Here I am, thank you Ma’am
Thanks Soph.
As I became a father for the second time only a few months ago, my ability to keep up with table-top RPGs has been pretty limited. But I still come across interesting things from time to time and I’m going to be playing a new game in the New Year, so I’m intending to post occasionally on matters relating to all kinds of geek subjects – comics, books, and games of all sorts: board, electronic and table-top.
As an introduction, I thought I’d do a slight best of. It’s not actually a best of, as I haven’t played enough of anything to really judge, but it’s probably the things I’ve enjoyed most in 2008 across a number of categories.
Console Game
Grand Theft Auto IV is without a doubt one of the most interesting stories ever seen in a game, along with one of the most well-realised worlds. I’d only ever played San Andreas previously, and enjoyed it immensely, but this blew it out of the water. I came to generally care about many of the bit players, and those I didn’t care about I genuinely anticipated their arrival and eventual departures. There were some mild irritations (mostly the girlfriends) but over all I thought it was simply amazing.
PC games
Mount & Blade is the only PC game I actually played much of this year – it’s an indie game out of Turkey that’s been playable in demo form for a couple of years. Basically you take the role of an adventurer who rides out in search of glory in a large ‘secondary-world‘ land mass that strangely reflects a version of early medieval Europe. And once there you do a whole lot of fighting, mostly on horse back. It’s weirdly addictive fun, charging down rows of Nord axe men with your lance couched for maximum damage and it’s led to me staying up regularly longer than I should have when I know I’ll be woken another 2 times that night. Apparently the mod scene is robust and where the game really comes into it’s own but I haven’t done much of that yet.
Board Game
The only new board game I played this year was Agricola while on a trip to London, but it’s a goody. Players manage peasant family farms in the Middle Ages and must try to bring them out of poverty and subsistence. Extremely simple in basic play, but with huge tactical depth, it was massively well reviewed, the toast of GenCon (without actually being there) and extremely German.
Comics
I don’t read many comics these days, but I did read a number of the new Dark Horse Conan comics by writer Kurt Busiek and artist Cary Nord. These aren’t a 2008 release as such, but they bring the old barbarian to life through a mixture of adaptations of Howard’s works and original stories to fill in the gaps. The first four trades are fantastic (including a wonderful few issues by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola in the 4th) and the Conan: Born on the Battle Field prequel collection entirely conceived by Busiek is perhaps the best of them. But the 5th trade is where Timothy Truman takes over as writer and it’s just not up to scratch. I haven’t bought the recently released 6th trade but the reviews have been ho-hum so I may not bother…
So there you have it – just a few musings on things I enjoyed in 2008.
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December 11, 2008