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Brakketology Gets a Job; Keeps Flying

Todd Brakke 1 Comment

FireflyBoardGame

In this day and age a guy has to do what he can to get by. That means you have to take a lot of jobs to make ends meet, even legal ones. A Firefly class boat needs parts and supplies to keep it in the air, after all. In this week’s Brakketology, if you haven’t guessed, I got a chance to play Firefly: The Game. Along with some first impressions of that, there’s a promising first look at Banner Saga (via RPS) that demands you pay attention, more Enemy Within bits, Project Eternity continues its climb up my list of most anticipated games, Amazon does something that almost made my life better, a real Ultima lands on iOS, and Xbox One gets a release date…

Find a job. Find a crew. Keep flying. I talked a bit (or tried to) about Firefly: The Game on JtS this week. I loved the thing. It’s exactly what a Firefly boardgame should be and if you’re a boardgamer and a fan of the series, you should absolutely give it a look. The theme is exactly as described in bold. You’re the captain of a Firefly and you need work, legal or otherwise. The board is big chunk of space populated by the many moons and planets featured (and not featured) in the show and you travel from place to place seeking work from the likes of Badger, and Patience, and –shudder– Niska. Do not disappoint Niska. You also have to build a crew that complements the skills required to execute on a given job, you have to keep them happy, and you need supplies (not to mention gas) to keep your boat in the air. It’s thematically perfect. The only flaw is that it’s a bit solitaire. There are means by which you can interact with other players while on-planet together, trading items, stealing crew, etc., but it’s not required and in the game I played it never happened. It’s also a game that takes a full play-through to get the hang of. In my game there was a lot of downtime while people figure out their moves, consulted rules, etc. It’s the kind of thing that goes away once at least a couple players know the game cold, but it’s a factor you should consider before breaking it out. Also, it’s a four-player limit, which it really didn’t need to be. I’m betting that, like Spartacus (also from GF9), that the inevitable expansion addresses this. (On the bright side, you can also play it with just one player.)

Banner Saga. It Looks Good. RPS has a hands-on look at Banner Saga. It’s long and detailed and you should read it. This was a game that I had intended to Kickstart back in the day, but missed the deadline because I am, of course, monumentally lazy (and cheap). Now that single-player information is starting to come out, the game sounds (and looks) exactly as good as I thought it did during its proposal stage. Here’s a taste from RPS:

I can’t think of a game I’ve played in recent memory where each and every choice I made felt so heavy. I went from telling tiny squads which squares to move to while fighting drunks (that was a fun tutorial) to managing a powder keg caravan of thousands. And if I didn’t keep it all together? If the whole thing went sky high, if I didn’t placate the spoiled human prince, if I didn’t show my Varl legions that I was just as firm yet wise as their old leader, if I didn’t keep our supplies topped off, if I didn’t get rid of the spoiled supplies some grateful merchant accidentally gave us when we saved his life, if I didn’t, if I didn’t, if I didn’t…

Then the ice would break.

There are comparisons to Oregon’s Trail (in a good way) that follow, not to mention the sorts of hooks and subverting expectations that any gamer will appreciate. Go. Read.

XCOM: Enemy Within Tries to Look Spontaneous. There is now a highly, highly scripted demo, which is so contrary to what XCOM is that it’s hard to draw much of a conclusion from it. It’s worth noting that the more scripted the events in a mission in Enemy Unknown, generally, the less interesting that mission was. It concerns me when they talk about “new environments” they haven’t addressed them in the context of just another mission, because that’s what the game needs from an expansion. More types of random missions. More variety of environments for random missions. A longer game to accommodate it all. More ways to customize your squad is nice too, but I’m not on-board yet with the whole mech and genetic modification angle. I’m strictly wait and see on that. If I can be permitted to concern troll Firaxis, I’m wary their focus is on expanding on the wrong things. I’ll still buy, though, because that’s how much goodwill they earned from me with Enemy Unknown.

For those looking for hope, here’s a blurb from RPS who got some hands-on time with it:

I got to play a little of Enemy Within last week, and the net effect of these new units was that aggressive strategies felt much more effective and satisfying. I usually turtle so hard that people want to turn me into soup, but mechs’ ability to essentially function as mobile cover and a nice helping of active camouflage for weaker units made me feel like I was better able to control the battlefield. However, to balance that out, aliens have mechs too, and I nearly ingested my Adam’s apple every time a sectoid gave one a near-impregnable shield via mind merge. The short version? It wasn’t necessarily better or worse than the way I usually play XCOM, but it was certainly different.

