My family is a fairly active one, especially in the Spring through Fall seasons. We camp frequently and that involves plenty of hiking, wading through water, climbing and playing sports. We also like to take the kids on frequent outings while the weather’s nice and often as not, that involves walking. Whether strolling through the downtown of a city, tromping through a park or along a hiking trail, visiting the zoo, theme parks or a museum, there’s usually a lot of walking involved. And through the summer, we hit the beach at least once a week as well. Someone at Merrell has obviously read about our undertakings and saw that GeekDad has dabbled in footwear before, as they reached out and offered up some current footwear to put through its paces.

I was happy to give it a whirl. Our kids are pretty tough on shoes, especially my daughter Natasha, who has a well-earned reputation for tackling terrain that’s more difficult than necessary, combined with a fondness for water and picky fashion sense.

Merrell Waterpro Z-Rap for Kids

Natasha is also a vegetarian, so the Waterpro Z-Raps were a perfect choice. They drain easily when wet, they provided traction for clambering on rocks and climbing trees and they look smart. The mesh doesn’t just help water to drain faster, it also helps provide ventilation. They withstood a solid day of tromping around Canada’s Wonderland without a word of complaint, and that’s saying something. Slipping the shoes on and off was easy thanks to the elastic enclosure and best of all, Natasha embraced these shoes because anything resembling leather was synthetic. My wife is also on a “no leather” tear and she was extremely happy with the Waterpro Pandi shoes she received. She reports they are extremely comfortable for walking, as well as providing support on rocks and grip on slippery surfaces. They also include hydro drainage ports and a ventilated foot bed for quick drying after wading in the surf. And they are vegan friendly.

Merrell Women's Waterpro Pandi

I was sent a pair of Waterpro Tawas. While my Teva water sandals are quicker to put on and take off (snap buckles vs. laces on the Merrells), I’ve put the Waterpro Tawas through miles of concrete, gravel, grass, beach and some malls as well, not to mention a few casual football, baseball and soccer sessions and they’re currently my favorite, all purpose summer shoes. Well, I’m pretty fond of the Clash Chuck Taylors I scored for Father’s Day too, but those only come out for special occasions… Like the other Merrells we received, any leather used on the Waterpro Tawas is synthetic. They wash well, dry fast and still look virtually brand new. And I have to admit, I’m kind of partial to the funky orange and green color scheme. At $95 they aren’t unreasonable compared to other shoes in this class and I’ll likely buy another pair if/when I ever wear these ones out.

Merrell Men's Waterpro Tawas

Adult shoes are one thing -it’s not like I’m going to grow out of them, so they are a reasonable investment- but is it worth forking out $55 for a pair of kid’s shoes? The WaterPro Z-Raps will certainly outlast most kids’ use of them, but by the time they move on and grow out of them, I suspect the shoes will still be in pretty good shape. Give them a good wash and if you choose a fairly neutral color, you should be able to hand the shoes down to a sibling and get another full cycle out of them. They’re also good in terms of support, and as someone who’s spent more time than I’d like listening to kids complain about sore feet during a day of walking, the Merrells are probably worth it on that front alone.  We’re heading off to Disney World for a few weeks shortly; that will be the ultimate test, but I suspect the shoes are up to it.

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Image: John Booth

We stood outside the tomb, watching it collapse. Then we got our Experience Points and had pie.

In a moment a quarter-century in the making, I completed my first Dungeons & Dragons quest this month, with my wife and daughter playing their first adventure alongside.

I never got to play D&D for real as a kid. In middle school, my interest was at its peak thanks to TSR’s Endless Quest books like Pillars of Pentegarn and that absolutely terrible Mazes & Monsters movie. (Thankfully, I was too young to realize what a ridiculous pile of anti-gaming propaganda it was, and at any rate, it actually fueled my fire to learn D&D, so BRAINWASH FAIL.) Unfortunately, I only had one friend who shared my curiosity about the game. Over the course of a year or two, we each got a basic set and some modules and books, and while we loved rolling up characters and reading about creatures and cave systems and towns hiding dark secrets, it was tough to actually play with just the two of us. We took turns faking our way through adventures, one of us loosely Dungeon Mastering – in fact, even calling it that is an insult to DMs everywhere – the other running a party of 3 or 4 characters and basically jumping from encounter to encounter and grabbing treasure. Nobody ever died.

