Saturday, March 11, 2006

Where the Geek and I (occasionally) disagree

Another audioblog. (about 16 minutes long, 3.8 MB)

I think the sound quality is not very good on this one - I should not try to record while the rest of the family (including interstate guest) are sleeping.

Happy third birthday to my gorgeous little Otto.



This week, I steal an idea from John Farrell a.k.a. Friendless and talk about the largest disparities between my ratings and the BGG averages:














Largest 10 Disparities
NameMelissa's RatingAverageDisparity
Medici 1.0 7.09 6.09
Basari 3.0 7.04 4.04
Snakes and Ladders 6.0 2.64 3.36
Captain Treasure Boots 3.0 6.04 3.04
Imaginiff 3.0 5.98 2.98
Ys 5.0 7.49 2.49
Werewolf 9.8 7.33 2.42
Nobody But Us Chickens 4.0 6.39 2.39
Crocodile Pool Party 7.0 4.65 2.35
Nightmare 3.0 5.30 2.30


Tell me what you think - and have a great week,

Melissa

7 comments:

huzonfirst said...

Wow, you really despise Medici, Melissa! And it doesn't really seem like a game that causes such strong reactions. Why the hate, if I may ask?

BTW, I'll be sure to mention to Tom Vasel your vast love of Crocodile Pool Party!

Melissa said...

I think Medici was just an enormous let-down because it LOOKD so beautiful that I expected it to be a great game as well.

OMG Teh Game betrayed me!!!

Fraser said...

I haven't listened to Melissa's audio bit yet (been too busy) but if she didn't point it out, the Medici she is talking about is not the Reiner one, it is the old 1982 one. In my browsing of the (terribly written) rules, I think she and her friends got it wrong, however even if played correctly it doesn't seem like a great game.

Grog get with the rest of the world, the game has always been Snakes and Ladders, it's time for the US to catch up.

Anonymous said...

To be fair, reading the user comments in the 1982 Medici it seems there are a LOT of people that mix up the two. It's possible that the 7.09 rating for this Medici is even skewed a little high because of that.

I'm surprised about your comment on the geek about Basari combined with your Citadels rating. To me, the 'random' elements in both are very similar.

huzonfirst said...

Thanks for the clarification, Fraser. Knizia's Medici is an excellent game, but "beautiful" is not an adjective I'd use to describe it!

Melissa said...

Larry: It's an audio post. You're meant to listen before you comment ;)

Grog: Thanks. And the crikeys were for you, Mary and ... ? (someone else said "Where's the crikey?" last time...

Ratpfink: I agree that the rating for the Evil Medici is almost certainly waaay too high than it should be.

I think that we were taught Basari wrong. Not only did it take way too long, it was the most incredibly frustrating game for me. Citadels I didn't mind, because it was reasonably quick and the actions were less about complete screwage - you could generally still do something - where the way we were taught Basari, it was "now you can do nothing this turn as well because you chose BADLY"

Anonymous said...

Melissa, I think you definitely were taught Basari wrong. I listened in my car, and when I heard you say 2 HOURS in your audio, I almost hit a tree! (OK, well, not really, but it makes the story more exciting!)

A lot of actions in Basari are done simultaneously, and it's a pretty light game. With the full 4 players I've never had a game last more than 30 minutes, and I'm thinking you can go to maybe 40 at most.

I'm not a cheerleader for the game or anything, but for what it is it's pretty good. It was one of the first games I played with my parents to get them into other games. But there's definitely not enough for 2 hours.