What I Played Today: February 15

Sentinels of the Multiverse

I had been thinking about Sentinels of the Multiverse a lot lately, and it just so happens that the computer version of the game went on sale today. What a coincidence! So I bought and downloaded it, and played a few games. It's pretty much an exact copy, only they do all the paperwork for you, and also they are a good year or so behind on updates, but that's probably fine.

I played one that was immediately too hard, and then two games that were too easy. That's about right. Sentinels has that problem of things just kind of being a bit unbalanced one way or the other.  But I have already committed to purchasing all of the game that exists, so!

What I Played Today: September 20

Touch My Katamari, Chaos in the Old World, Forbidden Desert, Sentinels of the Multiverse, Grand Theft Auto V

I remembered that I bought a new Katamari game! Like a while ago! So I booted it up on my Vita, and it's definitely a Katamari game! There's this weird currency system in which you get candy to buy clothes, but otherwise, it's Katamari. You roll a ball. It's great. Also the software does have its faults...once you get to some of the larger areas, the draw distance just tanks. Oof.

Finally made it to board games. I played a game of Chaos in the Old World, which was about pretty standard, although Khorne rolled horribly. I wish the game didn't feel like Khorne Vs. Everyone at times, but the MO for three-fourths of the table is "just live in peace" while Khorne exists merely to screw everyone up. I wonder how a game of everyone but Khorne would work out....  Anyway, I basically gave the game to Nurgle, because I accidentally ruined two regions that gave Nurgle more points. It's all my fault...

Then a game of Forbidden Desert that went well, although one player was worried the entire time, and another wanted to just start screwing around when victory was in sight. Coop games are hard with this group...

Also a game of Sentinels of the Multiverse, which was easily won, because it was versus Plague Rat, and that guy is easy. Although his infections are stupid. Screw his Infections.

And I'm just getting ramped up in Grand Theft Auto V, despite all my attempts to slow it down. I went to the movies, I rode a shitty rollercoaster. Hey, maybe I'll do the triathlon for some reason. But no...I guess I will do crime...

What I Played Today: July 12

Sentinels of the Multiverse, Star Wars: The Card Game, Noir, Battleline

Game night! We lost badly in a game of Sentinels of the Multiverse against Miss Information, mainly because the environment just screwed us.

Then someone finally wants to play the Star Wars: The Card Game, so we played it. This game has some really tight mechanics, the games are always so close. There's a ton of cheese, but also cheese is easily countered, so... In the first game, my opponent got Darth Vader out turn one and just had him to swing at me constantly, but I managed to get out a speeder with Wedge Antilles in it, which allowed me to explode two objectives in the same turn, it was stupid. Second game was less interesting generally.

And since everyone else was in longer games, the two of us just played some two-player games for a bit. A game of Noir, which came down to the wire as we both knew who we were and it was just who got a chance to pounce first. And a game of Battleline, which I hadn't played before, but is a fairly simple set creation game, with some rules I didn't quite get. For example, "in a row" means next to each other, not consecutively. Good to know.

What I Played Today: June 16

Sentinels of the Multiverse, Civilization 5, Animal Crossing

Played a quick-ish game of Sentinels of the Multiverse. Citizen Dawn is kind of annoying, but not too much so. I don't know, we got out of it anyway, because Ra does damage, and Omnitron X can get pretty deadly. Sentinels!

Also did some bored Civilization 5 playing. I can't help but notice it is not July yet.

Plus, a friend posted something about Animal Crossing online, so I logged in and did that thing, and I was immediately upset and delighted that it happened. Every day's great, you guys. I am writing in code!

What I Played Today: March 15

Sentinels of the Multiverse, City of Horror, Grimoire Shuffle

The latest expansion to Sentinels of the Multiverse is out, and we sat down for a couple of games. We first tried to fight the Dreamer, who has this weird twist in which you do not want to hit the main villain, which makes cleaning up the minions extremely difficult, because you can't use the abilities that hit all villains without putting the Dreamer in danger. So...there are a ton of minions that we have to kill one at a time. It was not ideal, and after the environment dumped a couple of huge hitters on us, there was just no way we could survive.

So a second game after a villain that gave out jinxes, which...aren't that big of deal. The minion-less villains are always problematic, because they always go down really quickly, since there is nothing else to focus on. But I continue to like the new stuff, and wait patiently for the next expansion that I have apparently already paid for.

