Publisher: Archaia
Release Date: December 27, 2011
Genre: Fantasy
Price: $19.95
Age range: T – TEEN (12 and up, may contain mild violence or mild profanity)

The Dark Crystal Creation Myths Vol. 1 is the first trade of the series that details the history of Thra. Told through the flashbacks of a storyteller spinning his yarn for the companion he’s travelling with, Creation Myths  includes bits of myths within the history and is all leading up to the events of the movie, The Dark Crystal.

Let’s just get this bit of fangirlish squee over with at the start: Odin’s left eye, this trade is gorgeous. As anyone familiar with The Dark Crystal would know, the world of Thra is filled with fantastical flora and fauna designed by the great artist Brian Froud. Alex Sheikman and Lizzy John, the illustrators for this volume, do an amazing job of staying true to Froud’s style and filling every page with the most delicious eye candy I’ve seen in a comic. It was very hard for me not to just flip through and drool over every page. The colors are rich, the characters are consistent from page to page, even the Gelflings (who can easily become a mass of duplicates) all seem to have a personality and look to call their own. The artwork is simply amazing, and as a bonus there are a few character design pages by Froud in the back.

The story itself is as well. Being told to the reader over the course of a night by a mysterious storyteller as payment (payment for what, we aren’t sure yet), we start to learn the history of Thra. Thra is the world the story takes place in. This story spans thousands of years and introduces us to some of the important figures (Aughra and Raunip) and races (the Gelflings and the Urskek) on Thra that basically shape the course of its history. Probably the most important character, the Crystal, plays a surprisingly passive role in this part of the story so far.  The Crystal is at the center of Thra and is a part of everything on the planet. It is said to sing through everyone and everything, and it is the center of the major conflict that starts towards the end of this volume.

My one issue with this volume would be the inclusion of the 10-page story that was available on Free Comic Book Day last year. While it does elaborate a little and focuses more on Raunip and the conflict of the story, it left me with a feeling that the Raunip I had been reading for 87 pages was a completely different Raunip portrayed here. I’m not sure which one is supposed to be the right version, but I personally found the one in the main story to be the more engaging and sympathetic character. I don’t know why they included the free comic, unless it was purely for collecting purposes (since not everyone can make it out to Free Comic Book Day and numbers are limited of each free title), but it doesn’t really do anything for the story as a whole.

While I’m a huge The Dark Crystal fan from way back (yes, I was actually alive and a kid when the movie was released in theaters), and of course as a fan I’m going to eat this series up like my life depends on it, the great thing about it is that you don’t have to know anything about the movie to read this. You don’t have to know who Aughra is or why the story breaks about Gelfling folktales are important to the overall story beforehand. You could come into this series having never heard of any of it, and you would still be able to follow and understand the story being told. If you are a fan, this is a must have for your collection.

You may nominate for the 2012 Hugo Awards and John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer if, on or before January 31, 2012 11:59 p.m. PST, you:

• are an attending or supporting member of Chicon 7 (the 2012 World Science Fiction Convention); or
• were an attending or supporting member of Renovation (the 2011 World Science Fiction Convention); or
• are an attending or supporting member of LoneStarCon 3 (the 2013 World Science Fiction Convention)

You can nominate up to five persons or works in each category, although it is possible, even encouraged, to nominate fewer choices if you are not familiar with enough works that are truly award worthy. You can also select “No Award” if you think that there are no people or works eligible for an award in any category. There are more details on the Chicon Website, but the categories are:

For the Fantasy lover on your list

A Dance with Dragons, by George RR Martin
$21.00

The fifth book in the “Song of Ice and Fire” series, Dance with Dragons continues the epic story with all of the main characters that you know and love from the series. And of course it comes with the standard GRRM twists and turns that we’ve all come to love. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and it makes the great gift for any GRRM fan who has not yet picked up the latest in the series.

The Inheritance Trilogy, by N. K. Jemisin
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, $7.99
The Broken Kingdoms, $7.99
The Kingdom of the Gods, $10.98

I really don’t understand why the first book in this series, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, didn’t win any awards this year–it was one of the most imaginative books I have read in a long time. The mythology was interesting, the characters were well-defined, and the writing was tight. The second book was just as good, and I can’t wait to read the final installment.

