Just over a year ago, I discovered the wonderful medium of comic books and made them a part of my everyday life. During this discovery phase, I wrote about comics a lot. I even dabbled a little bit into video content with the In Third Person Comic Book Show. The comic situation today is a bit different. I still read, though it’s been months since I’ve posted about them in earnest. What gives?
Ticket to Ride was my introduction to the genre of German-style board games, which you may also know as designer board games or Eurogames. There are a number of factors that differentiate Eurogames from traditional western games like Monopoly or Risk, such as the general lack of player elimination and an emphasis on strategy over luck. In particular, the thing that differentiates Eurogames to me is the concept of resource management. For instance, in Ticket to Ride, you’re tasked with managing your tickets, route cards and the unclaimed routes on the board in a way that gets you the most points. Some of my favourite games of this style besides the aforementioned include Power Grid, Last Will and Tokaido.
In general, I’ve grown pretty fond of this style of game. I like the fact that these games generally keep everyone involved throughout and how interesting it can be to manage your resources within the confines of each game’s economic system. When those economic systems are paired up with a great theme that makes sense with the actions you’re performing, the results can be spectacular. On the other hand, when the theme isn’t there and the core mechanics aren’t enjoyable enough on their own, these games devolve into the chore of managing spreadsheets.
From A Link to the Past to Ocarina of Time, the hero of Hyrule is the star of some of my all-time favourite games. However, for those of you who follow the nuances of Zelda lore, the Link you play as isn’t always the same guy. I’m most familiar with the more humanoid Link, while the Toon Link, as christened in Smash Bros., is largely alien to me. So why do I have a Toon Link instead of an adult one?
Flash back to the summer of 1994. I’m only 10 years old at the time, so there’s almost no reason for me to receive mail. On this particular summer day, I open the mailbox with a VHS tape addressed to me from Nintendo. With no idea what this tape was or why Nintendo was sending it to me, I threw it in my VCR and watched it as soon as I could.
Mario has been a part of my life for almost as long as I can remember. I vaguely remember playing Defender on a hand-me-down Atari 2600, but when I was just old enough to comprehend what video games were, it was when I was playing the original Super Mario Bros. with an NES controller in my hands. Much has changed since I first played a game with Mario in it, but he’s been with me all the way.
Rosalina is a fine character in the Super Mario universe. I’m not much of a fan of the first Super Mario Galaxy, but I liked her in that game. She was also fun to use in Super Mario 3D World as an unlockable character. My in-game memories with her are admittedly thin, but the chase for her Amiibo was probably the most interesting one yet.
Samus is one of my favourite Nintendo characters. Sporting iconic armor, an arm cannon and the ability to curl up into a ball and drop rolling grenades, she’s one of the most combat-ready characters in Nintendo’s lineup. The big reveal of her being a she is one of the first breakthrough moments for female characters in video games. She’s even been one of my favourite characters to play as in the Smash Bros. series since the very beginning.
However, the sight of Samus also brings with it a reminder of a gaming Achilles Heel of mine. I suck at Metroid and Metroid-style games.
One of the best reasons to play board games at Snakes and Lattes is that you’ll always have access to a board game guru. With their vast knowledge in games and experience in teaching games to others, they always seem to teach me a new game in a matter of minutes, versus the hours it usually takes me to fumble through manuals and online tutorial videos. If it were possible, I would want to have access to one of their board game gurus at all times so that they can teach me a new game anywhere.
The harsh reality is that this will never happen. Most of the time, I’m going to have to figure things out on my own or with Steff. In order to avoid placing the burden of learning games the hard way on others, I usually take the time to workshop a game alone or with Steff so that we can make the learning experience better for others.
Just beat Advance Wars again. This time on the Wii U Virtual Console. Holy cow that game is good. Even after all of these years, it still holds up as a brilliant turn-based strategy game. Hopefully its inclusion on the Wii U means that more people will get to continue to enjoy this underrated Nintendo classic!
For more on why Advance Wars is so great, check out this piece I wrote from a while back!
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Two rare Amiibos. Two online orders from two separate retailers. Within the span of a week, all I could do was watch in dismay as both would cancel my orders for Captain Falcon and Villager. Neither retailer could secure enough to meet the demand for either, so they just cancelled my orders and refunded me the money.
I’m really bummed out that I got this far into the purchase process and it didn’t work out, but at least I got my money back. In particular, I really had my hopes up that the Villager from B+H Camera would go through. Oh well, maybe someday I’ll eventually have both in my collection. For now though, I’ll keep hunting!
In Third Person 
