Random Thoughts #1

• I got Scene It: Box Office Smash the other day on the cheap. It's a pretty decent game, and as a trivia party game there's not a whole lot to it. I also got the DLC, just because.
• Speaking of my XBox, I had to replace the wireless board yesterday. See, I'd not been able to use any of my wireless controllers ever since we moved into our house last year. I originally thought that the wireless bridge that was connecting the 360 to my wireless network was interfering with the controllers signals. But when I took the XBox over to a friend's house to play Street Fighter IV, it displayed the same behavior. So I got a new wireless board off of eBay, and borrowed a coworker's XBox tool to open up the console and replace the board. After swapping out the old board with the new one, putting everything back together and firing up the console, it seems to have resolved the problem. I played Rock Band 2 with one of my new wireless controllers for about 30 minutes with no problems. Yay!
• I'm looking forward to finally playing Roads and Boats this weekend. At no point will I ever refer to the game as Motors and Boats.
• The Left 4 Dead Survival game type that came with the new DLC is nihilistic, infuriating, and a lot of fun in small quantities.
• Our two current D&D campaigns are going well. I've got an 8th level Dragonborn Paladin that's starting to multiclass into warlord, and a 5th level Fighter with the Battlerager class features. We've also got another mini-campaign on the back burner that involves rescuing my corrupted cleric of Moradin. I'm running a 6th level Swordmage in that adventure. One of these days, maybe I'll play something other than a defender. :P
  

Street Fighter IV

Sublime is a word that shouldn't be thrown around that much, as it applies to so few things. It's rare that's something is actually worthy of the word, but it's wonderful when something that good is discovered. Street Fighter IV is a sublime fighting game. It's flawless in its execution and presentation and a worth successor in the Street Fighter franchise.

Street Fighter IV preserves the 2-D fighting format of its previous editions, but renders everything in 3-D. This is nothing new, as New Super Mario Brothers did something similar in their last 2-D platform outing on the DS. 3-D fighting games are much more common these days, and the fact that Street Fighter IV chooses to eschew that 3rd dimension is admirable. They're sticking to what they know, and it works. The action continues to refine what's been done in the Alpha series and in Street Fighter III. The game plays very smoothly, and anyone who's been playing a Street Fighter game for the last decade will be able to hop in and play.

What really takes the game above and beyond is the online play. When you fire up Arcade mode for the first time, you might be surprised when you're all of a sudden challenged by an online opponent. By default on the 360 version, online matchmaking is enabled in Arcade mode. This means that you can be challenged by online opponents at any time while you're in Arcade mode. You can also specify criteria for said challenges (connection speed, player ranking, location), or turn them off entirely if you're feeling antisocial. You can also set up a room to play random opponents or your friends, or you can become that random opponent that challenges people in Arcade mode. Playing people in Arcade mode is definitely where it's at, as it reminds me of the days in the mall when you'd slap a quarter on the machine and challenge the guy on it. You play, and then maybe you play a rematch, but then you're done w/ that person and you move on. You get your win, or take your loss and then take on the next opponent. It's a great way to play a lot of different people of varying skill and truly test your mettle or just mess around as Dan and try to get that super taunt off.

Speaking of Dan, the characters making an appearance are both awesome and odd. The old standbys are here, some new characters throw their hats into the ring, but some other interesting choices are there. Dan is back for some reason, as is Rose, Gen, Cammy, and Fei Long. The Super Street Fighter II love continues with rumors that Dee-Jay and T. Hawk are fully rendered in the game engine and ready to be released as new characters. I'd love to see Karin and Adon make it into the game as downloadable content.

That leads me to my only complaint about the game. The DLC so far has consisted of costume packs that are $4 for an alternate costume for 5 characters. This isn't a very good deal, and the only really good costume set is the one for the girls. Fortunately, we're told that if extra characters do become available in the future, they'll be free.

If you love fighting games, this is a must buy. Obviously Street Fighter fans are going to pick up this game, but it really is simply a fantastic all-around game. 10/10, with the awesomely bad boy-band theme song and dumb DLC balanced out with the potentially awesome free downloadable characters.

Die Saulen von Venedig (The Pillars of Venice)

It's well known among my friends that I'm a sucker for cool gaming bits and a nifty game theme. Die Saulen von Venedig (The Pillars of Venice) has both of these in spades. The game puts the players in charge of building the city of Venice. For those that might not know, Venice is an ancient European city that's built in a lagoon. It's entirely supported by large wooden piles, ontop of which are the buildings and streets of the city. The games plays a lot like Race for the Galaxy, where players choose a role and perform the associated actions. The goal is to score points using a variety of methods, such as claiming piles, constructing buildings, or even simply leaching off the actions of other players with several hangers-on roles, like the Gondolier or Begger.

The game is a fun area control game, because matching different parts of buildings scores bonus points. Additionally, you must decide which piles to use and which player to give points to when constructing your own buildings. It also reminds me of Leonardo Da Vinci, in that you have to perform several steps over consective turns to eventually score points. In Die Saulen von Venedig, you must aquire buildings, lay piles (or wait for someone to do it for you), then actually build the buildings. The game is not only about putting your various pieces in advantageous positions, but timing your actions so that you pull ahead on the score track right as the game is ending. While I would have preferred some 3-D city and bridges bits, the piles pieces are pretty cool, and the board ends up very busy quickly. The game is possibly expandible, with new buildings and roles potentially being added.

The visceral joy of building the city from the marsh up is the games biggest plus, giving this an edge over a lot of other area control games and earning a 7/10. Good game, great fun and an great addition on the city building/area control offerings!

