Random Babblings

Well, it’s that time of year again.  The bags are mostly packed, the weekend is clear, and we’re headed to Williamsburg for the weekend.  I’ve attended most of the MarsCons since about 1992, and Lisa started joining me in about 1997.  This has transition from a gaming convention for us into more of a social gathering, seeing people we only see once or twice a year.  It’s a relaxing weekend, but sometimes that’s exactly what you need.

Our monthly game day was the 5th, and a full day of games it was. I haven’t really mentioned it here before though. Lisa and I belong to the Tidewater Strategy Group. As a group we get together one a month for a full day of board games, and the rest of the moth random people get together at peoples houses or the local game stores. There’s 30+ people in the group and between members and guests there’s usually 25-30 people at a game day. But on to the games…

(continue reading…)

Yes I’m still alive, just life gets away sometimes.

Been playing a lot of Guitar Hero. Finished Hinterland (4/5) and am on to the next Honor Harrington novel. Saw Sweeny Todd (3/5), and played quite a few games at Game Day.

I’ll try and expound on these over the next few days.

An evening of games at Duane & Steve’s was started (after an abortive attempt at Pinochle) with the gem known as Space Shuffle.

We cracked open the box, opened the deck of cards and immediately started shuffling, after all it is the name of the game. Duane tells us to stop as we missed the player ”

Two solar systems immediately take shape, and play progresses smoothly. A mostly yellow solar system (no player) and a mostly green solar system (me of course) shape up nicely, and purple cards (Steve) are nowhere to be seen. Steve makes a comment to the effect of “I think I hate this game”, my response is “I know who else hates this game… the scorekeeper”. To which Duane responds “watch it or that’ll be you”.

The score keeping in this game truly is tedious, and a few times people got too into the grove of playing for Duane to keep up on the score keeping duties. The game proceeds ok for the most part, the first solar system closed is a solid blue one. We continue toward the end, and as we are playing out the last cards in our hand, I get to play 3 cars in a row to end the game. Still wasn’t enough to win the game. Scores are scattered between 170 and 120.

Overall a run of the mill card game, I won’t be suggesting it any time soon.

Guitar Hero 3. I’d been trying to pick this puppy up for a week or so. Been hard to find in the stores. Thankfully I had a half day on Friday and I took the opportunity to go looking for a copy. Glad I did, because the one store said they didn’t expect any till the 26th, and the store I found it at was the last copy they had.

It’s something of a funny story about my desire for this game. It started many, many moons ago at a FLGS named Tower of Games. I was there of course to play board games, but they had a Wii and a PS2 setup on one wall, and the guitar hanging next to them. My friend Jim was there and mentioned that he owned it. So I gave it a whirl, Jim gave me a few pointer along the way, but one thing was pretty clear… I sucked. I probably played or about half an hour, and set it aside. There was an interest there, but it was a $80 game for a system that I didn’t own. Yes there is a PS2 in the house, but that’s Staci’s, so it never became too much of an issue for me.

Then the fateful day came that they announced GH3, for the XBox 360, the PS3, and the Wii. And that little niggle that had been in the back of my skull kicked in. I never quite obsessed about it, but the desire was there. I talked to Jim about it, sure enough he was getting it and also for the Wii. And GH3 was going to add network play.

Fast forward a little while and I come home one day to a GH2 box sitting in my den. Seems Elise had borrowed it for a little while. I ignored it for a few days, but then one day, home alone, I played it again. And I still sucked, but only at first. I was slowly getting better and getting into the groove. By the time it went back, I had probably played the game more than Elise.

So back to this weekend. I’ve gotten pretty good at the game. I’ve already finished on easy, need to go back and 5-star a few songs, and I’m making progress on medium. I doubt I’ll finish on hard for a good long while, and expert is probably completely out.