A New Year

Holy smokes 2005 seemed to scream by quickly...My son, whom is 13 now, (ya know ever since his birth it seems like every time I blink, a year passes. Hmmm...mental note: stop blinking) has been getting into more board games with my friends and myself. Instead of attaching himself to the PS2 or XBox controller. And any excuse for him to exercise his mind, even in the guise of fun, social interaction is O.K. with me.

I got him a few games for Christmas to add to our (small but growing) collection. Ticket to Ride - by Days of Wonder. Descent:Journeys in Darkness - by Fantasy Flight Games. Plus a few expansions for our Heroscape
skirmish obsession. Bang! and Carcassonne are the two others I picked up.

We finally had a chance to play some Ticket to Ride, both as a 2 player game. And as a 4 player with other members of our family. And let me just say that all the hype and reviews of this game are spot on. It is an excellent game. Simple to learn, with a lot of subtle strategy to allow for a different game every time. This, in my opinion, is a must have for non-gamers and gamers alike. I am looking forward to getting the the 2 other games based on this one. (Ticket to Ride - Europe & Ticket to Ride - Marklin) both expand the basic game play with new mechanics and maps.

This weekend will be our first chance to play Descent. This is a fantasy adventure 1-4 players can team up to form a party of adventures to plunder the dark dungeons controlled by the "overlord" players who's job it is to try and thwart the heroes with traps, spells, and a whole stable of monsters to throw at them. It has light RPG elements in the form of character upgrades, in both skill and items they carry and weapons they use. The play mechanics are an updated version of those used for Doom:TBG. Balance issues resolved and modified to fit the Runebound world more completely than an adaption(or abstraction) of a 1st person shooter. Descent (and Doom) uses an Action Point system & tiles that harkens back to the GW/MB SpaceHulk boardgame from the late 80's and early 90's. I am really looking forward to some good old fashion dungeon hacking.