Friday, July 02, 2004
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The Second Quarter Slump
It's a seasonal thing.
I guess I knew it would happen. It took me three months to update this page. My excuse = life.
Gaming has been slow, too. We didn't play as many games this quarter (65 as opposed to first qtr's 115), but the ones we did play were quite fun. You can see the breakdown of games played in the box to the right.
Here's a run-down of our newest games: 
San Juan (game profile)
This highly-anticipated follow-up to the massively popular 'Puerto Rico' didn't disappoint. It doesn't come close in respect to complexity, but it doesn't have to. It's a great game on its own.
You don't have to know anything about Puerto Rico to play it, but it takes on the same theme (city building and goods production on the island) and has very similar mechanics. You still choose a role on your turn, receive a bonus privilege action for choosing a role, and then everyone takes that action.
However, victory points are simplified -- they are achieved only through buildings. In addition, the cards act as the buildings, currency and goods.
The good: the play time -- it only takes about 30 minutes -- and the medium strategy element.
The not-so-good: after many plays, it seems that there's one or two strategies that are too strong.
Meg rates this one a 7/10 and I rate it an 8/10.
Ticket To Ride (game profile)
This one I bought on a whim, and admittedly, due to hype. It's put out by Days of Wonder, who know how to produce games. Matthew over at Defective Yeti gave it high marks, I had birthday cash, and with a game order pending (San Juan), I felt compelled to add this title.
This is also a light strategy game, with a little less depth than San Juan, but with more depth than one would suspect. The board is a map of the United States (and part of Canada) with dotted lines connecting selected cities.
On a turn, the gamer chooses one of three actions: a) draw train cards, which are the currency needed to complete a connection, b) connect two cities, which scores you points (on a graduated scale) and help you complete tickets, or c) acquire more tickets to try and complete.
The balance here is nicely accomplished. Completing tickets seems to be the way to go to get the most points, but the more you have, the greater the risk that you won't be able to complete them. Tickets range in worth from (about) 8 to 25. If you complete a ticket, you get the points. If you don't, those points are deducted from your score.
The player with the longest train line at the end of the game also scores ten points.
The good: it's very accessible to the non-gamer, easy to teach, and easy to play.
The not-so-good: play can seem dull at times when players are just drawing cards round after round.
Meg rates this one an 8/10 and I rate it a 7/10.
Note that Ticket To Ride recently won the 2004 Spiele Des Jahres award (German Game of the Year), which is somewhat akin to winning a Pulitzer Prize.
Memoir '44 (game profile)
If you have visited my website before, you know how eagerly I anticipated -- no, hungered -- for the release of this game. I preordered it, and waited... and waited... and it finally arrived.
It was worth the wait. This one is moving quickly into my top 5 games of all time (could that be the subject for the next games page update?). This game has a lot working for it: it's based on WW2, has high production value (coming from Days of Wonder, that's a given), and is easy to teach and play. And unlike all other wargames, it plays in an hour or less. On top of all that, Meg even likes it!
Memoir '44 is a light war game that plays like a European strategy game. Relatively simple rules pave the way to make this a good gateway wargame.
As you may imagine, one player or team takes the role the Allies while the other player or team takes the Germans. Players take turns playing Command Cards to activate their troops/tanks/artillery units against the enemy. Each scenario has a different victory condition, which is a certain number of medals. Medals are obtained by eliminating enemy units, taking enemy strongholds, and completing other mission objectives.
Out of the box, this game comes with 17 historically-based scenarios from airdrops on D-day minus one to the beach invasions to backcountry French resistance. Many more can be found on the official Memoir '44 website.
The good: it's easy (for me) to get into the theme of the game, it's easy to play, there's almost endless possibilities, and the great board and bits!
The not-so-good: often, the game seems to end prematurely.
Meg rates this one an 8/10 and I rate it a 9/10.
Hungry for a more in-depth review of Memoir? Check out the lengthy tome at the Wargamer website.
Other Gaming News...
On Saturday, June 5th, I participated in my friend Kerry's third semi-annual Master of All Games Tournament. I went up against 9 other gamers and competed in 8 games. After the first four games, I hadn't done so hot and decided to just play for fun. Well, I was having fun anyway, but I concentrated less on the competition. But then I won the game of Hearts, and then won the last game of the regular season -- Chinatown, a game I don't even like too much.
Well, much to my surprise I qualified for the final four. My first game was Dvonn against the second Tourney champion, who's also the fellow that beat me for that title. After a good territorial fight, I emerged victorious.
The championship game pitted myself against our gracious hostess -- Kerry herself. We played Tamsk, and I won a close game. For the second time, I took home the trophy.
Well, that's all for this gaming update. It's time to play some games!
Game on,
Bert
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