Who Fears Death, by Nnedi Okorafor
$10.20

Winner of this year’s World Fantasy Award, this book is set in Africa in a post-apocalyptic future, and it features a magic system that is very different from the wizardry you see in a lot of fantasy books. The setting and plot are fairly grim, but the characters are so strong and well-realized that the book doesn’t feel totally desolate. It is powerful and ultimately hopeful, and Okorafor is a strong writer that I look forward to reading for many years to come.

For the Science Fiction Fan

The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Eighth Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois
$14.95

I’ve said it before, short stories are a great way to find new science fiction writers, and this annual collection is the best of the best. Dozois consistently puts out a high quality group of stories, with authors that go on to write great books and do great things for the field. Not that Dozois reads their books–he spends all of his time searching out those great stories for upcoming collections. This book is also great because you don’t have to read it straight through and keep all of the characters straight, so it makes a great gift for a busy reader, despite its 704 pages.

The Ship Who Sang, by Anne McCaffrey
$7.99

Since reading the terrible news that McCaffrey died this week, I have been looking over my collection of her works and remembering how much I loved discovering her as a teenager and young adult. Of course I read her Dragonriders of Pern books first, and loved them, but The Ship Who Sang is probably my favorite book of hers. It is the story of Helva, who was born with a sharp mind, but a body that can’t survive without support.  She and others like her are given a high quality education and eventually become cyborgs with high level functions like city manager or space station. Helva has a knack for starflight mechanics, so she becomes a brainship, with her body being the ship itself. This books is a collection of short stories that combine to tell a tale of Helva’s life.

Maul, by Tricia Sullivan
$14.95

This is the story of girl gangs fighting a fashion battle at the mall with real bullets, and a boy guinea pig, being infected with designer viruses for research purposes. There is a shortage of men in this world as a result of y-plagues, and they need to do more work to understand what they are up against. The story takes the micro-violence of disease in one person and translates it to macro-violence between people, and explores what it means to be free.

First we were shown some new images from the game and a trailer to give us a taste of the game.  After we were given the choice to pick the roles we’d like to do the boss encounter with. I chose the archer since it’s a class I’m most familiar with. Our Editor-in-Chief, @Cherithe, was with me and she sat in to play the Mage.  Once everyone was ready to go, we started off this mini-dungeon. After a Leroy Jenkins type trash pull, we started in on the boss. And let me say, doing a boss fight with two developers on your team can make for pretty good party banter.

Now the boss fight itself was actually pretty interesting. Since Tera is all about the action part, no matter what role you have, you’re gonna be moving. Even the healer was moving around a lot more than I’m used to seeing. In general though I did enjoy the fight. I felt like I was mostly button mashing with the skills since I didn’t have much of a chance to really see what they all did, but for the most part i was able to get the hang of the archer. My one complaint though is that while running to avoid attacks the archer does not auto-shoot.

About the mages (a note from @Cherithe): Since we were thrust into the battle without a lot of explanation about the many, many abilities of our leveled up characters, other than their basic classes, it took me some time to get my mind to catch up with what my mage was capable of.  See, I play a lot of mage characters, and I’m very used to standing in the back, like any ranged dps, and spending my spells as the cooldowns let me.  But here, I got to be upclose and personal with the boss we fought, and several of my spells both did damage to the enemy and kicked me away from them, to keep out of reach between spells.  This was pretty handy, even if I was slow to catch on that’s what was happening.  It’s an interesting change from traditional mages, and it definitely makes it feel like the mage action is a little faster and more on par with what other character classes experience.

All in all however Tera has intrigued the both of us, and it’s definitely going to be on the list of MMOs to check out once it is finally released in 2012. The graphics are well done and the environments look stunning. Most controls feel rather standard for an MMO, and relatively easy to pick up on. The story has piqued my interest and it’s something I’d like to see what it develops into. It was great to be able to go to En Masse and get a great first look at Tera, a big thanks to the developers that sat with us through the demo.