Project Eternity Gets a Stronghold. Obsidian came out with a fresh info-dump on what is one of my top three Most Anticipated Games That Might Come Out Next Year — Eternity. The topic du jour is the player’s stronghold. This is no longer a fresh or novel concept for an RPG, but that does not mean it can’t be cool if done well. This looks cool, mostly because it will have function beyond being a place to dump stuff. Here’s a list of passive things it’ll do. You’ll find much more at the Kickstarter page; the bit about constructing a prison sounds particularly cool so do click over.

  1. Resting bonuses. Some of the upgrades to your stronghold will grant temporary bonuses to your attributes or non-combat skills when you rest there. As examples, you can build Training Grounds to improve your Strength or a Library to improve your Lore skill. Some of these upgrades are expensive, but you’re worth it.
  2. Adventures for idle companions. You will eventually have more companions than will fit in your party, so you will have leave some of them behind. While they are idling away at the stronghold, they can take part in their own adventures, earning additional experience for themselves and extra money, items and reputation bonuses for you!
  3. Ingredients. Many of the stronghold upgrades will generate ingredients used by non-combat skills. For example, Botanical Gardens create Survival ingredients over time, and a Curio Shop produces ingredients for use by both Lore and Mechanics.
  4. Special offers. Sometimes visitors to your stronghold will have rare items for sale, or perhaps they will offer you items in return for something else. Pay attention to these visitors. Some of these items may be nearly impossible to find any other way!
  5. Wealth. Don’t forget that by owning a stronghold, you also own all of the surrounding lands and impose a tax on all of the inhabitants. It will feel nice for a change to have someone recognize your high standing and give you the money that you so richly deserve.

Xbox One Needs a Hug. Has no Takers. Lots of Xbox One stuff going on this week. November 22nd is the first day you can officially not buy the console. Lucky you! What’s amazing is that I’m actually on the fence about it. Despite the fact that I’ve been doing 100% of my gaming via PC the past year, and am perfectly happy with that, I almost want this console just to have it. Maybe it’s because Microsoft keeps bending over backwards to let people know that, “Yes, we know you hate us and everything we stand for, but look at all the ways we’re maybe(?) changing things you don’t like just to make you happy!” Like, teasing the possibility of backwards compatibility… someday. There’s a desperation so thick it makes me want to give them a conciliatory hug by just buying the thing. Also, I think my kids will like the new Kinect and it might keep them off my PC. Also also, I haven’t bought a new gadget in a long time and I’m getting twitchy. It’s a sickness.

On second thought, this ad is so full of awful maybe I’ll reserve my hug for awhile longer…

YouTube video

Because football wasn’t complete until Xbox One. Maybe it’ll even solve that pesky concussion problem.

Ultima IV to iOS. If you want to get the stink of the kinda sorta free-to-play abomination that is Quest of the Avatar, you can now get a retro fix of Ultima IV on iOS as Mythic –let’s just call it an apology even though it isn’t one– ported the Commodore 64 version over to Apple’s mega-mall of a store. And it’s free.

Kindle Readers to Get the Best of Both Worlds? Almost. Amazon, which already gets props for doing this with their music catalog, will now let you purchase their print books and, at the publisher’s discretion, let you tack on the ebook for a small fee (free in some cases). As a Kindle user who laments not being able to share books I enjoy with the people I know, this is a long overdue solution. Now if only I could tack on the print book sale to all my ebook purchases from the last year. Nothing like punishing those of us who bought into your platform already. Ugh.

Bill’s Top 10 Boardgames of 2012

Bill Abner 22 Comments

Once again it’s that time where I lay out my picks for the best boardgames of the year. Keep in mind that this isn’t the “best games of 2012” but rather the best games I played over the past year or so. Boardgames, being the beautiful hobby that it is, tend to age better than, say, a 10 year old PC game. I loved High Heat Baseball to death back in the day but I’m not breaking out the Sammy Sosa classic anytime soon.

So here we go: a list of my personal 10 from 2012. My list is certified to be better than anything Barnes posts because everyone knows he likes terrible games.

You can trust me. Also, I won’t add any of our own games on the list because that would be a clear violation of some kind of rule.

