Shrapnel Games Blog

I don’t own Rock Band, and chances are I will never. Rhythm games are just not my thing, and as far as I’m aware, aren’t much fun for anyone else I game with. To be fair who knows, maybe it’s a really fun genre, but I’m in no hurry to find out.

I do understand the lure of Rock Band, though. I suppose with the right kind of crowd it could be a fun little party game; knock back a few cold ones and jump around like an idiot to Poison while hammering away on a plastic guitar or drum set. Hell, I have ex-girlfriends who would probably go out and buy a console solely for that pleasure.

The key is obviously the group dynamic. I imagine it falls rather flat if you’re being a hermit. Likewise, I don’t know if it includes online play, but if it does and everyone is off rocking out at their own places, I’m guessing you really lose out on the experience. It would seem that the social aspect is probably far more important than the actual gameplay.

As a tabletop gamer I can understand the importance of the group. That’s why I never really got the thrill of playing board games online, whether through VASSAL or by some other means. The game itself may not change, but there is something drastically different with the experience. It’s like a kiss from your aunt that you have to see every Christmas and a kiss from the hot neighbor who models lingerie in her spare time. Technically they’re the same, lips pressing on your flesh, but radically different in terms of what you experience. Online social gaming is the aunt, face to face play the hot neighbor chick.

So why don’t we do more hotseat strategy gaming?

I don’t even remember the last time I played something in hotseat mode. I think maybe it was Heroes of Might and Magic II or III.

I can’t blame it on the old standby that I don’t have the time, because I have no problem spending an entire day role-playing, or board gaming. I can’t blame it on no opponents since the same folks I’m spending all that time with gaming have similar computer gaming interests.

One problem is for whatever reason I have never been able to devote the same amount of time to computer gaming as I do to other forms of gaming. Not in terms of finding the time, but just finding the desire to sit at the computer for any length of time. Strangely I used to run D&D groups from about five in the afternoon until two or three in the morning and was completely fine with that, but spending more than an hour or two on one computer game rarely occurs. Yes, there are those exceptions that will lock my ass in my desk chair until the wee hours of the morning, but those have been few and far between. Spending a day board gaming though, no matter how average the game, is common.

Funny how some of the strengths of computer gaming are no set up times, no lost counters, and a program to handle all your bookkeeping needs, and yet on game day we’d rather pull out a boardgame and set it up, scrounge for counters, and pass the calculator around to figure out the tax base of the Kingdom of Ansbuch. Why isn’t hotseat computer gaming more popular?

Am I alone? Does anyone else get together with their gaming buddies and fire up a hotseat game?