Every six months or so, my co-worker and compatriot Jay runs a gaming mini-convention out of his home he humbly dubbed “JayCon”. The latest edition of the get-together just wrapped up yesterday, and good times were had by all. It’s a great opportunity to introduce (and be introduced to) new games, as well as playing old favorites. So, without further ado, here’s a rundown on everything I played over the weekend, as far as I can remember.
(With apologies to William Shakespeare)
To bus, or not to bus. That is the question —
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous tedium,
Or to take arms against a sea of terrible games,
And, by opposing, end them? To quit, to sleep—
No more — and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand spattered bugs
That game is heir to — ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished! To quit, to sleep.
To sleep, perchance to dream — ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of quitting what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this Sega CD,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long a marathon.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th’ highway’s length, the wheel’s necess’ry justments,
The pangs of despised hours, the end’s delay,
The insolence of comments, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’ others take,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a pulled plug? Who would travels bear,
To grunt and sweat with a sweaty gamepad,
But that the dread of never helping children,
The undispensed charity from whose bosom
No comfort issues, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those roads we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus the Moonbase does make donors of us all,
And thus the loading bars of livestreams
Give way unto the pale cast of the room,
And an enterprise of great pith and moment
With this regard makes ready our captive eyes,
As once again, we run to Vegas.
Or, you know, back to Tuscon. Depending on what hour it is.
Loading Ready Run‘s Desert Bus begins tomorrow.
To be blunt, I wouldn’t have this deck idea without Magic the Gathering Online.
There was a time when I scoffed at the idea of playing Magic on the Internet through a sanctioned client. I’m not talking about Duels of the Planeswalkers, the 2013 version of which I’ll review once I play a Planechase game or two. No, I’m talking about the actual, Wizards-approved, “Here is the Magic experience as close as we can make it without making your computer print cards” client. Meaning one must use actual money to pay for virtual booster packs.
As much as one might discount this idea as a money grab, the idea that one can practice drafting at any time rather than waiting for a weekend or a get-together with friends is an overwhelming one. Limited format Magic is a different kettle of chips from Constructed. It takes practice, a slightly different mindset from Constructed play, and a willingness to think outside of established parameters. As much as you might like a certain color combination, say black and green, if you get nothing but blue rares and no good cards outside of red, being stuck in the black/green mindset will mean you’ve lost long before your first game begins.
I will discuss Limited play another time, but suffice it to say I drafted an interesting deck the last time I played. Its core card was [mtg_card]Sphere of Safety[/mtg_card]. My first copy was an early pick out of a pretty lackluster pack, and after seeing what it does I started picking up as many useful enchantments as possible: [mtg_card]Chronic Flooding[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Arrest[/mtg_card], and so on. While I only won one match during the event, I still had a blast playing the deck, and a couple of my opponents complimented me on my esoteric but powerful choice.
So I returned to my beloved Standard with my Izzet Controlled Burn deck in hand, and checked out the scene at the King of Prussia mall. Alas, my first choice, Cyborg One in Doylestown, is now a bit of a hike to get to. The new place had a decent turn-out, and I did all right but fell in the first round to an aggressive Golgari deck that ended up winning the entire event. Aggression can be hard for control decks to deal with, and as disappointed as I was in a few mis-plays on my part, my mind kept coming back to the [mtg_card]Sphere of Safety[/mtg_card] idea.
At first the thought was to cram as many enchantments as possible into the deck so that attacking me or my planeswalkers becomes ridiculously expensive as quickly as possible. However, relying on the appearance of [mtg_card]Azor’s Elocutors[/mtg_card] or [mtg_card]Jace, Memory Adept[/mtg_card] could make for very long games. I love good old-fashioned mill decks as much as the last Revised veteran, and the idea of talking an opponent into submission is hilarious to me, but at least in the initial encounter, the potential to deal game-winning damage is never a bad option to have.
