I am a Eurogamer!

That’s pretty straightforward. But how did I become a Eurogamer? That is a much more interesting story and a fun walk down memory lane.

I have been a gamer most of my life. As a kid, I played Dungeons and Dragons, arcade games, and video games. I am definately a child of the 80’s. Yes, I had the board game Dungeon, which was an early theme game, similar to those we find today.

I had an Atari, a Colecovision, Nintendo 64, and a Commadore Vic 20 (Nobody would ever need more than 20K of memory and no hard drive…right?). I played the original Mario Brothers, Popeye, Defender, Missile Command, BattleZone, Pitfall, and Adventure (on the Atari). I remember getting up a 4:00 and 5:00 AM so I could sneak in some Atari Pac Man before going to school.

As I got older, D&D faded. My younger brother played the Nintendo – I hung out with friends. My brother liked the sports games. At that time it was Joe Montana’s Football game on the PC that had our attention. I was alright, but it was a little more complicated than I wanted. The Nintendo system introduced the concept of key combinations such – which I lost interest in. I liked games you could get in and out of fairly quickly. This was not a popular style in the late 80’s. I don’t think games came back for me…really until shortly after college.

Enter…Windows 95 and the world’s first third-person shooter – DOOM! I was hooked. I had just gotten my first surround audio system. There was nothing more exciting than turning off the lights cranking the PC through the system and ripping through aliens with a chainsaw – BRILLIANT! Than, as an avid Star Wars fan, I was introduced to games like Tie Fighter and Wing Commander (so much for the simple games you get in and out of). Then, along came Duke Nukem. There was nothing like it. You were a wise-cracking, cigar smoking, stripper watching guy with a big friggin’ gun and a pipe bomb.  In no other game could you toss a bomb and just wait till the right moment and BOOM! A million little pieces. It was fantastic. I can definatly say though that I outside of those two games, no third-person shooter really got my attention – outside of a LAN party (which was a totally unique experience in itself).

In about 1998, I learned of a PC game called Warcraft II. Hmm, looks like D&D, but not really. I can be orcs or humans. They get to battle. It’s not third-person. There is a map…and I can make my own if I want. I’m in. This became a staple game for me and I was introduced to the genre of real-time strategy. This led to games like Starcraft and Diablo and SimCity and Civilization (which was probably a bit more complicated than I wanted) and Age of Empires 2. And then, I met an innocent little game called Roller Coaster Tycoon. What an incredible concept! Build your own theme park and roller coasters – and you can model after famous parks. I own all three versions of this game. But, I was keenly aware that my style was definately real-time strategy and tycoon style games. Not too complex, but they could be very deep if you wanted them to. I also found that they satisfied an itch I had to releave frustrations by simply going in and ripping up a simulated city with a massive army.

So, here we are…not in the too distant past. I have two kids (one was about a 7 year old girl and the other too young to care). I see, in a book store, this huge game called World of Warcraft. Lots of little pieces and cards and pretty art. I was a Warcraft fan and intrigued…big time. Then I looked at the price – $75. Um…nope, too much for my broke butt at the time. But, it was cool…and there were all those little figures (Women, every man loves to play with little men…just get over it). I didn’t buy it, but it was interesting.

The first Euro-style game I was introduced to was Sword & Skull. I was reasearching this to play with my daughter. I thought it would be fun – and it had a few little men and cards. She liked Clue and Monopoly Jr. My daughter, by the way was not intrigued by video games the way I was – but she does like board games. The game style of Sword & Skull was more interesting to me than the actual game. But the reasearch I had done before buying it did me in. I learned about a whole world of gaming I was unaware of.

Then, along came Settlers of Catan, Cacassonne, and Ticket To Ride. These board games fed the exact same gaming bug that got me with the real-time strategy games.

