GenCon 2008

Gaming conventions are crazy, both in concept and in practice. Imagine gathering together thousands of people who enjoy board games, war games, card games, fantasy role-playing, and even some online gaming folks into one large event. You see a lot of weird things and people and have a lot of fun just browsing around and people watching. The two big gaming conventions that occur near Cincinnati are Origins, in Columbus, and GenCon in Indianapolis. Earlier this year, I spent two action packed days at Origins playing as many games as I could squeeze in. Because of this fact, I didn’t expect that I would go to GenCon. For one, Parker had just arrived and because of this fact, I had no time to get myself up to Indianapolis. So, I was resigned to the fact that Origins would be my convention of choice, this year. That works for me. Then, I heard on The Spiel (one of my board gaming podcasts) that they were going to be holding a “Spiel-a-Thon” event at GenCon. It would be a fund raising event where you can go and meet the podcasters and play lots of game and possibly win a few. I figured I had to make my way up to the event and play a few games and meet the Dave and Stephen from The Spiel.

So, I skipped out of work a little bit early on the Friday of the event and made my way to Indianapolis. When I got to GenCon I quickly made my way into the main hall where all the vendors are located. This is the main feature of GenCon. The convention center is huge and there were literally hundreds of booths of a wide spectrum of the gaming world. The place was so expansive, it was impossible to see everything in the short amount of time that I had, but I saw many different booths and vendors, including super heroes, dice vendors, Japanese graphic novels, war paraphernalia, the latest miniature games, a $9500 wooden gaming table, Guitar Hero contests, and the latest in MMORPGs. Somehow, I missed the Fantasy Flight Games section where they were testing the new Battlestar Galactica game out. I’ve heard this is a pretty good game. Oh, well.

So, after a few frantic hours in the main vendor hall, I made my way over to the Rio Grande Gaming room where the Spiel-a-thon was being held. Once there, I meet Dave and Stephen from the The Spiel and recorded a sound bite for their show. They also had a huge 5 foot dice tower that was to be used throughout the day. They also had a prize table with about 50 different games that would be raffled off that day in order to raise money for their charity. The grand prize in the raffle was Risk: Black Ops, but they had many other good games they were giving away. I will go ahead and spoil the ending and tell you that I did not win anything. No problem, I was there to play some games.

They way the Spiel-a-thon worked was people just looked around and found a game that was not being played and sat down. Within a few seconds someone would join you and the group would teach the game to themselves, or have someone else teach it. I was able to play three different games over the course of 5 hours. I had a really good time, even though I didn’t win the raffle. I’m thinking I might have to go back next year. Just don’t tell my wife.

Here are some quick reviews of the games I played:
Utopia
This is a game about placing your different types of workers around a large map. If you formed specific combinations of workers you could build small buildings, build large monuments, change the value of buildings, get more workers, or move workers around. It took us a while to get the hang of the rules, but about halfway through the game, we kind of knew what we were doing. I usually like worker placement games, but this one didn’t feel very smooth. The game just didn’t grab me as one I would want to play over and over. Also, the monuments and the buildings looked too much alike.

Nefertiti
I can tell there is a really good, deep auction game here. On your turn, you simply place one of your markers on a bid space. That is it. You have a number of things to balance in this game. You have to make sure you don’t run out of bid markers, or run out of money, and you need to make sure you collect cards that other people have (this will decrease their value), and corner the market on items that you have to raise the price. This is a really good “gamers” game that, for some reason, I am only marginally interested in playing again. For some reason, it just wasn’t very exciting. I did like it, though.

