2008 - Happy New Games?

Wow! It's been some time since my last post. One reason for this is that I have been playing more PC games than boardgames. Guild Wars took a lot of my spare time since September '07. And then there was the addictive 'Company of Heroes' and it's extension 'Opposing Fronts'. Playing CoH is like playing with miniatures, except that they move around on its own as ordered...and it really feels like the genre it's supposed to represent. It's really fun, especially playing online with real people. Despite playing more games online, I still kept up my regular boardgames sessions, but the number of times online games were played far outweighed the number of times boardgames were played.

Another reason for the lull in my posting was that I did not play any spectacular new knock-yer-socks-off Euro boardgames from Essen '07. As in '06, there were lots of reproduction games where mechanics were borrowed from older games and rehashed into a set of mish-mash newer games.

This year, 2008, I will be concentrating on wargames - board and miniatures. I will play the odd Euro when I feel like playing the odd Euro, but Flames of War, AT-43, and MMP, GMT and pre-Hasbro Avalon Hill games will satisfy my gaming appetite.

The Turning Point: Stalin's Glad

In the past few weeks, I went on a safari-big game hunting. I crawled through dirt and slime, wind and chime to seek and find games I missed on its first outing. While trawling through the vast expanse of Ebay, I finally found what I was looking for. The crosshairs of my gun settled on Caesar The Battle of Alesia. This was an unopened, shrinkwrapped beauty. Next was Turning Point: Stalingrad. I did not have interest in TPS when I first saw it years ago in Games Centre, Oxford Street, 'cos I wasn't interested in the Stalingrad campaign. Now I am. I saw the TPS Expansion counters, too. I licked my lips as I squeezed the trigger, close to the end of the auction. My first shot flew true. BANG! Right between the eyes. TPS was mine. My second shot did not leave my trusty gun, as the TPS expansion had grown and grown. the second shot would have cost $60+ for a sheet of counters. I decided to let my breath go and release the trigger gently. As for Caesar Alesia, I had to wait for another day, as it ran away as I shot my first shot.

My only prize, TPS arrived today. Man, it is heavy.

Free Burma-This Is Not a Game

In the past few weeks, the internal conditions of Burma deteriorated. In order to cover a budget deficit, the government raised the price of diesel oil by 500%. On August 18 2007, mass protests were held. The next day, the normally politically-independent Buddhist monks joined the protests. These demonstrations were eventually suppressed by force. Sounds like a scenario in a game? No, its not.

The 6th of October 2007 have been designated as a Day of International Action for a Free Burma. The following message is from Facebook http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=24957770200

Free Aung San Suu Kyi & Support the Monks in Burma

Saturday 6TH OCTOBER 2007

Time: 12 NOON in every major city across the world

We are marching in solidarity with the monks and ordinary people of Burma who are risking their lives for freedom and democracy.

We appeal to all religious and secular communities across the world not to look the other way while the people of Burma cry out for international support.

Now listed as en EVENT "A Day of International Action for a Free Burma (Oct. 6th) Worldwide" all cities and locations will be posted there shortly.

**EVENT LINK**
(The links below are all to the same event, just repeated a few times for EMPHASIS of how important this is):

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=4973307490
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=4973307490
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=4973307490
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=4973307490
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=4973307490
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=4973307490
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=4973307490
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=4973307490

August '07

It was mostly a wargamey August. (I also played some Eurogames, see below). I played A Victory Lost for the first time. Great game. I also played Shifting Sands and Paths of Glory for the first time. Not having played card-driven games seriously before, I can now see what the excitement is all about. I owned Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage (Avalon Hill) for many years but could not find an opponent to play.

As August wore on, more Shifting Sands and A Victory Lost games were played. Loved these new wargames. Can't wait to play and analyse each game more. As a result, I made a conscious effort to wade through the sketchy online introduction to the VASSAL engine and managed to understand how to use this wonderful program. Downloaded lots of modules. They are really great! Spread the word to two of the most serious wargamers in my games group, but only one of them actually enjoyed moving virtual counters instead of the real stuff. The Russian Campaign 3rd Ed is next on VASSAL for me.

