Pandemic: Contagion Review

(2-5 Players; 30 minutes; Ages 13+;
zmangames.com; MSRP $29.99)

If one was to (as many have) make a list of the top 10-15 games that everyone should play, undoubtedly Matt Leacock's "Pandemic" would be on that list.

Though not the first of its kind, "Pandemic" ushered to the forefront the "cooperative" style of gameplay; with the players not competing against each other, but rather the game itself.  Players took on the role of a specialist at the Center for Disease Control tasked with eradicating four diseases that were spreading their way across the globe.  With each player's turn, the stakes became higher, the stress increased, and the time-bomb that was global disaster ticked away.  It was fun, it was challenging, and it was a wild success.

So much so that the "Pandemic" brand has spawned a card game in the form of "Pandemic: Contagion." In "Contagion," however there is no hope for humanity as players are the disease and "there is no cure" as the box proudly proclaims.

Kris Kingle, Christ, & Christmas

A great blog entry I read yesterday: What To Do About Santa - http://gospelcenteredmom.blogspot.com 
 
 This is something I have struggled with, literally, every year since our oldest was born. I want so much to give into the whole myth of Santa and insist on his magical existence, but I also recognize how much that challenges (and sometimes contradicts) my wife's and my efforts to raise out kids with a specific, Biblical world-view... And that the revelation of Santa's non-existence after years of claiming him to be real can erode the truth of God's existence in a child's mind.

This is the SuperRad Stance: God is real, Santa is pretend. But our family loves to pretend - I have chipmunks, princesses, jedis, and superheros running around the house more often than I do my real kids; and my daughter calls me Peter (Pan) as often as she calls me Daddy.

So Christmas has become a festive time of celebrating the Truth of God's existence and Jesus' miraculous birth, but in celebrating that there are a lot of traditions and legends that have developed over time - one of them is Santa. And for as long as the kids want to pretend Santa visits our house on Christmas Eve - I'm game.

D&D Dungeon Master's Guide Released Today!

Today, Wizards of the Coast (www.wizards.com) released the final core rulebook for the new Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition roleplaying game.

The DM's guide sits alongside of your Player's Handbook and Monster Manual and is meant for the one guy in your group who is going to spend a lot more time thinking about your DnD campaign than you are.  Still, that dude's pretty invaluable, so maybe you want to buy it for him as a Christmas gift.

As with the other books, this one is hardbound and full of fantastic art to get you into the feel of leading a group of loosely-strung-together adventurers into certain peril.

Actually, between this and listening to "The Adventure Zone" podcast, I really need to get my hands on the DnD Starter set to convince my other friends to party up.  Of course, this means that I'll inevitably be the DM, so I guess it's a good idea to get this book.

 

Where have I been???

It's been a while since SuperRadDad.com has seen any action.  In part, because I've needed a pallet cleanse, in part because life gets pretty darn busy with three kids (yeah, did you know Team SRD grew a bit?).

A few months back I had a talk with the head honcho over at the Dice Tower.  I had been reviewing for that channel for a little over two years and had a lot of fun doing so.  So much fun, that I realized my nerdy nature could potentially conflict with the over-conservative boring nature of my professional life.

See, I'm an attorney in Realsies, and believe it or not, most lawyers don't look too approvingly on the dude dressed in a Batman shirt looking like he's reviewing games in the basement of his mom's house.  They could not be more wrong: 1) wearing a Batman t-shirt is still pretty awesome regardless of the age; 2) the reviews were coming from the garage my own house where I'm carrying two mortgages.  But how could I ever expect lawyers to acknowledge such fine distinctions.  The fact of the matter is that one of their peers is talking about unlawyerly things in a rather unlawyerly appearance.

And so, it hit me - as I look for the next step on my professional ladder, I'm going to get Googled.  When that happens, Geek Scott is going to show up, not Bill-by-the-Hour Scott.  And unless I have a very cool potential boss who is going to take a look at Geek Scott and think "that guy knows a lot about unlawyerly things, surely his lawyerly intellect must be astounding," one look at Geek Scott and I've already got a mark against me.

So I asked to drop my last name to afford myself a more anonymity in Cyberspace, I was denied, there was a parting of the ways, and I went on hiatus to think of my next step.

Which was... pseudonym.

So here I am, back and writing with a pen name.  Sure, you Super Sleuths out there are going to know who I am, but I believe my secret identity is safe with you.  In the meantime, let's give a warm round of applause to "Scott Storm," geek blogger, parent, and meteorologist in training.

Now,  please allow me to do my thing.