Urge Supressed

Every time that I get the urge to rejoin The Village, I read a few of the more recent articles and subjects being discussed(?) and the urge immediately vanishes.

I was of the belief that the only useful feature was getting a rules clarification quickly. But that only works if you don't care about validity. You can get many responses quickly, but not accurately. So with that feature gone...

Falling in Love with Hatred

So, last week I watched "I Hate My 30's" and was impressed enough to keep it "set to DVR". This week, I laughed so hard that I gave myself a headache. The last time I laughed this hard was before hearing that "Arrested Development" was slated for the chopping block.

"I Hate My 30's" is smart, referential and has extremely punchy delivery. Even with that said, the show isn't above stooping to pick up the really low hanging fruit as well. This show was written for me. Thank you, writing/creator people. Thank you.

"I Hate My 30's" has moved from "What Night is That On?" to "Thursdays, Fool, Watch Immediately!"

Ha ha! Duke Sucks!

Duke's flimsy network was brought down by a single iPhone. Also, their polo-monsters and basketball teams look like mole-men.

Details of Duke's Suckery

Here is an example of how Duke should be handled.

A Prairie Home Companion, A Series of Unfortunate Events

I just finished watching the first few minutes of "A Prairie Home Companion" (the film, I feel dirty even calling it that) and now I'm done. Nausea, mostly.

First off, I love the radio show and have been listening ever since I can remember.

Secondly, I hate Robert Altman and have ever since seeing "The Player".

I thought that I could get through the movie riding on Garrison Keillor's talent; but, alas, no. It appears that my hatred of Altman outmatches my love for Keillor.

If Altman could:
- keep the camera still and not matching the motion of the meandering, directionless dialogue
- direct actors to give and take a little more at all
- remember what pacing is
- die (What? He is. Thank you, God.)
- not hire a producer who is thrilled to work with Altman, thereby acting the sycophant and
not putting his foot down, a lot
- put aside his own buzz (Altman was overheard on the set of this film, saying, "Did you hear that Robert Altman is attached to this film?!)

You think that I'm kidding, but I was starting to feel sick. Imagine seeing one of your childhood icons held hostage by a swooshing-camera-happy (Altman has thrown out the dolly and mounted the camera on a spirograph), script-disregarding Altman. It's more than a man should be asked to bear. I'm going to pretend that this never happened.

New Games!

I picked up "Arkham Horror: Curse of the Dark Pharoah Expansion" and "Hey, That's My Fish!" yesterday. I can't open "Hey, That's My Fish!" yet, it is a gift for Rhiannon's birthday. But Curse of the Dark Pharoah is fantastic! Nice additions to the game. We've only played it once, against Ithaqua and we were devoured, but fun all the same!

Also, I got to play "Notre Dame" at John's game night yestereve. Now, that is a fun game. I don't know if the game was as fun as I remember or if it was tainted by winning and/or that I was high on medication. Still, I can see why it is so highly thought of.

Assault on Hoth: A Review

It seems odd to be writing up a review of Assault on Hoth. It kind of feels like writing a eulogy for an old friend that I haven’t been in touch with for a good many years. Please allow me to explain.

Assault on Hoth and I became acquainted back in high school. I was on one of my many excursions to Peterson Hobbies (The greatest FLGS in Vegas during the 80’s and early 90’s!!) looking for supplements for Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game. I was pleasantly surprised that West End Games also produced some games that weren’t of the role-playing persuasion. I purchased Assault on Hoth. Between, me, my best friend Nate, and my little brother Andy. We played this game ragged.

Assault on Hoth allows two players to reenact the Battle of Hoth from the film Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. The game plays similarly to the Command and Colors system. This is a VERY card driven system. One player controls the ground forces of the General Veers (of the Evil Galactic Empire) and one player controls the forces of General Riekeen (of the Rebel Alliance). The game is of medium-light weight and plays in about an hour to an hour and a half. The game is only for two players. We tried to tweak this game a bit to play with four players, but it was functional at best.