Generally, I enjoyed ADWD. The book itself was basically like A Feast for Crows mainly since it parallels that book for awhile before venturing forward in the story. This does mean that some chapters, even if it is one of your more favorite characters, can move at a slow pace. You can tell that GRRM is still moving chess pieces around in order to set up for the final two books. I enjoyed this one, even with the slow parts, but hot damn did GRRM tick me off near the end (as I mentioned on twitter).

So if you’ve finished the book, let’s continue below with some spoilers. I’m dividing it into bullet points and it may not all be in order, but hey, you’ll get the idea.

Daenerys She is easily one of my favorite characters and I am so happy to finally have her back! Things are not going well in Mereen. In a move of desperation in order to save the people whom she’s come to feel as her children she decides to marry one of the more powerful locals. Her closer advisers, especially those from Westeros aren’t too happy about this, but they have to follow their queen. Things seem to go smoothly until her new husband Hizdar decides he wants to reopen the fighting pits and attempts to poison her at the event with some locusts. Thankfully the only person to suffer the poison was Strong Belwas (who also thankfully survives). But more importantly Drogon, the black dragon hatched by Daeneryes, returns from having disappeared to attack the crowd at the fighting pits. Hizdar shouts for guards to kill the dragon, but Daenerys jumps into the pit with a whip and manages to calm Drogon down enough to jump on his back before he flies away. Now of course she is unsure how to actually pilot a dragon, so she returns with Drogon to the lair he made for himself out in the Dothraki sea. There she only thinks of returning so that she can make sure everything she had done in Mereen was safe. But due to some hurdles and thinking, she takes Drogon and finds one of her late husband Khal Drogo’s former bloodriders. And of course this is where it ends, just to leave you wanting to learn more.

Tyrion Lannister another of my favorites returns as well and we learn about his escape from Westeros after he kills his father Tywin. It was very enjoyable to read the goings on in his head as he is routed across the sea to Illyrio Mopatis who in turn takes him to a group of people who will help get him to Daenerys in order to help strengthen her in her fight to regain the Iron Throne in Westeros. Through Tyrion, we learn more about what happened to Ser Jorah Mormont (who abducts Tyrion and gets them stuck in slavery unwittingly), that another Targaryen has survived (Aegon Targaryen VI, son of Rhaegar and Elia who was replaced with another babe during the war), and that greyscale really is pretty damn scary and turns you into to a psycho zombie type thing once it’s fully taken over your body.

Arya Stark is back, and initially blind. She is still in Braavos at the shrine of the many faced god, and man is she undergoing some changes. I do like that she is still connected with her direwolf and in dreams becomes the wolf, and probably therefore keeping a bit of herself still. Sadly not many of her chapters were that entertaining to me as I’d have hoped, but I know that it’s setting up for one heck of a turn of events if/when she makes it back to Westeros and hears of what all has happened. Plus, her being able to slip on actual other people’s faces is just freaky and awesome.

Bran Stark makes it to the three eyed crow, who turns out to be a super old Stark relative who was also a greenseer. Bran and his company Meera and Jojen Reed and Hodor (HODOR!) also come to find that the children of the forest still do exist, albeit only in small numbers and quickly dying out. Oh and did I mention that Bran’s great-great-great grandfather (not sure if that’s enough “greats” there…) is also now mostly a tree that has taken over the body to keep it alive? Yep. And by the end Bran has eaten a paste made from part of a weirwood tree and can now interact with other weirwood trees in Westeros as well as take over the bodies of crows. I’m honestly not sure how I feel about this part, but something tells me that this is gonna be a big deal down the road. I just hate thinking that Bran will forever be in a cave, connected to a tree.

Theon Greyjoy I admit I was thrown off by the Reek chapters for a moment. Then once I realized it was Theon, and a pretty damaged Theon, I actually felt bad for the turncloak. It also goes to show how insane Ramsay Snow/Bolton is and what he’s actually capable of doing. Theon gradually learning to get away from being Reek was quite the read and even though the lingering  hate I have for his character for betraying Winterfell but by near the end of the book it’s apparent that he’s going to try to make it up somehow and he starts by freeing fake Arya from Ramsay.

