Tuesday, February 17, 2009

2/17/09

This cold is more annoying than anything else-- it just makes me pretty much tired all of the time. Accordingly I've been playing My Life As King for the Wii. I'd forgotten I'd downloaded this game until I set Will up playing it when he came over on Friday. After he left, I played for a couple of hours and then I pretty much spent the rest of the weekend curled up napping or sitting on the couch and mucking around with it. The premise of the game is simple: you're a ruler of a fantasy city, which you have to establish and grow. That's the classic city-builder style game from SimCity, Cleopatra, or Zeus-- the various PC games that covered this territory. Those elements have been done simply, making it pretty accessible. Plus the graphics come from Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, the most kid friendly of the FF things. The amusing spin on the game is that part of your job is to recruit adventurers and send them out to explore dungeons. You can't go yourself, since the King is too valuable. Putting together parties and ordering them into various dark places, watching them stream out of town to head there, and then coming back with little frowny faces over them when the get wiped out amuses me.

Needless to say, this is not a taxing game.

I had plans to write more-- particularly following up on the comments on combat from a GM's perspective, but I'm going to have to wait. Just weirdly tired. The cold''s doing that thing where trying anything with more than passing effort wears me out.

Did read and enjoy the first three GN's for Buffy Season 8-- as well as Joss's Fray GN (generously lent by CherMer). I hadn't cared for his run on X-Men, as it felt too retro (which is normally something I like) but I enjoyed there more. Might do a longer look at them later.

2 comments:

  1. The game also features a sexy nanny who chases the little king down each evening and sends him to bed. Oh--and a penguin sidekick.

    I don't get the decisions there...but the result is absurd enough to not be either over-cutesy or offensive...just inscrutable.

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  2. A sexy nanny with an impossible hat, thankyouverymuch. The hat is secretly the key to her inscrutability. :)

    That game does strike me as incredibly repetitive and yet insidious in its addiction factor. I'd definitely be playing until 4 AM if we had it. Haven't quite figured why, though. It's like a cute-ified Sims without the needs meeter...

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