Musings: My Year in Gaming

2010 saw a number of milestones in my life. For the first time ever, I held a permanentresidenceat a location that wasn’t located in South Dakota, and then a few months later moved into my first apartment. I appeared in my first feature length film and a pilot and was a featured extra on an episode of CSI. I found jobs with illustrious companies such as Universal Studios and Activision. Discovered a new batch of friends, and learned exactly what it meant to be a starving artist. Finally, I rounded out the year by marrying my lovely Kathleen. It was a year with a lot of very high highs and a few low lows. But where does that leave me in the realm of hobbies? My games and hobbies became something more than just a diversion; they became a form of escape, and in some cases therapy. So while 2010 wasn’t the most hobby filled year ever, it did have some definite highlights:

Board Games

I added three new flagship board games to my collection this year:

Horus Heresy (Fantasy Flight Games): Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a sucker for bits. The more pieces that a game has, equals the amount of fun that a game will be. This is why I cringe a little every time that Fantasy Flight games announces another “big box” release. I cringe because I can feel my money leaving my wallet as it yearns to join me with the magic plastic that few but Fantasy Flight can provide. Horus Heresy is one such “big box" game. The game is based on the key plot point of the Warhammer 40,000 universe and depicts the final battle for Terra between the Emperor and the Arch-Traitor Horus. The game is epic in scale, and is as bloody and faced paced as the literature that surrounds the game. I squealed for joy when I heard about the games development and patiently waited the year between the announcement and when the game finally reached my hands. I purchased the game to celebrate my hiring at Universal Studios to be a Studio Tour Guide, and it was every bit the celebration of the hobby that I was hoping it would be. Everything from the board, to the bits, to the cards, to the instructions is done to an incredibly high standard. Even the box is a little bit daunting as every conceivable inch ofthe packaging is covered in artwork that Games Workshop is known for, in fact when you open the box and take the board out you are met with a sweeping mural (and for this big of a box, it counts as a mural) of the battle for Terra. Horus Heresy is the closest that a game can come to being a cathedral without being made of stone and mortar. The game play is tight and challenging, the ‘hugeness’ is both intimidating and immersive, and the rule manual clearly describes the order of play whereas in most big box games the rules manual often leaves you completely confused in the abyss of a complicated rules set i.e. Twilight Imperium. In a word, the game is fun, its fun to play, fun to look at, and the box looks ominous as it peers down at me from atop the bookshelf in our living room. However, with most cathedral type games, Horus Heresy is yet un-played by anyone I know but myself (yes, I admit, I’ve played it alone). Most people, rather than being drawn to the magnificence of the big box, run in terror back to their copies of Monopoly and Apples to Apples dismissing the game as something more like a punishment than a good time. This has made getting people to try the game a chore, and I’m hoping in 2011 to find a like minded individual who is up for deciding the fate of mankind.

Settlers of Catan (Mayfair games): This game is an oldie but a goodie. 2010 marked the year where I finally picked up my own copy of Catan. I played this game a lot in college and it quickly became a favorite that overshadowed other favorite nerd party games like Munchkin and Heroscape. The design of the game is as simple and elegant as it ever was. It’s sheer fun that forces you to use your best haggling and bartering skills in order to build up your civilization by asking questions like “Got wood for sheep?” Unlike Horus Heresy, Catan is accessible to everyone, and I have yet to meet anyone who walked away from the table hating the game. Catan is incredibly versatile as well. It is as much of a party game as it is a hardcore strategy game. All players are constant engaged through the constant bartering, bargaining and bickering taking place. In short it’s a great gateway game for anyone looking to go a bit deeper than their Monopolies, Apples to Apples and Risks. This game is so accessible in fact, it is now getting sold by mainstream stores like Target and Wal-Mart, which is the first time that I can think of that a nerd shop exclusive game has actually broken into the mainstream. I’m slightly disappointed by the edition that I purchased however. I bought the edition that you can currently buy in Target (that’s where I bought mine). The components are flimsy, the cardstock that the landscape tiles are made from are vastly inferior to those of the previous non-commercialized edition. Also for some inexplicable reason the game comes with the most horrendously colored dice I have ever seen. My recommendation is that if you are looking for a good copy of Settlers of Catan, look for an older edition, it will be the same game, but the components are far better and will hold up a lot more than the current “commercialized” version. This game is almost a guaranteed must play whenever I am holding a game night. Catan is a great icebreaker and a great time.

Shadows Over Camelot (Days of Wonder): Rarely do you find a game that will so ruthlessly beat you down, crush your spirit, and make you question your faith in your common man that makes you come crawling back for more. Shadows Over Camelot is one such game. “Camelot” is unique because rather than one player seeking victory over everyone else, everyone competes against the game itself to achieve victory. This sounds like a rather simple concept, and at first sounds ridiculously easy. However, to take “Camelot” lightly would be a very grave mistake. The game is as devious as it is clever in the way that it plays against its players, forcing them into making panic decisions and more often than not leading to the human players defeat. In the multiple play throughs that I have done with Camelot, I have more than once thought that the game itself is alive. It sounds crazy, but all it takes is one session with the game to know what I mean. The game is set in the legends of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table where each player takes the role of one of Arthur’s Knights. Your objective is to save Camelot from destruction at the hands of Lancelot, Morgana, and the Picts and Saxons. This seems simple enough, but there’s a catch, a HUGE catch, because one of the knights at the table could turn out to be a traitor to the rest of the group, who is secretly working with the game to undermine the other players. The way that the traitor does this is ingenious, he/she can play cards that make certain quests difficult or impossible to achieve, wipe out all progression in the game, aid the Picts and Saxons in besieging Camelot, or even kill loyal knights, and once you’re dead in this game, you’re out and trust me, every dead loyal knight means that Camelot is even harder to win. I really wanted this game for some time ever since I heard the review for it on the D6 generation podcast and finally got it as a Christmas present from my wife and her sister. The long wait did not disappoint as Camelot has quickly become one of my favorite all time games. It’s so fun in fact that I went out almost immediately and picked up it’s sequel Merlin’s Company, which adds more knights, more challenges, and the potential of a second traitor to the mix. The games that I played were all with the bare minimum of four players, the main game can play up to seven, with Merlin’s Company the total goes up to eight. I can’t wait to play with more players and two traitors. Camelot is a little slower and more ponderous game than Catan and Heresy, but this is only because the players involved almost need to hold a conference on a turn by turn basis to ensure that they can keep the game winnable. I can see where this game wouldn’t be for everyone, but I am curious as to how some of my casual gaming friends would react to it. I believe that it definitely has the potential for mass appeal, and will definitely be on the table my next gaming night.

Well that does it for my year in Board Gaming, next time we touch on games of the video variety! Stay Tuned!