[mtg_deck title=”Standard Safety Dance”]
// Creatures
4 Invisible Stalker
4 Geist of Saint Traft
1 Bruna, Light of Alabaster
// Enchantments
4 Bonds of Faith
4 Detention Sphere
4 Sphere of Safety
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Curiosity
2 Martial Law
// Instants
4 Azorius Charm
4 Dissipate
// Planeswalkers
2 Jace, Memory Adept
// Land
8 Island
10 Plains
4 Hallowed Fountain
// Sideboard
4 Chronic Flooding
4 Soul Tithe
3 Negate
2 Azor’s Elocutors
2 Knight of Glory
[/mtg_deck]
You’ll notice that all of the creatures, save for [mtg_card]Bruna, Light of Alabaster[/mtg_card], have Hexproof. This means that, for the most part, an opponent’s creature removal is useless. Provided this deck can win the first game of a match, it’s likely they will sideboard out some of that removal for any enchantment hate they have. I, on the other hand, am free to board in [mtg_card]Negate[/mtg_card] which will deal with both those spells and any remaining removal, and [mtg_card]Azor’s Elocutors[/mtg_card] for a filibustery second game. It’s certainly not your normal Standard deck, but I think it’ll be just as much fun for my opponents to discover what I’m playing and how I’d win as it will be for me to plan ahead, execute gambits, and come at victory from outside the box.
How does the deck look to you? What suggestions would you make? Is there a particular deck or card you’d like me to discuss? I plan on laying out my thoughts on Limited next time – specifically, I’m going to tell you what it means to ‘brew’ up a good draft or sealed deck.
“I don’t play board games,” my lovely wife says. “They’re boring.”
In the case of ‘older’ board games, the ones I and most kids grew up with, like Monopoly or Risk or Chutes’n’Ladders, I’d be inclined to agree. Chutes’n’Ladders is an extremely randomized game. Risk involves a great deal of downtime between turns, provided you’re not in an opponent’s direct path, and turns get progressively longer as the players with board advantage begin to dominate the others. Monopoly has both of these problems and the added issue of money being involved (even if it is fake money).
However, if you’ve been following me for a while, and especially remember posts like this where I discuss games that aren’t played with a joystick or gamepad, you’re probably aware that board games outside the old and tired Parker Brothers standards exist. There are a few in particular that I’ve played which, in my opinion, really break away from the idea that board games are boring.
SmallWorld springs immediately to mind. The game is one of territory control, with fantasy races endowed with special powers vying for position. There is very little die rolling, unlike Risk – players rely on numerical superiority and careful planning before their turns. Said turns are rather short, leading to little downtime, and even when it isn’t your turn, it behooves you to watch the board, as positions can change very quickly based on who chooses which race/power combination. And don’t worry about one position on the map being better than another. There’s no ‘Australia’ portion that, when taken, guarantees victory. No matter how attached you might get to your Dragon Master Giants, sooner or later you’re going to run out of troops, and must go into Decline to choose a new race. This keeps the game vital for all of its turns and never lets things settle into a ‘status quo’ situation.
If you want a less direct means of competing with your friends, a ‘worker placement’ game might be more your speed, a great introductory example of which is Lords of Waterdeep. Set in one of the largest cities in the Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting of Forgotten Realms, the game casts its players as one of the eponymous Lords, who compete with one another for control of the city through agents and adventurers. Agents move through the city, gathering resources for their Lords, engaging the services of builders, and inviting adventurers to their Lord’s tavern. From the tavern, adventurers are sent on quests, which garner more riches and renown for the Lord who sent them. With Intrigue actions, mandatory quests that can be played on other players, and the ways in which play order can change, this is another game where ‘status quo’ is not something that really exists. The pace of play is even faster than in SmallWorld, with each player taking one action in turn as they try to gather enough resources to score the most points. Between these aspects, the replayability inherent in the structure of quests and buildings, and the fantastic aesthetic and pieces, this is a game I feel I need to play more often. The only conflict between players exists in the Intrigue cards, and this can be modified for a group’s liking if they’d rather not stab each other incessantly in the back, which in my experience is the only thing that can make Lords of Waterdeep not fun. Most of the Lords, after all, are humans or demihumans; none of them are trolls.
But let’s say you don’t want to compete at all. You’d much rather work together with others towards a common goal; for example, saving the world from some global threat. Don’t fret, Pandemic has you covered. I could also mention Arkham Asylum, and while that game is a ton of fun to play in a large group, it does take some time to play through and there can be some stretches of downtime involved for individual players. Pandemic, on the other hand, has the advantages of easy setup, fast pace, and encouraged cooperation. The players are members of an elite team of specialists working together to contain several epidemics of disease around the globe, trying to keep them from combining into a global pandemic. Each turn, players move around the world, treating disease and gathering data for cures. However, at the end of a player’s turn, more cases of disease crop up, and if a city hits critical mass, there’s an outbreak. The world can only take so many outbreaks and epidemics before the entire population begins coughing, puking, dropping over, and bleeding out. It’s a tense game that sucks you in. There are many ways to lose in Pandemic, and as much as it sucks to not prevail in a game, it’s still fun to play even when it feels like the game is out to get you (which, by the way, it is.)
