Banging (and) Zombies

As I approach a month with a still comatose computer, I find myself seeking other avenues to satiate my need for stimuli that comes from my video game-induced low boredom threshold. I've always been a fan of board games, and have recently taken to attending the boardgaming days at Tim's with more frequency. Previously I had always wanted to attend frequently, but for reasons of laziness on Sunday mornings and being chained to the computer, I hardly ever made it out. Now that I am free of any PC psuedo-obligations, the urge to get out of the house and play me some games has been moving me off of my ass. That and the gaming group are a bunch of crazy mfers.

Here are my two games of the moment, consisting of a zombie board game and a western themed card game.

Last Night On Earth
I'm sure by now you now of my love(loathing) of zombies, which means that I had to play this game by default, and was thoroughly pleased when I found that it wasn't bad at all. Predictably, the premise of the game is survivors versus the hoard of zombies, but the game mixes it up by providing scenarios for you to play, which can vary between the simple "kill zombies" to "keep the zombies from entering the manor". Who plays what varies depending on how many players there are, but there will always be 4 human characters trying to survive up to 14 zombies. Depending on the scenario, it can be very challenging to play as the survivors, but the game is well enough to where it doesn't get boring or discouraging to go against the odds. Each character has their own special attributes, so you can play the game differently each time and try out different strategies. Zombies are slow, cheap, and tough to kill, and it's always fun to see how the wave of zombies shifts around the board depending on what the survivors are doing. The game supports 2 to 6 players, and I find it more fun the lesser number of players there are. It can, however, be just as fun with more, so long as everyone knows what they are doing and keep the game from dragging. In any case, you get to kill zombies. Need I say more?
LNAO @ BGG: for more reviews and photos of the game.

Bang!
I'll start off by saying that this game just rocks. If you take anything from this little write-up, know that I have this game and you need to ask about playing it. The premise of the game is that a player will be assigned 1 of 4 roles, consisting of: The Sheriff, the Deputy(ies), Outlaws, and the Renegade. Each role has a different winning condition. The Sheriff wins if he survives and kills all of the Outlaws, the Outlaws win by killing the Sheriff. The Deputy wins if the Sheriff wins, and the Renegade wins by being the last man standing. That all sounds well in good, but the reason the game is so fun is that all the identities are kept secret throughout the whole game, save for the Sheriff's. Players are prohibited to say outloud or gesture what role they are to each other, and can only hint by the way they play their cards, so at the beginning of the game, its a real question of who to shoot, because you could potentially be shooting an ally. The actual game itself consists of turns where the player will play their hand, shooting other players, drinking beer, and trying to figure out who is who. Character cards, each with unique attributes, spice of the game and affect strategery. The game plays fairly quickly, even with a lot of players, there isn't too much downtime. It is a great game, and you must play it. Do this now. Let me bang you.
Bang! @ BBG: For more reviews and photos.

In case you are interested, we usually play them on Sundays at the shop (linked above). U can b nerd 2.

Short Note: I boned my PC.

You may have read on my last post, I think I scrambled my BIOS to the point of it not booting fully, leaving me unable to get into the OS. You would think that I had the hardware skills to install a SATA drive, having built several computers and all. Alas, I am still a nub deep inside. During the process of trying to get XP to recognize the drive properly, I decided to try to flash my BIOS via a Windows based utility, on account of my not thinking I'd ever need an floppy drive again. Somewhere between the start and the finish occured an error, which resulted in what I assume is an imcomplete BIOS program and a comatose computer. Thanks to Lonk for trying, but after several attempts to revive it, it seems that my last resort is to perform a little bit of surgery on the motherboard. My board comes with a Dual BIOS setup, that is to say, it has a main BIOS and a backup BIOS in case something happens to the main. Unfortunately, the backup is not coming forward and taking over, so the plan is to physically remove the chips from the motherboard and swap their positions on the board, thereby allowing me to boot from the backup, and letting me reflash the main to a working condition thereafter. And I'll be able to get back to watching quality films and killing jerks.

I haven't had the time to do it this week on account of homework. I would have to pull out the motherboard from the case to have room to pry the chips out, and if you have ever built a computer, you know how much of a pain in the ass and time consuming that is. Luckily my laptop is still somewhat of a (relative) beast. It'll still run the Source engine at a decent clip with about medium settings, and since Valve games currently reign on the PC, it buys me some time to buy a replacement motherboard in the event that the surgery is unsuccessful.

Non-nerds may now resume reading.
Buy me a PS3. Thx.