Other games that I played in August were:

Gloom - I did not think much of this one.
Lost Cities - still love this.
Diamant - good for laffs.
Blokus - I still cannot get my head around the question of how an effeminate game like this came to be called 'Blokus'.
Age of Empires III: The Age of Discovery - a bit lukewarm on this new game. A hybrid mish-mesh of mechanics blended into one big box with lots of colourful plastic miniatures.
De Bellis Antiquitatis - I won the annual local DBA competition with my Ptolemics.
Subbuteo - got third place in the local tourney with my coluourful Croatian team.
Advanced Squad leader Starter Kit#2 - good, tense stuff.
Domaine -an underappreciated dumbed down version of Lowenherz. This could possibly be the best dumbing down of a classic game in the world.
Dungeon Twister -I finally got to play this after many false starts. This pointless game should be re-titled using only the first four letters of its current title.
Transamerica - unlike the movie of the same name, this game encourages fans to play it straight.

In Search Of…Essen ’07 Convention Previews

It’s July already, and the Pre-Essen net postings have started. Game publishers send their marketing spiel to games websites which announce the new games to be launched at Essen this year.

Boardgamenews.com (BGN) is the usual website where Essen news is first read by English-speaking gaming community. There has been a constant trickle of new Essen releases in BGN since June. These newsflashes are in the form of Previews and they have been quite helpful. The problem is, one has to read each Preview individually. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s time consuming. Usually the preamble URL just states the name of the game and, possibly, the publisher. One only gets the type of game being previewed only in the main article. In past years, what I found very useful were BGN’s ‘Convention Preview: Essen 2007—Publishers A-M’ and ‘Convention Preview: Essen 2007—Publishers N-Z’ pages, where the new games were listed in a table according to their publishers. I could just scroll down and scan the game title, designer, publisher and sometimes a brief description of the game. This year, I cannot see anything on these pages since BGN has decided to make their Essen 2007 Preview page available to members only. Membership to BGN costs $25 for 12 months. I am sure many gamers would gladly join BGN to get upfront news of Essen releases, but not I. Frankly, the $25 would better be spent on purchasing a game or miniatures.

Ah, well, maybe other gaming websites has Essen ‘07 news in English. So I went to GamingReport.com (GR). Their motto is ‘Where Gamers Get Their News’, but I could not find news about Essen 07 releases. I did a search for Essen, but I got ‘Prestige Class Creation Cookbook for D20’ posted by An Anonymous Reader as the first search result. The second result was ‘Green Ronin Plans a Hot July’. Maybe some spies had embedded code words into GR’s forum, or maybe this was a personal ad.

Then I went to Boardgamegeek.com (BGG). This website is my usual haunt. I sometimes decide what games to buy or try purely from the postings of BGG members. Not much info on Essen ‘07 games either. Maybe it’s too early. Maybe the trickle of info on games to be released has not reached a critical mass yet for gamers to talk about them.

I guess this year is the year that I will have to wait for the real Essen Buzz, if any (there wasn’t much last year). This is usually broadcast almost live on BGG during the actual event as members vie to be the first to post the excitement experienced in playing a great new game or the ‘Meh!’ feeling of a crappy new game. Since info is relatively scarce this year, I shall not be pre-ordering games from Essen ‘07. Also my Eurogames burnout is still with me, albeit in a milder form, as I can be occasionally be talked into playing the odd game of Caylus, or Scepter of Zavandor, or Domaine, or Emira, or Saboteur, or Goa, or Ingenious, or Busen Memo, or Pickomino.

