We're All Going to Die

So Lately I haven't been posting well anything.
Somehow my grand idea never really came together for this site. Maybe I'll start it up again, but i wanted to get this out there because it's related to my new found interest in Table Top RPGs (started playing D&D 4.0 then 3.5 and fell in love).
I've been trying to find a way to do a modern day Zombie survival RPG with my friends that was cheap, easy, and quick to play. And i think i may have found it. with We're all going to Die. The page title will link you to Cavalorn's (the creator of WAGD) Livejournal page, but I thought I'd repost it here. Hey, he told me too. See it so right at hte bottom of the text. Well anyway, you should also pass this along if you care to. It should be a lot of fun to play. I'll let you know how it turns out.

We're All Going To Die: a single-page RPG


Genre: cinematic modern horror. Playing time: 2-4 hours tops.

1. GM supplies general setting of the game, e.g. Teenage Slasher or Suburban Zombie Apocalypse. Everyone creates a character accordingly.

2. List FOUR things that the character is especially GOOD at, such as running, driving, climbing, picking locks, survival in the outdoors, fast talking or decapitating zombies using only a vintage 1940s tea set. The GM must ratify these.

3. List TWO things that the character is especially BAD at, such as swimming, finding their way in the wild, avoiding alcohol, keeping their cool in a fight, or not flipping out in confined spaces. GM ratifies as before.

4. Everyone writes their name on a piece of paper and gives it to the GM.

5. The GM picks out one name at random. This person is the Survivor. No matter WHAT happens (except see below), this person will survive, so long as he is trying to. Everyone else will die. Without exception. Everyone. The players are not told who the Survivor is.

6. The game proceeds. There are no die rolls. The GM decides the outcome of any situation based on that ONE initial intervention of fate - the selection of the Survivor - and on the Players' selection of things that they are good at and bad at. If the GM wishes, however, he can roll dice in private to see which way a situation goes.

7. Even if a player is fated to die, they can keep that fate from occurring for as long as possible by simply being practical and efficient, as in any other game. If you run away from zombies, you may escape for the moment. Not being the Survivor does not mean that you get randomly hit by a bus within five minutes of starting the game. However, there is no way to tell whether, on any given occasion, you survived because you were the Survivor or because the GM decided that your actions were sufficient to let you escape. The only sure thing is that even the Survivor has to make an effort to survive. The difference is that the Survivor *will always* survive.

8. Because of this, the GM is at liberty (and is positively ENCOURAGED) to fuck with the players' heads as much as possible. Every narrow escape is a hint that the person MIGHT be the Survivor, OR is the GM screwing with you to make you THINK that the person might be the Survivor.

THE META RULE
9. The Survivor's immunity to death covers NPC actions ONLY. It does not apply to Players, including the Survivor himself. Thus, any attempt to 'test' who the Survivor is, such as by having a character jump into a pool of lava to see whether he dies or not, or any action that the GM interprets as deliberately suicidal, revokes the Survivor's status for the duration of the test. That is, if you shoot yourself in the head to see whether you will die, you will die, whether you were the Survivor or not. In that event, everyone else will still die. The mantle of Survivor does not pass.

THE OPTIONAL BOO-HOO HE WAS SO NOBLE AND SELFLESS RULE
10. The mantle of Survivor *may* be passed to a new character if the Survivor deliberately sacrifices himself so that others can live. 'You go on! I'll hold the zombies back!' 'But you'll DIE!' 'I know. RUN!' etc etc etc.

Edit: feel free to circulate, link back, print out and hand to random strangers etc.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Deadspace

Dead Space 'Horror' trailer HD

(video courtesy of gamevideos.1up.com)
What is it?
Dead Space is a 3rd-person-shooter, action game Developed by Visceral Games of EA. The game puts you in the armored suit of Isaac, an Engineer sent with a small team to the ship known as the USG Ishimura to offer repairs. When the team arrives, however, you find the place has gone to hell because of some unknown alien source, causing the dead bodies of the Ishimura's crew to be reanimated as creatures known as "Necromorphs". It then becomes your job to find a way to repair your ship, and leave the Ishimura alive.

As Isaac, the player is far from helpless in this horrific world. His engineer's suit has a few very cool enhancements, such as: stasis (the ability to slow enemies or parts of the environment), kinesis module (a sort of telekinetic ability that allows the player to move and throw/shoot parts of the environment), air canisters to breathe outside, and magnetic boots that let Isaac to move around the rooms with zero gravity. His weapons (modified mining tools) are probably the most useful in the fight to escape.

The game starts you off with no weapon at all. The first time you encounter a necromorph, you are absolutely powerless to really defend yourself (except maybe to try to punch him with your arm). But once you receive your first weapon, the Plasma cutter, that sense of powerlessness is gone for the rest of the game. The method for success in Dead Space is quite simple: Shoot of their limbs; Don't die. If you can do that you might just survive the horrors of the Ishimura.