Last year’s list can be found here. Looking back I still recommend most of those games even though I think I overrated the Blood Bowl card game and A Few Acres of Snow has run its course.

So let’s get to it.

#10. Catacombs

I was going to put Eclipse in this spot but then I remembered I don’t like Eclipse as much as nearly everyone else, so Catacombs it is. Catacombs is a “dexterity” game — a fairly common genre with games like Crokinole and PitchCar being the staples. In Catacombs you are still flicking disks around but the disks represent baddies in a dungeon or a hero trying to wipe them out. There is a surprising amount of stuff going on in this game and if you like flicking games then Catacombs just plain works. I play this with my family and while not a regular on the table, I do enjoy it even though I am awful at it. Need someone to miss with a point blank magic missile? I’m your guy. It does offer some hilarious moments like when a warrior kills a handful of sekeltons with one awesome flick.

#9. Clash of Cultures

I haven’t played this enough to really make a call on it — but I did play it and immediately afterward wanted to play it again. The search for a great “civ” game that doesn’t take half a day is one of the industry’s white whales and CoC does a pretty damn good job in pulling it off. This is from the same designer as Merchants & Marauders, which is a nice early pedigree. This comes out I think next week — keep an eye on it and if it’s as good as I think it is, it’ll be a regular on the table.

 

#8. Omen: Reign of War

Now out of print and hard to find, Omen is another 2-player card game from John Clowdus, designer of Innovation. It plays in 30 minutes and is full of tough choices as you try to capture cities with ancient soldiers, oracles, and beasts while trying to please the Greek gods. I just love this guy’s work, and the art on this one, unlike Innovation, is top notch.

 

#7. Mage Knight Board Game

Mage Knight should be ranked higher. It’s such a wonderfully designed game after you get past its initial “holy shit” learning curve. It tells a compelling story, plays great solo, and is an example of outside the box thinking that has proven successful. Mage Knight has sold a ton if units and for such an obtuse game that is quite remarkable. But I never get to play it anymore. It’s terribly hard to teach and is definitely not for everyone and getting it to the table is tough. But I love the game regardless.

 

#6. Mice and Mystics

This is basically D&D re-themed with mice, rats, spiders, and centipedes. This story driven game is one of THE best family games I have ever played. Will I break this out with my regular group? I doubt it. But playing it with a 12 year old who likes smacking cockroaches with a sword? Yep. You play “chapters” which are tied together in a storybook which is read aloud during each session. You really are playing a story and not just a “scenario” which gives the game a great sense of cause and effect. You have choices to make during a chapter and it feels like a miniatures game of choose your own adventure. You play this co-op which I usually hate but here it works and if you have kids who love adventure stories I can’t recommend it enough. I hate tying “ages” to games like this but it’s not really a “kid’s game” because you do need some tactical thinking and games do last at least an hour so I wouldn’t being this out with small kids — but maybe 10+? Absolutely.

 

#5. Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game

Do you like Star Wars? The Non-Jar-Jar era Star Wars? Do you like the idea of a fairly simple game of dogfighting between an X-Wing and a TIE Fighter with pre-painted miniatures that look freaking awesome? If there has ever been a game that sells itself, this is it. The only drawback is the price. You really do need to buy more than what comes in the base game to see this reach its full potential but I defy a Star Wars fan to play this and not immediately want to play it again. You will also undoubtedly hear movie quotes flying during each game.

“Don’t get cocky, kid!”

“I can’t shake ’em!”

“Stay on target!”

“I have you now…”

(the game doesn’t come with that cool Death Star map, that’s a custom job, but how awesome is that?)

#4. 1812: The Invasion of Canada

One of my favorite lite-wargames of all time, if not my #1 favorite. I love this game. How many games of this ilk can you literally teach in 10 minutes and yet find so much depth in its actual gameplay? I have watched this played by the publisher at a convention and witnessed moves I never dreamed of trying — it’s such a brilliant game that only falls flat with those not into wargames due to its era.

The war of 1812 just isn’t considered a sexy war.

But if you want to play a deceptively simple game — and I encourage you to try and get the full compliment of 5-players so you have a player playing each of the American Regulars, American Militia, the Redcoats, the Canadian Militia and the Native Americans — then I strongly advise giving this a look. It’s fast, easy to teach, and will have everyone at the table engaged during every single turn. Doesn’t get much better than that.

