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In a bid to increase my knowledge of the fine board game

In a bid to increase my knowledge of the fine board game arts I went to Rainy Day Games and rolled the dice with some awesome people. Every other Sunday at 1pm Rainy Day Games hosts a board game event where anyone can go and you pick a game to play. I showed up a bit late because Siri pointed me to the wrong location. When I arrived there were two groups of people and I joined the group playing Days of Wonders game "Colosseum" because they had a free spot. Yay!

In Colosseum you play a total of 5 rounds and the player that puts on the best show in those five rounds wins the game. Each round nets you cash you can spend on Colosseum upgrades, better shows and other various... Read All In a bid to increase my knowledge of the fine board game arts I went to Rainy Day Games and rolled the dice with some awesome people. Every other Sunday at 1pm Rainy Day Games hosts a board game event where anyone can go and you pick a game to play. I showed up a bit late because Siri pointed me to the wrong location. When I arrived there were two groups of people and I joined the group playing Days of Wonders game "Colosseum" because they had a free spot. Yay!

In Colosseum you play a total of 5 rounds and the player that puts on the best show in those five rounds wins the game. Each round nets you cash you can spend on Colosseum upgrades, better shows and other various other stratagem to help you earn points to get the best show.

Each round has 5 phases which are:

Phase 1: Invest in your Colosseum in various ways. Expand it, add various features to it to give you extra rolls or points when you add your show score.
Phase 2: Bid on tokens with other players. You need tokens to put on shows.
Phase 3: Trade tokens with others. Similar to other trade phases in games like Settlers of Catan.
Phase 4: Put on your event. The more tokens you have the more points you get for your event.
Phase 5: Closing the round by giving up a token in your show and the player trailing the pack can steal a token from the person in the lead.

The game seemed a bit overwhelming at first but after a few rounds it clicked. I made a fatal flaw in the 3rd round by not expanding my Colosseum to support an advanced show. That mis-step caused me to end up in last place as everyone else made the stab for the 3 layer Colosseum and got an advanced show. Didn't matter too much that I came in dead last as it was a ton of fun though.

The game is made by Days of Wonder, the people that make Ticket to Ride. It has the score counting on the outside board edge similar to Ticket to Ride but isn't too similar beyond that. I really liked playing Colosseum and recommend it if you like strategy games involving trading. Our game lasted about 2.5 hours but some of that was spent explaining the rules.

It was awesome to learn Colosseum and meet people that come to play. I plan on hitting up more of these in the future and if you were on the fence about attending, I would recommend you go to one. The people are awesome and its cool to play new stuff.

Ive been trawling the internets for better builds for my

Ive been trawling the internets for better builds for my Witch Doctor in Nightmare mode and beyond. I had a pretty good pet / acid rain build that was fine but wasn't really working out too well in Nightmare mode so I changed it. This is how I play my Witch Doctor now at level 39 based on recommendations from people can can solo Inferno.

First thing is you need the best weapon you can get. This often means the best two hander you can find. This might not make sense as you might think the Witch Doctor needs a shield or the special shaman carriable shrunken head totems. All your spells, pets and skill damage per second is based off your attack so to hit the hardest with... Read All

Turns out I beat Skyrim a couple months ago! Ive been

Turns out I "beat" Skyrim a couple months ago! I've been playing side quests, and the story didn't feel like it was progressing anymore, so I googled "Skyrim Main Quest" to see where I was, I found out that it's already "over" lol. I'm still enjoying it, but kinda disappointed that that's all there is... totally looking forward to Dawnguard now! Just applied to get the Beta!

DoTA 2 will be Free to Play. Yup. Awesome. From the

http://blog.dota2.com/2012/06/introducing-the-dota-store/

DoTA 2 will be Free to Play. Yup. Awesome. From the horses mouth:

"Today we’re announcing that Dota 2 will be free to play, and contain an in-game store where you’ll be able to buy fancy gear to customize your heroes. From the forum threads we’ve read over the months since The International, it’s pretty clear that this won’t come as much of a surprise to anyone out there. There are a variety of smaller details that we’ve decided to put together a FAQ to help with, but we wanted to address the two most common concerns right away:

Dota 2 will not be a pay-to-win game. All the items in the store are cosmetic, and don’... Read All

Its as if someone heard that I like soundtracks in

http://cdn2.ubergizmo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/SF25.jpg

Its as if someone heard that I like soundtracks in collectors editions and decided that the optimal number of collectors editions soundtracks was 11. Because if 11 soundtracks for a collectors edition is your magic number then HELLO Street Fighter 25th Anniversary Collectors Edition!

Which includes:

Street Fighter X Tekken (including all character and Swap Costume DLC), Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition (with all costume DLC), Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition. PLUS a documentary BluRay, Street Fighter II The animated movie, all episodes of the Street Fighter animated series. A Light-up Ryu statue & art book... Read All

I always wait a few years before checking out a sports game,

I always wait a few years before checking out a sports game, because they're generally the same year to year, but I'm looking forward to this one, to see the new changes.

Supposedly, the sound is going to be dramatically improved, from the commentators, to the crowd noises, to the quarterback audibles. The passing game has been refined with better ball placement of your throw, different throwing styles (a new shovel pass should be interesteing) and over 430 catching animations. There should also be better and truer AI. Defensive players will react to the ball if they're looking in that direction, but won't psychically know where to run to.

For all the known updates check... Read All

Best Bundle Ever Ill save you the suspense of loading the

Best Bundle Ever

https://www.humblebundle.com/

I'll save you the suspense of loading the page.. Here are the games:
•Bastion
•Limbo
•Psychonauts
•Amnesia:Dark Descent
•Swords and Sorcery EP

Seriously, get this now if for no other reason than Psychonauts, though each of these games are probably worth over $10 alone.

