The Knight...Monsters...?

Over the summer, we learned that western Nevada was getting a minor-league hockey team (owned by Tim Tebow, to add a little dose of "huh?" to the news). The team's name and logo were revealed yesterday. Ladies and gentlemen, the Tahoe Knight Monsters will be taking the ice next season and filling our brains with cognitive dissonance. So they're both knights and monsters? I'm not quite sure how a dragon can also be a knight. (Okay, okay, I'll admit there's Ironside from the Druid Cycle campaign world.) The "Knight" part of the name clearly is meant to evoke Nevada's other two professional hockey teams, the STANLEY CUP CHAMPION Vegas Golden Knights and their top minor-league affiliate, the Henderson Silver Knights. Is Tahoe angling to become Vegas's ECHL-level team? I sincerely hope so, but if that's the case, why choose a teal-based color scheme that's so obviously linked to Vegas's bitter rival, the San Jose Sharks? Would any self-respecting Knights fan (of the Golden or Silver variety) be caught wearing teal? Well, this guy will, because no matter how much I detest the name or colors, I'm here to support our team, and I'll be completely decked out in Tahoe gear. I'll also be even more eager to get my hands on next year's EA Sports NHL hockey game for our Xbox, as that series includes all ECHL franchises, so my boys and I will be able to play as the local team!

Return to IWD

With Amy and Matthew at a swim meet this past weekend, Nathaniel and I were on our own. We did a bit of modeling, but he was keen on some D&D video game action, so we played a bit of the classic '90s Chronicles of Mystara games on our Xbox. He was looking for something more, so I suggested we check out the renowned Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale series; after I described both in detail, he opted for Icewind Dale, so we picked up the Enhanced Edition on Steam and jumped into some old-school second-edition character creation! Nathaniel created three heroes based on some of his favorite characters of past campaigns, and I contributed three of my own -- including a new incarnation of my all-time favorite character from my first-ever IWD play-through. We're still early in the game, but he's loving it so far, and I'm glad to be able to share this experience with him!

Eldrith Eliminated

Nathaniel and I have been playing Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance on Xbox on and off for the past five months or so. Today we finally beat the game, defeating the evil undead warlord Eldrith, architect of the titular dark alliance. It may be twenty years old, but the game aged well and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

The Isles Win It All!

On a brighter note, I won the Stanley Cup today with the New York Islanders in NHL '94 -- my first championship in that video game since, well, the actual year 1994. Why the Islanders, you ask? Why not my semi-local Golden Knights, my beloved Rangers, or even the long-suffering Sabres? I've really grown to like the Isles over their last two postseason runs. Maybe next year they'll find a way to get past the increasingly irritating Tampa Bay Lightning and newly-emerging supervillain Nikita Kucherov, who's likely to find a place of (dis)honor -- alongside the likes of Tom Wilson, Alex Ovechkin, and Brad Marchand -- in my pantheon of hockey heels.

Worth the Wait

I've waited over six months for NHL '21 to come down in price so that I could justify purchasing it solely for the copy of NHL '94 that comes bundled with it. Matthew noticed the other day that NHL '21 was on sale for about twenty bucks, so I jumped on it. 

This old gem was worth the wait! From the graphics to the music to the sound effects, NHL '94 is just as I remember it from high school. Well, it's not exactly as I remember it, because it's a lot harder to play using the Xbox controllers. Once I get the hang of it, I can't wait to start a playoff and guide my team to the Cup!

Pop quiz: Why do these screenshots feature the New York Rangers and Vancouver Canucks?

Sunset Mountains

Nathaniel and I have reached the second of three chapters in Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance. We're now traipsing through the Sunset Mountains, looking for the oil needed to start a signal fire. Tons of fun so far!

Down Into the Sewers

It's rare that I enjoy (non-hockey) games on the Xbox, but Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance is right up my alley. Nathaniel is also quite taken with the game. He's playing as the archer, and I the sorceress, and since Saturday morning we've logged a couple of hours in the sewers beneath Baldur's Gate. It's also great to have a game I can play with Nathaniel, as he's not as keen on hockey games as Matthew is. I suspect we'll play this one all the way through!

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance

Just heard that the classic console game Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance is being re-released for Xbox tomorrow. Was it really twenty years ago that I first saw this game at Matt's house in Rochester? In any case, you bet your sweet beholder I'll be buying it! 

NHL '94

I've always been more of a paper-and-pencil gamer than a video gamer. Keep your first-person shooters and your MMOs, and give me board games and roleplaying games any day of the week.

However, one of the few video games that has left an indelible mark upon my life is NHL '94 from EA Sports ("It's in the game!"). Every day after school, my good buddy Jason (the legendary Sir Roberts from the original Druid Cycle campaign) would come over and we'd load up '94 on the Sega Genesis. We played through countless postseasons, winning Cup after Cup. Although we were both die-hard Rangers fans, we kept coming back to the Maple Leafs. Those early '90s Toronto teams were a lot of fun. There was Doug Gilmour, Dave Andreychuk, Wendel Clark, Felix Potvin...and then, after the season, the MATS SUNDIN trade! Rocked our worlds. 

