Programmer: I didn't reach my deadline for my facebook game (last Friday), and it would appear the deadline is being pushed back a bit due to a vacation. Well, it's not technically my vacation, but since everyone else in the household is always around then there's not much choice for me -- sort of an enforced vacation, I suppose? My cousin-in-laws(?) tend to be dragging me into boardgames or video games, and my aunt and uncle are both taking time off while they're around, too. Even if I do get enough time to hit a completed point, I may not release just for fear of there being bugs that I won't have time to fix. Oh, vacation. Thou dost pickest a wonderful time to apparate.
Gamer: There are only a handfull of video games that I have been playing recently. I continue to give Fallout 3 a "FUN-tacular" rating, due to its ability to never grow old. My uncle recently bought the Broken Steel expansion, but neither of us have managed to do any of it yet (me: because I was recently attempting to get all Bobbleheads, which I completed yesterday. Him: because he's being an exploration completionist and is scouring every inch of the capital wasteland, going on 150+ hours of gametime). I will probably get around to that soon, though.
Via Gamefly, I had attained The Last Remnant, which I thoroughly enjoyed, except for framerate issues. I think it was made with the same engine as Mass Effect, since it continually has texture popping issues, too. I just returned it the other day, but I would very much want to continue it in the future on the PC version with "the perfect machine" that might help to reduce the noticeability of framerate issues.
My rating: Bad outways the good. Try it on PC?
My aunt and uncle have a lot of crazy boardgames here, and I have had a chance to play a couple of them. I had played the Cheap Ass Games' Unexploded Cows before, and it comes highly recommended due to its simple rules yet fun gameplay ("I give you a Skinny cow!" "Yes, well... Spy cow!"). That one is basically just a card game, though fake money and a dice is also involved (though the game only includes the cards, since that is the way a Cheap Ass Game works).
My rating: FUN-tacular
I hadn't played Munchkin before a couple days ago, and... I don't know what I was expecting, but it certainly isn't as fun as I had imagined it might be. It seemed pretty unbalanced -- at least in that no monster was defeatable in the beginning until you got more equipment, and then no monster seemed to stand a chance against you after you did get some.
My rating: Could have been better
Yesterday, we had played Mwahahaha!, a game where every player is a villain set on world domination via a Doomsday device. This game requires a lot of dice to play, where choosing to initiate combat with a Doomsday device might mean one player rolling 8 dice and another rolling 5. It was pretty much about gathering resources, which you can use to either get minion/empire cards or power your Doomsday device. A successful roll with the Doomsday device when you choose to attack the world (which you can only do after successfully attacking the City, State, and Country) ends the game, as that player has successfully attained World Domination.
My rating: FUN-tacular
Finally, we also played Smugglers of the Galaxy lastnight, which is all about buying and selling goods -- going to one planet and buying a material with a low demand and selling that same material on a different planet with a high demand to make profit. There are all sorts of different kinds of planets, and the best deal you can get is by buying from a planet with a Very Low demand and selling to a planet where that item is Illegal. However, Illegal items have a high risk, as you can get yourself a bounty, get those goods confiscated, or get thrown in jail AND lose all of your goods while trying to get through customs. A safer route that still offers lots of profit is to sell to Very High demand places, as there is no risk in selling (so long as another player doesn't sell first, as planets disappear when goods are sold to them, causing a new random planet to appear). The game ends when a player sells 10 weapons to a specific military planet, but you are required to buy those weapons from another specific planet for 500 each. The planet you have to sell them to also marks weapons as being an Illegal good, so you have to successfully make it through customs to succeed, otherwise you just wasted that hard-earned $5000. Ouch.
My rating: FUN-tacular