Jon Snow …. I’m not sure I can start this off without first preempting it with a big @%^$ you to GRRM. *ahem* Anyway, Jon as we know was elected as Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. And as the book starts with the same timeframe as AFfC we are treated to more Stannis confrontations as well as Jon’s tough meeting regarding saving Mance Raydar’s son from potentially being burned by Melissandre. I also got a bit wary of decisions that Jon was making, and especially hating that Jon wasn’t keeping Ghost with him for what I deem as bad reasons. Too bad Stannis’s wife is afraid of Ghost, Snow rules the Night’s Watch and she’s a guest. Screw it. Jon also got sucked into listening a little bit more, but thankfully not fully trusting, Melissandre. This helped in some aspects, but in others gave him false hope (as him thinking Arya was making her way to the Wall). But through some of his decisions, him offending some other people, and GRRM being a bastard, Jon is attacked after rallying the wildlings who joined the Night’s Watch to help rescue Winterfell from Ramsay Snow/Bolton. He is attacked by men whom he trusted most: his brother’s from the Night’s Watch. Now, when I first read this, I almost threw my book, sweared loudly and almost didn’t finish reading the book. It was only after reading another reviewer’s views (thanks ToplessRobot) and some forums that I’m a little leery that Jon Snow is in fact truely dead. Hell, Catelyn is still roaming around thanks to a red priest, and well Melissandre is still at the Night’s Watch. One of the more prevalent thoughts is that GRRM used this “death” to strip the oath that Jon took when he became a member of the Night’s Watch so that he can return to help set things to right. However if Jon’s death is true, and he is not coming back, I and probably many others will be greatly pissed. Jon is one of the last major Starks left, he’s a character that so many enjoy, and for him to die? Not cool GRRM. I don’t care that you’ve warned us not to get too attached.

The Epilogue I’m also lumping Cersei into this since she is involved slightly. Cersei is free from her imprisonment and back at the castle with her son. But this epilogue is interesting since Varys is back, and oh boy do I think things are going to pick up after this. I’m interested to see where Catelyn is these days, and I’m curious to see what is going to happen with Daeneryes and her going back to the Dothraki. And when are the white walkers going to begin to make more of their mark on Westeros? What’s going to happen with the Wildlings and the Nights Watch? Is Jon Snow really and truly dead?

Let’s hope we don’t have to wait too long to find out.

By now, I know you angels are familiar with Pulp Angels. I’m excited to announce that we are starting a book club on the blog and want you to get involved! The book club will be one book a month where we will sign up and read the chosen book. Then on a particular day, we’ll meet up in a post. A live blog will be set up so that we can all get into the discussion. Our very own staff will be moderating and moving the discussion along. You just have to bring yourself, your book and your opinions!

The interest we see in a book club, I will be able to provide giveaways for readers that show up at the discussion.

We’re going to kick things off with a bang. We are giving away an EBook copy of A Dance with Dragons. That will be the first book we discuss in our book club. Please comment below with why you would like to win and we’ll pick a winner at random. Just leaving a comment will put you in the drawing.

I will post on when the first book club discussion will be taking place. Figure in about 2-3 weeks. I maaaaay have some Game of Thrones stuff to giveaway to registered angels that show up. ^_^

Enjoy and welcome to Pulp Angels Book Club!

Age of Conan gets update for the upcoming “Conan the Barbarian” movie:

Age of Conan will be getting the update treatment to tie together the game and the upcoming movie, which is set 20 years after the movie storyline.  “The Savage Coast of Turan finds players being sent by Conan, now King of Aquilonia, to aid his old ally Artus. The new adventure pack includes but is not limited to content from the movie, and allows players to follow the epic storylines in Conan’s realm.” The movie is set for a wide release on August 19th and is in 3D, because the studio have faith in it
It only makes sense to tie the two, especially since Age of Conan has recently gone Free and Unrated.

