I think the stretchy arms are a little less reliable than they should be, and it’ll be interesting to see how Bionic Commando plays with a similar mechanic, and whether they can show Sonic Team/Dimps how to do it.

I’m now playing the 360 version of Sonic Unleashed by the way, and having battled through forty minutes of werehog I’ve just blitzed through Sonic’s Mazuri level with my mouth either gaping or grinning. It was worth upgrading from the Wii version for!

1) Card games. A few premade decks of Magic: the Gathering cards, a brisk game of Nuclear War (from Flying Buffalo, ask for it by name!) or a slapstick game of no-holds-barred Munchkin can help ease the pain of not playing the game they expected.

2) Beer-and-Pretzels games. Light-hearted and rules-light games like Paranoia, Kobolds Ate My Baby!, or even Marvel Super Heroes Saga Edition are easy to whip out, play through the evening, and leave feeling you weren’t wholly cheated.

3) Movie Night. Now, how often does your gaming group go out together to see a movie? How about game-related movies like Conan, Blade Runner, or Dungeons & Dragons? ( I kid on the last one, it really wasn’t that good, but if you want to, it’s your own slice of heaven, go for it). Pop a DVD in the player and imagine it’s your character slicing off those limbs!

4) Mindless fun/ non-gaming. Cocktails and reminiscing to a spur-of-the-moment BreakKey tournament (what a waste of plastic those things are, but they were soooo cheap…), possibilities are endless. Just avoid mixing gaming and drinking if you’re running a serious long-standing game, as odd results may follow. One group I was a part of got trashed one night I wasn’t there, pulled out their character sheets (playing West End Games’ Star Wars RPG) and decided they wanted to spend all their character points and cash to become a swoop (think the choppers of speeder bikes, a jet engine with handlebars) gang. When we got around the table the next week, no one could remember how their characters got broke and out of character points, until they all noticed they had high levels of Swoop Operation….

This is my short list of things to do when folks miss bellying up to my table…

Very cool use, but I don’t think you can hold the water in place like that or control where it flows once it has been conjured. Either way, it worked for your game though, so that’s what counts for the session, and I imagine it was still lots of fun.

Another hero being swarmed by creatures, don’t want to risk firing into melee; then fear not just wash them right out. Cast the spell over their head, making sure to specify that it is a small area effect to give maximum force to the water.

Had this one when a party member was being swarmed by a leech creature, there was options of flamestrike, fireball, etc. That would mean hitting our hero, so I decided to use Create Water to drown them instead.

The GM makes, and can change, the rules.

Every 5yo to ever tackle Monopoly knows that the ‘house rules’ make a big difference.

I can assemble a campaign using 4e, and then I can tweak the guidelines *offered* by the 4e rulebooks to suit my game, my players and my overall campaign.

No MMORPG can do that.

What better gift this Christmas than the best articles from the brightest stars in video game blogging? Let’s get on with it!
On the first-day of Christmas, Julie Maloney gave to me, "How I Lost Sixty Pounds", posted at The Cool Mom Gui…

I’m aware this can be done, and I do this if I’m playing an intensive game. However, I have to say, this is quite a pain, and that doesn’t change that different operating systems have system processes that use up different amounts of RAM.

Still, it is a great tip for anyone who was unaware this can be done. Thanks for bringing it up!