Robert Khuu Presents

Boardgame: Settlers of Catan

After some trying and doing, I finally got the chance to play Settlers of Catan. I know, I know. It’s an old game and everybody and their brother has been playing it for years. I just haven’t been around a circle of friends that had/played the game until recently. Hit the jump for my thoughts. More »

Playing with flowers

Recently, the same company that made “flOw” released a new game on the PS3 entitled “Flower.” Here’s a video of the game in action:

The “characters” that you play aren’t so much a “characters” so much as they are a flowers in a city apartment that are dreaming of a dead gray field. The object of the game is to collect enough flower petals in an effort to reinvigorate those grayed out grassy fields. Control is handled through the PS3 Controller’s motion sensor. Turn the controller left (like a steering wheel) and the petals will turn left. Tilt the controller backwards and the petals will fly into the air. Overall, motion control is pretty well implemented. I am sure this game will re-open the question of whether video games can be art, but, regardless of whether that issues is settled or not, this game is still pretty fun in the mean time. The tagline, if it isn’t already, for this game should be “play and relax.” The gameplay is so soothing that when I started playing this game, I didn’t know 2-3 hours had passed. It’s a little like a good book. I wouldn’t necessarily schedule time to sit there and read a book, but if I’m between things, I’ll read the book. Same applies here.

There isn’t much variety in terms of gameplay. Some of the levels try to mix it up by having you “paint” the grass with colorful lights, but it’s just more of the same. I think the game tends to accomplish what a lot of games are missing: it finds 30 seconds of pure, rewarding fun and repeats it as often as possible without becoming repetitive.

Rule of Law in an Unfettered Utopia

You can call it a video game or massive social experiment, but EVE Online has several interesting results. For the uninitiated, EVE Online is a space MMORPG made by CCP where players do what most players do in MMORPGs: do things to get better things for their character. The most distinguishing feature of EVE Online is that the developers take a laissez faire approach to the in world economy and legal system. More »

Boardgame: Arkham Horror

In our continuing quest to become ostracized by society, some law school friends and I have picked up the activity of playing boardgames. Think Settlers of Catan minus the resource management. The game that we played was Arkham Horror (pictured below).

The game is set in a Lovecraftian city where all sorts of portals to unknown lore related extra-dimensional locations spring up. The point of the game is to close the portals and kill the monsters that come from those portals before the countdown timer runs out. Oh, did I mention there was a countdown? At the beginning of the game, you randomly draw an ultimate evil and, depending on which you draw, the instant game will be limited by the corresponding number of rounds. To “win,” you either have to seal all portals before you run out of rounds or you can simply fight the “ultimate evil” or you simply lose if you pick the wrong ultimate evil. Strategy-wise, your group is basically working together and has to decide to either attempt to shut down portals or to bulk up with the intention of killing the ultimate evil. There is a lot of long term thinking involved due to the round limitations. Luck is also factored into it in the form of rolling dice and drawing random cards. For example, one of our party members was completely debilitated by a curse that he could not remove for the entire game. That curse he had basically lost us the game.

Overall, a rather complicated game with complicated mechanics, but really easy to pick up and learn while you play.