Lord of the Rings Online: Lost Legends of Eriador!

The new update brings us two new 3-player instances and two new skirmishes.
Instances:

• Halls of Night: Level 40-65 – This story draws from the tales of Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin and their experiences within the Barrow-downs. Nightmare, an ancient Barrow-wight, has trapped your spirit within his mysterious dreamscape. To wake you must battle against the evil that haunts this dream realm, or risk sleeping forever!
• Inn of the Forsaken: Level 20-65 – Tales have spread across Bree and the Lonelands of the noises that fill the Forsaken Inn when the moon is high. Travelers tell stories of a stolen ruby necklace hidden within a maze of twisted caves and protected by traps, riddles, guardians who never sleep, and a ship marooned deep underground.
  Skirmishes:
• Attack at Dawn: Level 30-65 – Esteldín has long been a hidden training ground for Rangers and Free People against Angmar. It is a site the enemy has been desperate to discover and stamp out. While many scouts have been stopped, a lone goblin has learned the location of Esteldín and reported it to his masters. You must venture into the hills of Dol Dinen, and confront the attacking force before it can threaten the sanctity of Esteldín.
• Icy Crevasse: Level 40-65 – With the aid of the Gauradan and Dourhands, Angmar is planning its next attack! By funneling icy winds through the great Forochel crevasse and down into Evendim, they plan to freeze the lake and march straight through Tinnudir to Annúminas. You must head to the frozen North and stop this sorcerer, before the chill winds freeze everything.

But wait! There is more!!!!  More slots, reset our skirmish marks, get more critical at the relic forge and much, much more!

Faxion:

Faxio is a Free-to-play PVP MMORPG that is set within the world of Limbo. You join Heaven or Hell as you fight for control over the Seven Deadly Sins. It looks like a very PvP centric game so if you’re a fan of PvP then this may be right up your alley!

Forsaken World: Gaze of Larex

This update brings features an ancient evil that threatens to take hold of the entire world.  Lets roll the clip!

The story revolves around a religious cult called the “Outsiders” who are nothing more than con men out for power. Their ringleader, Tennyson, has already seized control in five of the six kingdoms of Hibernia, and Halt, Horace, and Will trek out to infiltrate the group before they can capture the last, Clonmel. This kingdom also happens to be ruled by Halt’s twin brother, a twin brother who is younger than Halt and tried to repeatedly kill Halt for his birthright. The constant barrage of (unsuccessful) attacks sent Halt packing to Araluen and leaving the throne to his power-hungry brother. Since Halt and Ferris are identical twin brothers, you can probably already assume where the story goes from there once the little band reaches Ferris’castle. In addition, if you have been paying attention to any of the books that involve these three main characters working together, then you already know how it ends.

To make up for the lack of story, Mr. Flanagan chose to pad the pages with over-description of every little minute detail. For example, I understand – as well all do by this point in the series – that Rangers do a lot of stealth work, which includes a lot of sitting and waiting. However, this doesn’ meant that I care to read about exactly how uncomfortable sitting still for hours is each and every time Will has to do so. Normally this type of in-depth writing wouldn’t bother me, but in this case, it’s incredibly obvious how much the author is using it to fill in the pages. These moments are stretched out far longer than they ever have been in the previous books, and the writing doesn’ have its same spark or high quality that it had before. I pretty much glossed over all of the paragraphs like this.

I am not sure what happened to this series. It started out so great, with a riveting story and well developed, well rounded characters. Now all the characters seem to be exactly the same, differing only in their skills. Everyone is so harmonious, and everything works out just so perfectly. Even when the plan goes off kilter a bit, there are no real, unpredictable twists or any exciting tidbits to make the reader continue turning the pages. I can’t even really spoil the ending, because it’s so obvious from the get-go how it’s going to end. In truth, it doesn’t really end, just like most of the other books in the series. Have to give readers a reason for them to come back for more, I guess.

