I love subversive Sean. Hey, with the laptop you can even sneak out to play.

Considering it is now installed and I'm itching to play it, I'm not sure how clandestine it will remain. Plus, I eventually want to let S check it out and see if she might enjoy playing it.

It's apparently the original TR game redone for current gaming power. I'm askeered of the T-Rex. That thing was tough the first time around. I don't need it to be smarter.

I would absolutely LOVE to play some online board games. Actually, I think Republic of Rome could easily be played online (provided it also included a chat function for the political phase). Like most computerized versions of board games, I imagine that would speed the game up considerably, since so many of the tedious manual manipulation of cards and pieces is automated by the computer.

There are a couple of sites offering PBEM Republic of Rome:
http://www.yxklyx.com/thecolosseum/ror/
http://www.amarriner.com/

I'm not sure how far they've automated the rules resolution.

I've used PBEM for Diplomacy in the past. It works very well for this style of game. (Plus, it was the platform for my greatest victory, a Russian solo. Plus a game where as England I convinced France to open by moving his one fleet into the Med, even after opening to the English Channel and Liverpool.)

I'd be down for playing some RoboRally. I don't remember how to play, but I'm sure I'll pick it up right away.

If you sign up on Gleemax (currently free), you can play against computer opponents too, which should get you back up to speed on the rules (they have the rules too, more or less). The play experience is so much faster with a computer working out everything too.

Warning: the computer players are real buggers. Because so much of the challenge is working out the way through the obstacle course, and computer algorithms have a real advantage there. I have already once beaten seven computer opponents, though, through the simple expedient of one of them shoving me off my chosen path and right onto the last flag. So that was good of them.

a Russian solo.

!!! Well played, sir!

!!! Well played, sir!

It was so very sweet. I started off trying to get long-term alliances with Italy to get rid of Turkey (with Austria's help) and then Austria, while preventing an EG alliance in the west. Instead, in the first year I attacked Turkey, Turkey attacked Austria, and Austria attacked me. And Italy took advantage of the confusion to get position against Austria. Meanwhile, an EG alliance started beating the crap out of France. For three years the Eastern countries were being run by the Three Stooges, as we invariably guessed wrong as to who was about to attack us and who was genuine.

Finally (after it was obvious that Austria was both impossible to work with and doomed, and Italy had sicced Turkey on me before stabbing him good and proper), the Turk and I agreed that our only hope lay in revving up the Juggernaut. But Italy had us bottled up, and was even making more headway against Turkey. I was most sympathetic that the only way to get my forces into the front line too was to take Bulgaria from my ally (with his agreement, after a year of trying it his way).

Meanwhile, the conversations with England finally paid off, and he stabbed Germany in '05. A very bad move for him, sorry to say, as France wasn't quite dead yet. Still, I'd promised to help him out, and we hit a stalemate (ERT vs IFG) that lasted until '07 - when in possibly my most brilliant move of the game, I slipped an A Tyr that had been fruitlessly battering on Venice northwards into Munich instead.

The game's second elimination didn't occur until '09 (Germany). I won the next year, having piled on 11 SCs in three years. It was a sweet, sweet win. (And, incidentally, Italy was royally pissed off.)

I have no flippin' clue what Billy just said, but it sounds FUN!

Hey Sean, I have a couple USB controllers. Look very much like Xbox ones (button/stick layout). Since getting the xbox, and ditching the windows machine, I rarely play games on the computer. You are more than welcome to them.

If you sign up on Gleemax (currently free)

Coolness: The company that did the character animations for GTA4 offers the ability to map your own facial expressions onto an avatar. [link]

And if you want it to LOOK like you, there's Big Stage.

Big Stage is a media company whose breakthrough technology allows users to easily create and integrate a life-like 3D avatar of themselves into everything from famous movie scenes, TV shows and video games, to music videos, short video clips, virtual worlds, still images, user-generated content, instant messages, emails, social networks and more - instantly. Big Stage will launch to consumers in the second quarter of 2008.

(Why yes, I am working on the metaverse, why?)

Ick. 3-D avatar space is way too uncanny valley for me already.

Coolness: The company that did the character animations for GTA4 offers the ability to map your own facial expressions onto an avatar.

Oh man, that's cool. Wow, I would like to play with that software.

One wonders if, 20 years from now, this tech will be so cheap & easy that people are making their own feature length animations. A cottage industry or just more noise to signal?