Online games and collaborative play

My family knows that I really enjoy computer games. I have never been much of an online gamer for a number of reasons. First, the number of idiotic, offensive, and vulgar people out there seems to be disproportionately high in online games. It's hard to enjoy yourself when people are being vulgar, rude, or jerks all over your experience. Second, it's hard to coordinate your efforts with others and therefore maximize your collaborative play. Many of the games I enjoy are military simulators of one kind or another and being able to work as a team is something I enjoy. And lastly, I didn't always have the internet for it.

It's been a blessing and a curse to get on Steam's online gaming system. A blessing because it makes it easy to coordinate getting into the same game and you can use voice chat while in game to coordinate with your friends. A curse because it makes it easy to purchase games and for the same reasons stated above. But I've found that my adult self is better at limited my playing than my teenage self was. Most of the time.

This weekend saw my Leeroy and myself playing for a couple of hours and we had a lot of fun. What follows is a list of some of the things that happened during play that were both successes and surprises that helped our enjoyment.

Any base we choose to take we did and held until the time came to take a different one.

We both got high scores on a game where previous efforts had been painful.

Leeroy succeeded in shooting down multiple helicopters with shoulder laughed anti-tank missiles. His success improved as we played.

I succeeded in shooting down a helicopter less than a second before a plane destroyed my AA unit.

We drove a dune buggy out from under the guns of a waiting chopper and were able to dodge his rockets until we got to cover. Unfortunately, he got us a short time after that - but the ride was awesome.

We had a bridge blown out from underneath us. I was able to bail out (in mid air) and parachute to safety. Leeroy wasn't so lucky.

I successfully grenaded a jeep on it's way up a hill. For all intents and purposes I wanted to hit him, but didn't think I would.

I successfully grenaded a guy without seeing where he was. I knew he was coming for us and I just got a lucky throw in.

It was a lot of fun to play with Leeroy and we're glad that we are able to play on the same side. Otherwise it just gets nasty.

Games

My family has always been big into playing games. And I mean all kinds of games. I have fond memories of watching my mother play volleyball, sometimes holding one of my younger siblings on one arm while hitting with the other. My parents, my older sister, and I often played pinochle when we were older. We still enjoy board and card games like Flux, Settlers of Cataan, Ticket to Ride, Munchkins, and Five Crowns. Occasionally I get a hankering to play Global Pursuit (a geographic version of Trivial Pursuit) but nobody else wants to play. Not to mention that it was made in the 1980s so most of the questions and even the maps are wrong. I can't complain though. My mother loves Scrabble but nobody (and I mean NOBODY) will play with her.

While we were growing up the closest thing to a game console we got was my siblings' Game Boys (I never bought one as I just stole theirs). However, I can't remember live without a computer. Even from our first Commodore 64, my siblings and I would play games, classic epics like Bruce Lee (the video game), Rebel Assault, Betrayal at Krondor, Lode Runner, Dark Forces (And the rest of the series), and Civilization I and II. My father bought the first joystick in our family and usually brought a game when he got a new computer. Once we got more than one computer that could run games, we started playing games across the network. Even now, their are only my parents and my youngest sister at home and their are an equal number of computers, all equipped with a selection of games that can be sent across the LAN. My wife will tell you that I still enjoy playing video games, but generally only a selective collection of them.

While my family does not watch a lot of sports, we still enjoy playing games and sports. Growing up, most of us played soccer. We all love volleyball, having watched Mom play it every week for the last 30 years. I would play two-hand touch football with friends, basketball and softball with church groups, and racquetball and ultimate Frisbee with roommates. Many camping trips have featured Foxtails - the professionally done equivalent of a tube sock with a tennis ball in it. Spin it around and lob it towards others. Depending on where you catch it scores you points. So all in all, I like to think I can say that we my family plays a lot of games.

I mention this because my father and I supported a kickstarter campaign for the game "Ogre version 6" and we now have a release date. Dad introduced me to Ogre when I was quite young. It originally came out when he was young and we were cleaning out the garage when we came across them. He would take it backpacking because it was very light weight and packed easily. The rules are relatively simple, the board straight-forward and the play both quick and stimulating. We've played a variety of games that use the same basic ideas for almost 30 years, both board and computer versions. Ogre was one of the first and is still considered by many one of the best. We are both very excited about the game and looking forward to matching wits with and against each other. However, we need to find a table big enough to play the game. Below is a picture of everything that comes in the massive 1 cubic foot box. While we obviously won't need everything spread out like it is, but those big green (and one red) pieces with the hexagons on them are the boards and they look pretty big. I don't think we'll be taking this game backpacking any time soon.

How to ruin a life

Last night, I had a midlife crisis. It happens quite a lot. One minute I'm cruising along and then....Wham! Midlife crisis. Sometimes it works out alright. Most of the times it solidifies my defeat. I hate Life sometimes.

I'm referring to the game Life. My wife and I played a game last night. We got it for our wedding and have enjoyed it over the years. Last night was quite absurd though. Towards the end (5 pay days left to be exact) is a square that requires you to change your career to a randomly selected one and draw a corresponding salary card. I had got though the game as a computer technician pulling down $70,000 a pay day. Then I was able to swap salary cards with Angel and was pulling down $90,000. Two pay days later - WHAM! midlife crisis and I have to switch everything.

So, what did this computer tech become? An entertainer - earning a hearty $20,000 a year. What's better is that in my next few turns I ended up paying $100,000 to Angel, plus another $45,000 to a computer tech guy (a sum I would not have had to pay if I hadn't changed jobs). In the end, my career change cost me $45,000 as I only earned $100,000 from when I changed careers to when I retired. What's more, when I "sold" my house, I ended losing $20,000 on it. Angel didn't even sell her house. She had more then me in cash then all of my assets combined.

She said this was the first time she ever felt guilty winning. As I mentioned at the beginning, it seams like I land on that midlife crisis all the time, but this time was defiantly the worst.