Weekly Gaming Update: LAN Style

Friday night a friend hosted a LAN party - and I got to play some great games of Unreal Tournament, Quake III, Rise of Nations (awesome), Rome: Total War (I sucked, but it was fun), and Starcraft (not something to learn on the fly when people are very experienced). I'm hoping we get to do this again sometime soon, but with a smaller game selection so I can gain some experience and start being more competitive.

I spent a bit less time than normal playing this Saturday, but I did manage to sneak in three games of Hive, an amazing board game for two (I'll be writing up a review sometime this week).

I was able to add some long awaited titles to the collection, as well as some random items. My Blood Bowl starter set finally came in, so I'll be able to get rolling on that fantastic game. Also, Cutthroat Caverns finally got back in distribution, so that one came home...I still don't even have the cellophane off of it yet. I stumbled across Hive and picked that up, and I highly recommend you do the same.

For miniatures, I picked up a Technobridge terrain piece so when I finally get to build my gaming table I'll actually have some terrain to use. Finally, my Dad came across an old box of mine that had some samurai warriors mounted on horseback - it's always good to find some old minis. I'll be stashing those away until a good historical 25mm Samurai rule set comes out.

Game Review: TransAmerica

TransAmerica - Rio Grande Games
2-6 players; ages 8+
30 minutes to play
~$30

TransAmerica is a railroad building game where players work to connect their five U.S. cities through the quickly expanding network of train tracks. The game rules are elegantly simple, making the game not only easy to learn, but allows new players to be competitive on their first game.

The game takes place over several game rounds. In each round players are randomly dealt five cities, one from each major area of the game board, which they must connect to their main hub before the other players are able to connect theirs. On each game turn a player simply adds two tracks to their network to get closer to their goal. As networks connect and then build off each other, the game round comes to a quick but intense finish. The players then score points (or rather, lose points based on how far from reaching their goal they were), the board is cleared, and a new round is started. Game play continues until one player "goes bust", and the player who managed to lose the least points is the winner.

With it's easy game mechanics, short play time, and the interesting blend of competitive and cooperative elements TransAmerica is easily a must have for any game collection. It ranks in my top 5 games that bridge the gap between non-gamers and euro board games. I have yet to play the game with anyone (gamer or non-gamer alike) that has given it anything but a thumbs up; quite often we end up playing several games in a row.

There is also a TransEuropa version that lets you make connections throughout Europe.

Note: Originally published by Rio Grande Games, this is currently listed as out of print on their site. I think it may currently be published by Winning Move Games and/or Immortal Eyes Games. Either way, it is available at your local specialist gaming store and even comes packaged with a neat game expansion.

Merger

So I've decided to merge my gaming blogging with this blog - it just made sense to put everything in one place. I've got all the posts and sidebars integrated with this one, so it's a full go - my fans won't miss a moment of content...

Started: A Clash of Kings - George R.R. Martin

Started digging into book two of the A Song of Ice and Fire series last night. It's a bit more than I was looking to tackle at the moment, but I just couldn't resist getting back to the story line any longer - I've got to know how things turn out with the kingdom in such turmoil...I'll not go into any more details so as to not risk spoiling anything in case you haven't read the first book in the series, A Game of Thrones, yet (which you need to).

3/12 Edit: In reading through the first chapter, I can say that there literally isn't a single page of storyline missing between A Game of Thrones and this book - it picks right up where it left off. I'm pretty excited.

Finished: The Color of Magic - Terry Pratchett

Just wrapped up this novel about 15 minutes ago - and it was definitely a good one, and nothing like I expected. For some reason I had this image of heavy political satyr and wacked-out-across-the-pond type humor going in to this, and it wasn't a novel entirely comprised of that (although satyr and humor are definitely in there).

Instead, it was a nicely done fantasy novel that takes place in a purposefully ridiculous reality with a meandering storyline in the style of Alice in Wonderland where the only thing consistent is the charm of the world and the characters. *Although I didn't particularly care for Alice in Wonderland, it makes a valid comparison here.*

I would recommend this to any fantasy reader who is looking for a "light" book to read, and I'll definitely be picking up the next one in the series.

Weekly Gaming Update IV: Low Key

Had a pretty low key weekend of gaming, just spent a few hours working on learning the rules for Hordes - that game has some brutal combat. Pieces on both side were dying all over the place, unfortunately I died faster. =/

Picked up the new Killer Bunnies and Pandemic board games, as well as a Gun Mage Adept for my Cygnar WarMachine army that I'm building. That brings me up to 350 points...completely unassembled. Looks like I've got some work to do.

The balancing act

There are three key areas that come together to form what I consider to be the balance of life:

1 - Education/career
2 - Family/friends
3 - Self/spirituality

For the past several years it has felt like in order to develop and grow (or sometimes even just to maintain) one of these areas that I had to make sacrifices in the others. It is an unfortunate reality that sometimes certain aspects of life get minimal attention while you work on others, leaving you in a state of constant hurrying to try to keep life balanced.

Finally I feel myself coming out of this constant shuffle and reapportioning of resources - I'm managing to open up more time as I meet goals in each of these areas and I can actually feel myself being able to maintain all three aspects, and in fact being able to put effort into additional development.

I have been very lucky to have friends and family that have been understanding over the past few years during the more hectic times; I can't wait to get into life and start improving rather than just maintaining.