Then City of Horror with some people that hadn't played yet, a lot of bargaining, a lot of backbiting. There was a really fun power play in the second round, in which I decided to heel turn on the guy I was working with turn one because I thought it was getting too powerful where he was, so I flipped to get a vote I normally wouldn't have, only for him to steal it with an action card and kill me instead. Things got a bit bitter in the late game though, when the decision I made of who dies in a given area apparently didn't go over well. But...I got one last trickster moment, when I somehow quicktalked a guy into losing two points to make sure no one died, even though it was really more advantageous for him to just vote for my character to die. I felt pretty slick about that.

Also tried to get people to play and like Grimoire Shuffle, and they didn't! Oh man did they really not like it. I don't know what the problem was. I still like the game, damn it!

What I Played Today: January 9

Love Letter, Red Dragon Inn, Sentinels of the Multiverse, Avalon

Love Letter is a cute little game, mostly luck-based, but with some deduction and so forth, and I like it. The game ended up going to the same two people constantly, which was weird, but I dig it. Short and fun. I wish it wasn't sold out absolutely everywhere.

Red Dragon Inn is a game about drinking. It is always ridiculous, but I ended up winning. Hurray.

A five player game of Sentinels of the Multiverse, against Grand Warlord Voss, and we managed to win somehow, despite our spike damage player seemed to be screwing around and almost wasted his finishing move on a minion with one hit point. (No what are you doing.) We thought we were doomed when a card would have dumped a metric ton on minions onto the field, but we managed to survive the experience, and then we won. As Visionary, I was, of course, useless.

Then we went to a bar and played a good many games of Avalon, and I was the absolute worst. Every time I was either Percival or Morgana, so I had some inside knowledge of who Merlin might be, and every single time I was dead wrong. Man I am stupid. I managed to lose every game. Just me. Everyone else at least won one, but me, I sucked completely. Our last game I thought one of our players was trying to double-bluff us (I may have had a drink), when really the person who was obviously Merlin was actually Merlin. Why didn't I just try to kill that person?

What I Played Today: December 2

Sentinels of the Multiverse, You Don't Know Jack

Lazy day, tried to play Sentinels of the Multiverse by myself, got super bored about half-way through the fight because it was taking forever...the lady with 200 hit points is just goddang ridiculous. I was probably going to lose though...Mr. Fixer is just not that good of character. Although he did manage to deal like 5 damage to everyone at one point.

Also played a little bit of You Don't Know Jack on the Xbox. I love when there are themed games, in which a story is told. In this one the writers just forgot to write questions for the last half of the game, so the questions just got weirder and weirder. Eventually, the last question is "Pigs has corkscrew penises, right?" and you have to choose from "Yeah, right" or "I don't know." Then we get to the Jack Attack, which wasn't written at all, so each question is "pick 'this one'" and you have to pick 'this one'. It was hilarious. These guys are good at this, you guys. 

What I Played Today: September 21

FTL, Sentinels of the Multiverse, Core Worlds, Skull and Roses

I may have played FTL while I was supposed to be working, shh, don't tell anyone.

At the game store, a couple of games of Sentinels of the Multiverse, since I had just gotten the expanded edition and the new expansion. Guys, the expanded edition is really good. Everything now fits in one box, like, on purpose, and some of the new enemies are supercool. There's a giant boss with all of the hit points, and a zombie guy, and a full team of supervillains, which is kinda awesome.

We faced off against Ambascade, who has a dumb name and a dumber gimmick. He can go invisible to avoid damage, except when he doesn't, in which case you can take him down pretty easily. In a second game we found the team of supervillains, who have this cool thing where their abilities trigger based on an icon on the played card, and if you are really unlucky, you can end up fighting all of them. But we only ended up fighting four. They would occasionally heal themselves, which was annoying, but not too bad.

Then a game of Core Worlds, which I kinda slept walked through. I didn't get the core planet I wanted, but I did manage to get two of them somehow. Also, something happened at the end of the game that caused some confusion and someone else might have won. I don't know why we rushed there, I guess we were just done with the game.

