Long Time, No Game

Hey guys, it's been awhile since I last gamed with y'all, or posted on this board for that matter. I figured I'd drop a line and say that I'm gonna try to start coming around more often.

That said, I've hardly been slacking in the gaming department.

Dungeons and Dragons: I've been playing in a regular D&D campaign (4th edition) for about a month and a half. The game is decidedly influenced by MMOs, especially World of Warcraft. I wouldn't call the change BETTER than previous editions, but it's definately a DIFFERENT experience. The game is geared more towards miniature combat when it comes to the actual fighting, which is a cool thing in my book, while the rest of the RPing aspects of the game are largely untouched. I've never been much of a fantasy RPer (my tastes lean more towards sci-fi and modern day games), but I've been enjoying it quite a bit. If anyone's interested, I think my group has room for one or two more people.

Other Gaming: A long-time friend of mine has organized a regular gaming night on Fridays. He got a bunch of his co-workers and former co-workers interested in various games, and once their interest peaked he decided to get everyone together for regular gaming with a few of us "seasoned" gamers. We've played everything from Twilight Imperium and Struggle of Empires to our current group favorite: Horrorclix.

My friend who organizes the gaming nights bought a couple of starter sets and some boosters for the game, and we draft figures from that pool to use in the game. We use some house rules, mainly to allow five or six people to play in one big battle royale. It can be a mess, but it's an amusing mess.

We also play video games during our gaming nights. Soul Calibur 4 is the current favorite, although my old school fighting game sensibilities don't care for its dumbed-down mechanics compared to previous games in the series. I'm a bit of a fighting game snob, though, and everyone else digs the game quite a bit. I'm just waiting for Street Fighter 4 to finally come out, then I'll be happy.

Monsterpocalypse: I recently bought into this game. Yeah, it's a collectible game, which quite a few people don't care for, but for me this is a dream come true. Other than Monster Menace America, I've yet to see a full-blown giant monster game outside of the realm of video games, so I had to give the game a try.

While the game is like most other miniature games, in that the gameplay is all about moving about the map and taking down units, it has a clever bit where the action dice you use to make your attacks effectively act as action points. It costs action dice to spawn new units, it costs dice to move units, and of course it costs dice to make attacks. You have 10 action dice to use each turn, so you have to use them wisely. Do you use them to spawn more units, or do you use them on a big attack against your opponent's monster? It isn't the most brilliant game ever made, but there's a surprising amount of tactics for a game about Godzilla-wannabes and UFOs wrestling and destroying buildings.

I think it's a thing ot beauty.

Anyway, like I said, I'm going to try and be around more often. While I get a decent gaming fix with my other group, they don't have a taste for a lot of the games I've been craving to play. For instance, I doubt I'd ever get them to try out something like Agricola.