Still, my thing for roleplaying games stuck around for years: In addition to my old D&D stash, I owned rulebooks and sourcebooks and modules for Shadowrun, James Bond and Star Wars gaming systems even though I never actually got to play any of them, with the exception of a one-session Shadowrun adventure in college.

This year, though, the D&D itch came back during my trip to PAX East. I met up with my friends Kato and Wendy there, and the three of us spent a good chunk of time hanging out with the other GeekDad writers and Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks author Ethan Gilsdorf. The whole atmosphere really got to me, from the gaming tables and the dice vendors to Wil Wheaton’s keynote to just listening to Natania and Michael and Kato and Wendy talk Dungeons & Dragons. Seriously: I came awfully close to buying a set of dice to replace the ones I’d lost track of decades ago, despite having absolutely no need for them.

Upon returning home, I read Ethan’s book which, coupled with Kato’s offer to make room for me in a game he was running, pretty much made my delve back into D&D inevitable.

The really cool thing is that when I mentioned this to my wife, she threw me for a wonderful loop by saying she’d like to give it a try, too.

So it was that I found myself buying three sets of dice, my first Player’s Handbook, printing out character sheets and puzzling over abilities and powers and traits.

Kato and Wendy are RPG veterans, both with gaming roots going back to their early teenage years, and both have several years of D&D experience. Kato, who blogs about DMing at One Inch Square, ran a few Middle-Earth Role Playing system games as a kid and started sitting behind the D&D screen with the Third Edition.

I don’t have the longview to put D&D’s seemingly-divisive 4^th edition in detailed perspective, but I can say that as a first-timer, I found the d20-based play far easier to digest than the one I remember trying to wrap my junior-high brain around. The power, action and weapon cards Kato provided made for quick learning during combat, and I was also happy to see a hit point system far different than the one I tried to learn when I was younger – one in which, say, the wrong roll of a d4 could off your first-level cleric before you even crossed a tavern’s threshold.

Playing with miniatures also helped the learning curve. As much as I loved drawing maps on graph paper back in middle school, it was really difficult to visualize our combat playing out in those little quarter-inch squares. But with a battle map and walls and pillars laid out on the table, where sixth-grade me would’ve simply settled for saying “I swing my sword,” grown-up me was able to fully consider my character’s abilities and the environment and what moves might work.

Image: John Booth

My wife, having had no prior exposure to the game, was nervous at first, but by the end of our first session, when we got in the car to head home, it was a thrill to hear her say 1) how much fun she’d had, and 2) things like, “You know, I should have used my Elven Accuracy to re-roll one of those attacks.”

Our daughter, at 13, was intrigued and was on the fence about playing – Kato rolled up a character and worked up a background just in case – but while she only sat and watched that first night, as soon as we left, she said something to the effect of “Next time, I’m in.” She joined the party for the remaining two game nights, admirably filling her wizard’s role. Again, those reference cards were invaluable in helping her keep track of spells and powers and abilities, and she took to the game quickly. (She even earned bonus role-playing points for a pure-adrenaline “I kick the body” moment after a really hard-fought encounter.)

It was about far more than the fighting, though. I loved listening to Kato set up our adventure, working in the brief back story I had created for my halfling rogue and fleshing out the stories behind my wife’s elven cleric and my daughter’s wizard and Wendy’s fighter. I loved hearing my wife react in character to a none-too-subtle halfling cough of warning. I loved the moments of silence right after a scene was set, when the four of us needed to figure out what we were going to do next. And I loved the energetic post-session conversations my wife and daughter and I had about the game and our characters and what we could have done, and what we might try the next time around.

The biggest factors for the success of the three-session adventure, of course, were our gaming companions, so if you’ve got friends willing to show you the ropes, by all means take them up on the offer.

Kato not only crafted a great one-shot adventure perfectly suited for our characters’ levels and our gaming experience – our final encounter included a couple pretty close brushes with death, although my inexperience showed in my failure to force a re-roll on a particularly damaging hit – he also ran the game while teaching it and made it a crazy amount of fun.

