I should post something about the new laptop and the games I've been playing on it. Yeah I'll do that soon.
I'll leave you with an anecdote about Max Payne 3...
Witnessed a funny bug. During a cutscene inside the corporate office ("Chapter VI"), the secretary's shirt was completely invisible. And no, not in the fun way. More like what happens if you wear a green shirt in front of a greenscreen. Kinda weird.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Thursday, August 2, 2012
...or will she be named Zev?
http://xkcd.com/910/
I'm accepting suggestions for names for the new laptop.
"Boomer" is by far the most likely one (possibly using "Athena" when it boots to Linux), considering that my main server is Baltar and I have a few other Galactica-themed machine names.
I also thought of this little theme (some of you may recognize the reference):
Name the machine "Zev" (possibly "Xev" in Linux mode, possibly vice-versa)..
Rename the old 'dead' netbook/laptop (or the old deader desktop) "Kai"..
And rename the wireless-G SSID to.. Brunnen-G, of course!
Any other dorky ideas?
Keep it clean :)
I'm accepting suggestions for names for the new laptop.
"Boomer" is by far the most likely one (possibly using "Athena" when it boots to Linux), considering that my main server is Baltar and I have a few other Galactica-themed machine names.
I also thought of this little theme (some of you may recognize the reference):
Name the machine "Zev" (possibly "Xev" in Linux mode, possibly vice-versa)..
Rename the old 'dead' netbook/laptop (or the old deader desktop) "Kai"..
And rename the wireless-G SSID to.. Brunnen-G, of course!
Any other dorky ideas?
Keep it clean :)
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Boomer
Oh yeah, so I ordered a gaming laptop (some specs at http://lunarcity7.com/Xotic/FinalConfiguration.html ).
Yeah that happened.
Her name will probably be Boomer.
Hopefully it will arrive by Labor Day weekend and I'll be able to catch up on like 8 (!) years of PC games... I took some advantage of the Steam Summer Sale and am just waiting to get going with these.
Maybe I'll have some more to say about that soon.
Yeah that happened.
Her name will probably be Boomer.
Hopefully it will arrive by Labor Day weekend and I'll be able to catch up on like 8 (!) years of PC games... I took some advantage of the Steam Summer Sale and am just waiting to get going with these.
Maybe I'll have some more to say about that soon.
Monday, July 9, 2012
Infiltration.. and Batman
I promised you an Infiltration post, so here it is, a little bit late.
Way back on Father's Day, when our trip began to Maine, amongst my gifts were 2 games: Power Grid: The Robots (basically an official hack for playing 2-player Grid), and Infiltration , a game designed by Donald X. Vaccarino (who is also known for Dominion), and published by Fantasy Flight Games (who make a lot of games I like) in their Android universe (kind of Bladerunner/Cyberpunky).
So far, I've played 2 games of Infiltration: One with 2 players with my wife (the 2-player rules are just "each player uses 2 guys"), and one with 3 players at a gaming-centric bachelor party a few weeks later.
Hoping to play it some more.
I'm not going to go through the rules in detail; it's a pretty straightforward game.
Each "operative" wants to get in to the complex, collect "data", and get out before "security arrives". They use various action cards and item cards to move around and defeat minor obstacles, and the alarm level goes up each turn.
It could have easily been themed as "adventurers stealing treasure from a sleeping dragon" or whatever.
The game is very light. It is all about gambling between going further into the complex where the rooms are higher-risk/higher-reward, or just leaving with something. If you have zero data and you're the only one who escaped, guess what? You win! (Although that scenario is pretty unlikely)
The one FFG mechanic that is kind of dumb is how the data bits are randomly distributed.
There are over 100 cardboard chits, which are either worth 1, 2, or 3 units of data.
The as-printed rules say to turn them all upside down and shuffle them. And when you enter a room, take random ones and put them into the room.
That is really clunky.
By my second game, I ended up using dice to mark "how much data" is in a room, and grabbing the actual bits from a bag. That works way better.
So, the short story is that it's a fun, easy-to-learn, semi-random beer and pretzels game. Not a game you'd structure your entire game night around, but I'm still happy to have it.
It rates a basic GRRRR on the arbitrary rating scale.
So, I promised you some Batman!
In other news, I've been trying to pull myself back into videogaming, both with my PS3/Wii and with plans for a modern gaming laptop.
The first step has been to replace my old 60GB hard drive in my PS3 (one of the original "60GB model" ones with the PS2 hardware) with a 1TB drive. That procedure went a lot more smoothly than expected, despite fears of certain things not being backed up by the Backup Utility, etc. That documentation is really awful.
Anyway, I plan on maybe joining PlaystationPlus for a year, and downloading everything they've got for free. (You can't keep the free stuff if you don't keep paying, but it's definitely more than $50 worth of stuff)
But for now, I picked up a "new" game (catching up with the last few years): Batman Arkham Asylum, Game of the Year Edition.
