Rift, Lord of the Rings: The Card Game
I spent the majority of my day in some weird fatigue malaise, so I slept most of it. But when I woke, I played a few minutes of Rift (something really should happen in that game), and then I tried to pass that damn second scenario of Lord of the Rings again. I assembled a two-deck team and played both, just so I had the full range of sphere usability. Of course, in the first flop, I had both hill trolls and the orc captain staring at me. I knew I was doomed, but I barreled through, only to have my threat spike and a few event cards start wiping out all my heroes on one team. One mistake I made a couple of times that I kept taking back because I refused to lose is blocking with Denethor. He has an incredible 3 defense, which is awesome, except when the shadow card is Despair, which will cause the attack to ignore armor, usually to the tune of killing Denethor instantly. It happened twice in this game, and then I cheated and changed the defender to some poor shmoe who would also instantly die. Combat is just so hard in this game, there are very few characters who can survive multiple attacks.
Showing posts with label Lord of the Rings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lord of the Rings. Show all posts
What I Played Today: May 31
Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, Portal 2
A short visit to the store saw it pretty devoid, as the Pathfinder folks has taken the week off, but it also brought to the forefront how kinda sad the board gaming group had gotten. I had passed up joining two long games that I didn’t want to play for two reasons, instead playing a short two-player game of Lord of the Rings: The Card Game with someone who had just started unpacking it and needed some help with the rules. I obliged, and we won soundly, even against the huge terror spider that we needed to kill or else we weren’t allowed to win. Man, I want to play a Difficulty 3 mission so bad.
I also played through one of the commentary chapters in Portal 2 (which you can’t save, apparently). There is a lot less talking from the staff this time around; I think there was an entire room where they had nothing to say. But it’s a long game for the team, and the story thus far is basically “So these are rooms from Portal 1,” so maybe there’s more to say later on.
A short visit to the store saw it pretty devoid, as the Pathfinder folks has taken the week off, but it also brought to the forefront how kinda sad the board gaming group had gotten. I had passed up joining two long games that I didn’t want to play for two reasons, instead playing a short two-player game of Lord of the Rings: The Card Game with someone who had just started unpacking it and needed some help with the rules. I obliged, and we won soundly, even against the huge terror spider that we needed to kill or else we weren’t allowed to win. Man, I want to play a Difficulty 3 mission so bad.
I also played through one of the commentary chapters in Portal 2 (which you can’t save, apparently). There is a lot less talking from the staff this time around; I think there was an entire room where they had nothing to say. But it’s a long game for the team, and the story thus far is basically “So these are rooms from Portal 1,” so maybe there’s more to say later on.
What I Played Today: April 27
Lord of the Rings, Infernal Contraption
I cannot win this ridiculous game. In a two player game, we did not even get past the first stage, mainly because we were overrun by locations late in the game, and one of my heroes was potshotted by a crap shadow card early on, severely killing my resources. But we could not keep the questing steady enough to get past all of the threat coming out of the deck, and we were occasionally waylaid by the rare monster who forced us to waste our resources. We must be doing something wrong…
I then lost a game of Infernal Contraption by quite a lot. After a misfire where I misread the rules and we were not redrawing cards as we were supposed to, we got moving and my opponent created a huge machine, while I tried to focus on a smaller and more effective one. It was a bad plan, because I was soon getting pushed around. He was looking at more cards, and forcing exactly what my hand looked like through a variety of methods, so I was out of luck near the end.
I cannot win this ridiculous game. In a two player game, we did not even get past the first stage, mainly because we were overrun by locations late in the game, and one of my heroes was potshotted by a crap shadow card early on, severely killing my resources. But we could not keep the questing steady enough to get past all of the threat coming out of the deck, and we were occasionally waylaid by the rare monster who forced us to waste our resources. We must be doing something wrong…
I then lost a game of Infernal Contraption by quite a lot. After a misfire where I misread the rules and we were not redrawing cards as we were supposed to, we got moving and my opponent created a huge machine, while I tried to focus on a smaller and more effective one. It was a bad plan, because I was soon getting pushed around. He was looking at more cards, and forcing exactly what my hand looked like through a variety of methods, so I was out of luck near the end.