 

#3. Spartacus: A Game of Blood & Treachery

I have to confess — I have played this one time. One glorious time. The game ended prematurely around 2AM and I was so tired I could barely function but I know this — Spartacus has so much of what I like in boardgames in one crazy package it’s impossible for me to ignore it here. Bribes, open trading, negotiation, backstabs, decapitation…

You play as a prestigious House in Ancient Home and you buy and trade slaves and gladiators and try to become the most influential House. It has die rolling, kick you in the teeth card play — there is literally a card called “Jupiter’s Cock” — yeah it’s an M rated game. It’s unlike anything I have ever played and while it’s not a game for those who despise any level of confrontation or luck in their boardgaming, for the rest of us, this simply HAS to be part of your library.

#2. Cosmic Encounter

Yeah, it has taken me this long to play this classic. Don’t ask me why but I finally played it quite a bit this past year and it’s as awesome as everyone told me it was. So much as been written about Cosmic that I really can’t say much about it that hasn’t already been said but sitting at a table with my buddies Billy Baroo, Mace, and Kenny during Abner Con earlier this year was one of my gaming highlights of 2012. This is timeless and should be in the library of anyone who plays boardgames.

 

#1. Hansa Teutonica

So this year’s list is full of classic “Ameritrash” designs like Cosmic, Spartacus, X-Wing, and the best game I played in 2012 was…a Eurogame about..wait what IS it about?

“The players act as traders trying to get victory points for building a network of offices”

Well now doesn’t that sound thrilling!

In fact here’s a quote from a review posted at BGG:

What if you took the most boring looking box art imaginable and combined it with the least inspiring and most sleep provoking board in the history of modern gaming? Tag on a completely listless theme and you have 2-5 players sitting around placing cubes with no regard to what they’re actually supposedly doing. We’re traders? Really? We could just as easily be 5 alien races pushing spaceships around claiming routes to planets. No-one would know the difference. Except the board might have a little more color.

This is how I feel, too. And yet, like this reviewer, I love Hansa Teutonica. It has what I look for in all of my Euro designs — I don’t mind some brain burning and I don’t mind games where people study the board and ponder the best move. I don’t need all of my games to be “rip roaring” like a game of Spartacus. I love all types of games from King of Tokyo and Warriors of God — to games like Hansa Teutonica and this is one of the best Euros I have in my collection. There’s a high degree of “Euro nut punching” which means this is anything but “multiplayer solitaire” which I normally hate in my games. This is a cutthroat design which forces players to stop the plans of the other players — sometimes sacrificing your own goal. Sure the theme is pasted on somewhat and the setting is so incredibly dry..but I have yet to show this to someone who didn’t like it and I’ll never turn down a game, which can’t be said for every game I like in my library

So there you have it, another year with a lot of cardboard and plastic being pushed around a table. Too many games, not enough time.

So Barnes..what say you?

Jumping the Shark Podcast #135

Todd Brakke 10 Comments

No High Scores Podcast Logo

It’s another two-man show for Jumping the Shark as Bill hides out in his undisclosed location for another week. The Straw will be back eventually, we swear! Brandon’s back, though, so you are spared the tragedy that is me hosting a podcast. What you won’t avoid is me talking Abnercon festivities and why Irish Breakfast tea is a real game changer; also Innovation, Chaos in the Old World, 7 Wonders (and why Mrs. The Straw cheats), and the nifty economic game that masquerades as a wargame, Imperial. You’ll also hear about Brandon’s crazy vacation shenanigans (yay, hyperbole!), more steamy Summoner Wars action, and how Stephen King changed the course of two young and impressionable lives. True story.

iTunes Link

Past Episodes
Edit Type: Skype
(The embedded feed is after the break.)

Surviving Abner Con

Bill Abner 20 Comments

Well, that was fun.

Have you ever invited a lot of people over to your house? I don’t mean a gaggle of friends to watch a movie or play a game or formulate a book club. I mean a legion of gamers for an entire weekend of nonstop hijinks. At one point on Saturday there were 16 people in the house, 20 if you include kids. Our house is fairly spacious but that’s pushing the limits of sanity.

I have always wanted to try and do something like this — to organize a gaming weekend that didn’t involve a LAN. My wife, bless her, was on board and was instrumental in making this work.