In October of 2007, I started selling board games online – on Ebay. I needed a game to start with. I learned that there was this game that just came out that sold 100% of the time on eBay called…Starcraft the Board Game – OH JOY! My old friend – and I could get it half-off as I was now a retailer. You know I bought three – two to sell and one to play. 1000’s of little pieces and figures, lots of chits, and cards, and…a 45-page rule book. HOLY CRAP! Not a game you are going to get in and out of easily. But it was Starcraft, right? I had to try it. After two multi-hour sessions with my wife trying to figure it out, I got frustrated. We did figure it out and I have played it twice since. Both times to mediocure reviews.

I since learned that the Warcraft game is a 5-hour game event, so I have sold it, but never actually opened the box. I suspect I will at some point, but that is a tough sell (hence, my excitement for World Of Warcraft Adventures coming next month)

Repeatedly, the eurogames come out, get played, and enjoyed.

I was also intrigued by a game called Arkham Horror. This was a cooperative game – like a role-playing game – but as a board game. And, it can be played as a one player – that’s interesting. Again, I open the game and it is huge. Lots of pieces and a rule book of over 30 pages. I was really craving that Ticket to Ride 4-page instruction guide. I tried Arkham Horror once and it has not come out again. A pattern is forming.

Just this week, I attempted a third experiment. As I mentioned in an eariler post, I received several games from Rio Grande to try out. So, I gathered two of them and a big one…War of the Ring – a Risk-like game based on Lord of the Rings (with over 200 little men and lots of pieces). I keep wanting to play these, but they never satisfy the same way. We played Oregon twice, Airships once, and War of the Ring once. We were prepared to play Oregon again, but we did not.

We tried Last Night On Earth – the Zombie Game. This was great fun…as we were a group of B-horror movie fans. My wife played as the zombies and even said “Brains…Must have brains!” a few times. It was a simple game to get into and understand. I think we even played it twice.

So, the pattern I have identified in myself is that I am extremely intrigued by the giant event games, but they don’t seem to satisfy me the same way the typical Eurogame does. My friends are the same way, so that may have something to do with it. If I had people that enjoyed the bigger games, I may have a successful game event with them.

So, if you ask me what kind of board game I like and reccomend, you can expect it will be a Euro-style game.

 

What Kinds of Games Will I Like?

This is a common question we hear out there. It is especially relevant in the world of hobby gaming. Everyone tends to like the old standards…Monopoly, Life, Sorry, Trivial Pursuit, etc. That’s how they are designed. You are supposed to like them.

But I have found over the last seven months or so, that is not actually the case when it comes to hobby games. They are so different in styles and themes that you kind of need to know what you like to know what new games are worth your hard earned gaming money.

As the owner of a gaming retail site, I am in a unique positon. I have access to games I would not normally see, and I have to play them to see what they are like…otherwise I can not accurately reccomend games to you…the gaming public. Oh, how life is hard! So, I have to play games I would not typically like, and get my friends and family to do the same – games don’t just play themselves.

I have a friend who helped me create the video you see on the front page of our store, http://www.bestdanggames.com. Before we shot that video, we spent a couple hours doing research about game videos and such, just trying to see what types of videos to start developing for the site. As a teen, he used to always keep a game of Risk in his trunk. His mantra was “Will stop for Risk!” While talking through different games, we started talking about HIS gaming style and we had some interesting revelations.

