The Cristelli Files: January 2014

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Inferno by Dan Brown

What's the old saying (well, unless you're GWB)? Fool me once shame on you; fool me twice shame on me? I think I should keep that old adage in mind when Dan Brown puts out his next novel. I enjoyed Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code, but since then his writing has become formulaic and quite stale.

If that's so, you might ask, why did I pick up his newest book? Well, good reader, I can't resist a good deal. This one came through on Christmas as the NOOK deal of the day and I decided that $2 wasn't a bad price for something that should at least be mildly entertaining.

And I guess I got what I thought I would out of this. Since his earlier novels hit it big, Brown has written with a style that reminds me of a Michael Bay movie. There's a ton of action, little downtime, and more chapters than you can shake a stick at. While the writing isn't exactly BAD, it's not very fulfilling either.

This book centers around Robert Langdon, the professor of religious iconography who headlines most of Brown's books. Much like the three previous novels starring Langdon, he must use his knowledge of the ancient world to save the modern one. He wakes up in a hospital room in Florence and winds up traveling to other parts of Italy and beyond trying to stop the machinations of a man that committed suicide a few days prior. But there's a twist: he's lost his memory.

It's been a while since I read the first two novels starring Langdon, so I shouldn't make this comparison freely, but the books have really gone downhill since those two. I feel like the novels all have at least one plot twist that would make M. Night Shyamalan envious, sometimes more than one. Which would be fine, but most of the time you can see it coming. There were at least three in this one, and each one produced less surprised than the first.

I don't want to go too much farther into the book in case you would like to read it, but I finished the book feeling as if I had just sat through a history class that held no interest for me. The book felt spastic and thin in spots, and overly slow and filled with history in others.

All in all I think I've finally given Dan Brown his last chance with me. You know, until the next sale.

Sunday, January 5, 2014

A Sunday Full of Games!!

And by that, I mean the cardboard type and the football type!!

A couple of months ago I heard about a "new" board game store in town, Brap's Magic. Apparently they opened in March and have been trying to get the word out a little more. I've been in there a few times and purchased a few things as their prices are phenomenal.

This morning they held the first "Open Board Gaming" afternoon of the new year. Laura and I decided to go check it out and see what they had to offer. There were about 14 people there and quite a selection of games to demo. As we didn't want to be the lame people that went and played something we already own, we tried a couple of new games.

The first was Relic Runners, Days of Wonder's newest big box offering. We had a bit of a false start, playing the game incorrectly for about 15 minutes. As the mistakes we made were REALLY unrecoverable, we just tore it down and started again. Our second attempt was much smoother and the game wasn't bad. I didn't want to buy it immediately, and maybe a couple of other plays with more people would change things, but for now it was just kinda okay.

The next one was a game called OddVille. I knew next to nothing about this game, and hadn't even heard of it until I saw the "Rahdo Runs Through" video about his game shelf...and then we saw a demo copy this morning.

I loved this game. It's a blend of a few different mechanics that I enjoy and yet is a small game that we were able to play in about 30 minutes. I see this game getting a lot of table time and will be picking it up soon!

Around 3:00 we left Brap's, came back here, and had some lunch. Then it was time to head to Don and Robyn's...for football!! The Niners were in the bitter cold up in Wisconsin facing off against the Packers. It was a game I thought the Niners had a good shot of winning but Lambeau is a tough place to play in the postseason, especially when the wind chill brings things to below zero.

The Niners had a good hold on things in the first half, but then Aaron Rodgers got things cranked up in the second half. The Pack took the lead and then the Niners drove back and took it back. After a Green Bay field goal tied the game up, San Fran took over with about 5 minutes left. They ran the ball, pounded it out, and set themselves up to win the game with a field goal.

To describe just how close of a game it was, this is how close the field goal was to being blocked:

Dawson should have gotten six points - that's a second set of uprights he nailed that ball through!

The Niners won and advance on to Carolina to face the Panthers next week. Who's got it better than us???

NOBODY!!!

Saturday, January 4, 2014

Grand Theft Auto V

In 2002 I picked up a game for my Playstation 2 that sounded neat - Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. I played the hell out of that game and LOVED it. The open-world game play, the missions, the depravity...it just struck a chord with me. A few years later, GTA: San Andreas came out and that one was another hit for me.

Time passed and video gaming became less of a thing for me. Board games had taken over my leisure time and video games had gotten a bit cost-prohibitive. So GTA: IV was a game I knew nothing about, other than reminiscing about how much I loved the other games in the series.

Fast-forward to the summer of '13. I'm sitting at my desk while at lunch and surfing the web. Somehow, and I don't remember how, but I stumbled upon this video clip:

Holy CRAP. I saw this trailer and about wet myself. It looked completely amazing. I wanted it SO badly. Of course, as video games had fallen way to the wayside for me, I didn't have a console that could play it. So after some discussions with Laura, we decided that we might not get enough use from a new console and maybe it wasn't the best idea.

So then Black Friday rolls around. Laura and I are looking at flyers and she commented that the PS3s were fairly low in price for the upcoming holiday. We chatted about it a bit and decided that by using accumulated points from purchase we could get one for about $70...which was reasonable. Long story short (too late), we bought a PS3 and I picked up GTA:V.

WOW

I just finished the single-player campaign and it was phenomenal. I still have a lot of things that I can do to get to 100% completion, and even then I will still find ways to amuse myself with this game. I really dug the way you could switch between characters - especially mid-mission - and the choices you could make to alter the composition of each mission.

Of course, now that I'm done with part of it I'm a little worried. When GTA: VI comes out I'll have to upgrade again!

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Tzolk'in - The Mayan Calendar

Today Laura and I decided to try out one of our new games that we haven't gotten to the table yet. Tzolk'in was our choice for this session. We are trying a new gaming strategy where we play a game several times before trying another new one. This should help us to better learn nuances and make our gaming a lot more enjoyable.

Anyway, this one was great! A very clever board that has six plastic gears attached to it provide the main mechanic of the game: the passage of time. The actual gameplay mechanics are very simple. On your turn you are either placing a worker on the gears or taking one back to use the action that the worker was on.

The strategy, on the other hand, was VERY involved. There are several ways to collect victory points, and it's nigh impossible to concentrate on more than a couple. The game took quite a while, but a good deal of that was the reading of the rules. I feel that once the game becomes more familiar this one will speed up considerably.

At the end Laura housed me, but I really enjoyed this game! There are enough little variables that it will play differently every time and I see this one seeing a lot of table time!