Small World 2

For Valentine's Day, my husband bought all of us copies of Small World 2 on Steam. We own the board version of the game but we never had a chance to play it. Either there aren't enough of us to play a good game or other players don't understand the rules. The digital version doesn't have these issues. Not only can you play against the computer, there is also a very short instructional video to easily explain the rules. An ideal fix for a mundane problem. The game itself is pretty cool. Every player picks a race with a modifier. You try to conquer as much land as you can before running out of armies. Then you can put your race into decline and pick a new one. Most of the time, you can only have one active race and one race in decline. The person with the most points after 10 rounds wins.

I am not all that great at this game. My daughter has won almost every game we've played together. Yet I still find the game a lot of fun. Since both the races and the modifiers are shuffled separately, you rarely get the same combination between games. One race may be super powerful one game and really weak the next. Also, it takes a bit of practice to figure out when you should put your race into decline and pick a new one. While you do still get points from the declined race's land, they are easily defeated by your opponents, giving them the points instead. But the game wouldn't be as fun if you didn't get to beat up your opponent's armies!

For those of you that love playing board games but don't have the ability to physically play the game, the digital version is perfect. If your friends have copies of the game, you can play online or locally. If you are having a party and want to play, you can play the Pass N Play option, which allows up to 5 opponents play on a single device. It is available in the Apple Store, on Google Play, and on Steam. Or you can just play by yourself with up to 4 AI opponents. (This is my favorite since my daughter massacres me every time we play.) This is definitely a good game to add to your collection.

BlizzCon

BlizzCon ran on Friday and Saturday. First, let me say how weird it is to see a two-day convention that takes place on Friday and Saturday instead of Saturday and Sunday. My husband signed up for the DirecTV pay per view to partake in the geekiness. And, oh, was it geeky. To be honest, we only watched the interesting parts of the show. The opening ceremonies with Chris Metzen's speech, the costume contest, the dance competition, and the Tenacious D concert. Amazingly, Chris Metzen was extraordinarily entertaining. Most of the time, these speeches are done by boring suits or developers with no social skills. You end up wondering when the pain will end. I was very surprised to see Metzen and, even more surprising, I didn't want his speech to end. I was ready to listen to him all day.

Then we saw some boring panel with PowerPoint slides on the new changes that were added to.....I forget what game....Starcraft 2 maybe. I actually turned to my husband and said "You paid to watch some geeks do a PowerPoint presentation on a game? This is lame."

There was some cool things in the costume and dance contests. (I wonder if there were trophies handed out....) There were a lot of people that stupidly wore stilts. They needed help walking down the ramp to the stage. Overall, I was impressed and I was happy with the winners. As for the dance contest, it was silly and fun but one guy did end up getting injured. (It has been debated whether he broke his leg or just dislocated his knee. Either way it sucks.)

Finally, the Tenacious D concert at the closing ceremonies. Of course, they rocked the house. Dave Grohl (from Foo Fighters and Nirvana) played drums for them. If anything, this was the only thing worth the price of pay per view. I would do it again just for the D. Everything else was dull in comparison.

Plunger gun!

I talked about my Xbox 360 yesterday morning. Today it's the Wii's turn. The family stopped by GameStop this past weekend to check out the games. My daughter, of course, looked at the Wii accessories. Specifically, the plunger gun for Raving Rabbids. She loves that game and she thought the gun was hysterical. It is pretty funny looking. I wonder how well it actually works. I know some of the other accessories aren't very good. It would be terrible if the plunger gun sucked too.

Game review: Wild West Quest

Wile West Quest is a western-themed hidden object game. Besides the normal hidden object objectives, there are other mini-games to play as well. Of course, those are western-themed too. Sometimes you'll have a shoot-out in the center of town; sometimes you'll need to wrangle some horses; sometimes you'll need to ID brands on cattle. None of the mini-games are particularly difficult but they do change things up just enough to keep the game from getting boring. Overall, the game isn't all that bad. The hidden object parts are fairly typical but the game shines a bit more in the mini-game areas. Since either the camera or the objects you are dealing with are moving in those games, you need a little more skill to get through them. Not that this makes those pieces of the game difficult, just interesting.

Game review: Miss Teri Tale

You are Miss Teri Tale, a famous mystery writer. Your neighbor's prized pooch, Jason, has been dognapped and it is up to you to find him. Sneak into each of your neighbor's houses and rifle through their things in order to find which one of them has it out for the prize-winning show dog. This hidden object game, not-very-cleverly named after the heroine, is vaguely interesting. You start out in your office when a video message comes across your laptop with instructions on how to play the game and where to go. For the most part, this is a typical hidden object game. However, since you are breaking into your neighbor's houses, there are a few puzzles where you need to solve the alarm code in order to enter. In my opinion, the best part of this game is the way you can 'refill' your number of hints. When you run out, simply head back to your office to collect more four leaf clovers. There is usually two or three each time you go back.

While there is nothing new offered in the gameplay, it is still pretty fun. I didn't care much for the constant interruptions from the mystery person in the laptop videos, which is how the game advances the story, but luckily those don't last long. If you like hidden object games, give it a try.

Website of the Week: Big Fish Games

If you read this site, you know that I review a lot of downloadable casual video games. I get the majority of the game trials from Big Fish Games. All of the games are categorized by type so if, for example, you only like Match 3 games, it's easy to find a slew of that particular type. Since each trial is 60 minutes long, make sure to say goodbye to your weekends before you start downloading!