What I Played Today: January 19

Halo 3, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, You Don't Know Jack, Incan Gold

Video game party, with a lot of screens. There was quite a bit of Halo, with a bunch of regular games, bunch of Rockets, bunch of variants. I was maybe the second or third most-skilled Halo player in the room, so I did well enough, but I still kinda suck at it. So, I did okay.

Some guy brought Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, for the Wii. Which is a game alright. It is pretty weird! Why did they release these weird fighting game? Who even knows these Tatsunoko characters?

You Don't Know Jack was also played, I am still pretty good at trivia. I know things!

And I guess Incan Gold was played. It was pretty late, I wasn't quite paying attention.

What I Played Today: June 16

Zombie Dice, Mystery Express, Hey, That’s My Fish, Halo

Yeah, I’ve been slacking, I apologize, I’ve been doing stuff, and frankly I’ve got no excuse. So let’s talk about what I played today!

Got together with the dudes to play some games, playing a couple of quick rounds of Zombie Dice, and no real comment here, there were some crazy improbable rolls, but otherwise a good time.

Then, after over a year and a half sitting in the back of my car, I finally got a chance to play Hey, That’s My Fish, and found out that it’s actually a simple but deep area control game about penguins. There’s a small playing field with each hex providing a resource of 1 to 3, and whenever a penguin moves, he takes the space with him, so nobody can move past him. So, it becomes less about getting the hexes worth 3, and more about blocking off regions so that only your penguins can access them. Pretty good for what is disguised as a family game.

Also got a chance to play Mystery Express again, and I think it doesn’t play nearly as well with three players, because you keep seeing the same cards over and over. Each turn, I was able to narrow down one category, and a couple of missteps by my opponents made it easy for me to quickly determine what the M.O. was, or the motive, and I got lucky when counting the times, so I was the only one who caught it. The only thing that I couldn’t narrow down was the location, and that’s because the player to my left had all the location cards and couldn’t possibly look at them all. But I would like to try the game with more. It also went a lot faster than the first time, mainly because we had a good idea what we were doing this time around.

Also Halo, which I have gotten both better and worse at. I completely failed on the one level I usually do great at, the grenade joust, but I was on fire in the rocket level, being able to pull off some hits that I never was able to do before, some lucky, and some just plain skillful. I had a great shot where I was in a one-on-one close ground fight, and traced my opponent’s jumppath and shot at where his feet would be in a second, and down he went. I am inexplicably proud of that, for some reason.

What I Played Today: May 23

World of Warcraft: The Board Game, Halo 3

More WoW the board game, the never ending struggle. I played a real version of the game today with an opponent, and got creamed. I played a druid and a warlock against a paladin and a hunter. We took our respective quests, and after a few bumps we were up to level 2. Too bad I never made it past that point. My opponent was able to work together and get a few quest kills, while I was struggling to take out blues and all my quests took me to regions I couldn't possible get to. As Nefarion marched towards ending the game, I tried to march my men south to take out an easy kill after another pitiful retreat. I passed to the Alliance, only to find myself in a PvP fight, and completely boned. It was game over at this point, and even though my opponent couldn’t handle Nefarion, I definitely lost.

I also tried a solo variant I read on the Internet that works much quicker, making the game similar to Diablo. It was actually pretty thought out and a bit fun, with a lot more combat and rewards and a lot less paperwork. It does run into a problem at the higher levels, when I was expected to take down an Infernal solo, a nearly impossible task at even at level 5. Still, a fun variant.

I also got to play some Halo, which I rarely do, looking over my past three months to see that I don’t have a tag for it yet. I’m usually abysmal at it; I got stomped at slayer and our seemingly favorite map, Rockets on Blackout, but I always have a good time with Grenade Joust, a variant I think we made up, in which the speeds is bumped up 3x and you only have hammers and swords (and grenades, of course). Every encounter is close, but it happens in a split second, and you need to time your swing just right. I like it a bit, mainly because I always have a chance to win, unlike slayer. I didn’t this time, but still.