And Wendy played her half-orc fighter with a great balance of enthusiasm and patience, encouraging us new players and illustrating how to use different actions to achieve specific goals in combat.

I can’t say enough how awesome it was finally playing this game I’d been wanting to give a shot for so long, and having it turn out to be such an incredibly fantastic family experience at the same time.

(Hey, sixth-grade me? If you’re out there — the Second Chance power is important: Don’t forget to use it.)

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Image: John Booth

We stood outside the tomb, watching it collapse. Then we got our Experience Points and had pie.

In a moment a quarter-century in the making, I completed my first Dungeons & Dragons quest this month, with my wife and daughter playing their first adventure alongside.

I never got to play D&D for real as a kid. In middle school, my interest was at its peak thanks to TSR’s Endless Quest books like Pillars of Pentegarn and that absolutely terrible Mazes & Monsters movie. (Thankfully, I was too young to realize what a ridiculous pile of anti-gaming propaganda it was, and at any rate, it actually fueled my fire to learn D&D, so BRAINWASH FAIL.) Unfortunately, I only had one friend who shared my curiosity about the game. Over the course of a year or two, we each got a basic set and some modules and books, and while we loved rolling up characters and reading about creatures and cave systems and towns hiding dark secrets, it was tough to actually play with just the two of us. We took turns faking our way through adventures, one of us loosely Dungeon Mastering – in fact, even calling it that is an insult to DMs everywhere – the other running a party of 3 or 4 characters and basically jumping from encounter to encounter and grabbing treasure. Nobody ever died.

Still, my thing for roleplaying games stuck around for years: In addition to my old D&D stash, I owned rulebooks and sourcebooks and modules for Shadowrun, James Bond and Star Wars gaming systems even though I never actually got to play any of them, with the exception of a one-session Shadowrun adventure in college.

This year, though, the D&D itch came back during my trip to PAX East. I met up with my friends Kato and Wendy there, and the three of us spent a good chunk of time hanging out with the other GeekDad writers and Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks author Ethan Gilsdorf. The whole atmosphere really got to me, from the gaming tables and the dice vendors to Wil Wheaton’s keynote to just listening to Natania and Michael and Kato and Wendy talk Dungeons & Dragons. Seriously: I came awfully close to buying a set of dice to replace the ones I’d lost track of decades ago, despite having absolutely no need for them.

Upon returning home, I read Ethan’s book which, coupled with Kato’s offer to make room for me in a game he was running, pretty much made my delve back into D&D inevitable.

The really cool thing is that when I mentioned this to my wife, she threw me for a wonderful loop by saying she’d like to give it a try, too.

So it was that I found myself buying three sets of dice, my first Player’s Handbook, printing out character sheets and puzzling over abilities and powers and traits.

Kato and Wendy are RPG veterans, both with gaming roots going back to their early teenage years, and both have several years of D&D experience. Kato, who blogs about DMing at One Inch Square, ran a few Middle-Earth Role Playing system games as a kid and started sitting behind the D&D screen with the Third Edition.

I don’t have the longview to put D&D’s seemingly-divisive 4^th edition in detailed perspective, but I can say that as a first-timer, I found the d20-based play far easier to digest than the one I remember trying to wrap my junior-high brain around. The power, action and weapon cards Kato provided made for quick learning during combat, and I was also happy to see a hit point system far different than the one I tried to learn when I was younger – one in which, say, the wrong roll of a d4 could off your first-level cleric before you even crossed a tavern’s threshold.

Playing with miniatures also helped the learning curve. As much as I loved drawing maps on graph paper back in middle school, it was really difficult to visualize our combat playing out in those little quarter-inch squares. But with a battle map and walls and pillars laid out on the table, where sixth-grade me would’ve simply settled for saying “I swing my sword,” grown-up me was able to fully consider my character’s abilities and the environment and what moves might work.

Image: John Booth

My wife, having had no prior exposure to the game, was nervous at first, but by the end of our first session, when we got in the car to head home, it was a thrill to hear her say 1) how much fun she’d had, and 2) things like, “You know, I should have used my Elven Accuracy to re-roll one of those attacks.”