The downside to having so many people over is that you can’t possibly spend enough time with everyone. We had guests show up for a few hours and others we had to kick out of the house Sunday evening. That Jon Shafer is such a freeloader. But I didn’t get to play games with everyone which is something I’d like to try to fix next time we attempt to do this.

As a result I missed out on much of the gaming that I wasn’t directly involved in which is a real bummer. Things started up on Friday as Todd arrived and then a few other local friends showed up and we hammered out two games of the wonderful card game Innovation (with its expansion). This was followed up by a game of Chaos in the Old World (a personal favorite). It had been years since Todd played that game and I think he enjoyed it — he actually got in another game of CitOW on Saturday.

Saturday was the “Big Day” as everyone who said they were going to show up — did. I didn’t expect that. I prepared for it but was sure a few people would fail to show. Sure enough…an army of cars were parked in the driveway and three tables were packed with cards, dice, counters, and cardboard. I was fearful that it was simply going to be far too loud to hear yourself think with so much going on, but thankfully it wasn’t too bad.

In fact my table–the Cosmic Encounter table–was by far the most raucous.

At one point we had full games of Shogun, Chaos in the Old World, and Cosmic Encounter running at various tables. Saturday night one table was playing an epic 6-player game of Battlestar Galactica while we were playing a game of Imperial in the dining room. Quite the clash of genres.

It’s funny because when you think about having basically three full days to play games with your friends that it would equate to you playing tons of stuff. Thing is, in the world of boardgames it rarely works that way. From Friday afternoon through Sunday night I managed to play Innovation, CitOW, King of Tokyo, Quarriors, two games of Cosmic, Imperial, a play test for The New Science, and Lancaster. I had played all of those games aside from The New Science (which is still in testing and not available to the public) and Quarriors.

And I hope to never play Quarriors again. Anyone want to buy a used copy? I’m selling…with the expansion!

I need to again extend a thanks to my amazingly patient wife for making a lot of awesome food and to Route 62 BBQ for catering its delicious Carolina style meats. It was a great time and something that I will absolutely try and do again next year.

The gallery has several images from throughout the weekend from Friday afternoon and into Sunday. I’m not in any of them, but this gives you a fair idea of the festivities.

Bill’s Grab Bag of Gaming

Bill Abner 7 Comments

There’s a lot of stuff to get into since my triumphant return from south Florida so let’s get right to it.

First off, congrats to Brian Rhodes for winning the No High Scores March Madness contest. Brian went out on a limb and picked Kentucky to win it all and that sort of hard noses handicapping paid off as he won by two points. For those keeping score at home I finished #15, Todd #24, Brandon #29 and Matt #31. Matt’s Norfolk State prediction of a title didn’t pay off. I’ll contact Brian soon about a prize…of some sort.

Anyway Florida. The time off was needed; my wife and daughter went para-sailing, which I have done before, and they had a blast. Most of our vacation was spent at the pool/beach.

I saw The Hunger Games which was…ok, I guess. I don’t see what all the fuss is about, though. That movie was about an hour too long. Nice costumes though.

I’ve been mostly out of the loop so I haven’t read any Pax East stuff so I have no idea what went down at the show. I’m going to assume that a lot of people got together and saw and played a lot of games and a lot of websites reported about that. That’s just a guess, though.

But I have been playing a lot of stuff of late, mostly of the iPad and cardboard variety.

Over my week long Florida excursion I rediscovered just how much I love Neuroshima Hexon the iPad. I bought the Babel-13 Armies expansion (two armies I never did buy for the actual boardgame) and it was like playing a new game. These two armies are wildly different and if you play Hex on the Pad I highly recommend them. The three of us played a ton of Hex on the plane and it made the flight, the layover, and the second flight leg just zip by. This is one of those iPad apps that make the physical boardgame obsolete. While I enjoy the physicality of holding the tiles, playing on the Pad is just a huge convenience. Plus it never screws up rules.

The only thing missing from the app is online multiplayer. It’s still a “pass the Pad” game but if you want to play a brilliant game on your $500 boardgame machine, this is exhibit A.

I finally played Titan, a game that was first released in boardgame form in the early ’80s. This is one of those games that I have read a lot about over the years but never took the purchase plunge because it sounds like a very “’80s” design — big, long, bloated, and potentially great. Games like Titan can be wonderful or can be hours and hours of “meh”. The boardgame Talisman falls in this same category for me. I have had awesome Talisman sessions filled with laughter and cries of agony and sessions where everyone quit halfway through.

