Ive been a video-gamer for about 30 years now, ever since my parents bought me a NES with Super Mario Bros. But over the last few months or so, Ive discovered the wonders of modern-day board games. Not the Monopoly and Game of Life of yore, but wonderfully little headscratchers that rely less on luck and more on planning and strategy and interesting mechanics.
Ive been hoovering up video reviews and how-to-plays, and Reddit posts like mad. This past Saturday night I hosted my first board game night for some friends who hadnt played a board game in 20 years and it went down a treat, which has just fed me more into wanting to get some of the bigger, deeper, longer experiences as well. Theres co-op games, and competitive games, card games, board games, dice games, gambling-ish games, the list goes on.
Thing is, long story short, this has somehow dulled my interest in video games. There are board games out there with the depth, complexity, and even length of video games in some instances. And the shift away from a screen experience to something tactile and physical, along with being somewhat more social sitting round a table discussing options or rueing the day someone blocked a move or took something someone else was coveting.
So that Sunday I was trying to get into the Resident Evil 2 remake and it just wasnt clicking. I was particularly frustrated that putting down a zombie didnt mean they were permanently put down (I didnt mind the multiple headshots to put them down, just didnt like that you could leave and come back and they would wake up again). Then tried a game or two also in the backlog and they just werent holding my attention. But I could watch an hour and a half of board game reviews (each like 15 minutes long) no problem.
The latest casualty was Middle-Earth: Shadow Of War, which I started Sunday night and was the first that seemed to groove with me. It was basically a cross between a Batman: Arkham game and an Assassins Creed gRead More – Source
