Post PAX Post - Friday, March 26th

Friday started like most mornings. I was tired and I didn't want to get up. Then I remembered that I was in Boston, PAX was about to start, and I had to get to the liquor store for some flask booze. Also, I was going to scout the initial line to get into PAX.

First off, it was fucking cold. Also, it was snowing. LOUSY SMARCH weather! I swung by Bauer's Wine and Spirits on Newbury St. to find that they were closed. BOO, I thought. I figured since I was there, I might as well check out the line. I'm so glad that I did, because thanks to this early venture in the cold New England morning, I was able to get me and my friends a spot close to the front of the line for the PAX Opening Ceremonies.

Speaking of my friends, I would not have tolerated the wait in line had it not been for them. It was a chance to do nothing but talk and hang out with these wonderful people. John, Jack, Casey, David, Jozef, Ian, and Travie: you guys made the wait in line, and the whole experience worth doing.

As it turns out, Friday was a day of contrasts. After doing nothing but waiting in line for hours in the morning for the keynote, you were suddenly hit with the entirety of the pax experience. All of a sudden, you had all options available to you, and it was almost overwhelming. I for one explored, caught up with the RoosterTeeth guys, found the D&D area, and played some Rock Band with friends!

Speaking of the Keynote, it was awesome. Wil Wheaton talked about how gaming builds friendships, and I could not agree more. What brought my core group of friends together in college was gaming, and it continues to be the thing that we like to do most when we get together. The crowd was phenomenal, and although I didn't get picked to be an Omeganaut, fun was had by all and tweeting from the front of the line has its moments.

After my first exhaust day PAX, we met up with a bunch of friends and headed to The Golden Leaf for karaoke and bento boxes. On the way, I grabbed a hot dog at a joint called Spike's, and subsequently had the best hot dog of my life. OM. NOM. NOM.

After gathering everyone and walking to Golden Leaf, sake and BAD singing ensued. Props to everyone who came and hung out! After hiking back to the hotel, a few of us ventured into the chilly Boston night, and got some cheap ass pizza from the most shrewd pizza place I've ever been to. Seriously, they had no seating, only two kinds of pizzas, and their floor was very dirty. Still they were the best 2am munchies game on the block.

Finally we returned to our hotel to find the cops had blocked off our street. Forunately we were able to get back into our hotel, but it seemed like there was always some sort of drama on that street every night of the weekend.

PAX East run-up

PAX East is coming up, so keep it here for the latest news and info! I’ll be doing my best to cover new D&D products, board game releases, and any other geeky goings on. Don’t forget to follow my Twitter for the latest, and tune in Tuesday night to Late Nite Jengajam for our first PAX interview with Shota Nakama and Jeff Williams of The Video Game Orchestra.

Runewars

Last review I mentioned the value of learning a new game in terms of one you already know, and this seems to be a recurring theme in my gaming lately. Up for consideration this time is game that yet again takes place in the Runebound / Descent universe: Runewars. Runewars is very much like some of the other wargaming offerings that have come out of Fantasy Flight games, such as the Twilight Imperium expansion (which carried TI to a whole new level) and StarCraft, thanks to designer Corey Konieczka.

This means that a game as epic as Runewars was taught to a group of new player in just under 20 minutes. Explaining things in terms of Twilight Imperium made learning the game a snap. The concept of different races having different strengths, activations of hexes for combat, and determining initiative by the actions you take that round, all are familiar concepts for Twilight Imperium players.
There are some notable differences, starting with the gameboard. Gone are the individual terrain hexes, and now hexes are group together in different arrays. Terrain arrays are also numbered and determine what quests are available to your heroes. Also gone are the dice that determine the results of combat. New to the game is the Fate deck, a stack of cards that determine how successful your units are in a fight. The interesting thing about this is that it allows players to choose their battles based on the cards drawn from the Fate deck. Let’s my squad of archers are ready to attack an opponent, and we’ve just had a battle involving an opponents skeleton’s archers. Since their both the same class of unit, they’ll use the same successes on Fate cards. Now if that battle went badly for them, and they drew almost no successes or special abilities, I might be more inclined to attack knowing that the successes are coming. It’s an interesting new twist in choosing your battles.

The last difference is a big one. You now have the possibility of controlling one or more heroes, who quest for you and allow you to obtain more victory points on their own. Heroes work differently than other units, as their not actually units for you. They are mercenaries, and rarely even affect the clashing of armies that happen around them. It’s integrated surprisingly well into the game, and doesn’t feel like a distraction.

Overall, the game feels like it takes an appropriate spot in the Runebound series. Runewars is the macrocosm, Runebound is focused on the quest, and Descent focuses on the battles in the quest. Runewars plays very smoothly, and the bits are really awesome. Especially nice are the mountain parts of the map that give the playing board a nice visceral texture. This is an awesome game, with my only complaint being the presence of only four playable races. It screams for an expansion, and once we get that it’s sure to be one of our favorites for a long time to come.

Also, it gives us yet another opportunity to ogle Red Scorpion:



Ahhh, Red Scorpion…

Homesteaders

Being a CEO strikes me as a pretty easy job. Sure there’s a lot of stress, but ultimately you’re just coming up with very general strategies to make your company more money. You come up with vague ideas based on the broadest of knowledge, and then hand it off to your lackeys to make it happen. Then you get paid tons of money if you’re successful, and if you fail you get a golden parachute and a good resume to take to Ladders for your next gig. It’s pretty simple.

Another easy job is teaching board gamers new games and using older more established games as examples. Take Homesteaders, a game about building civilization in the Old West. It’s a great game that transcended its theme, but more importantly it was described as “Vegas Showdown with a Western theme”. This made learning the game much more easily learned, and so we spent more time learning the finer points of the game, like its buying and selling system and other little bits.