The Titan iPad app makes it amazingly clear that I made the right call by not buying the boardgame. I have came close multiple times — literally had the mouse cursor over the purchase button, but never did pull the trigger. If I want to play a game like this I’ll fire up Heroes of Might & Magic. And no way would I want to sit through a 4+ hour game of Titan at the table. I don’t mind long games — I’ll play Arkham Horror or Britannia or Successors– but Titan is the sort of old timey design that overstays its welcome. Some people are huge fans of this game but the iPad app finally made it clear that I need to save my money. I consider that a win.

I have purchased Nightfall but have yet to fire it up. More on that later.

On the PC it’s all about Confrontation. I’m working on my review and I am several hours into the campaign and I keep trying to compare this to Dawn of War II but that comparison never did feel right. Confrontation, the more I play it, reminds of an advanced Infinity engine game without all of the role-playing dialogue bits. You have skills and spells and stuff like that but it’s 100% a combat game with a story tacked on to give you a reason to fight. But the camera, the pause/play design and the skirmish model reminds me a great deal of a Baldur’s Gate II in how it approaches combat. (You can spin the camera though.) It’s certainly growing on me. It comes off as a real-time (yet with the ability to pause) tabletop/minis game. I have no idea how faithful this is to the actual minis game it is based on but you can see hit percentages and damage numbers and stuff like that as you play. I do wonder if the constant “move here and fight” design will eventually grow stale but so far I’m having a decent time with it.

It’s damn ugly though.

Finally, on the table I got a game of Krakow 1325 AD in over the break. This is a strange 4-player only team based card game of trick taking and back stabbing. Imagine a 4-player game with two teams and only one person can win. It’s very light and combines elements of trick taking and…worker placement. Yeah, it’s odd. But I think it works especially with the right group. One team is the black team and the other white. In addition each player receives a secret identity card (green, orange, blue, or yellow – they are themed but really it’s the color that matters).

Each round the lead player plays a card (called an Intrigue) of a certain color with a strength value attached to it. The next player plays a card with a negative value targeting that same color. Then the original player’s teammate plays a card to boost the strength of the same colored card and finally the last player plays a negative strength card and you arrive at a total. If it’s positive the Intrigue works and you follow the instructions on the original card and add cubes to the board (which is supposed to be Krakow in 1325 AD) in a certain district. Each team is trying to “win” each district for end game victory points.

The kicker is that each intrigue, which is a specific color, will match the secret identity of one of the players, and if the intrigue succeeds it will earn that player additional points at the end of the game. So you may want an Intrigue to succeed even if it’s played by the opposing team so you may sandbag a round or two and choose not to help your teammate even if you can. This leads to a lot of this sort of banter:

“You seriously can’t help more than that?”
“Nope. My cards are awful.”
“I better bot see a -9 blue card from you next round”
“So…um…whose turn is it?”

It’s chaotic in that it can be very hard to determine who is in fact winning the game until the secret identities are revealed at the end and even if your team wins…you might not. Once you learn the rules you can play a game in about an hour. It’s a neat game and if you’re interested in getting it you need to step up because the publisher is out of business and the designer of the game is selling the final stocked supply at the Krakow website. Once they are gone, they are gone forever. I think the designer is in Canada now so North American orders should work, but I have no idea how many copies are left.

Wrapping up, I played a few games of Hansa Teutonica, which is a game that I mentioned before I left. Can’t say enough about this one. Just a great, great, game. It’s that sweet spot Eurogame that combines classic Euro elements (in this case Route/Network Building) with direct player confrontation. Slap a player mat in front me of me that requires me to look at nothing but that for over an hour and I’ll hate the game. Allow me to mess with other players and screw up their plans and I’ll usually have a good time. Hansa Teutonica asks you to do so much with so little time that it creates beautiful gaming tension each time you play it. Brilliant stuff.

Finally, my buddy Mace was in town over the weekend and we got games of Battlestar Galactica and the Blood Bowl card game in, both of which remain personal favs. That’s the thing about great games. Boardgames need shelf life. And so many games pass the initial smell test only to sit on the shelf afterward, but if you buy and play a lot of games your favorites will eventually get back to the table even after a hiatus.

So that’s a lot of gaming for a fella on vacation. And while Florida was nice, it’s good to be home.

So, Mass effect 3. How about that ending?