When I saw the news today that iD will be releasing Doom 3

When I saw the news today that iD will be releasing "Doom 3 BFG Edition" I was extremely excited. Few games get the "HD/re-release" treatment and I just didn't figure Doom 3 would be one of the lucky few games that get it. Add in the Doom 3 expansion, the original Doom and Doom 2 and new content and my mind was blown.

But enough of my hyperventilating nerdery, here are some words from the masters of doom themselves:

"A number of companies have done these 'retro projects,'" says Willits, using the company's code name for Doom BFG, "but we're trying to do something with new content. We have all the games. We tried to make the offering the best we can."

Doom 3 BFG Edition... Read All

I actually meant to post this as part of Retro games

I actually meant to post this as part of Retro games Tuesday, but I kept getting side tracked so now it's a day late.

This was the first RPG I ever played (unless Zelda/Zelda II counts). Unfortunately I missed the opportunity to pick this up for free when they were giving it away with a Nintendo Power subscription but I picked it up as a used game a couple years later. I loved that you could explore just about anywhere you wanted to. For the most part your only restriction was that monsters got tougher the farther you traveled out.

As a kid I loved this game, but unfortunately it really has not aged well. I tried playing it again a couple years ago and the amount of time... Read All

My Favorite Mario Game: Super Mario 2

I've been thinking of dedicating a day of the week to a game topic close to my heart. I think Tuesday works because its a pretty boring week day in need of some love. I hereby dub Tuesdays "Retro Tuesdays and as such, each Tuesday I will write about a sweet game of yesteryear that I love or hate and was iconic for me in some way. I would be awesome if others grabbed some good or ill feeling out your mind and posted it on Tuesdays as well. See how that goes.

Without further ado..... "RETRO TUESDAY POST NUMBER A!"

Super Mario Brothers 2 is a game I will never stop loving. First off if you compare it to the rest of the original Super Mario Brothers games its a total odd... Read All

Travis Admin wrote on 05/30/2012 at 02:21pm

If you want a really weird feeling, grab a famicom emulator and a Doki Doki Panic! rom. It's so weird to play what I always thought of as SMB2 with entirely different characters. What we came to know as the Lost Levels was freakin' hard though. Like, painfully hard at times. I understand why they rebranded Doki Doki Panic! as SMB2 for the US.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/30/2012 at 02:28pm

Thats a fun idea, I'll play it sometime. The lost levels was hard I don't remember getting much further than the first few levels.

Travis Admin wrote on 05/30/2012 at 02:32pm

I wish I could edit comments :)

At any rate, it was always so weird going from 1 to the US version of 2 and then 3. The style changed so drastically to 2, and then back to a more Mario formula for 3. It was actually kinda comforting to me when I realized that the SMB2 I knew and loved was originally a different game entirely, because I always wondered why they changed things so drastically. They explained it in the end with it all being Mario's dream, but that explanation fell flat for me.

Doki Doki Panic is actually a little harder than SMB2. To properly beat the game, you have to beat it with all four characters.

Some of the look of SMB2 (US) is explained by the origins of Doki Doki Panic. The game took place in an Arabian storybook (thus the Arabian setting for much of the game, and the level intro screens being pages from a book). It's a family of 4 (thus the 4 characters) trying to save captured children.

Overall I'm glad they rebranded it. I'm glad we got what we knew as SMB2, even if it wasn't quite accurate, because I doubt I would have ever played a game called "Dream Factory: Heart Pounding Panic" and SMB2 is one of my favorite games of all time.

Timogorgon Member wrote on 05/30/2012 at 06:08pm

SMB2 is one of my favorites as well. It's also one of the few NES games that's just as fun today as it was when it originally came out. Princess Toadstool's float was pretty over powered, but after beating the game at least a dozen times I started primarily playing as Toad because of how fast he was. Mario was meant to be the jack-of-all-trades in the game. Where all the other characters excelled at one thing and weaker in other areas Mario was suppose to have no exceptional strengths but also no weaknesses. But yeah, he was my least favorite character to pick. :)

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/31/2012 at 02:32am

WhiteboySlim: Which is why SMB2 is so interesting, Mario isn't that great. Kind of a nice change actually as it focuses less on Mario and more on the four characters or whatever you prefer. Kind of didn't like that about New Super Mario, you had for characters and they all played the same.

panickedthumb: The dream ending I like now and when I was a young pup. I think the idea that what you just did wasn't more than a dream is interesting because things are often temporary. When I was young id day dream things that were in my mind epic and then later forgotten. Something about the idea of it just being something that happens in the mundane afterward is kind of a downer and interesting at the same time. I didn't write about the dream part in my post because I didn't want to spoil it but that seems silly now as the game is over 10 years old. I guess that would be like me worrying about spoiling the reveal in Empire....

That all said, I view SMB2 and the gameboy version of Links Awakening similarly in that they both end with someone waking from a dream. But more on that in a future Retro Tuesday :)

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 01/24/2014 at 05:04am

I enjoyed SMB2 as well. I think I liked playing as the Princess because she could float through the air, although I knew that Toad could lift things such as vegetables quicker than anyone.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 01/24/2014 at 06:25am

In played her for darn near every level except a few with Toad and Luigi.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 01/24/2014 at 07:15am

LOL, Jon, you've got me wishing this were more like Facebook and I could "like" a comment or post. Hehehe. But anyway, you know what, this reminds me of Final Fantasy X-2. It seemed a LOT of people complained about that game, but I wasn't one of them! I had no problem with playing as one of the ladies of FFX. Heck, I enjoy playing as ChunLi in Street Fighter, just because I like to see women more than men. LOL As for the Super Mario Bros. world, the Princess (whether it be Peach or Daisy) was about all the female characters we could see or play as on screen.

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