My Ten Favorite Games

A new audio show, "The Tom and Joe Audio Show" featuring Tom Vasal and Joe Steadman has hit the Internet "airwaves." Looks like Mark Johnson's hope that his podcast "Boardgames To-Go" could get something started in terms of boardgame related podcast/audio shows is bearing fruit.

As is my nature, this blog entry is in response to the topic covered by Tom & Joe. (I can't think up of topics on my own. Sad, I know...) In this case it's "Top Ten Games." Well, I don't really have a list of Top Ten Games I can name off the top of my head. But, since I have begun to rate games I've played on BoardGameGeek, I should be able to look at the games I 've rated there and assume that the ten higest rated games are "My Top Ten Games", right?

I currently do not have any games rated "10" on BGG. I'm a "bell curve" kind of guy, and the extremes make me uncomfortable. I haven't yet found a game that is so good, I'll give it a "10" rating. (At least, not for long. I have initially rated some games a "10" but after some thought, I've changed the rating to a lower number.) I have rated games "9" and "8", so that is where my list will come from. Since I have rated multiple games "9" or "8", I'm not going to stick my neck out and say "this is my #1 favorite game, this is my #2 favorite game, etc." Rather, I'm going to change things up and call this my "Ten Favorite Games" list.

The first four games on the list are games I have rated as a "9" on BGG. These are currently the "cream of the crop" as far as I'm concerned. The next six games in my "Ten Favorite Games" list come from among the games I have rated as "8" on BGG. At last I'm going to make a choice and choose six games from the 22 games I have rated an "8".

So, without further ado, here are "My Ten Favorite Games":

• Memoir '44
• Struggle of Empires
• Ticket To Ride
• Ticket To Ride: Europe
• Age of Napoleon
• Around the World in Eighty Days
• Cosmic Encounter
• Pirate's Cove
• Twilight Imperium III
• Blokus

I like all of these games very much. Don't ask me to put them in order from 1 - 10. That would be too difficult and subject to change from day to day.

Something I notice right away is the four out of the ten games are published by Days of Wonder. Is that because the games are new and look neat, or because the games are just really good? (I think it's because the games are really good. But maybe I'm just dazzled by the pretty bits.)

So that's it for now. I expect this list will change shortly, as soon as I've had the chance to play Arkham Horror (the new FFG version), Shadows Over Camelot (another Days of Wonder game) and Louis XIV.

A Brief Overview of my Personal Gaming History

The previous entry got a little long when I started talking about my personal gaming history, so I decided a separate entry discussing my gaming history would be best. So, without further ado, here is a brief history of my gaming life.

Gaming during the 60's - Ah, the lazy days of summer. I spent many the afternoon playing typical family style boardgames with friends. Games that come to mind include Monopoly, Payday, Mille Bornes, and the best of the bunch, Careers, among many others. This was also when I first played Milton Bradley's American Heritage series of games: Battle Cry, Dogfight, Hit the Beach and my personal favorite of the series, Broadside. These games are responsible for my life-long interesting in wargames and military history. To this day, I still consider Broadside one of my favorite games of all time.

Gaming during the 70's - High School, new friends and college. I met new friends in High School and this is when I really got into wargames in a big way. SPI and Avalon Hill were the the "Big Two" wargame publishers. GDW had a good reputation during this period as well. I subscribed to Strategy & Tactics magazine and together with a small circle of friends, played wargames. This was also when Dungeons & Dragons was first published and for the next two decades, RPGs took up a lot of my gaming time, at the expense of board games.

Gaming during the 80's - My brother's best friend was Mark. I met Mark at my brother's wedding where Mark was the best man. We found out that we both enjoyed boardgames (wargames, actually) as a hobby and began getting together one night a week to play games. We started out with wargames but over the years we eventually played a little bit of everything including RPGs, CCGs, Strategy Boardgames and even computer games. Along the way Roy joined our weekly event and the three of us played games almost every week for over twenty years.

Gaming during the early 90's- During the early 90's I got into Magic the Gathering (MtG) in a big way, starting with the Alpha version. For a couple of years my life (and finances!) were consumed by MtG. I never got into the tournament aspect of the game and eventually "fell out of love" with MtG when I realized the money pit would never end and I also realized I intensely disliked the never-ending rule disputes. I ended up selling most of my MtG stuff on eBay and probably making a small profit on the experience. I still play Magic casually today. I'll buy some pre-built decks from time to time and I have an account with Magic Online where I play every now and then. Magic Online solves the problems I had with rules disputes. Everyone plays by the same rules guaranteed. The problem I have with Magic Online is the same one I had with "Real World" Magic. Players take the game too seriously. It's hard to enjoy the game when your opponent is only interested in winning and trash talking along the way. Tournament level Magic the Gathering really brings out the worst in people.

Gaming during the late 90's - During the late 90's my gaming was limited to weekly game nights with Mark and Roy. During this period of time, we mostly played card games of one sort or another (Wizard, Phase 10, etc.). Sometimes we would branch out and try something new. I was usually the one to try and introduce a new game. The few Euro games I tried to introduce to the group never went over really well. I guess we were just stuck in a rut. To be honest, these game nights generally left me unsatisfied. I continued to meet and play games with Mark and Roy more out of habit and friendship than for any enjoyment I got from the games.