Then a game of Skull and Roses, which is a neat bluffing game that took me forever to understand! In it you put down one of your four tiles, one of which has a skull on it, and then you have to wager how many tiles among those on the table you can flip over without revealing a skull. At first I just threw down my tile randomly and didn't look to see which one it was, then I put it down randomly not realizing there is supposed to be some strategy here, then I finally understood and realized how bad I am at liar's dice. I managed to get fully revealed near the end of the game, so everyone knew that I didn't have a skull anymore and was not a threat. Eventually the person who still had three tiles left won just by sheer numbers. But it's a cute little game, I like it, and the tiles look super sweet.

What I Played Today: July 27

Sentinels of the Multiverse, Descent, Race for the Galaxy, D-Day Dice

The Source! It is a fun place for games. I got there early, because I always do, and some people who don't seem to have friends but play in a public place anyway (?) were setting up Sentinels of the Multiverse for two players. I told them it was impossible, so I joined them and easily killed Baron Blade. That guy is a pushover. One thing I missed the first time I fought him is when he turns, you pull out all of his mobile defense platforms, but you throw them in the trash instead of into play, which makes them useless. I don't get the point of this. But the game went well.

Then some people I knew showed up and I thought I would get to play Descent (second edition) with them. But I guess not, because the table was full. But since I had also bought the game, I set it up and played with four other people. I had a lot of misgivings about the game, about all the changes made and how little seems to be included with the game. But after playing, I think it works. The first mission is not the grandest, but the way the game works in general, it feels fun, and that's the important part. Now I just need to check out the other quests.

There was some screwing around, I don't remember if I played anything, but I did play a game of Race for the Galaxy, which I lost, like usual. I like this game, I just don't like how hard it thinks it needs to be. The iconography is so hard to describe to other people that it makes it difficult to get onto the table. But it's fast and easy and interesting. Everyone go play this dumb game.

Then I cracked my copy of D-Day Dice, which I bought that day because it was available and I have no impulse control. I was super dubious about this game as a multiplayer game, since it started as a pretty focused solo game and adding more people could only make it worse, and I was wrong! The game is actually really fun with multiple people, as you work together to keep each other alive, plan your route, determine who gets what items, it's a cool team feel. One thing we didn't do right is the trading rules, as I misread one of the specialists, so we ended up trading stuff we couldn't, but other than that...pretty fun! The tutorials were kinda dumb as heck though, as they eased us into the game a little too much. I shouldn't have to wait for the third game to get the benefits I really need, game. But enjoyable.

What I Played Today: July 17

Small World, Sentinels of the Multiverse

Went to Dreamers again, it was dreamtastic? Anyway, played a three player game of Small World Underworld. I started with the Pixies, who have a lot of figures, but can only keep one of them on the board after their turn, so they are easy to take over. Then some spiderings, then mudmen? I don't know, I got second place, good for me.

Then a game of Sentinels of the Multiverse, and why I love a lot about it, I think there needs to be a fix to make the first couple of rounds not awful to play through. We played against the Plague Rat, which was going okay, until that goddamn chemical vat really screwed things up. It managed to shut down Absolute Zero entirely, and we just took much damage trying to keep things under control. We spent a lot of time trying to min/max Absolute Zero, and it's kinda wasted. I don't know, I just think that the heroes should all start with three cards and a non-limited equipment or ongoing card in play. Something to slow down the onslaught a bit, the enemies start so strong and the heroes start so weak.

We lost, if that wasn't obvious.

What I Played Today: April 21

Sentinels of the Multiverse, Ticket to Ride, Yin-Yang, Bullfrog Goldfield, Some Dice Game?

A game day, with some game dogs. Like, literal dogs! (No, I'm kidding, there were no dogs.)

Someone had borrowed my copy of Sentinels of the Multiverse and had already started setting up a game, so I jumped in on that to play against the boringly named Organization. This enemy is goddamn impossible. Every turn, the badguy summons a miniboss. Every turn, the miniboss summons a particular thug. This keeps going all game, and it's worse when certain cards heal the bosses and others dump all the minibosses back to the field. Needless...we didn't win.

Then a game of Ticket to Ride, which is always boring!

A dumb game to fill time, involving cards? Man, I can't remember enough to bother describing how it played. So skip it!