Dominion

Dominion is a card game that embraces the fact that it's a card game. It's not like Race for the Galaxy or even Battle Line, both of which are card games that try to emulate board games. Dominion is all about building your deck, then manupluating your deck to get the cards you need. If any of this sounds familiar, you're probably a former or current collectable card game player. Essentially, you have cards that are worth money, cards that do actions, and cards that are worth victory points. Each turn your allowed to play one action, buy one card, then discard and refill your hand. Some of the action cards allow you to do more actions, buy more cards, draw more cards, or just screw with your opponents.

The game is all about optimization. Victory points are in the form of cards that, aside from scoring at the end of the game, do absolutely nothing else. Point cards are necessary dead weight that you must balance with the more functional elements of your deck. I've seen players run a VERY lean deck that does nothing but buy high value VP cards every turn, and I've seen player run stacks of cards with a ton of extra actions every turn that eventually buy the same high value VP cards.

There are two things that I love about the game. The first is the before mentioned variation of strategy that's possible. There are about 25 different cards that are available to the players besides VPs and money, and only 10 of those are actually in the game. This means that every game has it's own challenges to overcome and combos to exploit. This leads me to my other point. The game is VERY expandable, with new cards able to be dropped into a game with great ease, making this one of the most replayable games I've seen in a while.

If Descent is D&D-lite, then Dominion is Magic: The Gathering lite. All of the fun, but boiled down to a easy to play concentrate. Don't let the CCG comparison worry or scare you off of this game. It's great fun, easy to learn, and fast becoming a must buy for board gamers. 9/10

Code 777

Sometimes someone surprises you. Sometimes that surprise is really knocked out of the park. I was absolutely floored by this gesture.

My review of Code 777 will be brief. It's the best deduction game I've ever played and one of my favorite games overall. It's much more deep than Clue (even Master Detective), and much more engaging and simple than the needlessly complex Mystery of the Abbey. It's sublime, and always a pleasure to play.

The problem is that it's hard to get, being out of print and all. In fact, I've only ever played a homemade set at a buddy's house. That buddy is Jon, and I mentioned to him some time ago that I was looking to make my own copy of Code 777. Well, he beat me to the punch...











These are blank mahjong tiles w/ stickers. I'm sleeving the cards, and we've even played our first game with it. :D

Race for the Galaxy

Card games hold an interesting niche in the board gaming world. Whenever a big bunch of gamers get together we sometimes run multiple games at the same time. This can cause one group to have some downtime if they finish their game and want to wait for the others to finish theirs as well. This is generally when the card games come out, as they’re generally easy to learn and quick to play.

Race for the Galaxy fits this bill nicely. It’s very amusing and can easily be played in about 20 minutes. The first time I played it took 30 minutes only because two of the three players were new and one of those new players was understandably distracted by her child. Needless to say it plays fast, but that doesn’t stop the game from having an epic scope and a much bigger feel than its lot as a card game might suggest.

Race for the Galaxy was originally supposed to be a card game version of Puerto Rico, and this is plainly obvious to any Puerto Rico player after getting the first explanation of RftG’s rules. The game adapts quite well to its new space exploration/conquest theme, and even takes the ingenious step of using undrawn face down cards from the deck as tokens and trade goods. This means that the only thing in the box is the deck of cards, a few victory point chits and the rules, and further adding to my surprise at the games level of emersion. This also makes expansions stupidly easy to insert into the main game and furthers the games replay value.

Race for the Galaxy gets an 8 of 10. This is a fantastically amusing game that easy to teach to just about anyone and even easier for a seasoned board gamer to dive into. The card art is good and the fact that is plays fast means that it can be brought out for a quick game at any time.

Agricola

As a board gamer, I see a lot of games set to a myriad of themes. Many times these themes include things like commerce, the political process, or even farming. While conquering the galaxy, fighting monsters, or questing for treasure might seem like the only way for a board game to be fun, most board gamers know that a great game can take a seemingly mundane theme and turn it into a marvelous board game. This is precisely what has been done with Agricola, a game where you play as a farmer and his wife as they build their farm and family.

I'm going to stop for just a second so that this can sink in. Agricola is a game about farming. You plant crops, raise livestock, have children and improve your house. This should neither be fun nor interesting for a bunch of nerdy city folk, and yet it is. More so, Agricola is an awesome game. It's definitely one of the best board games I've ever played.

The strength in Agricola lies in its replay value. In every game, each player gets a different hand of farm improvements and occupations that provide benefits. These are where players generally get the direction for their particular strategy that game. In addition, the types of actions that can be taken by the player’s changes depending on the number of players in the game, and later actions have a level of randomization to them. Finally, the before-mentioned occupations and improvements can come from one of three decks. These decks include an "easy", "complex", and "interactive" level of play with a more humorously themed X and Z deck available as well.

All of these aspects combine to make each game of Agricola truly different from the other. Beyond playing the hand that's literally dealt to you, it's even possible to eschew your cards and simply build a competitive farm without bothering to spend resources on occupations or improvements. I've not seen the kind of variety available in board game that Agricola has since Twilight Imperium. It may seem strange to compare these two wildly different games, but when you consider that both offer extremely deep replayability the comparison makes sense. Many of the actions are not even printed on the board itself, making easy to release card-only expansions that can drastically change the way the game is played. I can easily foresee playing Agricola for years to come and not getting sick of it in the least.

Agricola is a near perfect board gaming experience, getting a 10 out of 10 from me. It's challenging, great fun, and easily adaptable to any group of players.