Remember when Star Wars was awesome?

I do. As a teen I used to read all the book; I’ve seen the original movies a dozen times and more. Campy though they are in places, they’re incredibly good popcorn movies. I even like the Ewoks. And though George Lucas tinkered overmuch with the Special Editions in the late ’90s, they were still good fun, and it was worth going just to see them on the big screen.

But after that …

I won’t belabor all the ways the prequel trilogy dragged down the fun times of the original movies. Suffice it to say: If you have a good bad guy, don’t give him a history. And if you have to give him a history, please don’t show him to us as a happy-go-lucky kid and then a petulant teenager. Kinda takes the edge off the 7-foot half-machine monster he turns into later.

Let’s not even talk about this summer’s “Clone Wars” movie.

The best “Star Wars” stories these days are told in the games. Not all of them, of course, but enough. “Republic Commando,” aside from being a bang-up shooter, offered a nifty glimpse into what goes on behind the visor of a Clone Trooper’s helmet. “Knights of the Old Republic” is one of the best “Star Wars” tales, period, taking place thousands of years before the movies during another bitter war between the forces of light and dark.

And now we have “The Force Unleashed,” which is … pretty good. The gameplay borrows liberally from a decade’s worth of action games, but isn’t polished enough to really stand out — there are control hitches, camera problems and opportunities for numerous deaths that can’t be blamed on the player. Still, in giving you control of Vader’s secret Dark Side apprentice it at least tries to make you feel as powerful as the image at the top of this post would suggest.

The most interesting bit is the story — it’s well-plotted and well-told, allowing for the fragmentary nature of game narratives, and Vader’s apprentice is a far more likable character than Anakin Skywalker himself ever was. There’s some speculation that the game’s narrative might be reworked into a movie that would bridge the gap between Anakin’s fall and Luke Skywalker’s coming-of-age.

Who knows if it’ll happen. But I hope it does, or something similar. “Star Wars” has become weighed down by a whiny Anakin Skywalker and a mawkish love story, to say nothing of Jar Jar Binks.

Decent games are fine things, “Star Wars” needs a shot in the arm if it hopes to appeal to anyone past their tweens in the future. Maybe it doesn’t. But I hope it gets one.

(Image from LucasArts)

You might have heard of a game called “Alien Hominid.” If you haven’t, the short version is that it was a banner example of indie-game success, a Flash game on Newgrounds that grew into a PlayStation 2 and GameCube release by The Behemoth, and later into Alien Hominid HD on the Xbox Live Arcade.

More recently the studio behind the game released “Castle Crashers,” a modernized four-player beat-’em-up in more or less the style of the old “TMNT” arcade games and other big coin-operated brawlers — except “Castle Crashers” is funnier and more twisted.

GET TO THE POINT, you say. Fine.

This week’s games are both by the same folks, and both are free browser-based games in the vein of “Alien Hominid,” featuring the singular art style that runs through both. The first is …

“Castle Crashing the Beard” is a spin-off that’s more of a joke than anything else — in it you play as the Blue Knight from “Castle Crashers” against the floating, scowling, bearded head of artist Dan Paladin, who is behind The Behemoth’s singular art style. It’s nothing complex, but it’s weird and fun. And weird. Which brings us to the second game …

“Dad n’ Me”  is more of precursor to “Castle Crashers.” It has similar arcade-brawler gameplay, but with a miniature Jason Vorhees-like character fighting with rival schoolkids on his way to meet his bigger, meaner dad on the other side of town. It plays a bit like a slower, less developed “Castle Crashers,” in fact. The game, like nearly all Behemoth games, has a twisted sense of humor and a fair bit of blood, so beware.

Neither game is rated, but treat them as Teen-rated games, as their content is similar to the T-rated console games these guys have released.

(Screen captures by Justin Hoeger)

When I was a kid we mostly played pretty traditional board games: Chess, Monopoly, Life, Connect 4, Balderdash, Clue, Pente, Scrabble, stuff like that. When I was a teenager my brother started playing Dungeons & Dragons — which I  never really got into (too abstract, I think) — and both of us occasionally played fantasy-themed board games like HeroQuest and Battle Masters.