Over all, the game is really cool. I’ll admit that the theme and art were a little off-putting, but as soon as we actually started playing everything came together and an awesome time was had. The game doesn’t take a terribly long time to play either, so that was very nice too. I can’t recommend this game enough, and I’m sorry that we didn’t try it sooner.

This weekend I hope to finish up Bioshock 2 and give RuneWars a try!

In the Shadow of the Emperor

Sometimes I’m reluctant to try new games. I find that I don’t learn a game by reading the manual, and I have a better grasp of what I’m supposed to do if I see it played and it’s described in gaming terms I’m already familiar with. Still, it’s the little twists on established mechanics and the subtle strategies that can make all the difference.

In the Shadow of the Emperor could be described as El Grande meets the more diplomatic aspects of Twilight Imperium. The game takes place right at the end of medieval Germany, and the players are various houses competing to control areas of the land. Every round, players place cities, dukes, or knights in the various territories. After players are done, electors are chosen and players gain control of an area’s special ability and that area’s vote for Emperor. Challenges by a Rival for the seat of Emperor can happen every round, but are not required. The Emperor has certain privileges and has an easier time controlling some territories. Play continues for five rounds and the winner is merely the player with the most victory points.



It’s an interesting exercise in late medieval politicking, with an emphasis on constant conflict, rather than taking and holding a given area. Stagnation only serves to deny your opponents points, rather than take them for yourself. Players are rewarded for taking territories and voting for the winner in an Imperial election. The player’s dukes and couples are subject to aging, making a player’s pieces not as permanent as in other games. Players are constantly replacing their dead dukes and couples and this serves to keep the game interesting throughout the five rounds of play. There are also very few random elements to the game, as players the only determination for the events surrounding play.

In the Shadow of the Emperor successfully combines several complimentary mechanics into a fun little package. I’d say the only knock against the game is that it’s not too replayable, so care must be taken not to get burned out on it too fast. I could possibly see future expansions in the same vein as Power Grid, with new maps and different areas. On its own, this is a solid game that’s worth your attention.

FITS

Sometimes the only way you need to describe a game to me is “multiplayer Tetris”. As soon as that’s used to summarize a new game, you can bet that I’ll be on it like a fat kid on a plate of brownies. Thanks to my early days of playing with tangrams at school, I have an innate love of all things competitively puzzley. Ubongo is one of my favorite games of all time and I always thought that finding a game that would satisfy that particular gaming itch would be tough.

Thankfully, FITS is now upon us, and engaging its players with awesome Tetris-like goodness. FITS takes the mold even farther than Ubongo, utilizing a board that very much resembles a classic Tetris screen. Moreover, pieces can only be placed as if they were dropped straight down from the top of the player’s board. Scoring is brutal for new players, but once you get the hang of it, the frustration lessens and you start to have some fun. The game uses shuffled cards to determine which piece gets dropped next, and every player starts with a different large piece.

Apart from that, there’s not a whole lot to say about the game. There are some different boards included for even more challenges, and the game is quite expandable. Unlike Blokus, this game doesn’t require 4 players get the best experience. In fact, there’s not really any player interaction to speak of, unless you count all the smack talk that gets thrown around.

This is a prime example of puzzle board gaming at its best, and a must buy for just about any board gamer.

Looking back

This has been a most interesting year for me. At the same time, I’ve been very very bad.

Not bad in the moral sense, but more bad in that I’ve really neglected things that interest me greatly. Activities that used to bring me so much joy, like working out, updating this space, seeing movies, playing a variety of games, all of those things I’ve not been too good about doing, especially in the last part of the year. Movies like 9 (the stitchpuck adventure), Nine (the musical), Sherlock Holmes, Ninja Assassin, and more recently the apparent visual feast of Avatar, all have been passed over in favor of playing games with my buddies. Whether it’s Agricola with local pals or Modern Warfare 2 with friends from afar, that has been the main focus of things this fall and winter.

In fact, for all my laziness, I’ve had a lot of fun. All those reviews I’ve been promising have been for some really good games. I relish the chance to play Dungeon Lords again, and look forward to replaying the newest Dominion Expansion.

In more RPG-related matters, my D&D sessions that I’ve been involved in have been really enjoyable, and the new material coming out has really given D&D 4th Edition the kind of depth that 3.X had. The best part about it is definitely the D&D Insider material available online. From the handy character builder, to the almost indispensible Monster Generator, to the added character flavor in Dragon, the year in D&D has been pretty fantastic. Add in the fact that I got to introduce several new players to the game in a sleep-deprived and half-drunk session in a Toronto diner over the summer, and it’s been a pretty solid year for XPz and lootz.

So maybe the year wasn’t a complete loss. So what about the decade that’s about to end? It’s been nothing short of fantastic for me. I got married, got a house, and got to travel! In doing so, I got to meet some of the most awesome people in the universe. At the same time, I’ve seen good times and a few bad with the friends that I’ve had for over 13 years. At this point, I’d call them family, brothers and sisters all. As for my family back in San Antonio, I’ve welcomed a new member into our family in my brother-in-law, and also recently met my first niece!

Sports were also big! The Oklahoma Sooners won a National Championship, and my beloved San Antonio Spurs won two NBA titles. I got to see Oklahoma City get the Hornets, then the Thunder. I got to sit courtside at a Thunder game too! In the gaming realm, I got more heavily involved in board gaming than ever before, meeting the outstanding people in the OKC Super Fantastic Gaming Hour group, and starting this site to bring my love of games to the world. Music was a big focus for me as I started going to concerts! I saw Nine Inch Nails six times, Sevendust three times, and Disturbed twice, among a multitude of other shows.

Yup, I’d say I’m pretty blessed. Happy New Year, and I’ll see you all in 2010!