Games Log

After a long hiatus, I've decided to pick up the weblog again,  this time focusing on the games I'm playing. I love games and spend much of my leisure time playing games, so I thought others might like to hear what I am up to.

Need for Speed-Rivals

This is an Xbox game I bought, shared 50-50 with a Dad, a couple of weeks ago. You have a choice of two different careers in the game, as a racer or as a cop. I'm pursuing both paths. The game is a driving game where, as a cop, you have to catch the racers. Unlike normal law enforcement, catching them involves repeatedly smashing into their vehicles until they can no longer drive. As a racer, you have two jobs---get away from the cops and go faster than the other racers. Success gets you points which can be used to buy better cars or to equip your existing car with better stuff.

The graphics on the game are superb. The roads and scenery look very realistic, and the weather, as well as the time of day, changes. It's quite a bit more difficult to drive crazy fast at night in a rainstorm than it is on a sunny day.  Mixed into all of this is a story of escalating unhappiness between the cops and the racers. I'm on chapter 3 of the racers and chapter 2 for the cops. There are various goals that you have to achieve to move forward to the next chapter of the story.

The best part of the game is the crashes. When you crash, the visual cuts to a 3rd person view of the car, which does crazy, but realistic things when it crashes. It can flip over, turn o circles or even slide a considerable distance on its roof. The crash effects are truly spectacular.

Segikahara

This is a board game I just completed with Dad. It's about the battle of Segikahara, which was the critical battle for the unification of Japan. I first got interested in this period in history through Pokemon. They made a game, Pokemon Revolution, where Japanese Shogun were matched with Pokemon in trying to rule the Shogunate. The most powerful of these warlords is Oda Nobunaga, a real Shogun. I also learned about Tokogawa from the game Civilization, where he is the leader of the Japanese. My love of Pokemon has made me quite curious about Japan.

This battle fills in the gap between Nobunaga and Tokugawa. Nobunaga was murdered by other jealous shogun and, in his place, Hedeyoshi Toyotomi, came to power. He lasted a while but, as he grew old, he also become nuts, and killed nearly all of his family. All that was left was his 2 year old son, Hiseyori.  Toyotomi's plan was to divide the other shoguns into two roughly equal blocks, thereby ensuring his son would retain power as the fulcrum on which the balance of power would rest.

But it didn't work out that way. Jealousies soon erupted, and two main factions went to war. One faction, Ishida, backed the boy king while the other was led by Tokugawa. I played Tokigawa while Dad played Ishida. Initially, Dad made a mistake that enabled me to sneak a force into Osaka, where the boy king was located. If successful, my force would capture him and the game would be over. Unfortunately, protecting him were forces under Teremoto Mori, the second most powerful shogun in Japan. His forces remain off the map since Ishida did not want to share credit with the Mori, but they activate when the boy king is threatened. As a result, the Mori forces where narrowly able to protect the boy king.

For several (game) weeks thereafter, I concentrated my forces while Dad's Ishida forces drove me back. At last, I launched a big counterattack, pushing back the Uesugi forces in the west as well as storming toward some castles in the east. But I was a little too late. Even at the end, I had a shot to take the Uegi castle for the tie. I destroyed all the fighting units, but the great general and his crack group of officers held out in the castle.

 The game itself is really pretty. Each unit is a block, with Japanese writing on it showing the unit, it's strength and so on. Each. Side can see now many blocks are attacking it not their daimyo (leader) or strength. Also, units will only fight of you have a card to activate them. Even worse (or better), units can switch sides with the right cards. All of this makes for a lot of suspense in each battle, even though there are no dice used to decide anything. While it is no fun to lose to Dad who, unfortunately, is quite good at these games, it was very exciting.

In later entries, I'll tell you about other games we are playing.