Then a train/stock game called Bullfrog Goldfield, and it was bullshit! One of the problems was the people I was playing with, who usually are a bit slow to play. Smart players, just...slow. And I think the game was not very well designed. There are two different types of companies, trains and mines, and their value is determined by a lot of arbitrary rules. How high they will rise is based on many buildings, if railroads are connected to it, etc. The only problem is the potential for the stock price of a particular company to explode really quickly, especially if you own both a railroad and a mine, and we got into the situation where someone just ran with his companies and forced game end by round 3. Oh, sure, he lost, but it just felt...pale. I didn't like it. I really wish there was a stock game that didn't suck and didn't involve fucking trains.

Then a stupid dice push-your-luck game. As with all push-your-luck games, my strategy of "if I do not do this, I will lose the game" won out. Good for me, I guess.

What I Played Today: March 28

The Resistance, Sentinels of the Multiverse

I played a couple of 10-player games of The Resistance. It was pretty fun, and I kinda love running this game, but it's also a lot harder for me to keep my cool when the attention is on me the whole time. I was a rebel the first game, which ended in round 4 when we couldn't keep the traitors out of the last foray. But in the second game I pulled traitor, and I could not stop smiling. Eventually it was pretty obvious, but the traitors managed to pull a fast one when every single one of us was chosen for the second round, and we let it pass, so people were super unsure, and we were able to shed suspicion on the first group that was sent. Eventually it came down to the last round and I was leader, and two more traitors were to my left, so they would become leader next, so I basically said, "Yeah, we're sending the same group, I think that went pretty well." (The last group threw two fails in there.) I couldn't hid anymore, and there was no danger, so it was just a matter of time. My fellow comrades would either pull a similar stunt or make sure that at least one of us made it onto the team, but man it felt good to hammer home that it was pointless.

Also played a game of Sentinels of the Multiverse that went badly. Way badly. It was against the serial killer, who had victims in his deck instead of allies, and he slowly builds up with some horrible drugs that pump up his abilities and cannot be removed from play. When he has all his drugs, he flips and just starts tearing into us, but the point is to gather his possible victims so you can hit him hard when he flipped. Only problem is that he flipped on turn 4, so we had no time to build up protections, and the first drug he got just completely crippled our ability to deal damage to him. Plus, our third player hadn't played before, and instead focused on building his strength instead of offering spot support, so...we were done. It was bad. Hopefully in the future he doesn't win almost immediately, I hope.

What I Played Today: March 20

Sentinels of the Multiverse

The expansion for this came out! I didn’t expect to see this, so that was neat, and the new stuff seems pretty interesting, although the card quality is different than the original game (better, actually), which is distracting, but not that big of deal since all the decks are separate. I tried out the new heroes, a kung fu guy who has tools and styles to enhance his relatively poor powers, and a lady with guns that can use ammo to compliment her powers, and can probably do a lot of damage if she gets the right ongoings into play. The environment was the rough streets, which made things worse but not unmanagable, and does occasionally spit out allies to help you out.

And the boss was bullshit. The Matriarch doesn’t have very strong allies on her side, almost all of them have only one hit point and deal at most 3 damage per turn, but whenever one of them comes into play, you immediately play another villain card, and this can cascade so you end up with almost all of them on the field. Even worse is that whenever one of these allies dies, she deals damage to someone. Not to mention she has cards that summon all of these assholes from the graveyard, and another card that allows her to put even more cards in play, plus minor healing abilities, makes this entire thing unmanageable. I was able to keep the pressure down by making all my heroes immune to all damage a couple of times, but pretty soon the entire board was swarming with goddamn birds, and every effort I took to clean up a bit just ended disasterous. I had abilities that let me hit everything, thus taking them all out, but then that triggers a goddamn hurricane of damage on the heroes, and then would just pop back next turn anyway. No idea how you are supposed to have a chance against her.

The other villains look a bit more manageable though, and have some neat mechanics, like the serial killer who doesn’t have allies, but rather victims that he can attack, and you need to tuck them away in a safehouse or he gets stronger. Another has two bosses to fight, plus a second layer of underbosses who enter play each turn and summon mooks from the graveyard. Looks fun enough.

