Terrible Analogies

I’m an admitted gamer.

Now, that doesn’t mean that I spend countless days indoors doing nothing more than eating Cheetos and guzzling Mt. Dew.  Those days are far behind me.  With a wife, child, and a demanding job I look forward to spending time outdoors whenever possible.  I guess I’m the natural evolution of a gamer who, over the course of a decade, has had to learn how to rearrange priorities and push gaming to the periphery of life.

Given this, I still manage to carve our 5-6 hours a week to play video games (right now Skyrim rules my world).

But even if you’re somebody who looks down the length of your long, narrow nose at people who enjoy video games, I still think you’ll get a kick out of this clip:

Heh…

I’ll come right out and say it:  I love video games.

Unfortunately I don’t have that many free hours during the day to spend time playing them, but I try to allocate an hour each night to play games.  And because I only have an hour (if I’m lucky) each day to play it takes me a long time to complete each game.

This year I managed to complete Fallout: New Vegas, Red Dead Redemption, and just last night I completed Borderlands and along with two of its add-on expansions. Yep, that’s right. I played a grand total of three games this year.

I only mention this because last night, a game that I’ve been looking forward to for years was finally released.

At midnight, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim hit the shelves and I was there, standing out in the cold waiting for the doors to open at my local Game Stop for my copy.

Bonus points for having Max Von Sydow do the voiceover for this ad!

If you played the earlier Elder Scrolls games Morrowind or Oblivion, then you know how intricate and expansive these Bethesda Game Studios sandbox games are. If you haven’t and you don’t understand the appeal of video games, then please feel free to label me a “geek”. Go on. I won’t care. It’ll be a stigma which I’ll gladly bear.

Happy Friday!

Karin and I found ourselves traversing the isles of our local Toys R Us curious to see if they stocked any interesting board games.  …Okay, that’s a lie.  I wanted to check out the action figures (they’re not dolls!).

Sorry, I couldn’t lie to you.

[HermanTurnip takes in a slow, deep breath...]

*Whew*  That felt good to get off my chest.

Anyway, we were wandering the isles like a pair of overwhelmed Communist-era Russians airdropped into the middle of a modern day grocery store, dumbstruck and staring wild-eyed at the sheer amount of food freely available to absolutely anybody stumbling in from the street, taking in as much as we could while trying not to trip over our own feet when we first saw it.

I’m not sure why it stuck out the way it did, drawing our attention away from every other gleaming, hyper-packaged toy on the shelves.  It just didn’t seem real.  It didn’t seem…right.

Is this a joke?  Was I really looking at a pink Ouija board, the very object employed by spiritualists and mediums worldwide to contact the dead, openly targeting the pre-teen set?  Is this an attempt to indoctrinate an impressionable segment of our society into the questionable ways of the occult and the paranormal?  The blatant color scheme given this product makes it painfully obvious who Toys R Us has their sharpened, brightly packaged claws aimed at.

If Toys R Us is so keen at exposing children to the mystical art of divination and transcendentalism then I have to ask, “Why stop there?”  This target demographic is far to valuable to stop at mere baubles and parlor tricks.  Why not hook them to a real habit early on to ensure a consistent source of valuable revenue for many years to come?

After giving it much thought, I think I’ve come up with a fool-proof way to market my favorite vice of choice to the youth of today:

All I need is a heartless corporation to back me.  Come on.  We’ll make a grip of cash…

…that you get to sit home and play Plants Vs. Zombies all day long.

Apparently, the goal of this game is to protect your most valuable of possessions (your lawn mowers) from an ever-lovin’ hoard of unstoppable zombies hellbent on destroying all grass trimming devices in existence.  To accomplish this obtuse task you employ the help of various sentient plants, each with their own unique method of fighting off the persistent zombie onslaught; some shoot peas, some devour zombies whole, and others block, blow up, or simply possess the undead and force them to do their bidding.

Ah, but those damned zombies have powers of their own.  Sure, you have your run-of-the-mill zombie, but it appears that some of them have grown smart and have learned to don armor, wield defensive shields, alter their speed of approach, and even complete their daily Sudoku puzzles as they bear down on their intended victims.

Easy to play / hard to put down, Plants Vs. Zombies is the best way to pass the hours holed up at home with the flu.

…that and drinking heavily, but that goes without saying.

The above link will bring you to the free online version, but the small screen and advertisements really detracts from the experience.  As your lawyer, my advice to you is to shell out some coin for the full version.  Go on…you’ll make a zombie very happy if you do.

“Ultimate horror often paralyses memory in a merciful way.” – “The Rats in the Walls”

My latest addiction is, without a doubt, Arkham Horror.

Produced by Fantasy Flight Games, Arkham Horror is steeped in the Lovecraft mythos, wherein a group of “investigators” are tasked with uncovering clues and destroying the horrors let loose upon the good city of Arkham, and to seal the gates that allowed them entry.  Utilizing a variety of weapons, skills, uncommon items and spells, our intrepid band of protagonists must seal a given number of gates before the Ancient One awakens and a frantic final battle for the world ensues.

I’ll be the first to admit that Arkham Horror isn’t a game for everyone.  Its complicated ruleset makes learning difficult for those not familiar with the genre, and there’s more than a few things that you’ll have to keep track of during each five phases of play.  If you get confused about specific rules while learning the game, be sure to check out the amazingly helpful video tutorial that Eric Herman put together.  Once you get the hang of it then gameplay becomes quite smooth, and what initially took 4+ hours to play can now be completed in 1.5 – 2 hours.

This cooperative (it’s you against the board) base game comes with 16 investigators and 8 Ancient Ones, which helps to keep the replay value exceptionally high.  When you begin to get the hang of Arkham Horror and the win/loss ratio finally turns to your favor, you can begin to pick up the expansion boards and card sets.

Arkham Horror is one of those rare, engaging games that allows you to play solo or with a group of friends.  Break out the beer, select an Ancient One, and you’re off!  Beware…this sprawling game requires a huge footprint.  A large dining room table is required, especially if incorporating an expansion board.  You have been warned.

And before I forget, let me clue you in to a fact that all players should know; Mandy Thompson is far and away the best investigator of the bunch (she starts out with 4 clue tokens and has the ability to re-roll all dice that did not check successfully, and can pass that ability on to any player, once per turn).

I can not recommend this game highly enough.  If you search online you should be able to find this game selling for under $40.  If you’re a board game addict, and are familiar with pen-and-paper games (or just have an affinity for in-depth rulesets), then I suggest you pick up this game asap.

Oh, and be sure to pick up a 12 pack set of dice to replace to lame 5 dice set included with the game.  Trust me, you’ll thank me later.  If you’re in the San Diego area, Game Empire will be able to hook you up.  I’m not an employee, just a fan.