What I Played Today: July 6

Asteroyds, Small World, Harvest Moon: Hero of Leaf Valley

An evening at the gaming shop, with a couple of games under my belt after a failed attempt to acquire a video game. First was Asteroyds, a space race game that is mostly about puzzle-solving as you try to navigate your ship through an arena filled with randomly moving asteroids. You roll some dice to figure out how things’ll be moving, and then put down instructions on how your dude will move for a number of moves. First one through all four space gates wins. The game was a fun group experience, fast-paced, although a bit of a worry when everyone feels the need to help move the asteroids. A bit more interaction between the players would have been nice, but apparently there are variants for that. The game ended in a three-way tie, which was weird, but hey, I was one of the winners.

I also played Small World with the two expansions, which make for interesting gameplay to say the least, if a bit swingy. I started with hordes of gypsies. Gypsies have an ability to still claim credit for lands they abandon during their turn. And because I had so many gypsies, I was able to completely pull out of all my lands at the beginning of the turn and drop them down on five or six others for a fair number of turns, netting 10 points or so with only my one race and keeping them pretty well defended. Until everyone noticed what I was doing, then I became the target. Meanwhile, a few other great races came out, like seafaring priestesses, who create a single tower at the end of a turn to defend themselves...and can create said tower in the middle of a lake, making it impossible to get to it. Historian skeletons helped win the game though, as people were going into decline a lot, and they got a coin every time it happened. When the race doesn’t run out of steam, like the skeletons, then there are a lot of points flowing their way. I was tied for second, which was impressive, but would have won if I hadn’t pulled so much aggression.

I also starting play the Harvest Moon game that I got for the PSP a while ago, and it is already my favorite one of the main series. It looks like it was finally designed to not be as obscure and convoluted as possible, there is a lot of information that flows the player’s way, there is a lot of ways to get money, there are not fifty annoying little jerks running around everyone, the graphics are crisp and good-looking, not goofy. There are actual tasks to achieve, sidequests and part-time jobs, guidance; the only complaint I kinda have is loadtime, but it’s not excessive. I may be putting the cart before the horse here, but this may be the best game they’ve ever done. Too bad it’s on the PSP.