Aug. 2nd, 2002

jcfiala: (Default)
Ah, Car Wars. Who can resist a board game where you drive around at high speeds and shoot the other cars?

My wife and I got an invitation yesterday to go to a Living Greyhawk game this weekend, and Tammy decided this meant we needed to go up to the local game store (Valhalla's) to pick her up one of the D&D Character sheet booklets that Green Ronin produces. (They're very nice character booklets, by the way.) While we were there, she started looking at the Miniatures, leaving me with the interesting sensation of standing around bored in a game store. (My wife is a much more visual person than I am, and insists on having a miniature for her character and her horse. I am entertained by using a little lego man or borrowing a figure.)

So, while I'm browsing at the store, I came across the most recent two releases of the New Car Wars line - The Division 5 Vehicle Guide and the Arena book.

For those of you who do not follow gaming so well, I should possibly explain. Car was was first released in the late 70's or early 80's as a cheap boardgame. The idea was that society had collapsed, leading to people putting armor and weapons on cars. This eventually lead to sporting events involving cars, and so the game was about either trying to get to point B w/o getting killed by a cycle gang, or by being last-man-standing in an arena.

The game took off, became popular, and became *complicated*. Each supplement and each issue of the magazine produced more gadgets, and the more gadgets there were the more options there were. The game even split out into boat, airplane, and take combat in the early 90's, and then died.

Well, Steve Jackson Games is re-releasing the game. They've simplified it a lot, and so far I think it's an improvement. For six bucks you can buy a little book containing four cars, counters, and the basic rules - everything you need to play the game. There's nine different starter books, so there's a wide variety of cars available.

The Division 5 vehicle guide is packed with a dozen more cars, each costing about $5000. (Divisions are used in the car wars universe to make sure that vehicles are approximately evenly matched.) The arena book, on the other hand, is packed with possible arenas to play in. There's 'The Alladin's Castle' in Las Vegas, an actual concrete castle that cars weave in and around in search of opponents. There's the Macon Duel Extravaganza, which is basically an old shopping mall. And there's the Blast Furnace, where jets of fire randomly shoot out from the wall. There's another eight arenas, but I wanted to point out some interesting ones. And beyond that, both of these books are only eight dollars each.

If you enjoy how this all sounds, I suggest gambling six dollars on one of the starter kits and giving the game a try. It's a lot of fun.

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