Slayer returns to Sunnydale

After the final episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer you thought it was all over. No more Scoobies, no more Sunnydale. Then came along Season Eight in comic form! We breathed a sigh of relief as we got to step back into their quirky world, albeit in Scotland. Just when you thought you'd never see it again, Sunnydale has been resurrected (much like it's many inhabitants over the years). A new Buffy the Vampire Slayer video game comes exclusively to Nintendo DS this year. 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Sacrifice is currently under development by Beast Studios in Romania (quite an appropriate name considering the project). Twentieth Century Fox in cooperation with 505 Games plans to release the game in Europe by November.

Sacrifice is described as a 3-D survival horror game which combines third-person and first-person gameplay. Playing in first-person, or "Challenge Mode," will give you an increased difficulty level. As Buffy you will be able to unlock over 20 "Slayer weapons" throughout 24 levels to fight the vampires and demons you come across. Also unlockable are spells to increase Buffy's supernatural and physical abilities. You'll come across familiar characters from the show like Angel, Spike, the Master, Caleb, the First and of course the Scoobies, but it doesn't look like you'll be able to play them.

Stakes (no pun intended) are high as Buffy is charged, once again, to reseal the Hellmouth. The original story is being penned by Robert Deshotel, writer of one of my favorite Buffy episodes, The Puppet Show. Strangely enough, the game is set after the Season Seven finale but you'll be able to explore Sunnydale High and the Bronze. If you're a fan of the show you realized that's a rather obvious contradiction. None of those places exist after season seven. I guess it's safe to say this game is not canon but rather holding hands with canon.

"Buffy's return to videogames is great for long-time fans of the franchise and we hope the huge market reach of the Nintendo DS will help to create new fans too," said Rowan Tafler, Global Brand Manager at 505 Games. Somehow I doubt anyone who isn't already into Buffy is going to pick up this game but I am, so I will. There have been several Buffy games over the years but I never bothered with them because I didn't think they'd be that great. Though I heard good things about the Xbox version from 2002.

Elie Dekel, Executive Vice President Twentieth Century Fox Licensing & Merchandising said, "Although there are no new productions of the series there is an enduring legacy that lives on through syndication, comic books and video games like these." Even with the popularity of Season Eight, I find it odd that there is still enough interest to warrant a Buffy video game. Then again it's only going to be on the DS so production costs must be low. The fact that Sacrifice is being released first (possibly only) in Europe strikes me as odd too. Are we going to have to go to war with Europe to decide who likes Buffy more? I hope not, I like Europe. And so does Buffy.

Buffy Tarot Update

Just letting you know the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Tarot deck is now available for pre-order on the Darkhorse site. I told you about it previously along with the "Conversations with Dead People" board. They say it's $14.99 retail but it's only $11.99 at the site they direct you to pre-order it from. 

Lost hundreds of years ago, the Slayer's tarot is an important artifact from Slayer history that came into existence after a group of women shared a vision of a rogue Slayer who would love a vampire and who would be aided in her fight against evil by a group of mystical allies. The heretical prophecy led to the suppression of the deck by the Watcher's Council.

Written and conceived by Rachel Pollack, author of twelve books on the tarot, including the renowned 78 Degrees of Wisdom, she teams with long-time Buffy artist Paul Lee to create this one-of-a-kind tarot card set.

It's going to be a slow crawl until September folks.

The ancient Shamans were next called upon to do the hokey pokey and turn themselves around.

Looking to contact your vampire ex-lover from beyond the grave? How about finding out if you'll ever get out from under your kitten debt to that loan shark demon, Teeth? Well look no further folks. Presenting: The Buffy the Vampire Slayer "Conversations with Dead People" Board and the extra special Buffy the Vampire Slayer Tarot Deck!

Have I sold you yet? For most Buffy fans, myself included, there's no hard-sell needed. They will be mine and it will be glorious. The board, if you didn't already know, is named after an episode from Season Seven of BTVS. It comes with a fun extra too, a comic-style instruction booklet written by current Season Eight author Drew Goddard and illustrated by Paul Lee, who's also drawn some of Season Eight.

The tarot deck was written by established tarot writer, Rachel Pollack, who also wrote the Vertigo Tarot for DC/Vertigo a while back. The art here is also done by Lee and pulls themes and characters from all eight seasons of Buffy. They come with an instruction book f you actually want to learn how to use them but if you're like me you just want them because they're gorgeous. Either way you'll be happy but the extra cool thing is the book also explains how the deck fits into the Buffyverse and gives them their own backstory.

