Gone, but Gaming

I’ve been gone for quite some time. It’s difficult to run a one man website when you hit those busy periods in other parts of your life.

I’ve been playing games, though. I want to talk about all of these in time, and I will. I will ask for your patience for just a little bit longer.

I might do some audio things or something, to keep things ticking over. It also looks like I have something exciting lined up for September, in the old RPG area, with other exciting people. I’m basically asking for your input. In these periods when it’s hard to find the time to do the video stuff, should I write more or do something else? Audio perhaps?

Let me know.

My E3 Thoughts – MONDAY

Thought I’d blast down some of my thoughts on this year’s E3, just so I can look back one day and realise what a load of shit I talk.

1. Kinect is a terrible, terrible name. Just terrible.

2. The Microsoft Conference was a total bust. If you’re only showing a few sequels, a (brilliant looking) multiformat game, and a load of Wii retreads, you’re in trouble.

3. Using Kinect to navigate the Xbox dashboard looks r e a l l y s l o w

4. A Need for Speed Hot Pursuit game, developed by Criterion is GREAT NEWS.

5. Also great news is a VIETNAM expansion for Battlefield 2: Bad Company

6. Giving new Xboxes to every paid journo in the audience of the Microsoft Conference felt a bit crass. If I was one of those journos, I’d be gifting it to a children’s hospital or something.

That’s it so far!

What I Am Playing

Here’s an update on what I’m playing right now.

On the video game front:

Red Dead Redemption (360)
Resonance of Fate (360)
Modnation Racers (PS3)

On the board game front:

Warhammer: Invasion
Cosmic Encounter
TOP SECRET THING

On Sunday just there, I saw a game of Cosmic Encounter finish in fifteen minutes, when Kenny just crushed the opposition with some crafty early diplomacy and good card strength. Still one of my favourite games of ALL TIME.

Tomorrow, Mario Galaxy 2 arrives. Exciting.

Next week, a new episode of DowntimeTown, and ALL MY THOUGHTS ON E3!

ZOZ!

Magic: Archenemy

You might remember that in the past I did an episode of the show looking at Planechase, a new way to play Magic: The Gathering. I loved it then, and I still love it now.

So it’s exciting to see that there’s a new multiplayer variant for Magic coming out this month. It’s called “Archenemy”, and lets one player play a Big Bad who is tasked with destroying all of his opponents.

You can read all about it HERE, but you can be sure I’ll be looking at it in more detail if I get my hands on it.

CHOOSE, WEAKLING! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Looks amazing, no?

I Heart Tom Vasel

Tom Vasel is my hero. Just wanted to say.

See, Tom Vasel is also a board game reviewer. If there’s a game out there, he’s reviewed it. And he’s brilliant at it. He also seems to be a lovely man. A family man.

I love him. Here’s one of the reasons.

A couple of months ago he reviewed a terribly dry Eurogame called Vasco da Gama, and he didn’t like it. This meant that he incurred the wrath of fans of that game. You know the kind of thing. That ridiculous internet outrage that we so often see when someone has the balls to speak their own mind.

Here’s Tom’s brilliant, beautiful response:

Updates for YOU

New things on the site. A few words about the bold Frank Frazetta. A good…oh…nearly fifteen minutes about Dixit.

Are we all playing Red Dead Redemption? Have we all saddled up?

I’ll be talking about that this week too.

See you then!

ZOZ!

Flying Blind

The website just moved server, so there’s a few glitches needing ironed out. For one thing, I can’t upload any images. Can’t even thumbnail this post! It’s a Wordpress thing and I know what the problem is. Once I get on the computer properly I can fix it.

Once I do, I can get my little piece on Frank Frazetta up, and introduce more of the videogaming aspect of the site.

New DowntimeTown episode is ready to roll out, so that’ll be up shortly too.

Thanks for your patience!

DowntimeTown Zombie Special Upcoming

Zombies. Everywhere.

Just popping in to let you know that I’m working on a Zombie special of DowntimeTown.

This will be an extra-long episode, looking at zombie themed board games.

I’ve noticed that a lot of people are drawn to zombie themed games as their first board game, so this will hopefully serve as some advice for those people.

Also, blood.

(Before then, a new DowntimeTown in the week ahead, about a wonderful, special game)

I Bought New Games

I must admit that I bought some new games at the weekend there.

One thing I bought was an expansion for a game that I’ll be covering in the next episode of DowntimeTown. That’s your only clue. Can you guess what it is? A game with an expansion. That narrows it down, eh?

Then, I bought Martin Wallace’s Brass.

It’s a game about the Industrial Revolution in Lancashire. What? Shut up.

Brass! Brass! Braaaaasss!

I was also in the market for a two-player game for me and my beloved to play. It had to be something that had us at each other’s throats. What better than a board game about the Cold War?

One of the best game covers EVER.

I will report back to you soon on these hopefully wonderful new games. Wish me luck!

ZoZ!

Zerg Crush

Not an ideal set-up, but this game is seriously big.

Didn’t get to bed until 5 in the morning last night, because of an epic session of Starcraft: The Board Game. Five of us were playing, and the game must have been almost 6 hours long. We’re a really slow group. We deliberate over every decision, heads in hands, moaning and wailing, shitting ourselves. We’re a group of players who really, really want to win.

The game took an age to set up. It was our first play, and none of the chits were even punched out of the boards beforehand. That’s very unlike me. Usually, when I get a new board game, I like to get inside and punch everything out, bag everything up, fiddle with stuff. Starcraft was a Christmas present, so I never quite got the time. That meant that yesterday I had to read the 40 page rulebook from cover to cover, punch everything out, assemble everything across two (YES! TWO!) tables, explain the whole deal to the players, and then play. So, add all the prep to the play time, and we’re talking about maybe 9 hours of Starcraft-related geekery.

But, man alive, what a game. I’ll probably talk about the game itself more at a later date, maybe even sling a video up, but I just had to scribble down my next-day feelings. It was tense and exciting from start to finish. Everyone was still upright and conscious at half four in the morning, when the last few orders were being carried out and the last few marines were being squished.

What amazed me the most was the fact that this strategy-deep, quite thinking-heavy board game still managed to feel like Starcraft. I was a Zerg player, and at the start I thought, okay, we’re all inexperienced players here. Let’s try an old-fashioned Zerg Rush! And hey, it worked! I got a conquest point victory, having spread my foul seed all over the table. In the game, I mean.

The great thing about the game is that I think everyone sort of felt that I’d won by a fair distance. But I hadn’t. I’d won by one point. If I hadn’t claimed that single Conquest Point, two other players would have been tied for a win. That’s how tight it was in the end.

Oh man. Theme, theme, theme. Loved it. LOVED IT.

LOVED IT!

Richard prepares his Yamato Gun. He's a Hot Yamato.

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