The Masked Carnie

Wow, I am really late to this party.  I had considered getting Phoenix Wright for a long time, but I have a little thing about doing games in order.  I could never find the first game for Phoenix Wright, so I never started it.  Well, this was made available on the Nintendo Wii, I had some points given to me free, so I finally got myself started.  Not surprisingly, I'm very glad I did this.  This game has sparked my interest in law again through the philosophies it expresses, even though the judicial system of Japan in 2016 is far from the American judicial system of 2010.  Of course, Capcom really brings it up with its music, as it always does.  If you have not started Phoenix Wright but have an interest in puzzle/mystery games, I strongly suggest picking this up (or at least start with Harvey Birdman's game).

I was going to talk with someone regarding Ring-Outs in the Soul Calibur series when I realized, hey this is a great topic for that blog I don't write!  :p  Soul Calibur has a lot of unique things going for it, and the unique thing about ring-outs in particular is that if you push the opponent outside of the stage's boundaries, it kills them instantly regardless of health.  A lot of people hate losing in such a way, so most of the matches you'll play online will end up with people choosing 1 of the 2 stages that is completely walled off.  However, when you go to compete in tournaments, you'll find that they consistently force random stage picks, where there are far more stages with edges than without (varying sizes and shapes, too).  This article is not going to be an analysis, but simply a full defense of the existence of ring-outs.

Ok, so I've officially been sucked into Settlers of Catan.  It's definitely an interesting game, and personally, I feel it's a better alternative for those who might otherwise be inclined to play Monopoly.  The basic principles are mostly all there, but the game's maximum time more closely resembles Monopoly's minimum time.  It's still not a quick game, but its progress is pretty automatic.  The theme basically has the players colonizing a new island, using their settlements to generate resources so they can develop further.  There's some stuff to diminish your opponents' capabilities, but it's not really the dominant thing of the game as in Monopoly.  Dice are rolled each turn, whoever has settlements next to tiles with that number will get that particular resource.  If you care to read more, I'll go over the strategies I've noticed for the game.

(The following is mostly a cut & paste of a post I made on a message board.  I felt it was a significant enough observation that I should share it here. ) It seems to me that every game has roles to a certain extent, although I'm not so sure I can really count the first one as a "role."  There's a strange entanglement too within theory & practice.  Equal games with equal starting roles will usually end up with players adopting certain play styles based on the natural circumstances, so they are no longer equal.  Set role games have the possibility of mirror matches, at which point there's no difference in capabilities.  Set games will often also have a very blurry line with customizable games as slight customization options are available (choosing an Ultra in Super Street Fighter 4).  Customizable games, in practice, often end up with very few viable options and therefore will have even less options possible than many set role games.  Read past the brea

This one really took me by surprise and is now quickly becoming a regular game with us.  It really took some convincing to get me into this game (sounds familiar to my own struggles getting others into my games), but I'm glad I did.  In this game, heroes are more of an inconvenience than anything else.  Instead, you all are playing 4 dark gods all trying to corrupt the world in your own ways.  Each god tries to win by different means, so players can really get into character here.  Although the game takes up very few turns, those turns can take a very long time to set up (especially when I'm over-analyzing everything).  Players can win either by amassing lots of points from domination & corruption or just improving themselves to perfection.  It's rather pricey at $60, but considering I paid about that much for Pandemic with On the Brink, I don't feel so bad about it.

As you can see, a lot of my time is being taken up with Super Street Fighter 4, partly because I've got a game show appearance for it coming up tomorrow.  To at least make that productive with this blog, I've jotted down some interesting things I've noticed with the game.