Bunker Project Log

Well, I finally got my ten… plus two extras. My first two worked fine. Then my CC was refused by Steam. I eventually got smart and set up a new Steam account, but used PayPal as my payment method. This allowed me to get five more before Steam wised up and killed that.

So, I started getting antsy, and emailed friends at work. Being that it was Sunday, I didn’t get a response. Then, I got really desperate, and asked DangerKitty to help out. He hasn’t PC gamed in years, and doesn’t have a Steam account, so chances were slim.

After not hearing from him, I finally decided to go to the wife. This means I have to explain that I’m buying a bunch of software for the LAN, which doesn’t really make her happy. She makes me do some chores, but agrees. I sign her up, put in her CC, and it lets me buy the final three.

So, as I’m doing this, my phone is buzzing with received emails. I finish up all the redemptions, then finally look at the Phone. Two emails which say “You have received a gift from Dangerkitty.”

Crap.

Anyway, the LAN is equipped. hopefully it will be a good multiplayer game, and even better, it might get a few guys woozy and urpy (just as long as they don’t puke on my monitors!) I’m sure there will be some sort of post about it at the next Bunker Party.

Steam is running a great special on Prey right now, at $4.95 a pop. This is perfect for me, as I can get a groovy game on the entire LAN for just shy of $50.

So, I bought the first one to try out the multiplayer and it worked lickity split. I had the dedicated server set up in about three minutes, which is a record for me. I was sure that the gravity and Portal effects would be perfect for a drunken Bunker Party LAN game.

However, once I actually tried to buy the third copy of the game, Steam denied all attempts. Telling me that my CC co is denying the transaction. I called them up and they say that they haven’t even gotten a new attempt.

This particularly sucks, because having only two on the LAN is possibly worse than having zero. No one is going to play a two-player Prey deathmatch.

For now, I wait for Steam support to get back to me, and hope this gets sorted before the promotion is over.

Whatever the outcome is, I still recommend that you PC gamers pick this up. $5 is a steal for the single-player alone.

I had?almost completely given up this game of Colosseum after a hideous second round, which had netted me only 14 points. I?passed a whole turn without a cent to my name, there was no way I could win.

When suddenly, I?managed to buy “Mare Spielbergum”, and everything came together. I had stars, I had a huge colosseum, I had season tickets!

I rode high for turns III and IV. I was doing the impossible, I was winning! In turn V, the end, I made my final production with 71 points.

Then, out of nowhere, Casper starts put on an amazing show. I was sweating every second, until… she came… one point short! One measly point! She rested at 70.

I had it made…?until Pottse and VitaminZ started doing the math. Pottse was out, way out. But Z had a chance. Slim, but a chance.

So, Pottse, being the martyr that he is, sacrificed himself to position the nobles for Z’s next turn.

Final tally… 72 for Vitamin Z, and the win. Stolen.

Douchebags.

One word:

infuriating.

Oh crap…?

?I love Tanga. They have a great business model, cool content, and they are run by this guy?(how cool is that?). I have bought a godzillion things there.

And that’s the problem.

For an obsessive compulsive collector hobbyist weirdo like me, with a previously disposable income…?but now a father of two whose expenses are catching up with him, this is very bad.

So, when Ticket to Ride Marklin Edition (the “Real Gamer’s version”)?showed up at the appointed time of Tanga (1opm EST for the uninitiated) I did my usual bolt downstairs, halfway through a 5-player game?of Fluxx no less.

Then I hesitated.?The Tangathon marquee flashed. The $24.99 price tag?said to me, “I’m so cheap, and you want me so?bad… come on baby, just buy it.”

And I hesitated some more. The marquee continued it’s cycle.

And then I said to myself, “I’ve got a lot of games. Do I really need more games?”

?”Of course I do.” I said to myself.

“But you have about 30 unopened games from the last 3 months of Tangathons and other ‘good deals’. Are you ever going to play them?”

“Uhmm…”

“And… Mrs. G will be really, really mad.”

Exhale to deep sigh.

So, I took my hand off the mouse, and went back upstairs. I continued Fluxx, and I whined a little. And my chest was really tight just thinking about that great deal that I had passed up.

It wasn’t any easier today when a whole boatload of great stuff showed up, particularly Starfarers of Catan. I’ve had major wood for anything Catan lately, and the space theme has me gagging for it.

But I’ve made it so far. Sorry TangaJoe, TangaJen, TangaMonkey and the rest of the crew. I think I’m going to pass, as much as I don’t want to.

See you again when my credit card has recovered. Don’t forget me.?

OMG. There’s this game called Zombies!… and the box has, like, 5 million little zombie guys in it, and… like… the game is named ZOMBIES! But, we were like, at this party, where we played it, and there were like…?NO ZOMBIES! We played the whole friggin game, and there were like, 3 zombies all the way through it. WTH???

