A blast from the past #2

Part 2 of the retro-special is dedicated to board games. Board games are of course still quite popular. People gather at friends' houses and spend afternoons or evenings (or both) playing and having fun (it is so unfortunate that board sounds like bored). Some are classic (Monopoly, anyone?), some are country specific, we all know them and love them and we've all played at least once.

The following board games are the ones I grew up with. To be honest, I didn't have most of them, but I was lucky enough to have friends that did. Naturally, if I were to find one of them (or spend a small fortune to acquire it), I would sit down and play it in a heartbeat. Even if I were alone...

Here they go:

(1) Ghost Castle

 

Info: here

Plot: Navigate your character through all the rooms of the house, all the way to the top of the tower, avoiding traps and outrunning other players.

Comments: This is actually the only one of the list that I owned. It was a Xmas present from my parents Santa Claus. Hours of fun, mostly playing with my brother, as well as moments of great frustration, particularly when you fell victim of the last trap, just before reaching the tower top.

(2) Hotel

Info: here

Plot: Become the richest hotel tycoon

Comments: Effectively, a Monopoly spin-off (aka rip-off). But who cares? It was Monopoly in 3D, with hotels! I always went for the "President" complex - that's the one at the bottom left corner of the cover above, the steel & glass modern-looking one with asymmetric rooftops. And yes, I would prefer Hotel to Monopoly any given day.

(3) Go for broke

 

Info: here
Plot: Lose one million dollars faster than other players
Comments: Another Monopoly-type game, but with a twist. In this one, you were trying to go bankrupt by spending all your money in a number of imaginative ways. Super fun game; if you didn't consider it as free-market, capitalist propaganda, that is.

(4) Mysteries of Old Peking

Info: here
Plot: Solve a mystery before other players by interrogating witnesses around town and collecting clues.
Comments: This is one of the games I've played the most. I absolutely loved it! It had some quite fancy accessories like a red filter to decipher scrambled clues and a mirror to read backwards-written clues. And it was taking place in China, which for some bizarre reason made it more... mysterious.

(5) Cluedo

Info: here
Plot: Who killed Dr. Black? In what room? With what weapon?
Comments: A classic, doesn't require any introductions or explanations! Nicely challenging and insanely fun, particularly when played under the influence of certain substances.

(6) Risk

Info: here
Plot: The Game of Global Domination
Comments: Another classic. Hours upon hours of epic, merciless battles. The game that taught generations of children where Kamchatka and Irkutsk are.

(7) Dragon Game System aka Dark World

Info: here
Plot: Four brave heroes must battle their way through hordes of enemies in their quest to defeat the evil Korak.
Comments: A (easily digestible) D&D-type game with cards, dice and plastic miniatures on a 3-D board. Amazing game, I could play it over and over and over. It could only be surpassed by.....

(8) HeroQuest

Info: here
Plot: Four brave heroes embark on a variety of quests, trying to survive the dungeons of evil Morcar.
Comments: HeroQuest was based on GWs "Warhammer Fantasy" universe. It had much more of a traditional-D&D-game feeling, as it actually required a DM to narrate the quest and players were free to add their own adventures. It also came with a board, cards, dice and fantastic miniatures. And it was out before DGS/DW. AWESOMENESS!

(9) Space Crusade

Info: here
Plot (for W40K fans): A whatever-happened-to-the-Codex squad of five Space Marines (choice of Imperial Fists, Blood Angels and Ultrasmurfsmarines) boards a Space Hulk and faces greenskins, Eldar, CSM and genestealers.
Plot (for the others): Good space guys must kill bad space guys.
Comments: As you might have guessed already, this is HeroQuest's space cousin, based on GWs "Warhammer 40K" universe, albeit with considerably simpler rules. Just thinking about this game makes me want to cry, so I stop it here... ABSOLUTE AWESOMENESS!