What I Played Today: April 24
Lord of the Rings, Rift
I tried to pass the second mission of Lord of the Rings a few times, with some combined decks. The first attempt, I died literally the second turn. THE SECOND TURN! That’s just vicious. I almost won the second time, only dying when I get hit really hard by a threat jump to over 50. Of course, I realize now that I had forgotten a rule, so that doesn’t even count as a true near-victory. The third time, I made it quite easily to the last stage, keeping my threat low, and able to cast double Gandalfs at the start to take out that bastard hill troll, when things went south when the last two monsters I needed to kill spike-damaged Aragorn, killing him, and I got stuck with a really awful card, Wolf Riders, who immediate attack if it is revealed as a shadow card, then run back to the top of the deck. In any other situation, not that big of deal, you get one unexpected attack, and then they go into the staging area. Except here, where the staging step is skipped, so every turn I was getting hit with this unwanted monster attack. Considering I was already out of useful cards, I was doomed. (Even worse was that I thought that all I needed to win was draw a Gandalf, he would solve everything. So I draw the Gandalf, celebrate, and then realize, oh wait, I still can’t do this, and I lose. Screw the Wolf Riders, is what I’m saying.)
Also played some more Rift, I’m not sure where I stand here. I don’t want to go into any dungeons, which seems to be where the content is leaning. I’m always super confused why they show off the things they do different, but they never do them differently enough. They have auto-grouping enabled for world events and just regular outworld questing if the players want, but they don’t have an easy teamup for their instanced dungeons? Hell, WoW has that, and you are actively competing against them. I don’t want to sit through the process of asking people over the chat to join my group and yadda yadda. I don’t want to sit through that. Just throw me together with some buffoons and let’s do this.
I tried to pass the second mission of Lord of the Rings a few times, with some combined decks. The first attempt, I died literally the second turn. THE SECOND TURN! That’s just vicious. I almost won the second time, only dying when I get hit really hard by a threat jump to over 50. Of course, I realize now that I had forgotten a rule, so that doesn’t even count as a true near-victory. The third time, I made it quite easily to the last stage, keeping my threat low, and able to cast double Gandalfs at the start to take out that bastard hill troll, when things went south when the last two monsters I needed to kill spike-damaged Aragorn, killing him, and I got stuck with a really awful card, Wolf Riders, who immediate attack if it is revealed as a shadow card, then run back to the top of the deck. In any other situation, not that big of deal, you get one unexpected attack, and then they go into the staging area. Except here, where the staging step is skipped, so every turn I was getting hit with this unwanted monster attack. Considering I was already out of useful cards, I was doomed. (Even worse was that I thought that all I needed to win was draw a Gandalf, he would solve everything. So I draw the Gandalf, celebrate, and then realize, oh wait, I still can’t do this, and I lose. Screw the Wolf Riders, is what I’m saying.)
Also played some more Rift, I’m not sure where I stand here. I don’t want to go into any dungeons, which seems to be where the content is leaning. I’m always super confused why they show off the things they do different, but they never do them differently enough. They have auto-grouping enabled for world events and just regular outworld questing if the players want, but they don’t have an easy teamup for their instanced dungeons? Hell, WoW has that, and you are actively competing against them. I don’t want to sit through the process of asking people over the chat to join my group and yadda yadda. I don’t want to sit through that. Just throw me together with some buffoons and let’s do this.
What I Played Today: April 21
Lord of the Rings, Portal 2
Got a friend to play the Lord of the Rings game with it, and it went pretty well. He was the fighters, and I was one of the two spheres that I’m having a hard time distinguishing from each other. One of the nice things about my team was that one of them was very capable in questing, and another could actually kill enemies in the field to get them out of our hair. Combine that with some allies who were key brogs at knocking out locations, and we completely flew through this game. At one point my friend managed to deal 13 damage to a single creature with only two of his heroes, and in the act placed three quest tokens on the current quests. Man, if only there was a difficulty 2 or 3 quest available to slowly ramp my way up to the bear that is Journey through the Undain.
Then we completed the cooperative campaign for Portal 2. The next two levels were a bear, with a lot of difficult challenges that were out there. There was one in which one player had to ride an excursion tunnel (a forcefield that will float you in a specified direction) through a field of spikes (naturally, that was me), and when we got to the gel levels, oh megs, it got insane. Just so much interaction. There was one puzzle we were stuck on for a long time because it involved doing something mildly insane, but after noticing that you don’t need to be carrying an object at all times, we managed to get through it and onto the ending. I think this was really good and really well designed, and I give them high praise for such a solid multiplayer option to what is essentially a puzzle game. Not a lot of people can pull this off.