Now, EA Sports is bringing back NHL '94, and I can't wait to download it. I've posted a few times here about playing the last couple of EA Sports hockey games on our Xbox, and they're very good, but nothing can compare to the original! (Well, technically it wasn't the first game in that series, but it was the one that created a decades-long phenomenon!) I can't wait to share it with my boys!

Old Time Hockey!

I picked up NHL 20 on the cheap for our Xbox, and the boys and I are enjoying its handful of subtle enhancements over NHL 19. (Sadly, though, the legendary Doc Emrick doesn't do the play-by-play in this year's version of the game.) One thing that dawned on me is that the game is chock-full of opportunities to use players of the past. I'm now building a team of hockey heroes of yesteryear, focusing on the earliest players available. NHL 20 doesn't have the likes of Hod Stuart and Frank McGee (the lads I'm using in my pre-NHL Strat-O-Matic league), but it's certainly fun to zip around as Howie Morenz and Charlie Conacher. As for the team, I have enough forwards and an abundance of goaltenders, but the game doesn't offer many early defensemen. As such, I've used the create-a-player feature to build video game versions of Cyclone Taylor (an entirely pre-NHL player, but hands-down my favorite historical hockey star) and Eddie "Old-Time Hockey!" Shore to bolster the blueline. These guys will teach those young whippersnappers like Connor McDavid a thing or two about how the game is played!

Return to Mystara

It was just over a year ago that the boys and I played through the first of two '90s D&D arcade games that we'd downloaded for our Xbox. Yesterday we decided to kill some time before the Super Bowl by tackling the second game in the Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara series. This one provides several character class options beyond what was available in the original, so we all had fun trying out different classes whenever we got killed -- which was often. (And we were elated to learn that the cleric has the infamous Sticks to Snakes spell that provided so much entertainment in the original game!) The boys cycled through lots of characters, while I tended to stay with a human fighter named Devon. (And every time he would die and re-spawn, I invariably invoked one of our favorite recurring SNL gags: "Devon? Whaaaaat are you doing here?") We were deep into the game when my friend Kyle showed up to watch the Super Bowl with us, so we handed him our fourth controller and he joined in the action. We had to delay the final two boss fights until the break between the first and second quarters, but we beat the game and then enjoyed watching the Chiefs beat the Niners!

Holiday Game Action

The boys and I wrapped up another thoroughly entertaining adventure with our Toronto crew yesterday, but it was the only D&D we've played in quite a while (aside from a brief Shattered Realm episode that I managed to shoehorn into one weekend morning). With all the kids' activities, it seems to be getting harder to find the time to roll dice. Progress on our main Shattered Realm campaign is pretty damn slow, and other D&D stuff we'd like to do -- an Eberron mini-campaign is probably at the top of the list -- seems like it will be tough to pull off.

I'm looking forward to the holidays, as it will give us an opportunity to spend time together and have fun. When the kids aren't playing Xbox with their cousins, we'll dig into some of their gaming-related Christmas stuff. I'll have numerous units to assemble for the Tanks miniatures game, as both boys are now quite interested in twentieth-century military history. On that score, Nathaniel will also be getting a couple of Axis & Allies games. (I only remember the classic -- apparently now there's a whole slew of related titles.) It wouldn't be Christmas for Nathaniel without something 40k, however, so he's also getting the Space Marines codex and the Ultramarines codex supplement. We aren't playing 40k very much these days -- it's hard to find time to play anything -- but he enjoys poring over game rules, coming up with optimized units, playing through solo games, etc. Matthew, meanwhile, is more interested in Xbox than tabletop stuff, but he did ask for a 40k model in addition to the aforementioned tanks. He's going to use the model as a vehicle for his futuristic Shattered Realm hero, so it will be fun to build and paint it together.

Speaking of painting, one of the coolest gifts the kids are getting are their own customized miniatures from Hero Forge. Matthew designed Kai, his sniper from the sci-fi Shattered Realm (and the one who will be riding around in the 40k vehicle), and Nathaniel opted for Demorus, his original Shattered Realm ranger. I'm looking forward to painting the minis and helping bring those characters to life!

Eagles Take Flight

The upstart Elmira Eagles have won the Stanley Cup -- well, in our Xbox game, anyway! After dropping the first game of the Cup Finals to the Vegas Golden Knights in an overtime heartbreaker, we reeled off four straight wins. The last game featured an amazing comeback in which we found ourselves in a two-goal hole just moments into the game, only to rally for the victory. In one frantic sequence midway through the game, the Nathaniel character (our goalie) made three spectacular point-blank saves on Vegas's top scorer to preserve our narrow lead. When the game ended, Matthew's character took the Conn Smythe trophy for playoff MVP after leading the league in scoring and penalty minutes!

