The Masked Carnie

I've got so much going on in my life right now, it's pretty much official.  This blog is only for when: * I'm bored. * I'm in a writing mood. * I'm in a gaming mood. * I have an idea of something worth writing. This is understandably very rare, but whatever.  I just can't abandon it.  I'd like to use this irony to lead into the idea I just had: the role of trashing in deckbuilding card games.  When I first started playing this genre and I saw Chapel, I just couldn't comprehend how a card like this could be good.  I mean, you spend so much time trying to build up your deck.  You want cards, right?  It took a long time, but I eventually discovered just how powerful trashing is.  I hope I'll enlighten you a bit on the concept here.

Ah, how good it feels to be in the arena again.  I finally got a new PC after morally abandoning Xbox Live.  I immediately loaded up Monday Night Combat, leveled up enough in Blitz to make a custom class, then set out to look for online games to get my feet wet again.  How depressing it was to find out it was completely abandoned...  Well, that meant my next option was to check out Super Monday Night Combat.  I already had watched a bunch of videos from Sunny Dove on YouTube, but it only helped me understand some basic principles.  I've been at it for over a week, so here's a little overview from an old MNC great.

Some of my friends know I'm a decent fan of David Sirlin.  I think his book Playing to Win: Becoming the Champion is required reading for people who want to seriously compete.  It's taken a while, but I've convinced my local game store to get Yomi & Puzzle Strike from him.  I spent a good amount of time over the past weekend playing both games with some friends there, and I have to say they're both very interesting.  Yomi is just as good as I expected, while Puzzle Strike still kind of eludes me as to exactly what it really expects us to do (I know how it works, but the issue is finding how to play it well ).

So, I got into an old argument with a Gamestop employee about downloadable content.  Specifically, it was about the not-so-downloadable kind that you have to buy to unlock from the disc.  At first, this sounds like a really bad idea.  The idea of DLC, at least to the consumer, is that you initially bought a complete game, and the company later creates new stuff to plug into it.  So, why are they now making DLC right on the game disc itself, making you pay to access it, and is it right?

I just acquired this game yesterday, since I got an extra shift that could help justify the cost.  This is an absolutely beautiful game, and I only wish I had known about its original incarnation.  It's fortunate that this can work in a standalone game by itself, but I really wish I could have what I'm missing.

Gaming's been around for a long time, now.  The NES debuted in America in 1985, the year of my birth.  I am now 26.  We've grown up, many of us have kids of our own and they're starting to play games, too.  I heard a story about how my friends love to play Fruit Ninja, while their kid just loves watching the fruit fall and gets upset when someone cuts one.  Video games have passed generations, and upon this thought, I also came to realize that I'm actually a 2nd generation gamer, myself!

My roommate recently picked this up.  I've been trying to get him into board gaming, and since he's a big fan of GoW, this seemed a natural intro.  Honestly though, I expected this to be a big bomb.  It seems like just a big cash grab.  I couldn't have been more wrong.  We tried it with my game group and it was a big hit.  They're gonna need a few more copies to sell.  I don't know if this is going to be a staple for us, but it's really looking good.