Comic Book Resources has a full write-up of the story behind the creation of the deck and previewed these two cards.

The Magician and Death cards

The Occasional Superheroine had a preview of two of the more, shall we say, thought provoking cards.

The Temperance and Devil cards

And just the other day Newsarama gave us a look at one more card. Who else could have been the High-Priestess?

The High Priestess

Both the talking board and tarot deck are set to be released in September. "Conversations with Dead People" is already available for pre-order on the Dark Horse website for $29.99. I would imagine the tarot deck will be up soon. Happy haunting, or slaying, as the case may be.

“All I want to do is graduate from high school, move to Europe, marry Christian Slater, and die.”

Those immortal words were spoken by Buffy (and quoted by me relentlessly) in the original film Buffy the Vampire Slayer starring Kristy Swanson. Let's see where we are with that after seven seasons of the television show starring Sarah Michelle Gellar and issue #12 of the Buffy comic, shall we?

Graduated high school? Check. Moved to Europe? Check. Married Christian Slater? Not quite. Unless Christian Slater is an Asian girl who Buffy just slept with. Died? Double check.

Did I just gloss over the fact that Buffy slept with a woman? No way! That's what this article is all about. Drew Goddard, a former writer for both the Buffy and Angel television series and now of Cloverfield fame, began a new arc with issue #12, "Wolves at the Gate Part 1." Four pages in you're hit with this shocker:

Obviously I needed to get online and see what other people were saying. My first stop was to the Dark Horse site where there is a letter from editor Scott Allie. That's when I realized this was a much bigger deal than I first thought. Sure, I was expecting to read a slew of posts on websites like Newsarama and IGN where they review and discuss comics. What I was not expecting was a New York Times article on the issue. The New York freakin' Times! Discussing not only Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but the Buffy comic! ABC News also ran a story as well as MTV.

I'll admit, when I first turned the page, my jaw dropped. I think I almost had the same reaction Xander did a few pages later after walking in on them; "Oh merciful Zeus! I didn't see anything, I swear! Oh, my eye, my burning beautiful eye." In fact, the entire scene where just about everyone else walks in and has their own unique hilarious reaction to seeing Buffy in bed with a woman, was almost lost on me because I felt awkward, like I had just walked into the room too. Drew Goddard easily made it feel like that scene came straight out of a Joss Whedon episode though, it really was hysterical. Kudos to him.

I didn't know what to make of this new development. I thought, are they making Buffy a lesbian? An odd choice seeing as how they already did that with Willow, to great effect, but why would you reuse an idea like that. Then I thought, didn't Buffy tell Satsu last issue that she wasn't interested in her? For those of you who don't know, Satsu is one of the many slayers Buffy now trains and commands. Early on in Season 8, Buffy was put under a Sleeping Beauty-type spell and was awakened when someone who was in love with her gave her a kiss. We found out last issue Buffy knew it was Satsu for some time and was flattered, but not interested.

After reading all the interviews with Joss out there I believe I can safely state they are not making Buffy a lesbian. This is a direct quote from him from the NY Times article linked above. "We're not going to make her gay, nor are we going to take the next 50 issues explaining that she's not. She's young and experimenting, and did I mention open-minded?"

I have been a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer since the original movie in 1992. That's almost 16 years of getting to know and love the character of Buffy. No one knows her better than Joss Whedon himself but in my opinion, what happened in this issue is out of character for her. That being said, any fan of Buffy knows how impulsive and, I'll say it, idiotic she can be. That's how you know Joss made a great character, she's human, she makes mistakes. It seems to me Buffy is making the same type of mistake with Satsu that she did with Spike. She knows Satsu is in love with her, not to mention sorta her employee, and she sleeps with her anyway because she's lonely. You'd think she would have learned, but hey, this is Buffy we're talking about. Anything is possible.

Putting aside all the hoopla about the sex scene, which I'm sure is burned into fanboy memory just like that Angel/Spike Buffy sandwich (#3) is in mine, the issue was great. Drew Goddard seems to be setting up a really interesting arc and I look forward to seeing where it goes. Not only was his dialogue fantastic but he brought back one of my favorite characters from one of my favorite Buffy episodes of all time. The Master. No, not that one, the other one. Dracula.