What I Played Today: Vacation

Guild Wars 2, Reus, Civilization 5, Magic: The Gathering, Dominion, Le Havre: The Inland Port, Smash Up

I was on vacation, so of course I didn't feel like keeping this updated. Vacation.

I played a ton of fucking Guild Wars 2, because of course I did. I spent maybe the entire week trying to complete the Dragon Bash event so I could get the dumb wings, and then NOT succeeding, because man, screw this one time only events. I understand that they have an incredible commitment to keep adding content to this game, and they are doing a fastastic job, but they are also...doing it too fast? Like...two weeks is not enough time to do everything I want to do, game. I can't be playing every single night, and I have a really hard time getting into a dungeon. I don't know, maybe I need to join the right guild. My current guild is worthless to me.

Also did some more general Steam game, played a bit of Civ 5, waiting impatiently for the new release (should be tomorrow), played some Magic 2014, I think I logged into Reus for a little bit?

And occasionally some people would come over and want to play games. So I played a game of Dominion with the latest Guilds expansion, and man...kind of screw this one? The coin tokens are kind of too powerful. "Oh...I only have five coins in my hand, but I got these three coin tokens that I didn't really work for! Free Province!" But it's what everyone wanted, and they got what they asked for, and now they can suck on it. Also played a game of Le Havre: The Inland Port, which I won somehow, even though I had no resources and my opponent had a full warehouse and three of the buildings that count resources. And a game of Smash Up, which I didn't enjoy that much.

There you have it!

What I Played Today: Driving Week

Cards Against Humanity, Le Havre, Dominion, Roulette

I've driven more in the past week than I usually work during an average week. It was balls. But here is what I managed to play when I wasn't in a goddamn car!

My first stop was in Los Angeles, where I played a couple games of Cards Against Humanity. I like the addition of a random card when there are a small number of players, adds a bit of variety, although makes it super easy to figure out when someone else said something horrible. Also, they don't handle Pick 2's very well. I got dealt a card that was a full sentence (YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS), which was funny, but also didn't fit any of the prompts at all, so it sat in my hand forever. I finally offloaded it somehow, but didn't win, so...I don't know...

Also played the new Hinterlands from Dominion while it was there. It was...alright, I think the random cards we got weren't the best set. There was something a little off about them, they made it easy to take a really long turn, but hard to get a lot of big money, since there was the constant threat of someone Robin Hooding your gold away from you. Plus, half the time Robin Hood didn't do anything useful, and he did something not useful constantly...eh.

I went to Las Vegas and I feel bad about it! I played some roulette (noted for completeness), which I kinda like a lot, it's an interesting game of chance, where it's really to your advantage to play the whole field. For some reason, at the fancy no-dealer table I was at, they showed to the stats of what numbers have been hot lately, what hasn't been, and I looked at that and thought, "Well, that's useless." Because the odds of it landing on a given number of every single time was 1 in 38. It was literally there to confuse you into making bad decisions.

Got sidetracked in St. George because my car is a jerk, while there, played Le Havre on my cellphone. It's a cute little adaptation, good to have the option to play whenever I want, although it is probably a lot better on a iPad, when you can actually see everything that is going on. I lost by quite a bit because I did not prioritize building buildings, so I couldn't get my wealth up. Shrug.

And then I drove forever. Didn't get a lot of chance to play, not even when I spent a day in Idaho. I did unbox my copy of Eclipse, but that is a story for another time...

What I Played Today: December 11

Le Havre, Assassin's Creed: Revelations

I hadn't played Le Havre in forever, so I set it up to see if I could remember how to play. The answer is kinda! I still like the layers of give and take and resource management, although I must have been doing something wrong, because I was leaving this huge pile of fish just sitting on the dock. Seems unsanitary. I did alright though, got a better score than the first time I played solo, although still a good 30 points behind my best.

Some multiplayer today, in which I didn't do a very good job of stabbing anyone. Sorry, imaginary Internet people! I did not murder you as well as I hoped!

What I Played Today: April 7

Final Fantasy XIII, Le Havre

Big plot points in Final Fantasy XIII. I think that discussing any details at this point is against the rules of spoilers, so I’ll refrain, but a lot of big flashy, emotional moments, and I got to the Gold Saucer, I mean...the city of Nautilus, for a little breather and some whining from Vanille that makes no sense because we know what’s she mulling over already. There was an odd bit where I was in some dude’s house and I could actually examine stuff! It was an odd moment so many hours in, doing some actual RPG stuff. Of course, there was only the one thing, but whatever, it was interesting.

OH YEAH! At the dramatic end of a chapter, the heroes are suddenly saved by an unknown ally (for like the third goddamn time, by the way. It’s a bit of an overused plot point). The guy pulls off his helmet for the dramatic reveal, only for me to shout, “It’s Sawyer!” I don’t know if the character model was intentional, but man, just throw a bit of stubble on that guy’s chin and he’d be a close doppelganger. He even greeted one of the characters with a nickname! I hope to see more of him, if only to make a bunch of private jokes. Also...in hopes that a single NPC gets some character development. Would be nice. (Thanks to Toddster for the image.)

I also played a solo game of Le Havre, to try out the new special buildings that I got a few days ago. I did better than I usually did, probably helped one building that let me turn in a lot of leather for about 16 pieces of bread. I could have gotten more money if I was paying attention, using a special building to trade some of endless fields of grain for iron and built another building, but I learned. The buildings I pulled really made it easy to get a lot of materials, which probably helped get me score up, although I spent a lot of time getting my resources set up so that I could get the most resources from using my megabuilding. Seems troublesome, and I only used the shipping line once...ended up with a lot of resources left over that were just wasting space.