Oh, and the final thing behind the door wasn’t cake, so hurray for that.
Got a friend to play the Lord of the Rings game with it, and it went pretty well. He was the fighters, and I was one of the two spheres that I’m having a hard time distinguishing from each other. One of the nice things about my team was that one of them was very capable in questing, and another could actually kill enemies in the field to get them out of our hair. Combine that with some allies who were key brogs at knocking out locations, and we completely flew through this game. At one point my friend managed to deal 13 damage to a single creature with only two of his heroes, and in the act placed three quest tokens on the current quests. Man, if only there was a difficulty 2 or 3 quest available to slowly ramp my way up to the bear that is Journey through the Undain.
Then we completed the cooperative campaign for Portal 2. The next two levels were a bear, with a lot of difficult challenges that were out there. There was one in which one player had to ride an excursion tunnel (a forcefield that will float you in a specified direction) through a field of spikes (naturally, that was me), and when we got to the gel levels, oh megs, it got insane. Just so much interaction. There was one puzzle we were stuck on for a long time because it involved doing something mildly insane, but after noticing that you don’t need to be carrying an object at all times, we managed to get through it and onto the ending. I think this was really good and really well designed, and I give them high praise for such a solid multiplayer option to what is essentially a puzzle game. Not a lot of people can pull this off.
Oh, and the final thing behind the door wasn’t cake, so hurray for that.
What I Played Today: April 20
Portal 2, Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, Gemcraft: Labyrinth
I played a bit of the campaign in Portal 2. No spoilers, but I’ve gotten to the part where I hear from Cave Johnson, and as a cute little thing, I noticed in his little trophy case he has a certificate from the Idaho Science Institute for his contributions to Potato Science. Potato Science.
I tried a couple of games of the Lord of the Rings: The Card Game (gah it is such a mouthful), winning one pretty soundly, and losing one pretty soundly. The first mission (Difficulty: 1) was surprisingly easy, with a few spiders to make things a bit edgy, but then the second mission (Difficulty: 4) starts the mission with a extremely hard-hitting and threat-raising troll being brought into play before you even get a chance to do anything. This thing is a beast, and it took all my collective power to take him out, only to linger for a few turns before a second one got tossed into play. By then I knew I was finished (although I did manage to kill both of them somehow). The Internet made a comment about how having to face the troll first thing is very difficult in the single player game, which I can see. With a crafted deck, I would probably have a easier time, I bet.
For some reason, despite my hatred of tower defense games, I was excited to see they have released a new Gemcraft, this one set in a labyrinth, with a lot of interesting options. I think the customization of Gemcraft is the reason I like it, with a lot of different ways to approach a given level. So I lost a bit of time playing that, and have not gotten very far. I keep losing because I can’t manage my mana properly.
I played a bit of the campaign in Portal 2. No spoilers, but I’ve gotten to the part where I hear from Cave Johnson, and as a cute little thing, I noticed in his little trophy case he has a certificate from the Idaho Science Institute for his contributions to Potato Science. Potato Science.
I tried a couple of games of the Lord of the Rings: The Card Game (gah it is such a mouthful), winning one pretty soundly, and losing one pretty soundly. The first mission (Difficulty: 1) was surprisingly easy, with a few spiders to make things a bit edgy, but then the second mission (Difficulty: 4) starts the mission with a extremely hard-hitting and threat-raising troll being brought into play before you even get a chance to do anything. This thing is a beast, and it took all my collective power to take him out, only to linger for a few turns before a second one got tossed into play. By then I knew I was finished (although I did manage to kill both of them somehow). The Internet made a comment about how having to face the troll first thing is very difficult in the single player game, which I can see. With a crafted deck, I would probably have a easier time, I bet.
For some reason, despite my hatred of tower defense games, I was excited to see they have released a new Gemcraft, this one set in a labyrinth, with a lot of interesting options. I think the customization of Gemcraft is the reason I like it, with a lot of different ways to approach a given level. So I lost a bit of time playing that, and have not gotten very far. I keep losing because I can’t manage my mana properly.
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