games
Sign up for the Champions Online open beta
The folks at Atari and Cryptic Studios sent over some information on Champions Online, their upcoming massive multiplayer online role-playing game based on the pen-and-paper role-playing games.
You can head over to their website to sign up for the beta, which is now open; you’ll have to sign up for an account on the website first, though. Click on “beta preview” in the upper right-hand corner to sign up.
Here’s the description of the game:
Based on the award winning Champions setting from the HERO System of pen & paper role playing games Champions! taps into the rich universe of heroes and villains with unparalleled intrigue and adventure. One of the coolest elements the game offers is the unique character customization tool the player can create their own characters as one-of-a-kind superheroes, where gamers can choose from thousands of costumes, body types, power sets, and character appearances. Furthermore, while players transform into the ultimate hero, the Nemesis system lets Champions Online’s powerful customization tools craft an enemy of the extreme opposite, a villain of nightmares. The story of Champions Online is constantly changing, continually evolving. Villains are defeated. Heroes rise and fall. Cities transform. Your actions may decide the future!
I never played the old school pen-and-paper version, but I remember the comic from Eclipse that featured Foxbat, who apparently is in the online version as well.
Unthinkable ARG: ‘Director’s Commentary,’ part one
Unthinkable
Editor’s note: It’s not often you get to say something like “This post was almost delayed due to government intervention.” But over the weekend, while traveling from Los Angeles to New York, Unthinkable writer Mark Sable was detained by the Transportation Safety Administration after a random luggage search turned up a script for his BOOM! Studios series.
“Nothing like starting the day explaining you’re not a terrorist, but writing about them,” he said on Twitter. “Just hope TSA writes a spoiler free review for Unthinkable.”
Luckily for us, TSA let him go and he made his flight. If they hadn’t, I might not have been able to post the first part of his “director’s commentary” on the alternate reality game, or ARG, that he and BOOM! conducted in March to help promote Unthinkable. In this first post, Mark introduces the book and the ARG concept, and walks us through the first mission.
Also, if you’re in New York, be sure to stop by Jim Hanley’s Universe this Wednesday, when the first issue comes out, as Mark and cover artist Paul Azaceta will be there from 6 to 8 p.m. signing it.
*****
By Mark Sable, writer/creator of Unthinkable
What is Unthinkable?
Unthinkable, my new comic from BOOM! Studios, is the fictional spy thriller rooted in the real world. After 9/11, the reaction of many was that this was something “out of a Tom Clancy novel.” Our government took it seriously, and commissioned a think tank made up of thriller writers. Their goal: to come up with worst-case terror scenarios, so that we could devise ways to stop them before the terrorists even had a chance to plot them.
Join the Wolfpack and do the Unthinkable
Join the Wolfpack
To help promote their recently solicited title Unthinkable by Mark Sable and Julian Totino Tedesco, BOOM! Studios has launched an Altered Reality Game at www.wolfpackpmc.com. The Wolfpack, it seems, is a Blackwater-type organization that “provides security for a variety of clients, from public high schools and churches to doctors and diplomats providing aid in warzones. We protect oil refineries and refugee camps alike. Whether you are a single cub or a large yet vulnerable herd, we can meet all your security needs. Thus, our motto: The Strength of The Wolf is The Pack.”
I signed up at the site, and it said the game kicks off March 9 — so sign up before then to play.