Dominion
Dominion is a pre-release game from Rio Grande Games that will include over 500 cards. This card game you only use about 50 cards in a game. The 500 cards are there so that two games that you play will never be the same. The game is a very quick and simple cards game. You start with 10 cards in your deck. Some are action cards and some are coin cards. On your turn, you draw 5 cards and play up to one action cards and you can buy one card with any coins in your hand. So, the cards you can buy are more actions cards, more coin cards, or victory point cards. When you are done, you throw all the cards in your hand and the new cards into your own discard pile. Then you draw 5 more and wait for your turn to do it again. When you run out of cards to draw, you shuffle your own discard pile back into your draw deck. This way, your deck of cards starts to grow and you start getting better and better cards in your deck. Eventually, you’ll get enough coin cards so you can buy some victory point cards. You don’t want to do this too early or they will take up space in your deck and be useless until the end of the game. The game plays very fast and is a lot of fun trying different strategies in a short 10-15 minute game. The only problem that I see is that Dominion has very little player interaction. In fact, with the cards I played with, there was only one card you could buy that affected the other players. Despite this fact, I could sit there and play game after game and have a great time.

Motorsport Country Club of Cincinnati: Shayne Graham Event

Yesterday I got to participate in one amazing event. You know how celebrities organize charity golf event where a corporation pays a large sum to the charity and then they get to send three guys (or gals) to golf with a celebrity? Well, when Shayne Graham organizes the event, you never know what you're going to get. He doesn't do things the normal way. He figured that golf was boring and he should spice things up. So, instead, he organized the Shayne Graham Celebrity Race-Off at the Motorsport Country Club of Cincinnati. The Motorsport Country Club of Cincinnati is a new 0.7 mile KART track near Eastgate. It was a blast!

The Motorsport Country Club of Cincinnati is about 10 minutes east of 275 on the east side of Cincinnati. So, it took a little while to get there and we had to drive through some really small towns out in the middle of nowhere. But, once we finally got there, the place was hoppin’. As we pulled in, we saw a bright yellow Lamborghini parking in front of us. I didn’t realize that celebrities enjoy driving their fancy cars to events like this, but I took a few pictures of the cars that cost more than my house. Shayne had his own Lamborghini there, as well.

So, we go up and register and meet some more people from Mercy: a few surgeons and friends of Greg (my in-law and PR guy for Mercy Hospital). Mercy sponsored two karts, so that meant they got to bring 6 drivers with them; three drivers per kart plus a random celebrity for each kart. I got to be a driver and we thought my brother Justin would just get to observe and take pictures. But, when we meet one of the surgeons from Mercy who was going to drive, he decided that he would rather watch and let Justin be a driver for their kart. Excellent! Justin would now be able to drive and I would be able to kick his butt on the race track. That would be fun.

Greg and I meet up with Jungle Jim (of Jungle Jim’s International Market in Fairfield) and proceeded to mingle with some celebrities. I meet Kenny Irons, Shayne Graham, Dave Fulcher, “Frosty”, and a couple other celebs (mostly Bengal players) that were going to be driving with us. To be honest, I was more excited to meet Jungle Jim. After a little while, they served us some very good Montgomery Inn ribs and chicken and then we proceeded to the drivers meeting and pre-race talk. This is where they told us how to make the karts go and how not to kill ourselves.

The karts are cool. They are not your run of the mill, “putt-putt adventure park” style go-karts. These babies can go 60 mph and can hurt you if you’re not careful. So, after the talk we got out on the track and had half an hour for our team to practice driving the course and to get a feel for the track. The whole event was set up like an actual race. We had helmets (absolutely needed at 60 mph), caution flags, a pace kart, and even a pit area. The karts are just amazing. Those things can fly. The best way to drive was to go as fast as possible around the track without slipping (aka drifting). As soon as you started drifting around corners, you would lose too much speed and somebody would probably pass you. It was incredibly tiring driving, too. You had to have all your concentration focused on the race and kart and your arms were straining around the corners. At the end of my laps my hands were shaking and I was weak. My lap times were only a few seconds off of Shayne Graham’s times, so I was happy with how I was doing. It looked like we might have a chance to win this thing.

