What rocked about Gen Con this year...

Gen Con Indy, 2009 was, as always, a great time for the family, friends and I. This year was maybe slightly better than other years.

For one, I paid nothing for hotel accomodations, even though we had to pack and unpack each night so we could go to our reserved hotel, find it a disaster, and with no room for us to stay there. Then we would head 4 miles west and stay at a swanky new hotel that would cost something like 150-200 bucks a night, but yet it cost us nothing. It was on the house so to speak from the hotel we were supposed to stay at. Seeing that they never had rooms for us, they sent us to the other hotel at their expense and still let us park in their parking garage which was only 5 city blocks from the convention center. Yeah we had to move around alot and didn't have a place to go to for a break, but what the heck! It was free!

Secondly, registration and scheduling was a snap! Due to a new system, I got into all the games I wanted and so did the family. AND we discovered the game room where you can just go rent a game for $2 or $4 and play to your hearts content! We spent alot of time in good old room 500! Discovered REDNECK LIFE too! Great game!

Third, and most importantly, I had a blast in each and every game I played. My first game was Tigris and Euphrates, a new game just learned a few weeks ago. My wife and I were to play this with two other people, but they never showed so we went at it by ourselves and found it to be a cutthroat sort of game when played with two people. While she did not stomp me in the game, my wife did defeat me soundly. She would say she trashed me. Another game I played and enjoyed, but would probably not purchase it, is Age of Conan: the Board Game. A good game, but it didn't hold my attention and there were too many small mechanics in the game to make it easily playable. I did enjoy the game, especially because of the theme, but it would not make it to my top 20 list in fun games.

The games I did enjoy the most were Memoir '44 and Battlestar Galactica the board game. Both of these games gave me an adrenaline rush and were hours well spent playing. The Memoir game is a tradition for the group I attend GenCon with. Four years now we have played the Overlord games and come out victorious! This year was my turn at the role of overall commander and we beat an experienced team with a "world champion" of strategy board gaming. Never seen a champion retreat in a battle strategy game before! Anyway, as a team we worked really well and I was happy that we all contributed our best to win the game. It was a hard slog but it was worth it! The other game, Battlestar Galactica, while not a game for everyone, is rapidly becomeing one of my favorites. The premise is that exactly as the show... Humans trying to survive Cylon attacks and plots. In the game, you don't know who is human and who is cylon and it makes for a very interesting game especially with the mechanics of skill checks coming in from everyone, and not everyone is playing to win for the humans! I did not win in this game but I got to play with my daughter and can see she is starting to become a gamer. She has a good grasp of complicated game concepts when she pays attention. Now only if she could translate that into grasping concepts in school.

The only complaint I have about this year's con was our visit to the Ram. The service sucked, the food tore me up inside, and they discontinued their sale of Taylor Fladgate 40 year port. For that alone, I will not return.

It was a great time and I can't wait for next year.
Later!