Gameplay is fairly simple to describe and explain to new players. There are two decks of cards. The Action Deck. The Event Deck. The Action Deck gives players orders; orders such as “Move All Walkers”, “Fire All Turrets” or “Move and Fire and Snowspeeders”. The Action Deck is shuffled prior to the game and orders come off the top in random order. So it is entirely possible that one player could have a long streak of moves, before the other player gets to make a single move. The good thing about this happening is that you can bet that the other player will be getting a streak of moves later on. A card from the Action Deck is flipped and that player fulfills that order as they see fit. Then the next Action Card is flipped, until the Action Deck is exhausted. Within the Action Deck are two cards that read “Draw an Event Card”.

Event Cards are random events that aid one side or the other. Examples of Event Cards are reinforcement cards, cards that add extra dice to critical rolls in the game and five “Transport Away” cards.

As soon as the Rebel player has collected five “Transport Away” cards, he or she wins the game. If the Imperial player is able to destroy the shield generator before the Rebel player collects his “Transport Away” cards, then the Imperial player wins the game. Through playing this many, many times we found that the game was in favor of the Rebels winning the game. In order to throw the balance in favor of the Imperials (As it really ought to be.), we would shuffle the Event Cards with one of the “Transport Away” cards removed from the deck and then place that final “Transport Away” card on the very bottom of the deck. Then the Rebel player would really have to struggle out a win.

The components of the game are of average quality. The map is a really nice design and very nice to look at. There are player aids on the map and the combat charts are on the map as well. After a play or two of this game, you can set aside the rules indefinitely. The pieces are full-color fold over heavy card stock and placed in plastic clips in order to stand. The map is full-color, but not very thick. So it doesn’t lay flat very well. This can be remedied by laying a piece of glass or plastic over it each time you play. The cards leave a lot to be desired. The cards came on a sheet and were perforated. In order to get them apart without tearing them took a lot of time a finessing them apart. The cards are mostly black and white with blue lettering. The pictures and the art on the cards are top notch. The dice are also great too, except for one tiny flaw. That flaw being that the dice are unique and have images of lightsabers and Vader’s mask on them. These images will wear off with usage.

Speaking of the dice, here’s how combat works. Each unit on the board has an attack value and an armor value. The attack value is rolled and compared to your target’s armor value. If the attacker gets a number of symbols (lightsabers for the Rebels and Vader masks for the Imperials) equal to or higher than the target’s armor value then a hit is scored. For most units on the board one hit is all they can suffer and they’re dead. The only two exceptions to this are the Walkers and the Snowspeeders. Walkers and Snowspeeders can take a number of hits before they die and these hits, for the most part, hinder the operation of that craft. For example, leg hits for the Walkers reduce their movement. Gunner hits for the snowspeeders prohibit the use of harpoons for the tripping up of walkers.

There is one additional special piece in the game, Commander Skywalker. Skywalker is secretly placed in one of the snowspeeders prior to the game beginning. Luke has the ability to use Force Points (of the which, he has ten of them to use throughout the game). Force Points allow Luke to re-roll dice or increase his armor value for a brief period. Once the Rebel players starts using Luke’s Force Points, the Imperial player will then know which snowspeeder Luke is in and play accordingly. Some players ignore Luke and some players go after him at all cost.

Another great aspect to this game is the layout of the board. The board is divided up into hexes and macrohexes. The macrohexes are seven hexes together in the form of a big hex. The hexes are used for movement. Every piece has five movement points to move through the hexes. Macrohexes are used to determine range. For each macrohex your shot passes through you must remove one of your attack die.

Regarding movement points, snowspeeders are able to go over any terrain at a cost of one MP (movement point) and can change their facing for free. This is the same for any other unit on the board. Walkers being the only exception. Walkers must pay one MP for each facing change they would like to make and three MP for moving over rough terrain. Walkers also have an arc of fire. Walkers are unable to fire out their sides or rear arcs. So snowspeeders will often tail walkers and pelt them from behind. So it is prudent to stagger your walkers so that you can have the walkers behind the main walker providing covering fire.

All in all, this is one of my all time favorite games. Unfortunately, I gave it away a couple of years ago in a moment of sheer insanity. I thought my time was over with this game, but I now know the true meaning of regret. If you see this game for sale anywhere, pick it up. It’s that good. If you find a copy of this still in shrinkwrap, you are truly blessed.

The Office vs. The Office

A few years ago, as a "going away" gift a couple of co-workers bought the UK version of The Office DVD set. My wife and I devoured it. We would watch it every night far later than we intended to stay up. We couldn't believe how funny it was, albeit we had to turn the subtitles on that first time to understand the thick accents.