So, after the practice, we picked one driver to set our qualifying time. Shayne Graham was our celeb and he had done been racing these karts for a couple weeks, so he set our time and got us into second place. So, I started the race and quickly got right behind the second place guy and followed him for the first lap when I slipped a little coming around the last turn and went into the grass. This allowed a few people to pass me, one of them, unfortunately, being Justin. So, I got back on the track and over the next 10-15 minutes I got us back into second place, behind Justin. At this point, Shayne flagged me down for a shift change; it was Greg’s turn. Greg ran a couple laps without any problem, but at about lap five, he had one spectacular wreck (the best of the day). One the sharp S-turn, he didn’t break enough and jumped off the track, over a small hill, crossed over more track, and smashed into a couple hay bails. Hay went everywhere. It was quite spectacular. But, this put us down 2 laps and then when Greg entered back into the pack, quite dazed I’m sure, and behind the pace car, he took a wrong turn and they counted another lap against us. So, when Jungle Jim came up to drive, we were pretty much out of it. But, Jungle had some great lap times and gained a couple places. Shayne was our last racer and he had no chance to catch up but ran some of the fasted times of the day. Justin’s team did a great job (although, I’ve heard they may have cheated a little bit) and ended up in third place. All in all, we got last, but it was one of the most fun experiences I’m had in a long time. So much so, that Justin and I are trying to figure out how we can race more in the future. I would like to thank Shayne Graham (and Greg for inviting me) for his unique charity fund raiser event. It really was a great time and I’m sure they raised a lot of money for the Shayne Graham Foundation.

Movie Review: Wall-e

Summary: What if there was one robot left on Earth to clean up the mess and he gets curious.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10

Review: This is another really good Pixar movie. They know how to make movies over there. Wall-e is instantly lovable and you actually care about what happens to him. I would say he is a cross between ET and Johnny 5 from Short Circuit. The movie does have some pretty harsh social commentary about how we treat our planet and how we treat ourselves. But, this is needed to setup the entire basis of the movie, so I’ll let it go. If you can get past the movie yelling at you to fix the planet, then this is a great movie.

Origins Gaming Fair - 2008

Summary
Origins is a great gaming convention. I mostly go for the board gaming, but they have many types of games: roleplaying, card, miniatures, war games, collectible card games, and even LARPing (Live Action Roleplaying). This year I spent two days up at Columbus playing as many games as I could get my hands on. Here is a summary of my experience and games played.

Vendor Hall
This is the vendor hall where the main part of the convention is held. Go here and you can spend hours walking around looking at hundreds of booths of everything you can think of from dice to games to T-shirts to kilts. Spend a lot of your time here just taking it all in and play lots of games that people are trying to sell you (the Rio Grande and Mayfair booths are really great). Most of the major vendors are here and you can find all the new releases and even get to try them out.

Events
Sign up for some events for any specific games that you want to play. I played a 18xx train game where they taught me the rules to one of the more advanced board games that I have played. This is a great way to make sure that you get to play something you have been waiting to play. This does seem to be a more serious side of the convention and some people take the games much more serious than they do in the board room.

Board Room
This is a room run by the CABS club and they offer a library of hundreds of games. You buy a ribbon and you can go here and play as many games as you would like. It’s a bit nerve-racking to go and start up a game if you are the shy type, but well worth the effort. People are always looking for new players for games. Just hang around long enough or start your own game. This place was packed Saturday, but was a ghost town on Sunday. Sunday was pretty much a waste for the board room and I spent most of that day in the Vendor Hall.


Games played

1830
Train game from the 18xx line where you buy and sell stock in train companies to make the most money. This game was interesting and fairly complicated to learn. I found the counting of money very tedious and that definitely hindered my enjoyment of the game. I can see that it could be very strategic, though.

Eketorp
This is a new game from Rio Grande about building up your castle walls. You have to decide whether to spend your time building up your walls, defending your wall, or trying to knock down other people’s walls. The game just wasn’t that interesting. I won, but didn’t feel like I accomplished much. Not great.

