Monday Report [July 7-13]

Wii Games
Wii Fit

1.5 hours

Bought this on Friday. So far have used it three days. I don't really have much to say about it. The quality of the balance board itself is good. It feels solid and sturdy. The "game" itself is well designed and has a pleasing aesthetic. I wanted to get it as a motivational tool to working out and tracking my weight. I don't have the time or money to spend on a gym membership, but I don't have the motivation by myself to research, design, and maintain a workout regimen. Hopefully Wii Fit will provide a source of direction and motivation as it tracks my progress.

PC Games
Beyond Good & Evil (via GameTap)

2.5 hours

The second assignment hasn't been posted yet. Although I figure that it will be somewhere after the second mission (the one in the Nutripils Factory). So I played some of the side-stuff, collected a few more pearls, and had the game crash every time I tried to go into something called "Vorax's Cave". I'll have to look into that. I'm part way into the mission, and taking my time to collect all the extra animals and pearls I can.

Flash Games
You Don't Know Jack, Episodes 78 & 79

7 minutes, each

This week brought back a personal favourite type of Jack moment. It's called the Bring Back. Or rather, the lead-in and follow-up. The full games did this sometimes, and The Netshow used it extensively. It's where it'll set something up, a joke or a clue to another question, and then follow through. Appropriately mocking if you failed to listen to the advice given. Monday's show was the lead-in and Friday's had the follow-up on the last question.


Totem Destroyer

30 minutes (complete)

This is a fun little physics game. You have to remove block from the (often unstable) towers while trying not to drop the golden idol on the ground. Challenging, but not too hard. I on;y got stuck on one level until I started to really pay attention to how the tower was swaying. The game's graphic design is simple and elegant, staying out of the way for the gameplay. the music also works nicely with the theme and doesn't manage to get too annoying. I'd recommend playing through. Also, the game has achievements. While some of these are just for filler (play for X amount of time) some do provide a sense of fulfillment.

Open Doors

30 minutes (incomplete)

This is an interesting game about movement. Draw as a blueprint, this game has you moving around a grid trying to get to the exit space. Doors are in your way, and are designed to only operate in certain directions. You can push doors open only certain ways and passing through an open door will close it behind you. I'm pretty sure that I was playing mostly on intuition. Eventually I got stuck and frustrated, maybe you can do better.

Real Games
Arkham Horror

About 3 hours

If you play board games at all seriously, there is a good chance you have heard of Fantasy Flight Games. They make the World of Warcraft, StarCraft, and upcoming Gears of War board games. They make games with ridiculous numbers of pieces and whole buckets full of miniatures. Arkham Horror is based on Call of Cthulhu, and the whole Lovecraft Mythos in general. Played over several hours, the game is a cooperative effort as the investigators (from 1 to 8 players) try to stop a Great Old One from awakening and killing them (and everyone else). This is not an easy game. Lots of bad things can happen, and you only have a short time to stop it.

This was my first time playing it, and I had a blast. There were four of us, and only one (the game owner) had actually played before. Fortunately the rest of us were familiar with many of the game conventions used in Arkham Horror, so we were able to pick it up easily. Part RPG, part miniature-style combat, and part open-path board game; you pick a character, get some stuff, and start wandering Arkham trying to close gates to other dimensions and killing (or evading) the monsters that emerge from them.

We all died. We were unable to seal any of the gates and prevent them from re-opening. This meant that we were constantly moving towards awakening the Old One and our doom. He woke up and promptly devoured us all. It is the most fun I've ever had losing a game. It's not like you go in expecting to come out whole: it is a Cthulhu game after all. I can't wait to play this again (maybe with expansions) and I hope to get it for myself.