In high school I played a lot of the popular card game Magic: The Gathering (I still have a box of the cards somewhere — anyone need a Vesuvian Doppelganger? I’ve got, like, four.), but I quit the game after myself and my lunchtime play buddies graduated — no one left to play with, you see. Since then my attention has remained focused on video games; aside from occasional matches of Pente or Boggle or whatever with friends and at family gatherings, I hardly played non-electronic games for years, and I certainly didn’t buy any.

I realized last year that I’ve been missing out. The catalyst was Catan, a board game whose cardboard version I’d heard talked up on message boards but which I’d never tried (its picture is at the top of this entry). Suddenly it was made available in video-game form on the Xbox 360’s Live Arcade — I played it a few times, and liked it. I wasn’t very good, but I had fun. And so I started looking into what modern board games had to offer, and discovered the existence of German-style board games, of which Catan is one of the most prominent examples.

Over the following year or so, more digital versions of notable board and card games were released on XBLA, including Carcassonne, Lost Cities and Ticket to Ride. I also figured out that there are more than a few board games based on video games. And now there’s even one based on Battlestar Galactica, pretty much my favorite show ever.

So I gave in. With a birthday coming up a while back, I put games on my list and received a couple doozies: Twilight Imperium, along with its expansion, Shattered Empire; Arkham Horror, based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft (thankfully minus the overt racism and classism that marked his writing); and a fun little word game called Quiddler. And about a week later my wife and I picked up a copy of Catan from Tom’s Toys in SLO, and liked it so much that we’ve put in an Amazon order for the Seafarers expansion.

With so many new things to play, I think we’ll be set for a while. Not that I don’t have my eye on a few games for the future.

Catan is the one we’ve played the most — the goal  is to gather resources and build settlements and roads on an island, with the first player to reach 10 “victory points” declared the winner (we’ve found the 10-point limit makes for a shorter game than we’d prefer, so we’ve been upping it to 13).

We haven’t yet had time (or enough people) to try out Twilight Imperium, but it looks like a blast — it’s a space-conquering game where three to eight players try to become the emperor of the known galaxy through conquest and political maneuvering.

I played a few practice rounds by myself to get a handle on the rather complex rules — this one isn’t a rookie game,  but figuring out how a beast like this works is half the fun.

And finally, Arkham Horror is a battle with the forces of chaos and madness. You have to maintain your character’s sanity and stamina while fighting monsters and  exploring alternate dimensions, then return to the city of Arkham so you can shut and seal the gates leading to these strange other worlds. Seal enough of them and you win; take too long and one of Lovecraft’s mythical monsters, like Cthulhu, wakes up and probably eats you. There’s a chance that you can send the creature back whence it came if it wakes up, but the odds are against you — the odds are always against you in this game. It makes for an intense, suspenseful game, and is the only board game I’ve played in which the players can all lose.

The point of all this is that board games these days are really neat, and if all you’re familiar with are the classics it would be worth your while to take a look at what newer games have to offer. Locally, it appears that Tom’s Toys and Captain Nemo Games & Comics have the best selections, though Barnes & Noble has its share as well. Let me know in the comments if I’ve missed and notable local sources. And by all means, discuss your own favorites!

(Images from Wikipedia)

So I’m back, but I’ve been busy. I haven’t had time to post this week until now, but you’ll get your free game tomorrow, I promise!

In the meantime, a bit of news for the “World of Warcraft” players in the audience: If you manage to hook a friend (as in, send them a trial account key that they later upgrade to a full account for at least two months of game time), Blizzard will give you some goodies. These include faster character leveling and the ability for you or your friend to summon each other for easier teaming-up.

But the real prize is the Zhevra, a horned zebra mount you can ride around. Mounts in WoW typically cost a lot of in-game money and usually can’t even be bought until a character reaches a fairly high level, so getting one for “free” like this seems like it would make it worth the trouble to refer a friend to the game.

Oh, and if you don’t play the game: Watch out if you receive an invitation from someone trying to score their own Zhevra. This game is a tough habit to break.

Yeah, so, oops. In all the Fourth of July commotion I forgot to post a free game yesterday. I make it up to you today by offering two, and a lead on a third.

The first is “Minishoter RS,” a Japanese freeware game by Peposoft. And yes, the title is spelled like that. Anyway, it’s a very simple space shooter — there are several ships to choose from, each with two weapons, an energy shield and a limited dash ability. And it is very, very small — at its default setting the game display looks like this:

Not very big at all. But it’s fun, and it’s free (oh, and the display window can be boosted to about three times that size).