Funny thing is, we watched the first and second season of The Office thinking that was it and that the Christmas Special was not a continuation of the story. We just thought that it was a cast round up/special feature. So we hadn't watched it for a couple days. Needless to say, we were completely bummed at the "ending" of the series. A couple days later when we went through all of the special features, we watched the Christmas special and were elated at the outcome of it all.

Now, cut to a couple of years ago. An American version of The Office is announced?! I was torn. Somehow, I knew that we'd screw it up. It wouldn't be the same. A pale comparison. I watched anyway and my fears were correct. Watching the American version of The Office made me want to rewatch the UK version of The Office. I put the American version of The Office aside for a season or two.

Cut to present. My wife has been DVR'ing the American version. I've been watching them, reluctantly. More from a perspective of "there's nothing else on". I'm starting to warm up to this new fangled retelling. Mostly because it has stopped doing just that... retelling. The American version of The Office has taken on a life of its own. I realize, too, that I want more Office UK or not. Oh and the American version, although still lesser in my view, is fun to watch; especially when not being compared to the original.

My Take on 20 Questions

Years ago, my family purchased 20 Questions. Growing up, my family loved to play mystery, deduction, trivia, puzzle and logic games. Also, my siblings and I were raised not only by our parents, but additionally by our television; so we had a lot of popular culture knowledge that was doing us little good elsewhere. 20 Questions was a good fit for us.

20 Questions is played a little differently than the old road trip game of Twenty Questions. There are about 400 cards included with the game. Each of these cards has an unique Person, Place or Things listed on it. Underneath the Person, Place or Thing; there are twenty facts or clues regarding the subject of the card. Players alternate being the Reader. The Reader will read the clues that the players, in turn, ask to be read. There are twenty, small poker chips that come with the game. As the clues are read off, the Reader removes a poker chip from the board and places it in a pile in front of them. If a player thinks that they know who, where or what the subject of the card is, they wait until their turn and instead of having a clue read, they state what they think the card’s subject is. If that player is correct, then that player moves their pawn along the scoring track as many spaces as chips were remaining on the board. Then the Reader scores as many points as chips are in his or her pile. If that player is incorrect, the Reader takes a chip from the board per a normal clue reading. Play continues like this until one player reaches the end of the scoring track, with one exception. There are bonus spaces spaced out along the scoring track that allow a player to participate in a single-player only, mini bonus round. The bonus round will allow that player to move 2, 4, 6, 8 or 10 spaces more, should they correctly answer a more difficult five-clue guess card. Other than that the game play is very simplistic and easy to grasp.

What I really like about this game:
- I love trying to solve puzzles and I love attempting to figure out something with limited clues of differing gradation.
- I love popular culture and being able to use some of this trivial knowledge that clutters my head.
- The ability to have everyone playing at the same time was great fun. Everyone was paying attention while it was someone else’s turn. The pace of the game was quick, fun and a little tense.
- Most of the clues were not softballs or complete gimmees. Sometimes you got a clue that was very revealing and other times the clues were dang near useless.
- The game played from 2 to 6 players and scaled really well.

Some issues that I have with 20 Questions:
- Pop culture is not everyone’s bag. Some people have been living under a rock their entire lives and this game is NO fun for them. These culture famine victims will quickly become frustrated with the game and desperately and even somewhat frantically start searching for dark, damp location to slink to.
-As stated in the pro’s section (above) the clues differed on how much they revealed. Sometimes you would get a clue that would say something so vague that you felt ripped off at having wasted a turn going for another clue.
- Sometimes the subject of the card was so obscure that no one would guess the correct answer and some lucky Reader would get to move twenty spaces. That reader would then become loathed and less likely to be invited back to play next time.
- With only 400 cards, frequent play will have you covering ground that you have already covered. So there is some limit to the amount of original play to be had in this game.

20 Questions is a quick game and a lot of fun. The limited replayability, due to the limited amount of clue cards is an issue, but with sporadic play the game will remain fresh. I believe the game is currently out of print, but there are enough copies out there to be found at thrift stores, online auction sites and flea markets. If it’s to be found cheap, pick it up. 20 Questions is a fun party game and worth the couple of bucks that you’ll spend on it.