17/8/2011: Resident Evil

I'm actually thinking of writing to Bandai and asking them to rename their Resident Evil Card Game like this:

RESIDENT EVIL: NEW AND EVER-MORE INVENTIVE WAYS FOR MATT TO GET HIMSELF KILLED.


Not hard to see how this one went, but it's worth noting that Dave had decided to play the hard version of the game - where all the monsters do 10 more damage than they're supposed to, and any effects are applied twice. This - plus my overconfident stupidity - is what cost me in the end...

At least it won't take so long to set up now that we've got it - there's 6 core items that are included in every game, and the remaining 12 can either be a pre-set that the game suggests, or 12 of whatever the hell you like. I think Dave was all for the latter but I think that could lead to a very unbalanced game if you don't know what you're doing so I insisted that we follow the 'Classic Horror' pre-set, at least for now.

Because we knew how ferociously hard the enemies in the mansion could become, we didn't venture in there for about an hour, instead using our turns to build up our collection of weapons in to something we could actually use. My character was Claire Redfield, and her effect is making her ammunition count as 10 more than what it actually is - invaluable, as I then don't need to draw so many ammo cards in order to fire the big guns. I had to make sure I got my hands on the full-bore machine gun - you need a lot of ammo to use it, but I had the character that would have made it all the more easy.

I have a peculiar gaming mantra: while I tend to play defensively, I'm also aware of the benefits of taking risks - after all, as I'll happily tell anyone who'll listen, not taking risks is how Napoleon cost himself Russia. So after building up a sizeable collection of weapons I was the first to enter the mansion, and I was building up a good set of kills and commendations. I never got so far ahead of Dave that he wouldn't have been able to catch up if he'd killed the Uroboros plant - that monster is worth 8 commendations and as soon as it dies, the game ends. The fact that it can kill most of the female characters and a significant number of the males in one fell swoop usually decides the matter without the need to count up your commendations, and I only avoided this because I'd come across some herbs earlier in the mansion that boosted Claire's health from 70 to 90. Nonetheless, for a while it all seemed to be going my way.

This was never going to end well for Claire...

And then it happened - I went into the mansion with 45 attack points and came across a Hunter. In the normal game, that would have been fine. In the Hard game, I fell just short of being able to kill it, and it wasted me for 50 points. In a moment of intense stupidity I decided to go back to the mansion without healing myself, with about the same amount of attack points, and came across a Licker. And again, had this been the normal game, I'd have gotten away with it. But no. There was the licker with 50 attack points, and me with 45 and about half my health. The ensuing battle was very short.

So, another game handed to Dave via my reckless abandon. To be fair, going in to the mansion again without healing myself was the worst idea I'd had in a long long time, and it cost me, but in all other respects I think I played quite well. Always looking forward to the next one, which won't be for a while because I'm extremely busy in the evenings and probably most of the days next week.

Painting blog coming up next, see you soon...