Weekend Gaming: For Sale, BSG, ME2, &tc.

Some friends were in town for a wedding, and we got a fair amount of gaming done. Here are some capsule highlights:

In a blaze of foresight, I brought Guillotine along on our trip to Providence to see the Circle finale. We had about an hour to kill after dinner, so we got in three games. Guillotine was ideal because we had played it at PAX East last month, so there was no learning curve. Nevertheless, I’m starting to slightly sour on the game. I wish there was either more strategy or more of a “take that” element to the mechanics. With four players, you certainly can’t plan ahead to your next turn. It’s also pretty hard to set up an opponent to get a bad noble, since the chances that they’ll have a card that weasels out of it is pretty high.

On Sunday, I introduced the King of Fillers, For Sale, to universally positive reactions. I had only played it once before, but now I’m definitely going to push it harder. For such a short, simple game there’s a ton going on. I love how the property buying in the first round has such a direct, intense consequence for how the second round will play out, but, with clever play and good reading of your opponents, you can still overcome your previous mistakes. This keeps everyone fully engaged through the selling phase.

We played our first game of Battlestar Galactica, a game that both couples had sitting on a shelf for a long time, waiting for enough people and enough time. It’s a game that certainly looks more complicated than it ends up being, so I feel good about introducing others to it, especially if they’re hooked by the theme. We didn’t have too much in the way of accusations, as we uncovered the Cylon pretty quickly. Unfortunately, that Cylon was president Baltar, who held on to his office from the Brig, and was able to do quite a bit of damage before we were able to elect the VP to take over. BSG seems like it will only get better with more plays and more familiarity. I also can see how a fifth person would add a lot.

In the realm of video games, we played a bit of 4-player New Super Mario Brothers Wii. The getting in each others’ way was both amusing and annoying, but what was really frustrating was getting through castle levels with anyone surviving. I remember this game got universally positive reviews, especially with four people, but it’s clear to me that those reviewers were all much better at Mario than we were.

On my own I’ve been playing Mass Effect 2. Its siren song pulled me away from my resolve to finish Dragon Age: Origins, and I couldn’t be happier. ME2’s improvements as a shooter are more than welcome, and I love getting back into role-playing my character.

Playing Alpha Centauri on Mac OS X 10.6

As I mentioned a few days ago, forces have conspired to get me interested in the Civilization series again, and those forces compounded over the past weekend as Tracy brought her Civ Rev love up for PAX and 2K teased us with posters for (but not an adequate supply of) Civilization V.

All of this made me pine for the Civ game I have the fondest memories for, Alpha Centauri. But could I still play it?

Aspyr released Alpha Centauri for the Mac ten years ago. It was never officially released for Mac OS X, so, since Classic doesn’t run on Intel machines such as my MacBook, my hopes were slim. Nevertheless, with a bit of luck, Internet-searching with Google, Inc.’s titular search engine, and a beta release hosted on what I can only deduce is a former developer’s home machine, I was able to get things to run on Snow Leopard.

Some Gaming Updates

PAX East is coming up this weekend! I’m looking forward to the premiere of Get Lamp and seeing Jonathan Coulton. I’m somewhat worried about overwhelming demand for the shinier panels and events, but we’ll see how it goes.

In the spirit of all of this, some short films about my recent gaming:

I had a whole lot of fun with Dragon Age: Origins, both in the gameplay and — surprising to me — the roleplaying. This is the first time I’ve ever played a game where I made up my own backstory for a character and tried to stay true to it. (My character’s primary motivation in becoming a mage was to learn how to turn into a bear to get back at the kids who used to pick on her.) I haven’t yet finished it (stuff got in the way) but I’m in the end game and am eager to finish it and then start over with a new character, a dwarven noble I’m basing on Mr. Bingley from Pride and Prejudice. I’m also eager to play the expansion. And eager to play Mass Effect 2. Might need to delegate some of this.

Uncharted 2 was amazing, a masterpiece by masters at the top of their form. Rick likes it, too. I’m going back through for treasures (might be able to platinum this one), and also playing co-op with friends (well, so far “friend”) whenever I can. Want to do more of that. Please seek me out on PSN (I’m OldMainstream) if you’re interested.

I had fun with Heavy Rain. Pretty good story and surprisingly immersive gameplay. They were incredibly successful at conveying both effort and action though the button prompts. Holding down buttons in an awkward order is actually very effective at making you feel the difficulty of, say, opening a glovebox when injured and upside-down. Getting the timing right during fights really gets the heart racing as well. My first playthrough gave me a nearly–mega happy ending, with enough that went wrong to make me feel like it was a real story. I’m going through again for trophies. It kind of breaks the magic of the branching narrative, but, hey: trophies.

The Beatles: Rock Band

A hit with the entire family, as they say.