Games people play

In between two nights at my parents' place in Newcastle (mmm...home cooking), I spent the day at PG and DG's farmhouse in Port Stephens. GH and I caught the bus there with three goals in mind:

* Catching up with our friends (obviously)
* Getting GH's brand-new secondhand Xbox soft-modded
* Playing some board-/video-games

These objectives were achieved with just minutes to spare before the last bus back to Newie. It was good to see P+D, who gave us a glimpse at their current (hush-hush) writing project, shouted pizza for lunch and played good hosts as always.

The modding was a success and afforded this non-technical blogger the opportunity conquer "Poker 2x" (Texas Hold 'Em) on PG's GP2X handheld. I claim I did it first go, although in fact the batteries died with me as chip leader, having knocked out four opponents. Slipping in some freshly charged ones, I systematically cleaned house - even jagging four kings in one hand (something I've never done in real life without the help of wild cards).

Our three-player gaming for the day consisted of conquering "Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows" on Xbox and a tabletop tussle using Marvel Heroclix figurines.

The first...

After longish sessions on two previous visits, we were 81% of the way through "G:S/S" and the remaining levels proved no sweat - our characters (I played a barbarian named Thrud, in honour of the ancient "White Dwarf" comic strip) were super-strong by this stage. The ending's awesome and sees you powering up ballistae to fire at a gigantic lava demon while simultaneously suppressing his legion of minions using your "standard" weaponry and avoiding deadly molten rain.

The second...

PG concocted a wild 'Clix scenario in which Hank Pym had lost control of his Pym Particles, gone mad and accidentally killed Professor X. He played the West Coast Avengers, who were trying to protect their mate till he calmed down. GH was the X-Men, out for Pym's blood. I took control of the New Mutants (I still love those early issues), gunning for the WCA.

This was ridiculously close. When G's MVP Storm dealt Pym the coup de grace, I was one turn (and two clicks - I checked later) away from nailing the last Avenger (Tigra). At the same time, P was only two more goes from defusing the situation.

Can't wait for the rematch on our next trip to P+D's!