Before and After

?

So, the entire IT department is Wooting Off, and this rrreallllly ugly mouse comes up for 5 Bucks American… and I’m wondering, do I buy it? And all the douchebags are bitching about it not being a Bag of Crap instead of telling me whether it is worth it or not… And I’m still wondering, do I buy it? Because, a Tangathon is going on at the same time and the wife is going to rip me to shreds if she finds out that I’d bought another version of Carcassonne… and… two different versions of Settlers of Catan… and should I buy the damn mice? It’s running out… they’re running out of stock… and I’ve got 7 machines on The Lan that could really use a groovy gaming mouse with variable DPI and all that jazz.

So, I say, screw it, I’m going to spend the 20 bucks and I’m going to do this thing, and hey Pottse, you order three of them too, I’ll pay you back… and now I just need one more sucker to convince to buy 3 more of which I will pay for 2 and prorate the shipping… and I do find the sucker, but he’s having some kind of existential dilemna about how his girlfriend is going to rip him to shreds if he buys a $6.66 mouse… I mean geez man, c’mon… she’s still yr girlfriend not your wife. Just grow some stones and click the damn button and stick your card # in there… Gangrene needs some mouses.

So it sells out, and weinerboy still hasn’t clicked, so I’ve only got six to go around.

Since I could find virtually nothing about these things on teh intarwebs, and it is very likely that Woot… not to mention Yugster will be offering these guys up again and again and again, I thought I would give a little back.

Here’s how they look.

The Lynx-Q5’s best side…

It’s?rough, and this is as good as it gets. Those buttons too small and require too much force to press them.?They are also too far back?to press them comfortably (but I?have?big hands.)

The mouse has the usual scroll wheel,?which is very responsive,?with very slight?graduated steps. I?will have to put in some?real play time?before I can say whether this is a good thing for gaming. The interesting parts?are the two arrow buttons on the top and bottom of the scroll wheel. These?toggle the mouse?between 800, 1200 and 1600?dpi. For the 1337 gamer, this means better sniping and… whatever. I am not 1337 enough to know, but I can say I have adjustable dpi gaming mice in my Lan so it’s all good.?

Yes… they are ugly, and that shape looks lame. It certainly isn’t an ergonomic looking thing. However, when they arrived and I pulled the guinea pig out, everyone who laid their hands on it said it felt “really good” and “slidey!” The are pretty slick. I don’t know whether that is because they are new, or have an extra number of little teflon feeties.

Oh noes!!! Don’t hack my serialz!

Not that it matters, but this is the first optical mouse I’ve experienced that doesn’t have an overly designed… almost vaginal optical sensor hole, if you don’t believe me, check out what’s on my desk:

“Love me” (the sensuous Microsoft Wheel Mouse Optical)

“I will?swallow you whole and?smother you in honeyed darkness” (the man-eating Logitech MX-510)

“Whaddyou want?” (the very diesel?iOne Lynx-Q5)

Ahem… well, back to the… rambling…

Setup was a breeze. I was surprised to find that the variable dpi function required no driver support. Apparently there is a downloadable software suite for this thing, but I ain’t touching it with a 10-foot pole. I’ve never had good experiences with custom mouse software. What little gaming I did was “successful”. It “seemed” better. For $5 at least.

For now, I’m going to reserve judgement until the Bunker chimps show up and start playing DOTA or whatever newfangled whoziwhatsit the kids like these days. I’ve upgraded four machines, and left the other four alone, so we’ll be able to make a good A/B comparison on these bad… ummm… girls, and I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Mrs. G’s entire family, and their family’s families are here from across the pond. This is a lot of people. A lot of… ahem… older people.

So… of course I wanted to have a Bunker Party for them. I really want to test out the Wii on a group of unsuspecting Sexa and Septuagenarians.

Things were going pretty well. Everything was clean, powered up and ready to go. Then the second the first group arrived, the sky broke open. We?were in the middle of some sort of freak, instantaneous, in-land hurricane thingy. The house shook, the roof plinked and popped with the sound of hail, and to my horror, the lights browned for a minute, and finally went out entirely.

No more Wii and no “cinema” as my guests say. And since it’s dark, I can’t even rope anyone in to a game of Carcassonne.?Everybody loves Carcassonne!

The power came back at 1am, which explains why I still haven’t got my session reviews up, and also explains why I was in bed at midnight for the first time since I was 8.

I think the Bunker needs a generator. I’ll keep you posted.

It’s early Summer, and I’m just chillin’ with Mrs. G, and she says “isn’t it weird that we’ll be married seven years tomorrow?”

And, because I’m a total blockhead, I say “our anniversary isn’t until Saturday!”

Remember that thing about a land war in Asia? That is like arguing with your wife about when your anniversary is, when her birthday is, where your first date was, when your kids were born, when your kids were conceived, where your kids were conceived, etc. Don’t do it.