Gaming during the 00's - More of the same during the first few years of the new century. My interest in gaming was fading, due more, I suspect, to the unsatisfactory game night sessions with Mark and Roy, than for any other reason. This continued until 2003, when Mark unexpectedly passed away from Cancer. He was much too young. Game Night ended with Mark's death. Roy and I were never close friends. Mark was the glue that held the group together. With his death, I stopped playing games . . .

Hexwar.com and the Rebirth of my interest in Gaming - About a year later, a web site I had been keeping an eye on, Hexwar.com, finally went live and started offering Play By Internet games of classic SPI quad style wargames. These games, originally published in the 70's and 80's were simple games that were easy and quick to play. Hexwar.com offered a way to play these games over the Internet against opponents from around the world. The format was similar to Play by Mail, so both players could play when convenient, passing completed turns back and forth via the Hexwar.com servers. Having been a fan of wargames all my life, this idea piqued my interest.

When the beta version of Hexwar.com had gotten started back in 2002, I had set up a Yahoo Discussion Group dedicated to Hexwar.com. I did this to hopefully facilitate discussions of the games and to allow Hexwar.com players to arrange games. When the Hexwar.com site went live, in 2004, the discussion group became an integral part of Hexwar.com as subscribers of the service used the discussion group to discuss games, complain about bugs and look for challenges. The management of Hexwar.com also participated in the discussion group, using it to make announcements, and respond to subscriber questions and comments. Because I "owned" the discussion group, I became a Hexwar.com volunteer and active member of the Hexwar.com community.

Getting involved in playing games at Hexwar.com primed my game playing engine. By the fall of 2004, I had re-discovered BoardGameGeek (a site I had joined back in 2002) and re-discovered the wonderful world of strategy board games and my love of game playing. I spent the last months of 2004, digging my game collection out of storage and making up for lost time by buying over 100 games to add to my collection. I frequented eBay, where I bought out of print games from the 90's. I became a regular face at the local game stores and helped stimulate the local economy by buying many, many games. I traveled to gaming events in the Bay Area and found some new gaming partners in my local area. I attended a gaming convention (Conquest LA) in February 2005. Four days of non-stop gaming. It was heaven! I've started a local gaming group at work. Four or five of us get together every-other week. It's a small beginning, but successful so far. And I get to play games!

In 2005 my gaming is going full steam ahead. I've already attended one gaming convention this year (Conquest LA) and plan on attended KhublaCon in May, Conquest SF in September and BGG.CON in November.

So that's it. My gaming life in a nutshell. I'll bet I've played more games in the last few months than in the entire previous decade. My gaming life is good right now. Hope you enjoyed the tour.

Family Gaming

Mark Johnson has recently turned his blog BOARDGAMES TO-GO into a podcast. The shows have so far been very interesting. I thought this might be a good time to start up my abortive blog efforts again. This time, instead of trying to come up with topics on my own, I'm going to take a que from Mark Johnson. I'll discuss whatever topic his latest show is built around. We'll see how this works out. So, for the first entry into this blog I will discuss Family Gaming.

Growing up, my family wasn't into playing family games much. Dad never showed any interest in playing games and we had to twist his arm to play a games like Monopoly with us kids. (In retrospect, that doesn't seem so strange any more...) My brother, five years older, didn't play "kids games" and after I started beating him at chess wouldn't play that game with me either. My sister... well, one just doesn't play board games with a little sister, does one?

I was the game player in my family. I played games all the time with my neighborhood friends. Monopoly, Careers, Life, Mille Bornes are the games I remember being played most often. I'm sure there were many others. Introduced to strategy type games when I found Milton Bradley's Battle Cry, Dogfight and Broadside (one of my life-long favorite games). Introduced to wargames when my brother received a copy of Avalon Hill's Waterloo for Christmas. Even though we were "too young", my friends and I taught ourselves to play games like Waterloo and Guadalcanel. Games like Broadside and Waterloo led to a life-long interest in wargames.

I'm still pretty much the only real gamer in the family . . .

My Wife, Theresa - doesn't usually play games, even when asked, except when we visit my relatives. This is very frustrating and she is a very good player when she does play. She Picks up on the rules and strategy quickly. It is a mystery to me why she doesn't play games more often.

My Stepson, Earl - Will play games, if I twist his arm, but doesn't seem to have the desire to play board games on a regular basis. Enjoys and plays video games constantly but only plays board games as "favor" to me. When he does play, he prefers games with a deep and obvious theme (Star Wars, etc.)

My Step Daughter, Jessica - Likes to play games but our personalities and lifestyles are so different as to preclude playing games together very often.

My Step Daughter, Amber - has no interest in playing board games. Will play only rarely and then usually only willing to play "party" games.

My Mom, Linda - Likes to play games and is willing to learn new games but often times has a hard time with a new game. Needs to play a game a couple of times before the rules start to sink in.

My Sister, Maggie - Enjoys playing games and almost always willing to play a game when our paths intersect, usually when I'm visiting my parents.

My Dad - Not a big game player. Plays cribbage and Zilch (a dice game). Almost always bows out when some other game comes to the table.

My Brother, Kevin - Not a big game player, as far as I know. Will join in a family game, but is rarely interested in the game, per se.

My Sister, Kathi - Never played games with my "little sister" (two years younger) very much. Will play "party" games, but shows no interest in strategy boardgames.