Those are three board games that, off the top of my head, absolutely destroy the notion that board games are the same old tired distraction trotted out at family gatherings to keep conversations from getting stale. I could go on to talk about some favorite card games – Chez Geek, Cards Against Humanity, Fluxx – or dice games – Elder Sign, Zombie Dice – but for now, I will leave you in the capable hands of Wil Wheaton. Watch him and his friends play SmallWorld here or Pandemic here. I’m still waiting on a Lords of Waterdeep episode…
And of the games mentioned, my wife has played… none of them. Yet. This makes me sad.
I may be accused of cheating on this one. Not because of my “save scumming”, mind you, as there is zero shame in doing that when it comes to XCOM Enemy Unknown. I’ll get to why in a bit, but suffice it to say the reason some may not relish the idea of me writing up a review for the game is I’ve technically done it twice already: once for its classic old-school flavor and once as a first impressions.
However, at time of writing I’ve poured 32 hours into the game, which is more than I’ve spent in some MMOs, so there’s got to be something to it worth talking about.
The playability of the game may be tied into its emphasis on long-term goals and costs. When the game begins, after your first firefight, you’re given the choice of where to place your initial base. This is actually a crucial decision, as the bonus you get tied to the continent you choose is rather significant and stays with you throughout the game. Research takes time, manufacturing takes resources, and soldiers rarely start at a high rank, meaning each aspect of the game requires investment aimed towards a future payoff. In the case of the soliders, it’s payoff you may never see if they die in combat.
Speaking of combat, the few problems I’ve encountered with the UI during missions remain, but are thankfully not terribly frequent. Soldiers still occasionally shoot in the wrong direction, hot buttons for skills can move around which messes with you when you feel the pressure to get the Heavy out of the way of that charging Berserker he is about to go all Juggernaut on your ass, so on and so forth. But it still holds up in spite of the bugs and rewards forethought, positioning, mixed unit tactics, and not charging headlong into the enemy.
While some of the complexity and outright terror of the original game has been lost, the current iteration of XCOM remains tense and absorbing. This is especially true of Ironman mode. When you are unable to save when you wish and cannot load a previous save from within the game, you are forced to face the consequences of every action you take. Each decision must be weighed carefully. A mistake can spell disaster, and there is no going back. I consider this the ‘proper’ way to play, but if you’re unfamiliar with XCOM, don’t enable Ironman the first time you play. It can be an absolutely punishing experience, and without the safety net of so-called “save scumming”, your only recourse is to start the entire game over.
I have long admired this game’s previous iteration for its difficulty and complexity, and I continue to do so. While it may have lost some of its depth with the loss of time units and the watering-down of in-combat options, the perfect balance between developing your resources in your anthill-like base and getting said resources by shooting at aliens is entirely intact. As frustrating as it can be to lose a high-ranking soldier, playing the game never ceases to be fun and challenging. Even if you reload the same mission half a dozen times because a would-be sniper apparently can’t hit the broad side of a barn.
Stuff I Like: The new aesthetic and the cutscenes have grown on me. There’s an emphasis on planning and coordinated tactics that is good to see. The way in which the challenges ramp up keeps the game tense.
Stuff I Don’t Like: The random nature of the alien assaults and the payouts for missions can be a touch frustrating. The aforementioned bugs can get in the way of a ‘clean’ gaming experience. And would more than one accent really have been that difficult to nail down?
Stuff I Love: Pulling off a mission with no casualties makes you feel like a boss. The base-building is surprisingly involving and ties very closely into mission performance, which makes the whole game flow very well. An excellent soundtrack psyches you up for your missions, raises tension when enemies are in sight, and maintains an aura of dread even when all is well. And while this may be unintentional, the knowledge of bugs and miss chances means that your soldier pulling off an excellent shot is all the more satisfying to watch.
Bottom Line: Reviving XCOM could never have been an easy sell, and the fact that Firaxis pulled it off this well is astonishing in and of itself. XCOM Enemy Unknown proves that its blend of resource management and tactical turn-based combat is viable in an environment of modern military shooters and RPG-like slash-em-ups. In spite of its bugs, it is one of the best games I’ve played all year.
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