I've only barely gotten started with it -- I've just faced off with Scarecrow and Bane (not the most comforting game sequences to have right before bed). But it is certainly keeping my attention, and making me actually look forward to turning on the PS3 again for more than just watching Blurays of BSG...
Regarding the gaming laptop, that purchase is still a few months away, and of course technology and prices are always fluctuating. I've got some pretty good ideas of what I need/want now, but it may even turn out that the PS3 scratches my itch enough that I abandon the PC gaming idea altogether.
We shall see...
Way back on Father's Day, when our trip began to Maine, amongst my gifts were 2 games: Power Grid: The Robots (basically an official hack for playing 2-player Grid), and Infiltration , a game designed by Donald X. Vaccarino (who is also known for Dominion), and published by Fantasy Flight Games (who make a lot of games I like) in their Android universe (kind of Bladerunner/Cyberpunky).
So far, I've played 2 games of Infiltration: One with 2 players with my wife (the 2-player rules are just "each player uses 2 guys"), and one with 3 players at a gaming-centric bachelor party a few weeks later.
Hoping to play it some more.
I'm not going to go through the rules in detail; it's a pretty straightforward game.
Each "operative" wants to get in to the complex, collect "data", and get out before "security arrives". They use various action cards and item cards to move around and defeat minor obstacles, and the alarm level goes up each turn.
It could have easily been themed as "adventurers stealing treasure from a sleeping dragon" or whatever.
The game is very light. It is all about gambling between going further into the complex where the rooms are higher-risk/higher-reward, or just leaving with something. If you have zero data and you're the only one who escaped, guess what? You win! (Although that scenario is pretty unlikely)
The one FFG mechanic that is kind of dumb is how the data bits are randomly distributed.
There are over 100 cardboard chits, which are either worth 1, 2, or 3 units of data.
The as-printed rules say to turn them all upside down and shuffle them. And when you enter a room, take random ones and put them into the room.
That is really clunky.
By my second game, I ended up using dice to mark "how much data" is in a room, and grabbing the actual bits from a bag. That works way better.
So, the short story is that it's a fun, easy-to-learn, semi-random beer and pretzels game. Not a game you'd structure your entire game night around, but I'm still happy to have it.
It rates a basic GRRRR on the arbitrary rating scale.
So, I promised you some Batman!
In other news, I've been trying to pull myself back into videogaming, both with my PS3/Wii and with plans for a modern gaming laptop.
The first step has been to replace my old 60GB hard drive in my PS3 (one of the original "60GB model" ones with the PS2 hardware) with a 1TB drive. That procedure went a lot more smoothly than expected, despite fears of certain things not being backed up by the Backup Utility, etc. That documentation is really awful.
Anyway, I plan on maybe joining PlaystationPlus for a year, and downloading everything they've got for free. (You can't keep the free stuff if you don't keep paying, but it's definitely more than $50 worth of stuff)
But for now, I picked up a "new" game (catching up with the last few years): Batman Arkham Asylum, Game of the Year Edition.
I've only barely gotten started with it -- I've just faced off with Scarecrow and Bane (not the most comforting game sequences to have right before bed). But it is certainly keeping my attention, and making me actually look forward to turning on the PS3 again for more than just watching Blurays of BSG...
Regarding the gaming laptop, that purchase is still a few months away, and of course technology and prices are always fluctuating. I've got some pretty good ideas of what I need/want now, but it may even turn out that the PS3 scratches my itch enough that I abandon the PC gaming idea altogether.
We shall see...
Thursday, June 28, 2012
I owe you some posts...
After this weekend, which is a wedding that includes some gaming for a "bachelor party", I'll catch up with a few posts here, I swear. I also might dump some whining/speculation in here about my next PC..
Stay tuned!
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Alta Tensão, and the attack of Fat Willard
At last night's PlayGamesWithJosh session, my wife -- now finished with school -- finally got to participate.
Along with the 2 other "regulars", this made 4 of us.
The game on the table was Power Grid, and the Brazil map was chosen in honor of my wife's Brazilian upbringing. (and we used just the basic deck, no promos, all the rest of the standard stuff)
For those unfamiliar, the Brazil variant isn't much different from the basic game. It has more of a focus on "biogas" plants (represented by garbage, but the rulebook is very particular about calling it biofuel here).
When cards are removed from the power plant deck to balance for the number of players, all of the biogas plants must stay in. This actually becomes more relevant with fewer players, since with more players you are using all of the plants anyway. With 4, you remove 4, so it sort of mattered.
Additionally, you put plant #14 (a biogas-related plant) in a predictable location under #13 after setup.
Overall, including the refresh rates, the map ends up making Coal possibly the most expensive and scarce resource.
Of course, the distribution of cities is also different on the Brazilian map. We chose the eastern 4 territories, where there are 2 pockets of low-cost cities.
In the beginning, it seemed like Talita was making suboptimal decisions, buying more cities than she could power, pushing us quickly towards Step 2, and buying overly expensive plants. But she's smart and she definitely knew what she was doing.
Up in the northeast, Kevin was blocking me in like a good game of Go.
I'm not sure how much of a good choice that was for him, but it definitely made my life a little more expensive in Step 1.