Spiel des Jahres 2007 Nominees

The announcement of the SdJ 2007 Nominees prompted me to write this blog entry. Here's the announcement found on a popular boardgame website:

Spiel des Jahres 2007 Nominees Announced

The Spiel des Jahres committee has announced its nominees for the 2007 awards, and in a change of pace no pure two-player was nominated and no nominee came out of left field (although one was playing shortstop). This year’s nominees are, in order from easiest to learn to most difficult):

• Der Dieb von Bagdad, by Thorsten Gimmler (Rio Grande/Queen)
• Zooloretto, by Michael Schacht (Rio Grande/Abacusspiele)
• Jenseits von Theben, by Peter Prinz (Rio Grande/Queen)
• Die Baumeister von Arkadia, by Rüdiger Dorn (Rio Grande/Ravensburger)
• Yspahan, by Sébastien Pauchon (Rio Grande/Ystari)

What the fu*k's happening to the gaming industry?

Firstly, one gets a limp Essen 2006 with crappy game titles. Nothing in Essen 2006 shouted out to me as a must buy. Nothing. Usually, there is a buzz as one or two games gets talked about a lot on the internet during Essen, but this phenomenon was not evident last year. This did not surprise me as there are no new game mechanics in Eurogames - just re-hashed stuff from older games.

From the list of stale 'new' games, come this list of nominees. Hey, even a monkey can pick up a list of nominees better than this. Going through the list:

Der Dieb von Bagdad -I did not hear of this game until my remote game buyer told me she noticed this game at a sale in an Australian games shop recently. Sheesh. Admittedly, I was not at Essen 2006 (and I'm glad I did not go), but if someone who spent much of his time in the internet looking specifically for games to buy during Essen on the net did not notice this game, what the heck is this game doing on the nominee list? OK, I am a majority of 1, but over at BoardGameGeek, this game has a rating of a paltry 6.38 out of 10, as of today. 'Nuff said.

Zooloretto-Zoo-what? Not heard of this either. But looking at the the game's entry on BGG, it is like a Zoo management game. Reminds me of O Zoo le Mio, a fave of my household.

Jenseits von Theben-whatever. According to the BGG entry, 'The game plays in 1900. The players try to find ancient relics in Greece and Near East to get 'fame' (which is needed to win the game). Knowledge about the ancient cultures and some objects to help digging are also needed to be successful and can be find and get while traveling through Europe.' But this was first published in 2004. Now, why did this not get nominated in 2004, on its first printing? My answer: because there were better and more original games then.

Die Baumeister von Arkadia-this I did hear about during my net-trawling in Oct 2006. Got a good initial buzz, but later, there were negative remarks about this. Those remarks stopped me from getting this. The hard-core gamers actually present in Essen must have known what they were talking about, right?

Yspahan-heard about this one too. Nearly ordered it. Ysatri games was one of fav publishers, with hits like Caylus and Ys. But I did not order it, 'cos this game has DICE! Now, Eurogamers dislike dice in games, but I don't mind. Yet, since they mentioned that this game has dice, I decided not to get it. I'm OK with dice, but getting an Eurogame with dice is tricky. There is randomness in this Eurogame. Nobody might want to play it.

OK, all the nominees commented on. But what happened to Die Säulen der Erde? That got lots of hype, the most hype, in fact. I don't have that either, but that's besides the point.

Which nominee do I think will win? I don't care, 'cos there is not much to choose from, and there were better releases in 2006 like Perikles.

Eurogames Burnout

I have Eurogames burnout.

This is the result of playing too many Eurogames last year. There was Caylus, Age of Steam, Santiago, Lost Cities, Bang!, Ys, Hacienda, etc, etc. I played a total of 266 games in 2006. Enjoyed them, I did, but the lack of direct confrontation in these games brought me to fell that enough is enough. Furthermore, the year 2006, I feel, may be the year the Eurogame craze started to decline: the ubiquitous 10-year cycle (1996-2006).

The treatment, at least for me, is Advanced Squad Leader (ASL). This is a complex game system about combat in World War II. It's been around for about 20 years, and, yes, I first bought it 20 years ago, but I had not played it until January 2007. Other wargames also are good for flushing away the burnout symptoms. I currently find the range of wargames by MMP really interesting, and I have since acquired ASL 2nd Edition rules as well as the core modules, A Victory Lost and Afrika from them. I have also pre-ordered some of their upcoming games.

Eurogames burnout-I'd never thought I could go off games, but I did.