Our daughter, at 13, was intrigued and was on the fence about playing – Kato rolled up a character and worked up a background just in case – but while she only sat and watched that first night, as soon as we left, she said something to the effect of “Next time, I’m in.” She joined the party for the remaining two game nights, admirably filling her wizard’s role. Again, those reference cards were invaluable in helping her keep track of spells and powers and abilities, and she took to the game quickly. (She even earned bonus role-playing points for a pure-adrenaline “I kick the body” moment after a really hard-fought encounter.)

It was about far more than the fighting, though. I loved listening to Kato set up our adventure, working in the brief back story I had created for my halfling rogue and fleshing out the stories behind my wife’s elven cleric and my daughter’s wizard and Wendy’s fighter. I loved hearing my wife react in character to a none-too-subtle halfling cough of warning. I loved the moments of silence right after a scene was set, when the four of us needed to figure out what we were going to do next. And I loved the energetic post-session conversations my wife and daughter and I had about the game and our characters and what we could have done, and what we might try the next time around.

The biggest factors for the success of the three-session adventure, of course, were our gaming companions, so if you’ve got friends willing to show you the ropes, by all means take them up on the offer.

Kato not only crafted a great one-shot adventure perfectly suited for our characters’ levels and our gaming experience – our final encounter included a couple pretty close brushes with death, although my inexperience showed in my failure to force a re-roll on a particularly damaging hit – he also ran the game while teaching it and made it a crazy amount of fun.

And Wendy played her half-orc fighter with a great balance of enthusiasm and patience, encouraging us new players and illustrating how to use different actions to achieve specific goals in combat.

I can’t say enough how awesome it was finally playing this game I’d been wanting to give a shot for so long, and having it turn out to be such an incredibly fantastic family experience at the same time.

(Hey, sixth-grade me? If you’re out there — the Second Chance power is important: Don’t forget to use it.)

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The family and I are on a small trip to beautiful Vancouver, BC this week (and the locals are grateful we brought our California weather with us). Looking for interesting things to do on a free day, a local (thanks David H.) pointed us towards Stanley Park, and the aquarium there. Now aquaria (yeah, that’s the proper plural for those of us who took 4 years of Latin in high school, mei amici) can be hit or miss, but the Vancouver Aquarium has something special – special enough to keep two jaded geek-tweens happy for a few hours.

From the website:

The Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre is a self-supporting, non-profit association dedicated to effecting the conservation of aquatic life through display and interpretation, education, research, and direct action.

Admissions, programs, groups, membership, retail operations, and food services account for 81% of the Aquarium’s operating budget while charitable contributions, donations and restricted grants comprise the remainder.

What does that mean? That there’s a lot of good going on because of the place. The sea lion, dolphin and Beluga whale shows are wholesome without having the marine-park feeling of a circus for water animals. The tropical and arctic areas have wonderful displays and interactive learning stations. Overall, it’s an excellent afternoon out with plenty to explore and see for the whole family.

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Finished product: Cilantro-Lime Spinach Dip; CC Natania Barron

I have a few confessions before I start the review: I don’t watch America’s Test Kitchen and I don’t usually cook to recipes. Which might seem confusing, considering this is a review of the DSi XL’s America’s Test Kitchen: Let’s Get Cooking game, which is based on recipes, right?

Well, sometimes the promise of a game is far more than at first glance. What I really liked about the America’s Test Kitchen: Let’s Get Cooking game is the fact that it enables group collaboration during food preparation and cooking, and it even allows customization for age appropriateness (i.e. use of heat and sharp objects). I’m dedicated to teaching my son how to find his way around a kitchen, and anything that can help streamline the process is of great interest to me.

Over the weekend I made two of the recipes: Cilantro-Lime Spinach Dip (pictured above) and a Freeform Summer Fruit Tart. The game and the console were provided by Nintendo, as well as the groceries: an easy, fun review of epic culinary proportions.

My first project was the dip, and I made this alone to familiarize myself with the program. Essentially, the game works by giving you step-by-step instructions for each recipe, complete with videos and information on the ingredients and cooking processes. If you’re in a rush you don’t have to access any of this extra content, but it’s great for people who are either just learning how to cook or want a refresher course on kitchen basics.

