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| | | Subject: A bit of both
Posted Jul 30, 2003 by Terran of the Shire (Stupid fat hobbitses)
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 | | I hate to be a pain here, and completely mess things up, but to be honest I've never seen the contradiction between playing board games and playing computer games. I was brought up on a diet of both of them (though I wouldn't recommend eating any monopoly houses myself).
I have got both the board game Risk and the computer game version, and while I prefer the board game version, I have no qualms about playing the computer version when there is no one to play the board game version with.
I would quite happily as a child play a game of monopoly, then go upstairs and beat the hell out of my Super NES in a game of Street Fighter II. It makes no difference to me. A games a game.
I think the sad think is that a lot of children today (damn it I old!) miss out in that they have not had the opportunity to enjoy a good board game. And I think that is sad.
Give a 1 year old a box, and he/she could be playing with it for hours. Give them a Game Boy and it could last 1 minute. But it could work the other way around.
Computer Games and board games can be as playable with a group of friends/family as each other.
I'm not sure whether it is entirely healthy to spend 10 hours non stop over the internet playing someone you don't know. But then it might not be that healthy to end up strangling someone because they have just backrupted you after a 20 hour game of monopoly.
It swings in roundabouts 
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| | | Subject: A bit of both
Posted Jul 30, 2003 by Roz
This is a reply to this Posting
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 | | Actually the Civilization board game is even better than the computer one. Human opponents are less predictable and therefore more fun to play.
My favourite board game is Diplomacy. It's similar Risk but with no dice. I think that maybe the best combination of computer games and board games is playing Diplomacy over the internet. It is quite hard to get 7 people who want to play in the same place at the same time. Instead you email your moves to a moderator who sends out the results at the end of each turn. This mode of play also solves the problems caused by the fact that I am not a student any more and need to sleep at night rather than play until dawn.
Roz.
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| | | Subject: A bit of both
Posted Jul 31, 2003 by Teasswill (only if it's green)
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5
| | I agree, both are good and each have pros & cons. If you really like playing games, you'll probably enjoy both board & PC games. Hubby isn't keen on games & hardly any of my friends enjoy board games, so it is great for me to be able to play solo using the computer. I can choose something to last a few minutes or a few hours & as someone else said, you can save your position & come back to it.
On the other hand, board games are more transportable & not reliant on power. There can be more satisfaction from beating a human opponent in the flesh!
I'm not so keen on console games - haven't got the dexterity or co-ordination to do well - but I can see the attraction in them.
PC games can be communal in the real world, not just online. My elder son had several friends over last weekend, with their computers. They sat round, networked together & played games (among other things).
I don't think there's any less communication between two boys sitting at a playstation together, each with a keypad, than there is if they were kicking a ball to each other or playing a board game.
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| | | Subject: A bit of both
Posted Aug 1, 2003 by Cheerful Dragon
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| | I agree, Teasswill. I like to play board games, but hubby isn't always in the mood to play. I have computer versions of backgammon, Monopoly and Cluedo (Clue to our American friends) as well as 'computer only' (IMHO) games like Civilization II and Black & White. I've been trying to hone my skills at Monopoly using the computer, with little success - Richard still thrashes me. Mind you, I usually beat him at Trivial Pursuit.
I don't play the kind of computer games where you can have friends round cheering you on or jeering - I don't enjoy those kinds of games. Even if I play an online game, I play one that only requires one player or is played against the computer. If we have friends round, we get the board games out. There's one called "Hagar the Horrible's Glog Game", which involves drinking (not necessarily alcohol!) and silly 'forfeits'. It's a lot of fun if there's a group of you - shame it's not available any more. We took "Go For Broke" with us when we went to see Richards brother and his family at Christmas, and we all enjoyed ourselves.
So, for me, computer games are great for playing solo but board games give me a lot of fun when playing with friends and family.
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| | | Subject: A bit of both
Posted Aug 1, 2003 by Mr. Christopher, enjoying the Magicians Guild game where he is called Polonius Franc, Elder Healer and local merchant
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7
| | When I play games, I enjoy either really long games or creative games, like jigsaw puzzles. I have many real and computer jigsaw puzzles, as well as nifty board-game-turned-computer-games like Monopoly, backgammon, Clue, etc. I also play the Sim computer games like Sim City (2000, 3000, 4) and The Sims. Often I cannot find friends to play the games, so I play on computer.
Still, I think I would prefer to play games in the real world. I have come up with some really outragious versions of games where I increase the size of the board to fill a parking lot and we dress up and play giant Chess, Stratego, or Monopoly or something similar.
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