Rock et metal progressifs, science-fiction, jeu de rôle et divagations de vieux gauchiste; maison fondée en 2002
You see, I had this weird dream (is there any other kind of dreams, by the way?) about going back to my old high school and talking with a priest about my religious convictions (or, arguably, the lack thereof).
The short of it is, I believe there is a god, of sorts, I don’t belong to any religion, but I share many beliefs with a few of them.
Before going any further, there is probably some need for definitions, just so that you know how I see things.
What happen when you mix a noodle-making old kung fu master, (quite literaly) cat burglar siblings, a street-savvy Hong Kong tech head, a 19th century Wiccan sorcerer, hordes of mooks, idiotic plots and Evil Lunatics?
Well, our average game of Feng Shui, of course!
Feng Shui is a table-top role-playing game, published by Atlas Games. It’s based on action movies, especially HK-style action movies. Not only the cops-vs-triads kind, but also the Eastern sword & sorcery, wuxia type, and even wilder stuff. All rolled into one.
OK, first review then, more or less. I’ll start with an anime: Spriggan (or “The Spriggan”).
I’ve been waiting for this one for a long time, salivating in front of the ADV trailer. Finally it’s here, and I’m stuck with a severe case of trailer withdrawal syndrome.
You know the feeling: you watch a trailer and think: “Wow, all this action! It must be a very cool movie…” And when you eventually watch said movie, you realise all the great action scenes were in the trailer and the rest of the movie is a lot of filler stuff and second-rate action. This is especially aggravating when you wait about one year after first watching the trailer!
Now, Spriggan left me with that kind of feeling. Not the worst offender in that category I ever encountered, but bad enough. But then, trailers have a tendency to reinforce action scene by editing the scenes in very short, MTV-clip-like fashion. This said, it’s not a bad anime; I would rate it around my top 20% (i.e. if I’ve seen 100 animes, this one is among the 20 best).
Animation is very smooth, with a bit of CGI (not always well-integrated, but OK). Quite a few neat “camera” effects (you’ll know it when you see it) and really frantic action scenes; the chase/fight inside Istambul’s market is very impressive.
Okay, into the fray then. Theantix‘ Who You Are story incited me to make the plunge and start my own blog.
That’s the easy part. The hard part is, what am I going to talk / write about?
There came the Bag of Tricks.
Those of you with AD&D flashbacks (mine are quite painful, but I’ll get into that in a later entry…) will remember the Bag of Tricks; Nethack has it, too. It was a magic sack, from which you could get about anything.