How did i feel about it?
Dead space did a lot of interesting things with it's game play mechanics that I just loved. Like many others who have reviewed this game, I found the Zero-G areas to be awesome puzzles and fight sequences. Figuring out which weapon was best for which type of gun was best suited for each type of necromorph was fun, though I'm under the impression that, though very difficult, it wouldn't be impossible to finish the game with nothing but the plasma cutter and your suit.

To be honest, at no point was I ever overly frightened by the game, and I'm usually one who is scared easily (I was afraid of E.T. as a young child). I think that is due to the fact that I learned very early, cutting off limbs was the fastest way to kill them. And you don't just hear it once. Practically everyone who as the means to tell you [your partners, audio logs, text logs, etc.] will tell you to do it. I'm almost positive that at some point when one of the necromorphs was attacking me, it too reminded me of it's fatal weakness and I just wasn't paying close enough to catch it.

Overall, the game has amazing set design. you quickly start to learn where the monsters pop out from (which is any texture on the wall/ceiling/floor that doesn't match the surrounding) and the game starts to play little mental tricks on you that make you expect something to be there, but most of the time it's nothing and you're looking around for no reason. The strange back story with the religion that was trying to get the relic that was causing the madness seemed rather throwaway to me. It was more than was needed, but didn't really add or detract from the rest of the game in any measurable way.

If Dead Space sounds interesting to you, I promise it will be worth your investment. If you think your fear might get the best of you, make your friend play it and watch over their shoulder. You might actually be helpful in seeing something he/she didn't.

Graphical Design:
Game Play:
Story:
Overall:

Ubiquity from Mozilla Labs

Prepare to have you Internet changed forever with Mozilla Labs' new FireFox tool, Ubiquity.

What is it?
I don't think this question could be harder to answer. Ubiquity is an "add-on" or extension for Mozilla FireFox. but it's so much more than that. It really a new way to view, use, and manipulate the web. It allows you to gain instant access to searches (google, wikipedia, amazon, imdb, youtube, ebay,etc), social networks (twitter, digg, etc.), your email, google calendar, and even control over your browser (restart, close tab, switch tab, zoom, refresh, etc.). All of this with out having to leave your page or your keyboard. To access Ubiquity, all that is needed is a quick hot key (CTRL+SPACE) and a black panel opens in the window above your current page. from there you start typing the command and what you want and it does it for you. You even can give it access to your twitter and email so they will be easier to access. For a few examples make sure to check out the video on Mozilla Labs site.

How do I feel about it?
To put it simply: I love Ubiquity. Quick, someone make me an I {Heart} Ubiquity shirt and I shall wear it. Ubitquity changed the way I use my web browser (which has been FireFox for quite some time now). I use it if I'm browsing the web and i find something interesting and want to twitter about it. Also it's good to send a quick email to someone so I don't forget to do it later. The cool thing is, you can even create your own commands with out much effort. I made one for my university's search page and people search page. I know this product is hard to understand, but since its absolutely free, I see no reason not to try it out for your self. If you use the web in an absolutely casual way (only to look up the word for something or the occasional email) Ubiquity may not be for you (or maybe it could be; you can get definitions right in ubiquity). If you like the depth of the rabbit hole, however, than you will definitely find some use for it (even if its just to update twitter with out going to the twitter homepage).

Rating
Functionality:
Ease of Use:
Control:
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E-[Z] Reviews

So this is the beginning. Based on how spur of the moment this is, I could also be the end, but lets hope it is not for now. Lets start with the name.

E-[Z] Reviews actually has meaning. First, I intend to post easy to read (and easy to write) reviews of various things i come across on my life's journey. When I say various, I definately mean EVERYTHING: Books, Albums, TV shows, Video Games, Resturants, Anime, Manga, Other Blogs, and pretty much any thing that i come across and want to share.

The other aspect meaning embedded in the name is in the E and the Z. As most people have known by now is that 'e' is often used to abbreviate electronic. Well that's the case here too. As for the Z, Well, my net-name is Zearen, so I thought it important to incorporate that (plus it makes the first meaning possible).

My reviews will have a very simple format. 1. What is it? 2. How did i feel about it? 3. Star scores. Yeah so its kinda simple, but that's what makes it E-[Z]. I'm not an English or jounalism major, and I have no real intention of making a career out of writing. This is just an easy way to keep up my writing skills. My star score system will be on a scale of 0-5 (maybe I'll include halves, but i doubt it) and may also include catigories based on the subject, Like this:
Restaurant:
Food:
Atmosphere:
Service:
Overall:

So now that you know why my site exist, I hope that maybe you would also like to join me. If you have a product, place, or experience you would like to review, please feel free to wip one up and I'd be glad to share it on here. Or if I've reviewed something that you've also experienced, please comment on the post so your voice can be heard as well.

Well that's the end of my spiel. My job now is to find some products to review (and some readers). I hope this idea continues for me and becomes something i do for a long while.

Thanks for Reading,
MJZearen