Gaming Blogs

Despite the level of busy I have been in the run up to Christmas, I managed to have an afternoon of boardgaming on Friday the 21st.  We first played a 3-player game of Viticulture, a game where you run a vineyard.  I won by 1 point, but the other 2 had never played it before so it doesn't really count as a victory! After that, with the larger group who was there (from my local gaming group) we played a 6-player game of the hidden identity game called Avalon.  Myself along with the other evil player managed the win - sabotaging 3 of the 5 quests (although it went down to the 5th and final quest) We were helped along by the good player who was Merlin, disguising themselves so well that the other players on the side of good thought the Merlin player was one of us evil characters! I've also managed to get in some PC gaming - a bit of Just Cause 2, some time on Borderlands, and a bit further into Geneforge.

Oh well, another week skipped! I've had numerous non-gaming things going on during December. However on the 15th, i did manage to make it to the Grantham Friendly Gamers' last gathering of the year! This one was at Ropsley Village Hall, actually a short way out of Grantham. I took part in a small-scale (5 players total) Draft tournament of Star Wars: Destiny.  THis wasn't my morning - I lost both games of it I played! Although the second one was close (I was only 2 damage away from killing my opponent's last character) I also had time to fit in a game of Sagrada.  Well this really wasn't my day, I thought I did OK at it but fell to last place out of 6 players! I have also managed to do a little bit of PC gaming - a short run on Borderlands, and also on Geneforge 1

Hmm...somehow I've managed to skip a week! Not to mention this post being nearly a week late...anyway, didn't get much play during this dated week BUT I did host a 5-player boardgaming day on the 1st.  We managed a game of Lancaster (second time my copy has been played) which i managed to win, but it was close (points were, in reverse order, 53, 48, 44, 38, and 36) - It's basically a worker placement game with some extra mechanics added to make it interesting, and we got a game of Cosmic Encounter (which I was most definitely last at) - I'm not sure what to think of this one, there is a large selection of the alien cards to draw from (everyone gets one at the beginning, and each has a special ability) but in the game we played, there were 2 that seemed waaay more powerful than the others, making it feel unbalanced. Finally, we got in 2 games of Flamme Rouge.  Flamme Rouge is a card-based boardgame about cycle racing, it's really good fun and quite quick to learn an

Over the past week, I didn't get so much game time in as during the week before. What i did manage was some more time in Just Cause 2 (love that title =+) - I managed to discover a few new locations, with help from the map, and even kill another one of the army boss characters.  My next step is to attempt the next Agency Mission, which I already unlocked a while ago but so far have not managed to attempt yet. I also had a few goes at the remake of Mickey And The Castle Of Illusion, re-visiting the level I most recently completed, in order to collect more of the gems.  It took a few attempts but I did manage it in the end.  There is still a playing card in it that i haven't reached yet though.

So the past week, I played a little more of Mark of The Ninja on PC, a stealth 2D platformer.  It doesn't have a full savegame system, but does have very regular auto-save checkpoints, so it's not a chore to play. You can use either mouse+keyboard, or controller, and i switch between these 2 methods depending on what needs doing in the current section of the level I'm on. I also did another run of a dungeon (read: grinding) in Torchlight 2, in the area I've actually completed but not yet moved on from.  I'm just trying to get my character's level up one more point before I continue my journey in the game! I made an attempt at making a custom track for the "flying" rollercoaster type in Rollercoaster Tycoon 2.  I've got a custom park started, in a scenario that has unlimited money so i can basically build whatever I want.  It didn't go well though, not even gaining a 1 for "excitement", but being mega-intense.  So i'm going to h

On Tuesday I played a little more of Batman: Arkham Asylum on PC. It's easy to see why, when it was released, it gained glowing reviews - it's a joy to play (I recommend switching between controller and mouse/keyboard) and really captures the darker mood of the Batman world. On Thursday, I went to The Dice Cup with a couple of friends, and we played a game of Tiny Epic Galaxies , without any of the expansions.  Admittedly, I lost, but the scoring was close - 18, 21 and 22 points. Then on Friday, with my girlfriend and her son, I again was at The Dice Cup.  I introduced them to the joys of Star Wars: Destiny , a nice CCG that also uses dice.  I find it simpler to get the hang of than Magic:The Gathering.  Plus, it's Star Wars!.  For this, I used the 2-player starter set.  We also had time to have a go at Chronicles Of Crime .  This is an excellent, fullly co-operative crime solving boardgame/card game.  It makes good use of QR codes (every card and location board in the ga

So, on Wednesday 24th, I played a 3-player game of Pandemic: Iberia , at a local boardgame cafe.  Prior to this, i have played "vanilla" Pandemic 4 times, and won on 3 of those attempts. Well, the Iberia version feels somewhat trickier.  We thought we were doing well with setting up our rail network and getting on with purifying water, but we had only researched 3 of the 4 diseases by the time the city cards ran out (hence ending the game) Yesterday, I was able to play 3 games: Coimbra - I found this very enjoyable, although it helped that I managed to get the hang of it early on, ending the game as the winner! we played a 4-player game of it so I was very happy with this result.  It has a number of gameplay mechanics to grasp, and i formulated a plan early on, basically maximising the victory points I earned at each move/action I did.  There's worker movement, card buying, and several resource income tracks that can also score victory points at the end.  A good varie

Regular writing attempt #99 I really want to maintain my blog, so once more I'm going to make a concerted effort to post regularly! Simply as a blog/online diary, rather than anything more. So this past week, I've completed mission 4 (Manhattan) on Splinter Cell:Chaos Theory, admittedly following a guide online.  It took a while of game time in total but I got a reasonably high completion (I think i was rated 87%) I also completed the current mission on Company Of Heroes - I'm playing through the first of the single player campaigns.  This mission was the defence of Carentan, i think.  I'm enjoying the game a lot - it's an interesting mix of real-time strategy, but still with some tactical depth, including a genuine limit on the number of men you can have in your force, which really forces you to consider the best makeup of unit types for the current mission (or current stage of the current mission, as most comprise more than one) It *does* have in-mission savi