PS3 Review

A few weeks ago when we went to Comicpalooza, Dan made me sign up at the Gamespot booth to win things. The following Monday I got the call that I had won the grand prize, a Play Station 3. Since I don't really play video games I wanted to sell it, they rest of my family gasped in horror. They've wanted one for some time but we just couldn't justify the expenditure. It came with some games and lots of stuff that said PS3 on it, t-shirts and pens and bags and things. It's a really nice prize. We kept it.

I was surprised at the amount of games available for children. So far we've found 3. Yes, only three; The Lego games, Little Big Planet, and Flower. This morning Dan downloaded Flower for Ella and it's a floaty game, where you fly around the countryside like in a dream and your whirlwind picks up flower pedals as you go. The music is ambient and intensely relaxing and there is no antagonist. I like it, the kid likes it and even Dan said it's really relaxing to play. So the final verdict is PS3 should make more kid's games, they're missing a giant market, I'd drop money like crazy on educational games. And to the makers of Flower - great job, more please.

No Cents

Last night I sat down in my jammies with a bowl of Cheetoes a few Oreos and a glass of wine. I turned my space heater on, deposited my feet squarely on it and played online poker for like 4 hours while Dan and Ella hung out with the pals they invited over. They mostly pretended I wasn't home and it was all lovely accept on a Saturday night there are virtual poker rooms full of crazies going All In on every unsuited Jack Deuce they can. So I decided to enter a tournament. They are usually ten cents apiece and in general people play a little more seriously. Besides, months ago I made five bucks from zero by placing 36th in a giant 10,000 player tournament and I was hoping to catch up to Dan who loves to tell me he turned his five bucks (he placed too) into nine and then fifteen and now he has like eighty.

So anyway, I'm playing in these ten cent tournaments last night and I can't get any cards past the flop because someone at my table goes All In every hand. People are getting knocked out like crazy, others are pulling triple fives on the river against my pair of aces and no amount of betting is stopping my drowning in the river of idiocy because my best guess was all the other players were stupid and or drunk. Yes, all of them. I LOST SIXTY CENTS! Which I realise made me as stupid as everyone else for even participating at all in six tournaments in a row with people who play that wild.

I was seriously doubting my sanity when Dan walked up suggested I try a quarter tournament. A quarter is a lot of money when you only have a few dollars so I was apprehensive but the rotten play really got to me and I entered. Behold sane players! No one went all in for the first 15 hands, and the bluffing was mostly believable, it was wonderful and while I didn't make $80.00 I came in 6 out of 90, raking in a whopping $1.61 and regaining my cents.

Games All Day

Yesterday, me and some of my skatey mates put our uniforms on and went out to Rock-Con (Rockford's big game convention) and taught strangers how to play "Roller Derby Mayhem" the board game. Dan and I wrote the rules with lots of help from skatey mate DD Hunter and we used those little happy meal my scene roller girls for skaters and we gave away a t-shirt to one lucky winner. It was complete fun. We did alot of yelling "Hit someone!" followed by "Roll a one!" It was particularly nice to be able to direct out of town gamers to their local roller derby leagues. So the kid from Iowa will definitely be going to see a Mid Iowa Rollers bout and the fellas from Chicago were happy to hear about the Chicago Outfit and the Windy City Rollers (who had free beer at the UIC pavilion last night WOO HOO!) Lots of players asked if the game was for sale, it's not but in a couple weeks we'll be posting those same rules on the SRDD Blog.

After the mayhem cleared we packed up and went out for sushi followed by bowling. The bowling alley had a Halloween event and so we got to see zombies, army guys and batman, Ella was very excited about that. She also beat me 72 to 65 (with bumpers that is, I would've totally beat her if we had gutters - so there!) Ella had a little 5 pound ball and every time she ran down the alley and stopped at the line to roll it she'd let out a war cry that was cracking me up. "YA!" she'd yell and then she'd jump up and down and clap while the ball crawled it's way to the pins.

Gen Con 2008 Part V - Odds and Ends

There were several things that are worth mentioning about last weeks trip that I haven't really written about yet, like the actual games and stuff, so here goes.

We couldn't leave the costume contest this year to go pee without loosing our seat to one of the hundreds of people who were still waiting in line to see the contest even after it started. Shame on you Gen Con organizers for not having enough seating even after so many years - you should know better.

The Sultan's Gaming Table is bringing gaming out of the basement and into the library and I would gladly order one for Dan except if I had that kind of disposable income I'd probably get a car instead ($9,650 delivered and assembled.) It's made from hard rock sugar maple and walnut, their tag line is "you only get two more wishes." I'm putting this in my "If I win the lottery" file, and yes I have one.

I tried to find a wonderwoman shirt for Ella and couldn't, the giant t-shirt company at the con had plenty of children's superhero shirts in green, red and blue but no Wonderwoman, plenty of pink shirts with princesses and carebears on them, and lastly plenty of teeny babydoll shirts with Wonderwoman and the Justice League but none quite small enough for an actual kid. I'm sooo dissapointed and I fully blame the patriarchy.

There was a SPAM carving contest sponsored by Gut Bustin Games. After seeing the contest entries in the hallway we found their booth in the dealer area strewn with Pabst Blue Ribbon, more SPAM and Moon Pies, as well as their new games Trailer Park Wars and Redneck life. We purchased Trailer Park Wars mostly because Ella like the 100 tiny pink flamingo game peices. The cards include photographs of real trailers around the nation including "Barbie's Dream Trailer", "Cowabungalo" & "Tornado Bait".

We also picked up Monsterpocolyps, Twisted Fish, Gangs of Megacity One, Penguin Rescue, Monster Menace America and a few others that didn't come in a clearly marked box. I can't tell if it's a booster pack for somethng we already own of if it's a whole new game and I also can't tell what was given away free or bought. What I do know is there is a giant pile of games and toys on our dinnig room table. I also wanted to play test Tech Support the card game just to see exactly how frustrating it is, but forgot.

We'll be going back next year.