Revisiting Historical Hockey

I have to admit that the Strat-O-Matic hockey game system left me cold -- and not in a good, hockey rink sort of way. I didn't think I'd have another opportunity to explore historical hockey gaming, but now that the boys and I are chugging through a playoff series on our Xbox with a fake team populated by current family members and long-dead Sutton ancestors, I'm wondering if I might be able to scratch my historical itch using the Xbox instead. Creating an entire league of old-timey teams seems like more effort than I want to expend, but I could certainly create one team of pre-NHL stars (Cyclone Taylor, Hobey Baker, and the like) and pit them against the players of today. I'll have to think more about that -- but in the meantime, the boys and I have a Cup to win!

Halfway to the Cup!

Our Xbox NHL team from little ol' Elmira has breezed through the first two rounds of playoffs, sweeping Philadelphia and then Washington. Now we're up against the Tampa Bay Lighting for the right to face either the Vegas Golden Knights (let's go, Knights!!!) or the Calgary Flames for the Stanley Cup. Matthew, our top center, leads the team and the league in goals and points, while I'm leading in plus/minus and hits, as befits my role as the team's bruising defenseman. Nathaniel is our goalie, but because the goalie controls are insanely difficult, we're leaving those duties to the CPU and Nathaniel is playing as other family members instead, primarily my brother-in-law. It's taken a bit of finagling, but all of our relatives have scored at least one goal except for family patriarch Richard Sutton -- in his defense, he's also 217 years old!

Family Hockey

I've taken a few days off of work, and between random day trips around the Sierras (among other things, we attended a rodeo and the boys panned for gold), we've been catching up on a seldom-seen corner of the Shattered Realm campaign world -- seventeenth-century historical fantasy. This swashbuckling adventure has put us behind yet again in our sci-fi setting, but I think it's a fun change of pace. Even that, however, has been put on the back burner as we've jumped headlong into a massive Xbox endeavor in NHL 19. We've created an entirely new NHL franchise for my hometown of Elmira, New York -- complete with team name, logos, color scheme, mascot, and all that good stuff. I've tried to honor Elmira's long sporting heritage with everything we're doing, but the players on the team are fictional; or, rather, they're real people but folks who will never play in the NHL -- namely, the boys, myself, and other relatives, including my new four-day-old nephew and an ancestor who's been dead for over a century! Matthew and Nathaniel are having a blast playing as themselves against NHL stars, and as soon as we master the game controls, we're sending our Elmira Eagles into the Stanley Cup playoffs!

Duty Done

I'm proud to announce that Nathaniel successfully completed his Call of Duty game on the Xbox, and with very little assistance from Matthew or myself!

How Irons-ic

Nathaniel is playing one of the many Call of Duty games on our Xbox, and a major plot twist in this installment is that a character played by Kevin Spacey -- military contractor Jonathan Irons -- turns out to be the villain. "You're a monster!" one of the characters shouts at him. This game came out in 2014, so the twist is rather ironic today.

Hot Stove Season

Not saying that the Xbox was a bad idea, but there's definitely less interest in board games these days at the ol' Sutton homestead. (Halo is definitely the flavor of the month!) In particular, I'm really itching to get back to our Strat-O-Matic Hall of Fame League. Somebody needs to take down Nathaniel's as-yet-undefeated juggernaut of stars from the Live Ball Era. 

"Sticks to Snakes!"

I'm definitely not a Halo guy, so after the boys blew me up a dozen times in a multiplayer scenario, we decided to switch over to Chronicles of Mystara for some cooperative Xbox action. The first game in Chronicles is called Tower of Doom, and it involves heroes battling against a lich called Deimos. There's probably more to the story, but Matthew clicked through all the dialogue, so we were a bit fuzzy on what was going on. Nevertheless, our stalwart party -- with Matthew as the cleric, Nathaniel as the fighter, and me as the spell-slinging elf -- hacked and slashed our way through hordes of kobolds, skeletons, gnolls, and other classic D&D monsters. (Shout-out to the owlbears, yo!) It took us a couple of hours, but we defeated the lich and saved...whatever we were supposed to save!

The hands-down most entertaining aspect of this game, however, is the cleric spell Sticks to Snakes. When Matthew would cast that spell, his character would call out "sticks to snakes!" in a very authoritative voice as he tossed some brown rectangles onto the ground (remember that this arcade game first came out in '93, so the graphics aren't that great!). The sticks then animated into snakes that zipped around and attacked the party's enemies. Matthew would often burn through a full day's allotment of Sticks to Snakes spells in a single battle, giving us legions of slithering allies. I'm not sure how effective they were (especially against flying foes like the lich), but it was definitely hilarious to watch!