2006: The Year in Gaming

Hmmm... I just updated the title of my reading year-end review to reflect the fact that it's for 2006 rather than 2005.

So, let's get to the gaming. I don't actually play a huge number of games, so this won't take took long. My Wii games will be discussed in my 2007 year-end review (and perhaps in individual reviews as well). I have Wii Zelda sitting on my table, but I don't currently have a way to play it at home.

Let's break this down by category:

RPGs: This has been on hiatus for a while, but I look forward to both campaigns and one-shots. I'm thinking of starting a Dragonlance campaign once I'm in Oxford, but first I will need to find people with whom to game. I still need to fully design and run a version of the Cheesegrinder. (Additionally, I am tempted to see if I can stay with a friend around labor day and then fly off to Atlanta and participate in DragonCon. Or I could go to a more local convention. But I haven't been to a Con since Labor Day 2004 and I want to go to one.)

Board (and card) games: Well, I spent a bunch of time playing old favorites and I also had a chance to try some new ones. 1000 Blank White Cards is nice quick fun -- maybe I can convince people at conferences to play that -- and You've Been Sentenced is also really good (though our rule modifications improved a couple aspects of the game quite nontrivially). The D & D board game is another new one from 06, and the card games I've tried (in 05 and 06) that others own are also going strong. (There's the Uno on crack and that bean game.) Ticket to Ride was very fun, though I have yet to play it correctly, so I'll reserve judgement on the correct way of playing the game. We played a block game at Jorian's on Newton's b-day that I enjoyed quite a bit, and I've tried some other new games as well over the past year. Oh, I should definitely mention Lemming's game with paper dice. I can't remember what it's called, but that's another standout. As for individual gaming "moment" of the year, that's got to be the marathon game of Munchkin with the end game scenario that lasted almost an hour (or about 50 minutes after I first promised we'd be done soon because the end game had started). That was an amazing achievement.

Video (and computer) games: There aren't too many to mention. (As I wrote, I have to reserve the Wii ones for next year.) Civ IV is providing the expected addiction, and New Super Mario Brothers (I really need to get back to this...) and Puyo Pop Fever ("Ribbit! Ribbit! Ribbit!") are also very cool. The AI in Puyo Pop Fever kicked the living crap out of all of us in multiplayer even though I think we adjusted the difficulty to maximize our benefit. That was a little ridiculous. The 6-player battle Tetris at Doug's graduation ceremony was extremely memorable, and I seriously need to buy Tetris so we can do some more multiplayer Tetris. Hell, even just with the few of us and no new people, I would still really like to do this because it was that damn fun. I tried a few other games, but none of them really did much for me. I wouldn't mind giving some of them more chances, however. (It's not like I played them for a long time.)


The 2007 outlook is obviously filled with Wii games, starting with Zelda. Additionally, I hope that Super Smash Brothers Brawl, currently slated for a Fall release, comes out before I leave Pasadena because I'd really like to play multiplayer with the gang in person. (I find in-person multiplayer to be much more enjoyable than multiplayer over the internet, even with the exact same people involved in each case. While I'll still have with Smash Bros with the latter situation, fewer bars will be increasing on my end of things.)

Grabaduccia!