What I Played Today: March 12

Sentinels of the Multiverse, Dungeons Petz, Death Angel

For some reason, people tend to really like Sentinels of the Multiverse. It's a pretty fine game, and every time I show it off, people like it. This was a two player game, with each of us controlling two heroes each, and we just happened to pick the two of the fiddliest heroes there are, Visionary and Absolute Zero. Now, Zero can do a lot of damage if you give him a chance, and we did alright. It got a little rough near the end, in which Baron Blade started swinging like mad, and I thought three heroes died in one volley, until I realized that he had been hit with a debuff. This game needs tokens or dice or something. There are not enough materials.

Then a game of Dungeon Petz, which I lost the heck out of. It got bad when during round two, a player managed to win both the exhibition with a fun pet, then turned around and sold it for 18 points, and it just went downhill from there. I think I just start allowing the variant in which a card of a specific color will always provide the resource attached to it if you want, because when you go all in on a particular monster hoping to sweep an exhibition and don't get any of the icons you needs? Blows.

Then I played a game of Death Angel, in which we lost, but only by one die roll! That's a victory in my book. We started losing guys way too early, and one of my teams was knocked out by round 2, which was not helpful. There was a great bit where we traveled twice in one turn, first into a room with an artifact, then into the final room almost immediately when the genestealers spawned. "Hey guys, there's an artifact over there that might help -" "NO TIME! RUN!"

What I Played Today: Christmas Vacation

Saints Row the Third, Rift, Skyrim, VVVVVV, Dungeons of Dredmor, Pushmo, Dance Central 2, Agricola, A Few Acres of Snow, Sentinels of the Multiverse, Various

Listen, I'm not going into great detail of all the games that I've played over the past few days, in which I was not working very hard. So let's hit a few highlights:

I beat Saint's Row the Third, and the ending is pretty good. I won't be ruining exactly what happens, but there is a part where you have to choose which ending you get, and "Holding Out for a Hero" starts playing, and it is great. Also, the after-the-finale mission really confused the hell out of me for a good three minutes until I remembered, "Oh right. This game is crazy, but not that crazy." But yeah! Great game. Although I think, from hearing some gibber-gabber, that I watched the "bad ending," which makes absolutely no sense to me. Oh well, they left the final mission replayable so I can see the other ending if I want.

I partook of a few board games over the Internet, one being a deckbuilding game that I sure wasn't going to buy, A Few Acres of Snow. It's not that great... I have decided that I just don't like Martin Wallace, and he can get over it. His games feel crunchy to the point of boredom, simulating a lot of things that don't really need to be. In this, you're trying to gain control over a certain amount of the board by playing location cards and connection cards, and to build up territories and bleh. You spend a lot of time cycling your deck because you do not get the locations you need, and I only won the game I was playing because my opponent kinda refused to actually attack me. I also found a poor man's version of Agricola online, which is just weird and wonky. This guy bought 12 physical copies of Agricola and hid them in his closet, so technically you are playing with those sets. The interface is way wonky, and you better know exactly how to play the game, because nothing is automated. If you need to pay food, or gain food, or anything, you gotta do it yourself. Still, nice there is a space where I can play this by myself, because I've completely lost my actual copy of it.

Also on Rift, my guild completely up and switched servers, which is apparently really easy to do. So I followed, and screwed around some. I ran a couple of regular dungeons that were way too easy for someone of my level, but I wanted to actually see them before I tried them at Tier 2. They also added an Instant Adventure mode, which immediately teleports to an area and tells you, "go on, kill 10 boars. Kill 10 boars until you die." It's good for experience I guess, but not as good as chronicles. But it's handled pretty strangely.

Also played other stuff. I won't go into any details, but I acknowledge that I played it.

What I Played Today: October 3

Quarriors, Sentinels of the Multiverse, 30 Second Life, Trackmania 2

I had a game night with friends, and I was specifically asked to bring Quarriors, because I am the only jerk who owns it. It got played a lot, but I only played one game, which took forever. Somehow, the right combination of dice killers came into play that there was no real way for the winners to ramp up to a quick win, so it kept going around the table, and by the end of it I wanted to just tap out.