Max, who wins a lot of games at PGWJ, was kind of on his own, doing his own thing.
There was a lot of battling over resources, meanwhile. There was even a point, late in the game, where all of the available Oil got bought up. Partly as an anti-Josh measure, partly by Josh to make sure I had the resources for later.
Biogas, interestingly, never got too expensive to handle. It does refresh quickly, but also not many people were powering cities with it.
We also ran out of plants during Step 3, which I don't think I've ever seen happen (although I haven't played PG all that many times, and mostly with 2).
This left everyone with the ability to power 18 cities, except for Kevin who could only power 17 (the minimum for game-end).
On the last turn, Kevin built his 17th city. But everyone else was able to build and power their 18th. First Max (with 22 Elektros to spare), then me (exactly spending all my money), then Talita, who had plenty of money remaining.
Winner, on money tiebreak: Talita!
So her strategy did work out in the end.
Parabéns!
Along with the 2 other "regulars", this made 4 of us.
The game on the table was Power Grid, and the Brazil map was chosen in honor of my wife's Brazilian upbringing. (and we used just the basic deck, no promos, all the rest of the standard stuff)
For those unfamiliar, the Brazil variant isn't much different from the basic game. It has more of a focus on "biogas" plants (represented by garbage, but the rulebook is very particular about calling it biofuel here).
When cards are removed from the power plant deck to balance for the number of players, all of the biogas plants must stay in. This actually becomes more relevant with fewer players, since with more players you are using all of the plants anyway. With 4, you remove 4, so it sort of mattered.
Additionally, you put plant #14 (a biogas-related plant) in a predictable location under #13 after setup.
Overall, including the refresh rates, the map ends up making Coal possibly the most expensive and scarce resource.
Of course, the distribution of cities is also different on the Brazilian map. We chose the eastern 4 territories, where there are 2 pockets of low-cost cities.
A quick aside:
Dinner for the evening was from the Neapoli Cafe, by Kevin's suggestion.
Their signature sub is called the Fat Willard:
Grilled chicken tenders, Mozzarella sticks, seasoned fries, marinara sauce, topped w/melted cheese on warm garlic bread
I had to try it. My brain is happy that I did. My body.. is still processing it. I can hear my arteries creaking. ... I will definitely have to try this again. :)
In the beginning, it seemed like Talita was making suboptimal decisions, buying more cities than she could power, pushing us quickly towards Step 2, and buying overly expensive plants. But she's smart and she definitely knew what she was doing.
Up in the northeast, Kevin was blocking me in like a good game of Go.
I'm not sure how much of a good choice that was for him, but it definitely made my life a little more expensive in Step 1.
Max, who wins a lot of games at PGWJ, was kind of on his own, doing his own thing.
There was a lot of battling over resources, meanwhile. There was even a point, late in the game, where all of the available Oil got bought up. Partly as an anti-Josh measure, partly by Josh to make sure I had the resources for later.
Biogas, interestingly, never got too expensive to handle. It does refresh quickly, but also not many people were powering cities with it.
We also ran out of plants during Step 3, which I don't think I've ever seen happen (although I haven't played PG all that many times, and mostly with 2).
This left everyone with the ability to power 18 cities, except for Kevin who could only power 17 (the minimum for game-end).
On the last turn, Kevin built his 17th city. But everyone else was able to build and power their 18th. First Max (with 22 Elektros to spare), then me (exactly spending all my money), then Talita, who had plenty of money remaining.
Winner, on money tiebreak: Talita!
So her strategy did work out in the end.
Parabéns!
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Frakkin' Toasters!
That was an intense game of BSG last night.
As President Baltar, I ended the game with 5 You Are Not A Cylon cards. Is that some sort of record?
We had a 5-player game, with 2 newbies on board. We decided to play with the base game, Destination Kobol, all the rest of Pegasus except for Cylon Leaders, and the Cylon Fleet Board from Exodus (plus all of the crises, skillcards, characters, etc); regular old Loyalty with Pegasus-style Executions.
The game was Baltar (me) -> Helo (Max) -> Starbuck (Kevin) -> Kat (Sean) -> Tory (Andrea)
Admiral Helo tipped his loyalty a little bit early, when he was forced to discard cards and didn't choose to dump the Treachery he had picked upf rom an earlier crisis. Good eyes, Kevin!
So, Helo was brigged early and stayed there until he decided Revealing was his best option.
It wasn't until the Sleeper Phase that Starbuck joined the toaster crew..
They also managed to get 2 of the strongest Super Crises.. Bomb on Colonial One (which we thankfully passed) and Fleet Mobilization (which we also passed, but it was too late).
Long story short, with our severe shortage of Engineering, we were unable to repair the ship quickly enough. In the end, we were swarmed by Raiders, at a mere distance of 4, and were blown to smithereens.
Our one hopeful moment was a very well-rolled nuke, which blew up 2 Basestars, 6 Raiders, and 2 Heavies at once. Unfortunately, that didn't pan out in the long run...
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