Todays post is dedicated to my friend Baditude.

Last night I headed over to Baditude's house. We'd talked about getting together for some hot two-player gaming action for a little while, and decided that last night was the night. The game on the table would be "Twilight Struggle" (or "Toilet Struggle", as Diana refers to it). The table was all set up, board in place and pieces all arranged. A new addition to Game Night was a sheet of thin plexiglass that sat on top of the board. Because the board is basically folded cardboard, it doesn't sit particularly flat on the table (unlike a traditional gameboard, like Monopoly or Sorry), but tends to rise up a little at the creases. The plexiglass weighted it down, and we could play our pieces directly on top of it. It made for a really clean, nice, easy to use layout.

Since I haven't played in a while, we spent some time getting me reaquainted with the rules. At first glimpse, the game is pretty damn complicated. But, I suppose like anything else, once you get into the flow of it, it's really not as complex as it first appears. It is basically a game of world domination, along the same lines as RISK. However, it takes place during the Cold War era, from post-WWII through the 80's, and is a two-player game, with one player playing the USSR, and the other playing as the United States. Rather than direct conflict, the object of the game is to spread your influence (roughly Communism vs. Democracy) over the countries of the world, and score points for controlling countries and accomplishing other tasks (competing in the "Space Race", and others). The whole Cold War setting is really interesting, and the game mechanics match very well with this theme. It's a great game.

As we started playing, Baditude went to his iPod player. He has made music playlists for each of his games, which I find really enhances the whole experience. Samurai is played to Japanese windpipes. Tikal is played to Mayan and South American rhythms, as well as Indiana Jones soundtrack themes. San Juan and Puerto Rico is played to spicy latin meurenge and salsa. It's great.

"Tonight, Birdman," he said dramatically, "We get to listen to the game-playlist I'm *most* proud of." The booming voices of a Russian men's choir (from the "Hunt for Red October" soundtrack) burst forth.

The game began. I played the USSR, since I've only played once before and the USSR is commonly thought of as the "easier" side. Roughly following history, the USSR starts with heavy influence in Eastern Europe and southeast Asia. Each player has a hand of cards, where each card corresponds to a historical event, and the cards are divided into Early War, Middle War, and Late War. The advantage begins with the USSR, but the Middle and Late War cards are more beneficial to the US. The strategies are pretty clear: The USSR wants to gain influence all over the world quickly. The US wants to survive as best as it can until the later rounds of the game, when it can hopefully turn the tide. ("Hey Birdman... can you name this music?" "Dude... Rocky IV?!" "Yup! Training montage!" *high five*)

I'm not quite sure how it happened, but as time passed, the USSR steadily crept towards victory, and soon it became inevitable. It was a really fun game, and immediately after it ended, I was looking forward to a rematch. I didn't feel like I played particularly well, or made any deep strategic or insightful decisions, but I was pretty lucky with the dice, and didn't make any real serious blunders either.

With some time still to kill, he busted out another game, "Battle Lines" (and, of course, his ancient-times wargame music). This was a really fun little two player game, where players strategical play cards of different colors and number values to make three-card poker hands (battle formations) to try to win control of an area. Control enough areas and you win. A very easy, light game but with some good strategy and luck. I thought Diana would like it, and might ask to borrow it and try it out at home. (I ended up winning that game as well).

I couldn't leave without tempting Baditude with a little co-op Guitar Hero (in spite of my snowboarding-sore wrist). So we fired that up and played a few songs. Soon we noticed that we'd played most of the set list already, and had lots of 5-stars. So we went through all the songs we hadn't already 5-starred, and quickly dominated them. In fact, we only had to attempt once song more than once ("Tonight I'm Going to Rock You Tonight") to get the 5-star rating. I was surprised at how easy it was to get 5-stars in multiplayer vs. single play. When we completed the setlist, we were rewarded with a new, unlocked guitar. "Play nice, you two" the game said.

Play nice, indeed. Exhausted and happy, I left for home.

And that was how I spent the evening with my friend Baditude.