Then I played Sentinels of the Multiverse, and this game is still pretty good! For some stupid reason I keep forgetting! We faced Omnitron, who hits hard and fast, but with some trickery (and most Tachyon, who can hit really really hard late game), we managed to win even after two of the three heroes went down, one to sacrifice and myself to the most bullshit card I've ever seen, a 15 HP monster, untargetable by most "take care of troubles" cards, that deals its current hit points in damage to each player at the start of the villain turn. It is insane, but we lived through it, even though it did end up that the two dead players spent the last few minutes playing the remaining new player's hand.

I downloaded something dumb, 30 Second Life, a short game in which you live a full life in 30 seconds, and the fun is trying to get all the different careers and stuff. There's only one button, WORK, and the more you push it, the more you succeed...including when you're a toddler and a corpse. It's...a bit weird with the assumptions that it makes, especially if you slack off at all, you are suddenly a junkie/prostitute/mental patient. I'm pretty sure junkies didn't become junkies just because they didn't work very hard. And I also don't know if my fingers are fast enough to even get all the options.

Also more Trackmania 2. I tried the basic editor, and couldn't figure out how it corresponded to the tracks I've totally seen thus far, so I opened up the advanced editor, and then I had NO IDEA how I could do everything. There were a lot of blocks, but there was also a lot that confused the piss out of me, so...I'm just going to race for now. Figure out the tracks before I try to make a challenge.

What I Played Today: September 10

Revolution, Quarriors, (Darts), Spot It, No Thanks, Battlestar Galactica, Sentinels of the Universe

I went into the woods today to play games! I really don't know why I had to go into the woods to do that, but it was pretty fun. I also may not have remembered all the games, because apparently first rule of Cabin Games is you must play while buzzed.

First on the table was Revolution, which I lost badly. Like, 100 points behind the other two players badly. I just was not getting the resources I need and kept getting ganked by spies. So...that sucks.

I showed off Quarriors, and the players liked it a lot. The games do move really quickly though, as once a player has a really good turn, there's nothing stopping them from having another really good turn after they cull. The winner managed to get two turns of three assistants, which really boosted her score, and after that it just avalanched.

We played darts too, and it definitely was darts. I only put it in scare brackets because I cheated to end the game, because it was just going nowhere, so I don't count that as playing.

A couple of short games. The first was No Thanks, which I had never played, and it's an interesting game. A numbered card will flip, and you can either take it and add to your score (which you don't want), or put a chip on it and pass to the next player. Each chip is worth negative points, so eventually it's worth it to take the card, and you only count the lowest card in a sequential set, so you also want to grab numbers close to ones you already have. It's a tense little affair, I said at one point if all games are played in terrified silence, but it seems like a good plan. Also played Spot It, a cute kid's game where each card has a bunch of images on it, and you want to match them up with the card in your hand. Nothing I can really say about it.

Then the party really got started, because it was BSG time, brothers! This was a long long game. I choose to be a Cylon Leader, because I've never been one, and I got the super easy mission of playing on the human side while making sure at leave five spaceships blow up. In every single game I've ever played, all the spaceship blow up, so this was a no brainer, just a matter of getting the table to trust me and make sure they win, which I tried a bit by making the cylons think I'm on their side. It's a weird dynamic, and I like the reversal, trying to get the bad guys to think I'm on their side. The game went really really well for the human though, as they passed nearly all their tests and were able to gain back the majority of the resources they had lost. It didn't even become a problem until after the cylons revealed. There were a couple of intentional executions, which I hadn't seen before. The weirdest thing was when the president had a choice to brig any character. I was on the ship, so I assumed I was about to get the can, but he instead put himself in the brig, and managed to acheive two personal goals in doing so.

Eventually time and alcohol began to wear on the game though, as we entered the fourth hour of play and we just kinda wanted to finish. The humans were not in danger of losing, but were also trucking through space really really slowly, and at one point, there was some drunken doubt that there weren't the right number of cylons. In a move I regret, I did eventually give in to the complaints and checked everyone's loyalty cards real quick, and of course there were the right number, one of the cylons was just extra helpful to throw off suspicion, and because he liked blowing up spaceships. Eventually the game did boil down, and the humans won. It was an odd game.

Then a game of Sentinels of the Multiverse, this time against Grand Warlord Voss and his army of dumb jerks. This one came down to the wire, with one of the players dying from moving too fast, and we were only saved because an environment card through down a defense bubble on the game, giving us time to relax. I played as Haka, which has an interesting dynamic where he has a few powers that allow him to can a bunch of cards for a one time effect, but no real way to build up his hand. I don't know, he seems to be the least thematically consistent.