Mimic
Mimic is a fairly weak card game about laying down animal cards to make pairs. I did get to play the developer of the game, but that didn’t help it enough.

Race to the Galaxy
I was really looking forward to playing this game. I had read the rules to get somewhat familiar with the game’s mechanics before the convention. I couldn’t find anyone starting to play it, so I checked the game out myself and could only find one person to play with. He didn’t know how to play, so I had to read the rules and teach him, right there. I could not believe how difficult the first game of Race for the Galaxy is. The game is a moderately simple card game that is made very difficult by the symbology on the cards. To make the game more international, there is no text on the cards. They use symbols for everything. After muddling through the first game, I understand how to play, but in that first game, a new player is going to be lost for most of it. I also didn’t think that it was a very deep game. You just seemed to play a few cards and before you know it, the game is over. I was not impressed. This has now dropped off my “go to have” list.

Cuba
This was a very good game from Rio Grande. Cuba is about buying and selling products from a market so you can use those goods to buy new building or ship them off and earn points. Cuba is a very good game that has a Puerto Rico feel, but seems to be much more intuitive. I like this one a lot and it is high on my “must have” list.

Cluzzle
This is a simpler version of Barbarossa. In short, you have to sculpt items from clay that people will be able to guess, but not right away. Good sculpting is not rewarded in this game. This would be a fun, easy version of Barbarossa, but I don’t think Barbarossa needed to be that simplified. Plus, I already own Barbarossa and it is essentially the same game.

Say Anything
This is a cross between Apple to Apples and Wits and Wagers. I would say it is for anyone who likes Wits and Wagers, but doesn’t want to play a trivia game. This is a great party game for people who just want to have fun and laugh at what people come up with. What is the scariest thing you could find in your parents sock drawer? Everyone write down your answers, the host will pick his/her favorite, and laughter will follow.

Hey, That’s My Fish!
Hey, That’s My Fish is a simple game where you hop your penguin from iceberg to iceberg trying to get the most tiles and trying to trap the other players on a small iceberg. It is great for young kids and adults.

Warhammer Online
I know this is not a board game, but they had a demo of the MMORPG at the convention. If you have played World of Warcraft, then you already know how to play this game. It didn’t seem to be that big of a difference from WOW, though; so I don’t know if it will drag people away from WOW. It was amusing for the short amount of time that I played.

Movie Review: Balls of Fury

Summary: Stupid comedy about Ping Pong.

Rating: 4.0 out of 10

Review: I like ping pong (aka table tennis) so I thought I would like this movie, but it wasn't very good. They tried to do a little bit of Matrix-style Japanese action movie with a bit of Dodgeball-style comedy. It wasn't that bad, but definately not good. The only saving grace was Christopher Walken's character. He was pretty good and made the movie laughable in some spots. If you want the weird Matrix-style, sports comedy mixed with Japanese weirdness, go see Shaolin Soccer. It's a much better movie.

LFotW: Slippery Slope

This logical fallacy is the argument that a position is not consistent or tenable because accepting the position means that the extreme of the position must also be accepted. But moderate positions do not necessarily lead down the slippery slope to the extreme. There may be legitimate reasons to accept intermediate positions.

For example, those, like Thomas Szasz, who believe that mental illness does not exist have argued that if we classify depression as an illness that will lead to governments classifying political protest as a mental illness, because they are both mental states. This slippery slope argument ignores the important differences between a debilitating mood disorder and a political opinion.

Movie Review: Mr. and Mrs. Smith

Summary: Two people get married and have very boring lives. But when they find out that each of them leads a double life as an assassin, things get interesting.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10

Review: This movie was a lot of fun. It had great action sequences, a plot that wasn’t too predictable, and two fairly hot stars; something for the whole family. Oh, and a whole lot of killing. This is not going to win any awards or make you think too hard, but go into the movie knowing that and you will have a good time.