Bakaneko

Yeah, I see the "never played a hobby board game? Let's play Ora et Labora!" pretty much the same as "Oh, never played a modern video game? Let's play a hot-seat game of Hearts of Iron IV!"

Yeah, there really is such a spread and depth to board gaming in terms of complexity, type of gaming, theme, and such now, with hundreds if not thousands of games coming out each year to appeal to such a wide variety of people, that it was sad to have Jeff and Ben rather flippantly dismiss the whole genre because of Ora et Labora, which is frankly one of Uwe Rosenberg's lesser games. And not everyone should like Uwe Rosenberg games anyhow. And its 6 years old...

Mostly just wanted to say "people who live in glass video game houses probably shouldn't throw stones" since every comment made about board games in the podcast I've probably heard applied in some fashion to video games, and equally fallaciously.

BTW, since this is post has become about new board games enjoyed recently:

Dice Forge - Customize dice with lego-type face pieces as you go on quests to defeat monsters.
Sentient - Mathy little dice/card puzzle type game where you're trying to get all your AIs to work.
Roll Player - Roll up RPG style characters, trying to get the best stats and equipment, all while trying to keep yourself in the right alignment.
Flipships - Defeat the space invader like aliens rushing towards you in a dexterity game where you have to flip a ship piece onto them to destroy them and earn powerups.

Well, mostly, its not (just) that Viper was difficult, just what happened with it, and what surrounded it.

(Yes, BTW, I did power through the next 30 minutes to finish the game, with no problem (it was remarkable how much easier the Sloan fight was), its just that at that point I just wanted it over)

I died a few times in the rest of the game, but I could always tell right away what stupid move I made and what I should try to do to avoid it, but in that fight, I died a couple of minutes in the beginning after taking out one of the Scorches, so the respawn put me in a place with no cover, the other (full health) Scorch walking down behind me, and Viper above me (at slightly less than 50% health), about ready to unleash the spread shot bombardment. It took about 30 tries with various quick swapouts to get past that point. Maybe if I'd been "smart" I would have just restarted the chapter, but I always hate doing that. What worked for that moment eventually was diving out as Ronin, blocking the barrage with the sword, and then using its slash on the Scorch, then switching to Expedition and plinking down Viper by diving from cover to cover (in "battery required" state pretty much the whole time)... But like I said, by that point, the slamming of my head on a single boss had made me stop caring about the game. All the "moments" after that with BT are pretty much a non-event for me, and when the credits rolled, its was more like "OK, fine, that's done" than "Yay, we won." I definitely don't have any real affection for BT as a character after all that. I presume the stuff that came after that was what was supposed to create that, but yeah.

I guess while I'm probably complaining about the difficulty (git gud), I'm mostly complaining about the inconsistent difficulty.

Or maybe I'm just complaining about the respawn, which would be ironic.

But after the Viper fight, when I FINALLY slogged my way through it, I'd lost any sense of the drama, and just wanted the campaign to be over. Which is was, fairly shortly after that, and much easier.

But that Viper fight... Yeah. 30 deaths pretty much makes you not care about the plot anymore, not care about fighting well, you just want to see it done.

Safe to say the Draft Kings stuff is a bit beyond "sketchy" now. Definitely wouldn't want to be associated with them.

All I know is, I'm getting spammed by Draft Kings in my email an absolute ton this week. I haven't had any business with them and I actually probably don't think its because they got my email from this website, but anybody who spams me out of the blue is generally "sketchy" in my book.

I kind of want an iPad (not really an iPhone) for games, though I don't think I'll own an Apple product again being that I've not been happy with my purchases of Apple products in the past. But the reason I want the the iPad for games is for board game translations like Alien Frontiers and Eclipse and stuff that I think Jeff is on record as saying are dumb (I think this fell under the "anime is dumb" "X is dumb" "Y is dumb" "anything out of my wheelhouse is dumb" set of thesis he had. :) )

Not sure where I'm going with this, other than I think statistically, if you have an opinion, and it is a unique opinion, then you probably have a bad opinion.

Also, the site I go to for board gaming news, BoardGameGeek, refuses to make an Android app news section and shoves all their news for board game apps under "iOS news" so it could be worse.

Oh yeah, I skip the pro-wrestling talk a lot too, because that doesn't appeal to me either.

@jagehtso: Yes, unfortunately too far fetched. Microsoft and Sony would NEVER and I mean NEVER allow a competing store on their closed consoles. Those stores are what they are seeing as their primary way to make money on this generation of consoles, and no way are they sharing that sweet sweet cash with Gabe.

So, August 16th, 2012, Rebellion Studios files suit against Stardock Entertainment, publishers of the game expansion "Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion" claiming that the name of that game was an attempt to confuse the marketplace by latching onto the lauded name of the developer that made 2010's Aliens vs Predator and the more recent genre definining "Zombie HQ"

Obviously they are hoping the rest of the world is as patently stupid and easily mislead as they are.

If the judge doesn't order the court bailiffs to beat Rebellion's lawyers senseless for daring to walk into court with those allegations, it will be a miscarriage of justice.

Though, I guess filing a suit in the same day that Stardock does, claiming that the horrendous buggy and unplayable Elemental failed in the marketplace because one minor person destroyed marketing materials (Presumably that actually warned people to NOT buy the game... because otherwise that lady was doing the world a favor by trying to bury that game.)...

Oh, and hey my inbox today has an invite to BETA 4 of the "free expansion" they promised for Elemental that's supposed to convert it from dross into gold...

OK, my tinfoil hat is getting REALLY hot right now.

@Gordo789 said:

I never, ever, ever gift a F--K.

And if you do: Always, ALWAYS, get a receipt.