New Games

We've been a little obsessed with Agricola of late, but that may change with our latest acquisitions: Pandemic and Small World. They're all very, very different games, and are quite fun and (so far) very replayable.

In Agricola, you play the role of a farmer(!). Danny introduced it to us (thanks Danny), and now the problem is that he always wins whenever we play with him. *grrrr* As far as gameplay goes, there're a lot of strategies/options, and every game is different. Even the number of players can affect the feel of the game, which is a nice touch that adds even more variety.

Pandemic is a cooperative team game where you play the role of members of the CDC, trying to find cures to diseases breaking out around the world. One up side of this game is that when Danny wins, the rest of us wins too. Although so far, we win just as often as we lose. This game is easy to learn, but not easy to beat.

And in Small World, well, you basically try to take over the world. It's Risk-esque, without all the annoying dice rolling, and you can win even if your army gets decimated. OK, so maybe it's not like Risk at all. But still, a fun game. I can't wait to try it out with more than two players as C and I have only played it a couple times so far.

I should point out that we also got Dominion in the same shipment, but honestly, it's been eclipsed by the others. While Dominion is also a fun game, the past few times I've been given a choice between Agricola and Dominion, I've gone with Agricola. However, it definitely cannot be beat if you're looking to play something fast. You can easily play 3-4 games of Dominion in the time it takes to play a single game of Agricola

Games

I've been playing a bunch of new games lately, and thought I'd do a quick write-up of them.

On the PC, the new Civilization IV expansion, Beyond the Sword, is definitely a worthy addition to the original classic. The addition of corporations and espionage really adds a new dimension to the game.

On the DS, I've been wasting more than a few minutes with Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords, which is basically Bejeweled in a yummy RPG wrapping.

On the Wii, I've been infected with Alien Syndrome. It may not be the most original or amazing game, but it's still entertaining nonetheless. Part Diablo, part Gauntlets, it's 100% fun and has a great control system.

Finally, on the table top, we've just discovered Caylus. For now, it has replaced Goa as my game of choice because of the bewildering array of possible strategies for it. Every game so far has been vastly different from the previous ones.

Desktop Tower Defense

Timesuck alert! Desktop Tower Defense is freakin' addictive. Wasted most of my day on this... Normal was a breeze, and then I made the mistake of trying the 100 challenge. Best I did was level 77.

Rob warned me about this a while back, but I promptly forgot.

Dungeon Twister

Played Dungeon Twister for the first time last night against Danny. It's a pretty fun dungeon crawl-ish sort of board game. The fact that I won may have contributed a wee bit to my enjoyment. ;)

The only negative thing about it so far is that it's only a two player game, which limits the chances it'll be played. Fortunately, there's a 3-4 player expansion available...

Wii Games

Emily threw a gaming party last Sunday and I brought along my Wii. Because I'd only bought single player games, I decided to sign up with Gamefly so that I could rent a couple multiplayer games. So far, the service has been pretty good - I received Rayman Raving Rabbids and Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz within two days.

I know Super Monkey Ball has been pretty popular on the GameCube, but I really didn't have much fun with it on the Wii. Most of the games just lasted too long and didn't necessarily use the controllers optimally.

Raving Rabbids, on the other hand, was a blast! All the games were pretty fun, and even the few weak ones were at least amusing to watch. For example, there really isn't much to jumping rope (you just shake the nunchuck to jump), but when you have rabbids popping up and screaming in an effort to distract you, you just have to laugh.

I sent Super Monkey Ball back to Gamefly on Monday. Let's see what their turn around time is. With luck, I should have a new game to try out by Friday.

In the mean time, I'll be playing Twilight Princess whenever I get a chance. I've always liked the Zelda games, and this one is proving to be pretty fun as well.

The other game I have is Trauma Center: Second Opinion, which is... interesting. The surgery bits are a little campy and the storyline is "very Japanese" (to quote Scott), but I've only played it for a little bit at the party and haven't made up my mind about it yet.

Goa!

Went over to Danny's house on Saturday and played Goa for the first time. I've been playing a lot of Puerto Rico lately so it was a pretty nice change of pace. Nice enough that I decided to pick up my own copy today...