineffectually!”

Finally, what looks to be the base-unit for the S.H.I.E.L.D Army tactic comes with a nasty little twist, namely in the form of endurance burn. Whilst 2 endurance may not seem like much, it can make a difference during the game as a whole, and if S.H.I.E.L.D can reach the late-game, then I can’t imagine a better victory than dropping 7 or 8 of these cards for 14/16 endurance burn, which by that stage is normally enough to push your opponent into minus figures. After they’re in play, there’ll be so many of the little buggers in play, you can simply reinforce against the opponent’s attacks, and win yourself the game.

Having seen these tasty cards, I’ve finally decided what team I’ll be concentrating on when Marvel Universe arrives, and it’s definitely S.H.I.E.LD, possibly teamed up with Nextwave. (Yes, that Nextwave this time.) That is, unless Messiah CompleX/House of M characters make an appearance here too.

Long title, average-length album, shorter-than-usual review, as it’s quarter-past midnight, and I need to be up before midday tomorrow. So, without further ado:

Does It Offend You, Yeah? - You Have No Idea What You’re Getting Yourself Into…

There’s no album picture to make fun of

Does It Offend You, Yeah? are an electronic-based band from Reading in the UK, with the focus being primarily on the music rather than the vocals, with hard-hitting synths left, right, and centre, along with a coupel of guitar-led tracks dotted around, which admittedly, are some of the poorer tracks on the album. It all kicks off with three fantastic tracks in a row, Battle Royale, With a Heavy Heart, and We Are Rockstars. Each song revolving around a frentic beat of pulsating bass and riff lines, and minimalist vocals.

Unfortunately, the album then takes a turn for the worse with Dawn of The Dead, which sounds like almost any other band you could expect to find on the NME Channel on Sky. It takes another song or two until things return to normal with Let’s Make Out, followed by yet another generic-song, Being Bad Feels Pretty Good. The final song, Epic Last Song also feels a little underwhelming given the title, and not in an ironic sense unfortunately.

Overall, the album is rather a mixed bag. There’s enough highlights to save it from being relegated to the ‘listen to it sometimes’ pile, but the band need to focus more heavily on the crunching beats to avoid being washed away in the post-Klaxons climate. Though, to be fair, you can’t say much wrong with a band that has song titled Attack of The 60ft Lesbian Octopus.

Song To Download: Battle Royale

Song To Skip Past: Dawn of The Dead

Overall: 6/10

This was supposed to be posted on Wednesday, and the Wednesday before that…and the Wednesday before that. Unfortunately, Wednesday seems to be a darn-awful day to try and get anything done. Plus, I’ve had to start getting down to business with my revision for a couple of exams next week. So, I finally present; the deck I won’t be taking to the World Championships, but would love to:

Horse Patrol (Modern)

Characters

4x Elasti-Girl, Rita Farr
4x The Infinites, AoA
4x Sugar Man, AoA
4x Mento, Steve Dayton
4x Negative Man, Larry Trainor
4x Dark Beast, AoA
3x Robotman, Cliff Steele
3x Apocalypse, AoA (5-drop)
2x Beast Boy, Freak of Nature
1x Mikhail Rasputin, AoA
1x Apocalypse, AoA (8-drop)

Plot Twists

4x Freak Out
4x Heroic Effort
3x Marvel Crossover
4x Misfits
3x Pathetic Attempt
2x Omnipotence
2x Strange Days

Locations

2x Dayton Manor
2x Breeding Pens

It’s a standard Doom Patrol/Horsemen of Apocalypse team-up, with the aim of surviving through until Turn 5, and then dumping as many +1/+1 counters onto the 5-drop Apocalypse as possible. I had a version of this deck floating around back when DC Legends first came out, but this is the first time I’ve updated it to include The Infinites and Breeding Pens. Unfortunately, the deck tends to not hold it’s weight against some of the bigger decks out there, which is why the Pathetic Attempts and Omnipotences are included. As it’s not quite as competitive a deck as my Brotherhood one is, I’ll not be considering using this for the World Championships in June, but it’s one that sees play online from time to time. Also, I’m still awaiting many of the cards from the UDE Points Store, so this deck can’t be created by me in real-life just yet anyhow.

I’ve also had to skimp on my views on the new Marvel Universe Hulk cards previewed this week, thanks to the revision again. So, whilst I can’t fit them all into this one post, I’ll place up the one that’s most intriguing for me.

The Hulk’s shouted that man’s hair off!

So, you may simply be thinking; “It’s a Hulk-stamped ungodly +8 ATK card. Aside from making me go and cry in the corner, what’s the big deal?” Well, the deal is Mystique, Shapely Shifter. From Turn 4, she can go “Hello, I’m now called Hulk. Give me the +8 ATK goodness please.” A rather nice addition to my Brotherhood deck, and if I can get a playset of this card, Sabretooth may have to make way for the shape-shifting lady.

And in addendum, I finally get my loans/grants for this term at University tomorrow, so I can go and pre-order my boxes of Marvel Universe, and buy the singles I need to finish off my Modern Brotherhood deck. If I can find copies of Random that is.