BONUS GREECE-SPECIFIC GAME

Κατάκτηση (pronounced /katáktisi/, meaning Conquest). Yes, it was obviously a blatant Stratego rip-off. I didn't care. I wanted it. I was eyeing it every day for at least a month. Then my grandpa noticed. And then it was mine... After that, many a times has my brother been a victim of my cunning, strategic mind...

As advertised, Part 3 will be about (cartoon) series and will most likely be a 2-parter itself...

WTF news #3...

So, apparently in the States, if you walk your dog, you can end up $10m richer, as this article informs us.

I walk my dog 3 times a day and all I "discover" is shite and rubbish. 

Life's so unfair...

A blast from the past #1

Back from the summer holidays (yes, it's summer in the southern hemisphere), batteries recharged and in a nostalgic/retrospective mood, I'm starting this series of posts that relate to (my) childhood.

We kick off with the best hand-held console ever to come out of Japan, the one, the only, the Game Boy 

Yes, it had a tiny screen. Yes, it didn't have colour. But you know what... WHO CARES??? We are talking (very) early '90s here, it was A W E S O M E and we loved it! Collectively I must have spent at least 2 years of my life (and Supreme Being knows how many batteries) playing something on the Game Boy. 

I've lost track of how many and which games I owned, so what follows are the ones that have been etched in memory. Plus, there was a huge Game Boy culture in Greece, so swapping games with friends was quite common, making it even more difficult to remember exactly all the games I've played. 

Here it goes...

(1) Fortress of Fear

The first game I bought (together with the actual Game Boy). Yes, I was already an epic fantasy geek. I don't care too much about what the Wiki article says on reception by the critics etc. I was ten, I didn't care. Oh, and the music of this game... the music...

(2) SML 2: 6 golden coins

The second game I bought (together with the Game Boy and FoF). Trivia: originally I wanted to buy Castelvania, but mum and/or dad said something along the lines of "two games with demons on the cover is too much (for your tender, innocent soul I might add)", so SML2 it was.

And I don't regret it really. SML2 was an amazing game. Quite large, quite challenging (for a ten year old), with imaginative levels such as Mario in space and Mario underwater, and of course it marked the debut of Wario.

(3) Raging Fighter

One of the two 2D versus fighting games I owned. Obviously, it was a blatant copy of Street Fighter, but again, WHO CARES? I have played this with the "Game Link", i.e. connecting two Game Boys and playing against a friend, which was more than enough. Plus, it included a sumo-like character named "Bulk". Priceless...

(4) Mortal Combat II

The other 2D versus fighting game I owned. This game requires no introductions and no explanations. It's the one with the fatalities. 'Nough said!

(5) Kung Fu master 

The Game Boy adaptation of the first beat 'em up game. A Bruce Lee-type of character beating the shit out of bad guys. Who needs more?

(6) Probotector 

Originally, this was released as Operation C or something daft like that in the US. Luckily, some very clever Europeans changed the human hero character to a manga-like robot and the human bad guys to alien bad guys. They also changed the meh cover of the US game, to the above cool cover, making the game 10 times better that in the US (ok, technically, the game didn't change, but you get my point).

(7) NBA - All Star Challenge 

Basketball, of course. While it did not reach the awesomeness levels of NBA Jam, still it gave you the opportunity to choose any two NBA stars (think original Dream Team) and play one-on-one style.

(8) Zelda - Link's Awakening

According to one guy "... best Game Boy game ever, an adventure so engrossing and epic..." And yes, it really was! If I could get my hands on a Game Boy now, this is the game I would choose to play. It had everything you want from a game, and then some. I could write an entire post just for this game. Probably, my all-time-favourite game.

Of course, during the years many other games passed from my Game Boy. Alas, memory does not serve me too well - I definitely remember playing Terminator 2, Kirby's Dream Land, Spider-Man, Duck Tales, Gargoyle's Quest, Home Alone 2 and The Hunt for Red October. And I did also get to play Castelvania, borrowed from a friend...

Part 2 will follow (at some point), devoted to either board games or tv series (in which case the one left out will become part 3) ...