And, I should add, the bigger screen makes a huge difference with the DSi XL. It’s easily visible across the kitchen and definitely makes perfect sense for a game such as this.

Because the spinach dip required no cooking, the learning curve was fairly easy. The program is voice activated which allows for hands-free movement through the game, but I found that it often thought my banging around the kitchen was speaking. So I turned this feature off, and just went through the recipe manually. Of all the features in the game, the voice recognition is probably the least impressive.

Me at the food processor, Liam eating berries, Caroline helping out!; CC Natania Barron

However, taste-wise, the spinach dip was incredible! So delicious. We fed it to our D&D group that night, and it was pretty much devoured to the very last bit. I was pleased with the overall balance of flavors, and the texture. My only personal preference would be to take out the garlic. While the initial flavor was good, I probably could have turned a vampire with my breath afterward!

The Freeform Summer Fruit Tart I admit, I approached with a little trepidation. I mean, pastry dough is hard. Even for me, and I’ve been cooking and baking since I was 12. I enlisted the help of my three and a half year old, Liam, and Caroline, my mother in law, to test this one out. I loved that it was primarily fresh ingredients—berries like blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries—baked in a sour cream pastry crust.

Finished product: Freeform Summer Fruit Tart; CC Natania Barron

While my kitchen is about the size of a closet, we were able to work well together in spite of the lack of space. The game assigned tasks appropriate for Liam (who spent more time eating the raw berries than really concentrating on the task at hand, but he definitely felt as if he were a part of the whole process) and the more complex tasks to Caroline and me.

We worked very well together, and the recipe definitely takes the headache out of group cooking. Not only did everything go smoothly, but the final product was beautiful and remarkably delicious. My guests had fewer words to say about it and more general “Ooooh…” and “Yum!”

The game comes preloaded with enough recipes to last you and your family a year (over three hundred), and is truly a blast to use. We all had a marvelous time, and the recipes were absolutely delicious. That, for me, was the big test. I’m a constant tinkerer in the kitchen, and I often mistrust recipes not of my own devising, but there were no worries here. Highly recommended, not just for the fun factor, but for practicality. This would definitely come in handy for a last-minute dinner (as you can search by ingredients, and most of the recipes are with common ingredients) that everyone can lend a hand with.

Wired: Great recipes, delicious outcomes, easy to navigate software, excellent family game even for younger kids

Tired: Voice recognition software is a little buggy.

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Image: Out of the Box Games

Some people love word games. Some people really don’t. I’m somewhere in the middle. I really enjoy some word games very much, such as Boggle and Quiddler, but others aren’t as much fun, such as AmuseAmaze. So when I received a review copy of Letter Roll, I wasn’t sure on which side it would land.

Promoting itself to be “Everybody’s Word Game,” Letter Roll has many options that you can set depending on how difficult you want to make the game. It contains seven 20-sided dice. Two contain frequently used letters (white), three contain less frequently used letters (blue) and two use infrequently used letters (orange). The basic rules say to take turns rolling four of the seven dice and then choosing three of those on which to base your words. Each person writes down as many words as they can that use all of the shown letters. After time is up, you compare lists and cross out duplicates. Each remaining word scores one point. Because of this, unusual or extra long words may gain you points, while common words that everyone thinks up will probably get crossed off.

The rule sheet has some basic guidelines for play, such as how many rounds you play, and some variations for easier or more difficult games. But the beauty of this game is that you can make it as easy or hard, or as short or long as you want it to be. By giving you excellent game materials, you can even make up your own games.

You could make the game easier by rolling and choosing fewer dice, or make it much more difficult, by using more. Or you could restrict yourself to the more frequently or infrequently used letter dice. This game is incredibly adaptable for playing with mixed age groups, such as families. In addition to the different dice, there are two sand timers. One is a two minute timer, for a standard game, and the other is a one minute timer, for a fast game. Or you can use the timers as we did, using the two minute timer for the kids and the one minute timer for the adults. That way the kids have a built in advantage to have more time to write and think of words.