Anyway, as the “talk” went on, the icy cold grip of fear began gently massaging my heart. It was tomorrow, and I had forgotten. And… we had just had kid #2, which made it all the more important in her hormone saturated brain. I had to come up with a plan fast.

So, I did what any self-respecting gamer would do. I logged on to boardgamegeek?to find out where to buy the Travel Edition of Settlers of Catan.

My thinking was this… it was our seventh anniversary. The ridiculous gift for seventh anniversary is copper and wool. Wool comes from sheep, and sheep are in Settlers of Catan! It was obvious! She would love a romantic dinner at one of the many new fru fru restaurants in town, we would play Settlers at the table, then I would take her to “Knocked Up”, and then go swing dancing. Best. Husband. Ever!

So, after calling every game store in the metro area and coming up empty, one of the lovely people on boardgamegeek gave me a lead that resulted in a pristine sealed copy. I punched out the bits and read the instructions while driving back to work.

From there, it was magic. She loved the idea! We drove to the snotty restaurant. She loved that too! We ate, then busted out the game during dessert.

So Ro Mantic!

Unfortunately, Settlers ain’t really a 2-player deal, even with variant rules, so we had about three turns before giving up. From there we went to? “Knocked Up”, which was incredible! Those of you with kids… watch it (but not with them!) Then we snuck into the Swing thing 10 minutes before closing time. We acted cool like we were?experts from the next town over?checking out the scene, but we were scared to death. Damn young spry kids, and us all crotchety and old. Youth is wasted on the young.

Anyway, that’s the entirety of my experience with Settlers. With that out of the way, here’s my impressions of Cities and Knights of Catan.

First, I have to describe the Bunker experience. There are about 200 board games, and 200 video games, and about 20 people to play them. Most of them have never been played by me, because the party is my only time to play. This makes it a little hard to commit to a game that lasts over 10 minutes long. No matter how good they are, I want to keep moving on to something else.

So when?six of us started crowding around the table, I got a little nervous. Then, when the tiles were laid out,?with what looked like 3 times as?many hexes as a usual Settlers game, I got really nervous.

A big game

Then, when all these cards, and upgradable buildings, and barbarian tracks and such start coming in to play, I felt like a rat in a cage.

It didn’t help that I had made a painfully witless road placement at the beginning. It also doesn’t help that I am cursed with the most amazingly bad luck (just ask anyone who has played a dice-rolling game with me.) I was a casual onlooker to my own destruction. I could get no brick. When I got brick, it was stolen from me by clever playing of those damned cards I mentioned. When I got one of those same cards, and demanded brick, no one had it to give. Then they started playing cards that let them steal my cards… right when I’d figured out how to use them!

I eventually whined myself out of the full game “I wanna play Dystopia…”, “13 Victory Points?!”, “Will this game _ever_ end?!” And so forth. Yes, poor form, I admit. (But Dystopia was sweet!)

We decided on nine victory points as the winning condition, and Necrontyr immediately scored four more to take it. Surprisingly, I was first loser with seven. Odd how that happened.

Anyway, even with all that whining… I am dying to play it again, just not in the chaos of the Bunker Party setting. It would make a great?game night game?of cutthroat devilry.

Dateline: Game Developers Conference, March 9, 2005 – Moscone Center, San Francisco, CA. I’m sitting in the Grand Ballroom, waiting for the Microsoft keynote, titled “The HD Era”. J. Allard looked tragically hip, with his suited hoodie and preaching the MS game gospel. I, being a corporate droid, fell hook line and sinker for the endless possibilities of micro-payments and downloadable content and the this and the that and the other.

Then, J shows us Forza Motorsport. For the unwashed, this was the moment when Microsoft gave away 1000 HD TVs to anyone wearing the badge colored the same as the winning car. I had blue, Mrs. G had yellow. Or was it the other way around?

In any case, one of the two was the winning color, and I was sent to wait in line and sign the forms. Effectively, it became mine.

That’s why there is a TV in the bathroom, and sponsored by Microsoft, no less!

Anyway, as I said, my good buddy J had me at “micro-payments.” To me, MS really had it right with the new Live and the 360 was going to be the shizzle. I had to have that machine!

So I showed my commitment by making sure not to pre-order the 360. Genius. This led to many a night of considering standing in line, but not. I mean, the age of the 360 was the video game event of the epoch, but it was cold outside!

I finally managed to get one on Christmas Eve. That is a long and complicated story, and I don’t tell those, so I’ll skip it. The long and short of it is, I got a 360, and I got it after all the bugs had been fixed! My 360 is 604 days old.

And just 2 days ago, my drive started stuttering while reading discs and sometimes not starting at all.

Microsoft Xbox 360 3-Year Warranty, FTW!