Despite the non-ending, this particular reader is done. From the author’ past arcs, I already know how this one with the Outsiders will end. Sure, Mr. Flanagan could try to totally throw me off and kill off a main character, but that really wouldn’t throw anyone off. I’m surprised he hasn’t killed any thus far, and at this point, it’s too obvious who the author can’t kill and the others wouldn’t be that big of a deal. Granted, this series is for young readers and not for those looking for a really deep fantasy plot, but I can’ imagine how it can possibly keep the overactive minds of young readers interested for long.

With all the other fantastic young adult fantasy out there, pass up The Ranger’s Apprentice series if you haven’t already. And if you are currently reading them, please stop with The Siege of Macindaw.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an e-book to delete from my Nook.

This review may contain spoilers for the game’s storyline. I’m keeping them at a minimum if I can, but fair warning.

Rating: M (for Mature)
Genre: Fantasy RPG
Players: 1
Developer: Bioware
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Release Date: March 16th, 2010

BUY

Let me get this out of the way first: Yes, I’m going to be a bit negative in this review, as there’s A LOT of glitchy issues with the DA:O – Awakening expansion, and there’s a lot of things missing or awkward. BUT, this game still rocks, it is worth the price of admission if you loved the first game and are itching to get your fingers on more time with your Grey Warden. Even being the fan I am, I wouldn’t give it a Buy rating if it wasn’t worth it. Okay, with that out of my system, let’s talk about the game.

DA:O – Awakening is 10 – 15 hours (depending on your play style) of Grey Warden darkspawn smashing, dragon killing and quest solving. You begin the game as one of the many Grey Wardens that you may have played in the original game – whether you actually finished the game or not. Or, you can choose not to import any characters and make an Orlesian Grey Warden. Either way, you’re leveled up a bit and sent on your way to Vigil’s Keep to rally the remaining Grey Wardens, only to find out that the darkspawn have already ransacked the village and there’s hardly anyone left in the keep. You speak with the keep’s seneschal, Varel who helps you get settled in. Varel is a useful asset to Vigil’s Keep, making sure that while your Grey Warden is out fighting the darkspawn and righting wrongs, the Keep still runs smoothly.

Unfortunately, for our poor Grey Wardens, despite what may have happened at the top of the tower in Denerim a few months ago, as Warden Commander, you learn that the darkspawn are not retreating as they usually do after a Blight is ended. Instead they’re doing wacky things: like ransacking your shiny new keep, talking, thinking, and running rampant around in the surrounding areas. It’s your job (isn’t it always) to figure out what’s going on, why one of the surviving Grey Wardens is missing, and try and lay these things down once and for all. You get new allies, and one returning one – although others may make appearances – and a host of new areas you never got to see in the first game.

So, overall, I loved the continuation of the story. And while I would’ve rather seen more of my old friends join up with me, Oghren (through he doesn’t seem more positively disposed towards you despite your previous friendship) makes a fun returning ally, and I think he may have gotten better lines this time around. I have several complaints about this game (I’m getting there) and one of them is the lack of consistency with the previous game. Despite what may or may not have happened at the end of your original game, there isn’t a good continuity with the continuing plot line. For instance, if Alistair sacrificed himself to kill the Archdemon so the woman he loved didn’t have to, he might make an appearance in th game as the King (or not depending on your brand of glitch). He might not appear at all, as you would expect, but then he may get mentioned in the character’s epilogue at game end, where the two of you can wonder off into the sunset never to be seen again.

This sort of continuity glitch isn’t uncommon in the game. However, far more common are the regular scene glitches during conversations. You might be carrying on a mostly normal conversation with the Architect for instance (a possible ally or enemy) and during one scene the screen fades to black. It doesn’t kill your game, but you often have to hit the controls to get it to scroll ahead to the next frame so you can choose your appropriate response. You might also often find yourself having a conversation while you stare through your armor, or a wall, or pillar. Since the game conversation scenes aren’t necessarily representative of where you where standing before the scene started, this isn’t a player issue. These sort of polishing issues don’t make the game unplayable, and in my playthrough were far between and only minorly annoying.