Then I watched Wacky Races! I can't explain how exciting this seems at the time.

What I Played Today: August 30

Sentinels of the Multiverse

A second game of Sentinels! This one did the same thing; started out with a bit of the old panic, me not understanding the implications of certain cards, and then eventually we discovered a set-up that will really roast the bacon on the bad guys. Specifically? The environment had a lot of cards that dealt fire damage unilaterally to both heroes and villains, and I had a character who can make all the heroes immune to fire damage. So, we let the volcano rain on the bad guys, and just sat back. We eventually had to change our plans when the villain went invincible until she had some more friends, but the amount of damage we could suddenly spike once her shields dropped saved the game for us really quickly. I like this game, it's a lot of fun, and I can't wait until they have more to offer us.

What I Played Today: August 28

Battlestar Galactica, Gunstringer, Guild Wars 2, Penny Arcade: Gamers vs. Evil, Sentinels of the Multiverse, Quarriors

I had one goal today, and I achieved it. I was trying to read the rules to another Asmadi game (I do not get these guys), when I saw a call on Twitter for more players for BSG, and I was in. Although I think my evil streak is officially over, as I was neither a cylon nor did I win. The game started easily, we got out of the mess pretty quickly, and were a bit at a loss of what to do. I noticed a lot of blue cards were showing up, which was weird, so I started to suspect Chief, and when Adama decided to use his once-a-game to fill his hands with blues, my cylon radar went off. After the flip, Boomer went to jail, but immediately broke out and insta-won a really good crisis for us, and while this was really nice, it was also so suspiciously helpful that I still suspected her.

BUT it was all for not, as during a player's turn, they had the feeling they should give an executive order to Adama. I told them not to do it, because I did not trust him, even though he just threw five cards into a skill check that we passed, but it was too late, and Adama revealed. Shortly after, Chief revealed, and they let us know they were at it from the beginning of the game, which I hadn't realized. Space soon became a disaster, and we couldn't keep up, especially after the mass assault supercrisis, so the humans lost while the cylons high-fived. I tried to warn the first guy, is all I'm saying.

At the Kinect booth, I got in to try the Gunstringer, and it works pretty well! You just move your one hand to get the guy to move, and then you shoot with the other. It is good enough for me to buy with money!

In the last hour of the convention, the line for Guild Wars 2 finally let up, and even though I could only manage to get 20 minutes in, I realized it was worth it, and played that for a little bit. I was on the fence with all the hype, the game showing up year and year, the radio silence with the last class, the no release date nonsense. Then I played it, and it's really dang good. I like a lot of it, I like the character creation, I like how they handle skills, I like their active event system or whatever they are calling it, I like it. Now, I realize that it is not Guild Wars, but you know? If it's as good overall as it seemed in those few minutes, then it doesn't need to be. If this game will just show us that they actually want us to play it before the heat death of the universe, I am totally down.

Then, after the con, the game of the show (the literal game) was played again, and it went fine. Lot of PVP Attacks, we ran out of PAX POX, which is their cheeky name for the curse card. One thing I notice is that at the end I never really know who won or lost, because by that point it is not important. It's also not very easy to ramp up to buying a high victory card every turn, because there is never a reason to flow towards all-power or all-tokens. You want to spend all your currency every turn, and so you always have just not enough to buy the boss cards.

After dinner, we played the little indie game I bought, Sentinels of the Multiverse, and it's a pretty good time. It's a coop game, four heroes against a villain, and it's real simple. Each players gets their own unique deck based on their hero's flavor. Just have the villain play a card, then each hero plays a card, uses a power, and draws a card, then the enviroment plays a card, and so forth until everyone dies or the villain is defeated. It's low of materials, as all you get is a lot of cards, and there's quite a bit of tracking needed, but which such a simple idea and has so much room for expansion and variety that I like it a lot. Also, the fact that it was only $40 in a tiny box when any other company would have charged $60 is a nice bonus. I want to play it more.

One late fast game of Quarriors; I managed to win because I got rid of nearly all my dice except a few pretty good ones, and I just ramped quickly towards victory, and then the fun times were done. But it was a great PAX, I had a great dang time.