• Gaming Publishers really seem to have their own personality. Just like people and music, if you like a few of the company’s games, it is probably a good bet that you will like others of theirs. Rio Grande tends to consistantly put out great Eurogames. Their track record shows many Spiel Des Jahres award winners. Fantasy Flight Games, on the other hand, tends to consistantly put out LARGE games that take many hours to learn and play – but the games are high quality games and a little on the more expensive side. Days of Wonder puts out game systems, such as Memoir ’44 and BattleLore, as well as accessible games like Ticket to Ride, Shadows Over Camelot, and Pirate’s Cove. Once you find your gaming personality, you can probably pick a publisher and run with it.
• Your age and lifestyle may affect your gaming style – I am a 38 year old gamer. I have a wife and two kids. Most of my friends have a spouse and at least one child (under the age of 10). Most of my friends are at a high career point in their lives. This leaves little time for gaming…unfortunately. Therefore, whenever I say “can we try this game I opened from Fantasy Flight?” they tend to groan and say alright…”but you need to read the rules before you come over”. The games that seem to go over REAL well with my friends are the shorter games by Rio Grande Games and Settlers of Catan. I happen to really like the Warcraft series of video games, so I can’t wait for the short World Of Warcraft Adventures games. I can not think of subjecting my family and friends to the five-hour event that the World of Warcraft board game is.
• Just because you like the video game, don’t expect to like the board game – I have another friend who used to game on the PC with me. His game of choice for quite a while was Starcraft. Trust me when I say “I used to have my butt handed to me many times from his strategic playing”. So, when I got my hands on the Starcraft board game, you can bet I called him. I went over with two games to try out on him – at different extremes. We played Starcraft and Settlers of Catan. He had a real hard time getting into Starcraft, but we played Catan twice. This was curious to me. His reasoning was that it was more complicated and involved than the PC version. He identified that he did not like games with “phases”. The kind where there is a Planning Phase, Action Phase, Resolution Phase, and so on. He liked Settlers because it was ” I do these three things, then it is your turn” and we repeat that over and over.
• Themes can determine what you like – Theme does not seem to bother me so much. But, back to my video buddy…it was wildly erratic, with not much pattern (immediately identifyable). Here is what he liked and did not like from what I showed him. 1) Settlers of Catan – Yes, 2) Carcassone – No, 3) Puerto Rico – Maybe, 4) Arkham Horror – Not really (He is a fan of HP Lovecraft – game was too big), 5) Shadows Over Camelot – Probably, 6) Ticket to Ride -Yes, 7) Starcraft – No, 8 ) Memoir ’44 – Maybe, BattleLore – Probably, 9) Zombies!!! – Yes, and 10) Pirate’s Cove – Maybe. Do you see a pattern? I was scratching my head – remember, this person used to live for Risk, a famously long game where two players battle it out in the end.  We narrowed it down to a historical or period-piece kind of game – Setttlers, Puerto Rico, Ticket To Ride, Shadows, Memoir, BattleLore, Pirates, and Zombies (he is a movie buff, and everyone loves zombies!).
• Dice rolling and card-picking strategy games are different – There will be a more full review of some of the Rio Grande games coming soon, but I got to play three of them, so far. I was again surprised by the result. I had a friend over to try Key Harvest with me and my wife. The game was a roaring success and she said “I bet my husband will like this more than Settlers” (her husband is the video guy). I did not expect to like a game about farming – but it was a deeper game than the theme seemed. I took Oregon and Airships to my friend’s place (the one that played Starcraft).  Oregon was a huge success – so much so that we played twice. Airships, on the other hand was kind of tedious for us. We did not really enjoy the extra math and dice structuring it required – neither of us were fans of games like Yahtzee and the like.

So, the big question asked in the title is not as clear as you might think, but once you find your groove, you can go with it and feel strong in your choice. I suggest you try games once or twice before you decide to give it a thumbs up or down. Trying to learn a game greatly influences your ability to enjoy it. My wife won’t go near Starcraft after we spent several hours trying to learn it.

I have one more story, before I close. The same day I took Oregon and Airships to my friend’s house, I also made a daring move and opened a copy of War of the Ring – the large Fantasy Flight game based on Lord of the Rings. I am a big fan of the movies, as is my friend. But, after my experiences with Starcraft and Arkham Horror, I was a bit frightened at the complexity it was going to have. Thankfully there was an introductory version of the rules – but they played very similar to Risk. We liked the game and want to take it further and get into the more advanced rules, but when it was done, we both said “How about another game of Oregon?”. We had been at it all day, so the answer was no…but we kept going back to the simplicity.

So, what kind of gamer am I? I will write another post about that…later.