September 2004 Archives

It's been quiet recently. My gaming activities have been more focused on the console games side, but hey, things are heating up here as well. Next weekend I'm heading to Jyväskylä to see my mother and Ismo and as usual, games are in schedule. I'm looking forward to finally try Fifth Avenue, but I suppose we'll be playing something else, as well.

I've been quite active on Little Golem, playing in lots of tournaments. It's perfect activity to kill time with when it's slow at work (like right now). Recently I've tried to learn TwixT, but I'm still quite baffled. One thing I know: I can recognise a situation where I can't win. I know lots of positions where I can't block my opponent and thus the games usually end quite soon in my resignation. I just can't figure it out, it seems.

I've played lots of StreetSoccer and I've certainly enjoyed it. I've been losing a lot, but I think my rating is now slowly taking some wind under it's wings. I'm winning games! I'm currently playing in the championship tournament on the 4th level (there are five levels) and my goal is humble: avoid demotion to the 5th level. I think I should be able to do that, but getting a promotion to the 3th level is going to be a bigger challenge I'll leave to the next championship tournament.

The winner of the International Gamers Awards is St. Petersburg. Neat. When I wrote about the nominees, I wished but didn't expect it to win. Now the game has won both IGA and DSP awards - my taste in games is better than I thought, it seems.

It is no surprise that I was correct about Memoir '44 winning the two-player game award. Both games are excellent and I recommend them highly for all serious gamers.

Because I have little to write about games, I'll meddle with blog technology. Iain had one, it was cool, I want one: a RSS feed with comments included.

Gameblogger tells a rumour about Settlers of Catan outselling Monopoly in the Netherlands last year. If that's true, it's certainly good news. Even with the Finnish Catan now out, I wouldn't bet on that happening in Finland.

Here's a picture of me at Madeira. Our hotel had, in addition to a tennis court, table tennis, two swimming pools and a spa, some nice little outdoors Chess equipment. We didn't play, but I did pose for a picture one evening. As for my clothes, well, we were heading for the hotel restaurant which had a dress code - not quite as formal as what I'm wearing, but it's hardly a crime to overdress a bit.

Carcassonne wins the Finnish Game of the Year 2004 award. As we all know, Settlers of Catan didn't make it, not even to the finals. However, it got a special mention as an interesting, new kind of game. So basically, I think that reads great game, but too complicated for the award.

Finalists included Yundao, which is an interesting remake of Fish Eat Fish. Yundao certainly seems to look much better than Fish Eat Fish, which is an ugly game.

Here's the official Finnish page.

It's Deutscher Spiele Preis awards time. According to Mik's DSP 2004 page, 2,341 gamers cast their votes to determine the best game of 2004.

Winner is St. Petersburg and - no surprises here - I think it's well deserved. I can also agree with San Juan placing second. I've played eight games out of the top ten and most are good. I, however, wouldn't rate Goa that high (3rd).

There's also a GeekList of the winners.

Inconsequential Iain joins the ranks of people moving from Movable Type to WordPress. If you've been reading (and if not, check his blog out, it's a good read), note his new RSS feed.

Oh, and in case you're interested: I've been married man for a week now. For more information, including pictures, see My life as a married man in my other blog.

In general I prefer awards handed out by a well-chosen jury with a clear agenda. Public voting prefers the popular games too much. For example, the winner of the Finnish Players' Picks 2004 is fairly easy to guess - there aren't many games that could do it. My bet is Carcassonne and if it doesn't win, it's second.

And, frankly, that isn't very interesting. Which is exactly the reason why I've made it mandatory to name at least five games. After Carcassonne and whatever is popular and good is named, there's some room for more. I get to see a larger picture of what people enjoy. There can be some quite surprising games that turn out and get support from several people. And that's really the interesting part of Finnish Players' Picks. I don't really care about the winner, I care about what I can learn of other games people play and enjoy.

Well, we'll see how it turns out. I've received over 20 ballots already and hopefully will get 100 more in the weeks to come. If you know some Finnish boardgamers who haven't voted yet, make them vote! More voters we have, more interesting the results will be.

Last year I queried the Finnish gamers for their favourites in Finnish Players' Picks 2003 vote. Now it's time for the 2004 vote! If you're Finnish or live in Finland, head to voting page to learn more. And if you can't read Finnish, just e-mail me for more information!

The latest issue of Spielboy is out. Check it out - it's the typical mixture of interesting articles and, ehm, artistic pictures. Most interesting article this time is Do I Offend?, which takes a look at the ways how games can offend people. It's interesting, because I just recently wrote a column at Lautapelit.fi on the very same topic.

There's also a new issue of The Games Journal. There's a review of Power Grid, but outside that, it's a bit thin issue. Still, worth reading, as usual.

Chris Brooks mentioned the St. Petersburg PC version. I downloaded it (it's available at the Westpark Gamers website) and tried it.

It's neat, but the user interface looks like it's done by an engineer and not a designer. However, it works - only thing I'm missing is the cards other players have bought. They are available, but I'd like to see them displayed up front.

Anyway, the game plays fast and well - the two games I played, I lost both. Let's see how long it'll take before I can win, but I'd expect the AI to play well, as St. Petersburg is such an analytical game.