Jamaica

Sometimes a game gets so caught up in a wacky theme and great looking art that it loses sight of what’s really important; a fun gaming experience. MWAHAHAHA! comes to mind as a perfect example of this, a game that looks good but turns out to be mundane and boring. Jamaica on the other hand is a prime example of gorgeous production values encasing a simply but very fun game.

In Jamaica, players take the role of buccaneer captains racing around the eponymous island. As a race game, it has its own way of determining how a player moves around the board, and let’s just say that Jamaica’s technique is both random and fun. Essentially, you know in what direction you’re going to move and in what order you’re going to do it, but you don’t know to what degree until someone rolls a pair of dice. As a result of landing, you are required to fight other ships, pay a harbor fee, or dig up treasure. Most of the time, you’ll be exhausting one of the resources that you can gain via the same cards that you move with. It all works very well and makes for a quick and smooth little racing gem.

As I mentioned before, the art of the game is surprisingly good. Every detail on the box, board, and bits reflects the humor and irreverence of the game. If you’re a fan of pirates, this is almost a must-buy.

The game is not deep, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s very entertaining, very pretty to look at, and plays rather quickly even for beginners. 8/10.

Video Game Quick Hits!

Happy Friday the 13th everyone. I'm in San Antonio visiting family and a new niece, and yet this is getting updated automatically somehow. I blame witches. So let's get to some quick thoughts about some recent video game releases, most of whom have copious amounts of colons in their titles for some reason.

Halo 3: ODST

If you could apply the word “premium” to any part of Bungie’s Halo series, than ODST would definitely have that stamped all over it. For all the fun that you can have as Not-Master-Chief played by the male cast of Firefly, this is hardly a good gaming value. Sure it comes with all of the Halo 3, including three disk-only Mythic maps and sure firefight is fun, and the campaign is cool and a lot of fun, but considering that most of the people buying this title already have a majority of the DLC, there’s very little new stuff. The campaign is short, even by today’s standards, although playing on Legendary does increase the playtime significantly. All in all, if you really like Halo, by all means pick this up. You should approach this in the same way you’d approach a meal at an expensive restaurant that you rarely eat at. Yes, you will enjoy it but it’s up to you whether it’s worth the coin. 7/10

The Beatles: Rock Band

This is another case of “if you like the series, you’ll like this game.” There are few new innovations to the Rock Band formula, and in fact there are fewer options available to players since you’re unable to change the appearance of the titular Beatles in the game. There are some additional features to make the game more appealing to kids and adults who suck at rhythm games but who like the Beatles. Overall, this is a good buy for Rock Band enthusiasts. 8/10


Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

The most-hyped game of year award was stolen away from a Halo game in 2009. I’d love to say that this game is terrible and not worth an iota of your time, because I love watching big projects and launches (not involving live astronauts) fail. Sadly and yet awesomely at the same time, MW2 is fucking sweet. This is the prettiest, most intense, most fun shooters I’ve played in a while. Yes, ODST is fun and I will be playing Halo again in the near future, but MW2 different in so many cool ways. I missed the boat on CoD4, but this whole FPS with XP thing is cool as hell. Sure you could level up in Bioshock, but you couldn’t play with your friends and you couldn’t level up and get more bad-ass with your friends and thousands of other online players. The single player is interesting so far, but I’ve managed to get hooked in Multiplayer faster. Likely, I’ll save the campaign for when I have no playing online and tear it up multiplayer otherwise. This is a must buy for shooter fans. 9/10

Conquest of the Empire

As you can see from my output so far, I’m a bit slow on the uptake when it comes to gathering my thoughts and putting them down in written form regarding gaming. This is a recent thing, and something that I’m trying to combat. I will be better about this in the future.

Speaking of combat, I recent got to play a big session of Conquest of the Empire. As one of the members of Milton Bradley’s Gamemaster series, CotE has been around. Recently though, a new edition has come out, and while the new printing does preserve the old Risk-style game play, there are also a new modern set of rules designed for a more Euro-gamey experience.

Being unfamiliar with the old rules, I have nothing to compare the new rules to except for other games. This almost reminds me of a mirror image Twilight Imperium. In TI, diplomacy takes a back-seat to combat and you’re almost always assured a fight. In CotE, you’re not forced to fight if an opponent enters an area where you have units. On the contrary, your enemy this turn might be literally on your side next turn, so burning bridges with needless combat is something to be avoided. That said, there’s plenty of dice-rolling combat to be had if you’re feeling blood-thirsty! The mechanics of battle in this game make combined arms of different units almost a requirement, and special units like Generals and Caesars have strong non-combat functions in addition to their military role.

This is a really solid game, and is one of the few games where playing with a lot of people (6 in our case) didn’t feel like a grind. Sure the session took about 4 hours or more, but I constantly felt engaged by the experience, and am looking forward to playing again. The game has a lot of viscerally satisfying elements, like a big board, surprisingly non-sucky stock money, and a generous helping of awesome little plastic bits. I had a blast in the session we played and am now actively looking to add a copy to my collection.
8/10!