I like that the scoring is much simpler than Boggle, with just one point per word. Also, since misspellings are allowed (as long as the required letters are still present and aren’t incorrectly included), kids feel more free to write down difficult words. This definitely helps them learn spelling by taking a chance on words they wouldn’t ordinarily try to write.

After playing it a few times, I’ve decided that I do enjoy Letter Roll and I strongly recommend it to others who enjoy word games. I have played with just grownups, and also with a mix of kids and grownups. It works equally well both ways, especially when it is established that you’re playing to have fun, not necessarily to win. But it is easy to give the kids an advantage over the adults by changing the rules around a bit.

Letter Roll from Out of the Box Games is currently available on Amazon for about $17.

Wired: High quality dice, easy to learn, extremely easy to customize, enjoyable game play.

Tired: The sand timers aren’t as high quality as the other pieces, but they do their job.

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A Vambit creature by Ponoko (Image: Jenny Williams)

We just got back Monday night from this year’s Maker Faire. This was my second year helping to run the GeekDad booth there. Last year was quite a lot of fun as we gave out little things to people and spread the word about what GeekDad is all about. But so many people asked where they could buy our T-shirts that we felt that there was a big missed opportunity. Not so this year! Between our fearless leader Ken Denmead’s new book, Geek Dad, and GeekDad and GeekKid T-shirts in various sizes, we had plenty to offer. The books all sold out, and we sold quite a number of both kinds of shirts.

My husband and kids were there with me as well, and they had plenty of time to take in all of the other exhibitor booths, activities and demonstrations. They learned to solder at the Maker Shed, they built cute little plastic creatures at the Ponoko booth, they climbed into a rocket, they played for hours at the Exploratorium booth and they played with the other GeekKids. My husband enjoyed checking out the gardening and culinary mushroom booths, but especially enjoyed playing with all the kids. I managed to get some time away from the booth to see most of the hall where we were located, plus the Maker Shed, Bazaar Bizarre and several other spots. I just wish I’d made it over to the steampunk shopping area.

We were in a great location this year, across the aisle from the Make: presentation area, and around the corner from LEGO Education. Our booth’s LEGO builds and demolition derby contests were very popular, so our booth was always crowded. Our own Jonathan Liu demonstrated his wicked Etch-a-Sketch drawing skills, amazing everyone who saw them. Anton Olsen’s Hexbug Habitat swarming with Hexbug Nanos was a constant draw as well. The only drawback of the weekend was standing for two days on a concrete floor. Lesson for next year – bring squishy mats!

Maker Faire is held over a two day weekend, but you could easily fill a week with the number of things that there are to see and do. I highly recommend it for grown-ups, kids and families.

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Image Courtesy of Symantec

In March I was given a presentation of the Norton Online Family service. Having a boy of 15 and a girl of 10 who use the the desktop and the netbook frequently, I gave it a test drive.

The first thing I needed to do was set up an account at Onlinefamily.norton.com There is no charge for the service, but there are ads on the side of the page after you log in. I don’t notice the ads because they are low key and not in your face. Symantec’s philosophy behind making this service free impressed me. They believe that no family should forgo on-line protection because of economic reasons.

Once the account is set up you can start adding users. Your kids must have their own login name if you want to customize the settings for each child.

Once the child’s profile is set up you can move on to the settings. Here’s a rundown of the services available:

• Web blocking settings allow you to choose what categories are blocked as well as giving you the ability to add custom sites.
• Safe search ensures that no adult content will be displayed when your child searches Google, Yahoo or other major sites including YouTube.
• Personal information protection so that Norton Online Family will block a site when your child puts in personal information, like a phone number address or a social security number.
• Under the IM section you can block IMs until friends are approved by you.
• Finally, Social Media will let you know if your 12-year-old daughter just set up a Facebook page as a 22-year-old.
• You can also set up time limits for internet access

You will have to install an agent on all the computers you want to monitor. The agent is also free and they support Windows and Mac OS. Sorry Linux users, no support yet.

Overall I felt the product was easy to set up and did its job well. I’ve tried other products that only offered web site blocking and time restrictions. I think the other features Norton Online Family offers such as IM and Social Media will allow the service to grow with your children as their on-line activity matures. Let’s face facts: The price is right also.

