World of Darkness: The Book of Spirits

A supplemental book for the “core” World of Darkness line by White Wolf, it details the Shadow, the spirits that live there, and their interactions with the mortal world. It includes rules for how supernatural creatures (vampires, werewolves, mages, fae) can interact with the Shadow, but the primary focus is on mortals and plot hooks for horror games. There’s also a very large appendix of sample spirits, and spirit-urged or spirit-ridden humans.

( When they say 'darkness', they mean it. )

Overall: I’m not sure if I’ll ever run core NWoD, but I have some great ideas for Call of Cthulhu or Cthulhu Dark adventures using details from this book. Some of them would even work cross-genre in Mage or superhero games, but that requires tinkering.

Soul Caliber II

In theory, there’s a story about the legendary Soul Edge and Soul Caliber swords that pass through different hands over the course of history and trail destruction in their wake…but, whatever. You have a weapon. There are other people with weapons. FIGHT!

( Exactly what you'd expect. )

Overall: This is a fighting game. I’m not a big connoisseur of fighting games, so I can’t do much to rate it. It’s fun in short bursts? I’m glad I didn’t pay much for it? I’m not going to seek out sequels, but I’m hanging on to it for future amusement.