The most annoying thing to me however was the lack of clear direction in many of the quests, both those that are conversation driven, and those that are based on exploration. To explain, I have to mention another lacking item in the game, which is the ability to talk to your allies. In the original, you always had the option of returning to camp between quests, talking to your allies and finding out more about them. In this expansion, you can still learn more about your allies, but mostly, only when you return to Vigil’s Keep, and only when they want you to. So, if I want to figure out why the apostate mage Anders named the kitten I gave him Ser Pounce-a-lot, I can’t trigger a conversation with him. He talks to you briefly, and then the rest is done in random conversation moments triggered outside the keep between party members. Or, (back to my original point) when Oghren’s personal quest is started, you have to talk to him in the Keep – and apparently, you have to try and trigger conversation with him while you’re standing right there. Because if you decide to leave the Keep, thinking the conversation is over, you don’t get the chance to go back and do it again. That’s just a quest lost to me in the sands of glitchy game play.

Also, if you happen across the Silverite Mine in the forest before you actually run into Valanna – which happens because you have to WALK RIGHT BY THE MINE to get to where she is, you will completely ruin any chance of doing her quest. So if you’re like me, and tend to run into mines because they’re right in front of you – don’t do it! I’ve heard, but did not experience it myself, that there’s also the possibility of some severe glitching with that quest if you try to do it without Velanna in your party. This is not the only time this can happen in the game – Blackmarsh is also especially bad about quests becoming obsolete if you trigger events.

This sort of bad design didn’t make my game unplayable, nor did it make the entire game unenjoyable for me, I’ve already said that it’s worth it. But it is slightly annoying to learn that you can completely block yourself from some pretty interesting quest completion because you triggered events because you came across them before you were supposed to – without actually knowing there was an order. For instance, if the mine hadn’t been explorable until I found Velanna, that would’ve been a far better design for that quest line, and avoided the funky quest issues.

The game does have it’s moments, I got a crack out of nearly all of the new allies: Nathaniel and Anders especially, though sometimes not intentionally. The story of Nathaniel Howe’s return is an interesting one, especially for fans of the game’s lore. Despite the number of new allies, there are no romance options, and as has been mentioned already, it’s difficult to actually talk to your allies unless they want to (and only one at a time). The expansion of the storyline from the first game is definitely a fine successor and has already made me eager for whatever is coming in February next year. There really is a bunch of content in this expansion, and as I mention can net between 10 and 15 hours of extra game play on one playthrough. Plus, there’s a new crafting category – Runecraft – which Anders comes stocked with, but anyone can learn it. And there’s new class types and abilities for your characters which gives you a bigger expansion of options if you’re that type of player. That’s not too mention all the times you’re going to want to go back with all your other DA:O characters, or even try out the new Orlesian Grey Warden just to see the possibilities you missed (which is what I plan on doing next).

Who is this “Arata” and why is he a legend? Read the following synopsis to find out:

In a world where humans and gods coexist, Arata is the unfortunate successor to the matriarchal Hime Clan–unfortunate because if he’s not cross-dressing to hide his gender one minute, he’s fleeing for his life the next! When Arata winds up in the modern world and switches places with a boy named Arata Hinohara, it’s a wonder which Arata is actually better off… In Volume 1, Hinohara is the spitting image of Arata, so he suddenly finds himself fighting people after his life! As he navigates through this foreign world filled with power-hungry warriors, who will come to his aid? One thing’s for sure–it’s not easy being Arata!

Amy Yu, Editor, VIZ Media:

“I’m really excited to see ARATA: THE LEGEND joining the Shonen Sunday imprint. The art is gorgeous, the series is action-packed and no one can create a lush fantasy world the way Yuu Watase can!” says Amy. “Fans who know her work in the shojo genre will experience a whole new side to this creative mastermind.”

If you’re interested in “ARATA: THE LEGEND“, you will find it under the SHONEN SUNDAY imprint. It is rated ‘T’ for Teens, and will cost $9.99US or $12.99CAN, and any further information you wish to know can be found at www.shonensunday.com.

(You could also try our RightStuf or Amazon stores if you’d like to buy a copy!)