Norton Online Family’s approach to monitoring is different from the typical “block it and walk away” paradigm. The site offers advice on how to open a dialogue with your children about their on-line activity as well as information for parents who aren’t as net savvy as their kids. This is the most important piece of the puzzle. No software will instill the ideals and behavior you want your children to have on-line . Just like in real life, you need to talk to them about what is appropriate and what is not appropriate. Norton Online Family gives you tools to help you get that conversation started.

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Story Gamer (image: gampeople.co.uk)

Video games don’t usually bear very much  resemblance to real life. Not only a lack of consequences, and super powers, but the characters often seem to exist in a post-human state without jobs, mortgages or families. It was with some excitement then that I read Mark Clapham’s review  of Assassin’s Creed 2 – Ezio has a firm family story.

But it doesn’t stop there, he has a pampered younger sister Claudia. “Wrenched from her fashionable city life, Claudia finds herself in an unusual position for a wealthy young woman, taking charge of the estate accounts and managing the family business. Her bickering discussions with her older brother, as she rails against this new life and berates her brother when he neglects his duties, are wholly believable.”

Here, Assassin’s Creed does something very unusual – focuses gameplay itself on this day to day running of family affairs. So much so that Clapham, Game People’s reviewer who focuses on story, was taken up by the task of making this aspect of Ezio’s world work. I’ll quote from Clapham’s review:

This micro-economic sub-game is surprisingly akin to Animal Crossing in its warm, nurturing atmosphere, and I got real pleasure from seeing Monteriggioni transform from a dilapidated, bleak town with boarded up windows to a thriving, well-lit community. It’s a surprisingly gentle, sentimental diversion in a game full of bloody, retributive violence. Without enemies to deal with, exploration in the town and various hidden areas becomes a more relaxed experience.

Eventually, I’d levelled up most of the assets in town, and my vendetta needed to continue elsewhere. However, returning to Monteriggioni remains advantageous between missions, as a relaxing diversion as well as a chance to refill Ezio’s money purse. Tokens of your adventures are displayed around the house, to be admired.

Are there parts of other games that you have found fun and obsession in? It’s one of my favourite aspects of modern gaming that every player can play them their own way. In our family each of us certainly seems to find different ways to enjoy even the simplest of challenges. I really enjoy reading game reviews that focus on this aspect of personality play.

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This past Christmas, the kids got a couple Wii games, some new handheld games, and one got an iPod Touch. Besides the iPod Touch never leaving my oldest teen’s hands (even when asleep I believe), the one stand-out game that has captured the entire family’s attention for the past three months is a simple board-game. Blokus.

Photo courtesy of Russ Neumeier

Blokus is listed as suitable for ages five and up. Our youngest, at eight, loves the game (and does fairly well at it) as do the GeekMom and GeekDad. It can have up to four players.

Game-play is simple. You have twenty-one different shaped pieces. The goal is to be the first to place all twenty-one pieces; however, the rule is that each successive piece you play has to be touching only at the corner of a piece you’ve played in previous rounds. If you cannot play any more pieces, you’re out of the game and the winner is the person with the fewest pieces left.

With all the different shapes, Blokus makes you use spatial thinking and creativity to plan your moves while looking for ways to block the other players from potential moves. What you see as a good path to playing several pieces can be wiped out in a single round as the other players discover new areas to expand. The game is never the same twice.

What I’ve most enjoyed is that the game typically takes less than twenty or thirty minutes to play. So, while dinner’s cooking, we can knock out a game or my youngest (the earliest riser) can get breakfast down and the morning chores done and still have time to play with GeekMom before the bus comes.

We have found that you need at least three players to have a good game. With only two players, each person is running two colors and sometimes (particularly with younger ones) they block themselves without realizing it.

Because of the very small pieces in the game box, there is a warning to keep it away from toddlers.

Wired: fun and quick game play for the entire family (ages 5+), forcing a strategic and creative set of thinking skills, and never the same game twice.

Tired: playing with two players can get confusing as you double-up on colors, but otherwise nothing else… except the youngest wishes there were cheat-codes…

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