Also this week, I direct your attention to Game Giveaway of the Day, which puts up games each Saturday and Sunday that are free for that day only — you have to download and install them in that time, or lose the chance forever (though demos for many of the games are freely available, and you can always, well, pay). Today’s is called “Troll” — check the site tomorrow for another one.

(Screen capture taken by Justin Hoeger)

It has been nearly eight years since the release of Blizzard Entertainment’s mega-popular computer game “Diablo II.” (Blizzard is the same company that created “World of Warcraft” and “Starcraft.”) Now, after an expansion, numerous revisions and a whole series of spinoff novels, the next chapter in the series has been revealed.

And true to Internet form, some people are already complaining. Addressing them: The game you’ve been wanting for nearly a decade is finally announced and all you can do is carp about how the art design isn’t as dark and dank as you’d like? Seriously? Geez, get a grip.

Anyway, the rest of us “Diablo” fans are looking forward to another habit-forming adventure in the demon-infested world of Sanctuary. Over the weekend I reinstalled my copy of the game at home and started playing, and was quickly reminded why it’s so compelling.

On its face the game doesn’t sound that special: You create a hero, selecting from several different character classes like Barbarian, Necromancer and Paladin, then journey out into the world to kill monsters, pick up the loot they drop, move on and repeat. It’s a simple formula.

What makes “Diablo II” work so well is its nearly infinite replayability. The base game has five character classes; two more were added by the expansion. Each of these classes has its own specialties, with a variety of abilities divided among three distinct skill paths — a Druid, for example, can learn skills in Elemental, Summoning and Shape Shifting disciplines.

As a player player monsters and finishes quests he or she earns points to spend on skills in these trees, but there are only so many to go around and they can’t be regained once spent. How a character’s skill set is customized is as important as the weapons they wield. Add to this a huge array of equipment and items, area layouts that are randomized each time you start a new game and an interesting story, and you have a recipe for a killer time sink.

The complete “Diablo” package is pretty cheap these days —it can be found for as low as $30 or so online — and with the sequel in development now would be a good time to check this classic out.

(Image courtesy of Blizzard.com)

What is one thing that “Aliens,” “Iron Man,” “The Terminator” and “Jurassic Park” have in common? No, not James Cameron. No, not scary monsters. No, not metallic men.

The correct answer is special effects wizard Stan Winston, who died yesterday. Winston worked on these movies and many more in his decades-long career. He was an effects pioneer — his creations were the stuff of dreams and nightmares, and though his studios will likely carry on, he will be missed.

(Image courtesy of MovieWeb)

I’ve talked about Web comics here before, vis-a-vis the recently released Penny Arcade video game. But today I’m here to talk about a different comic — one that has nothing to do with video games.

(What, you didn’t expect me to talk about video games here all the time, did you? Good. That would get boring for both of us.)

Anyway, the comic I’m talking about is a fantastic creation called Gunnerkrigg Court, written and drawn by Tom Siddell. That link will take you to the most recent page; if you haven’t read the comic before, it’s best to start at the beginning. (For the print-inclined there’s also a new hardcover book that collects the majority of the comic’s run so far.)

Gunnerkrigg Court follows the adventures of Antimony Carver, a young girl who attends the vast but mostly empty boarding school of the title. This facility is huge and mysterious, and seems mostly dedicated to teaching technology and practical mysticism to its relatively few students.

Across the bridge from the school there lies an equally enormous forest teeming with fairies and gods and other strange creatures. The story of the comic so far has been a slow reveal of some of the conflicts between these two sides — nature and technology — and Antimony’s place in them, with plenty of lighter stuff going on in between. The main plot shows signs of being drawn out for some time to come, but the comic never drags and never gets dull.

The feel of the Court and its inhabitants is part Neil Gaiman, part Harry Potter and part Invader ZIM. It’s often bizarre and creepy, though never really frightening or gory. Siddell’s world is one where the unexplainable is commonplace, where a student can cobble together a thinking robot from spare parts and see it come back to her possessed by a shadow, where an angry wolf with a wooden body accompanies the deity Coyote on a trip to the Court to argue with its administrators over a mechanical bird.

In other words, it’s a great read. Check it out!

(Artwork courtesy of Gunnerkrigg.com)