It had been weeks since I’d had a fix. Oh, I’d gone to my dealer, and picked up the goods, sampling them as soon as I got to the car. But the holiday’s wrecked havoc with my free time, and I was forced to lock them away in their little plastic cases for most of December.
Until last night. When I finally got a chance to play HeroClix again. It was glorious … absolutely glorious. Ok, I did lose — twice actually — but it was great to actually be playing again…
My friends and I first started playing HeroClix last spring, when I had to review the collectible superheroes miniatures game for Science Fiction Weekly. We’ve been playing regularly since then, and amazingly we haven’t gotten bored with it. Two expansions — one for Marvel, one for DC — helped, but it’s as much a question of excellent game design as it is cool new miniatures.
The games are always different and always challenging. I don’t think I’ve been bored with a game yet, even when I was getting my head handed to me. And I can’t really imagine getting bored with it right now, especially with a new X-Men themed release scheduled for March. No, the big problem with the game isn’t boredom … it’s cash … and time.
We like to call the game HeroCrack because for geeks, it’s very nearly an addiction. It takes a real effort of will not to buy 5 or 10 or 15 boosters when I pick up my comics each week (I try and keep myself to 2 or 3 boosters a month … unless I have a new freelance check just begging to be spent) — it’s really that good.
The other problem is time — we just don’t have enough of it. Normally we get in a game or three on Wednesday nights but it’s excruciatingly hard to pack up the game after 11, leaving us enough time to sleep that night. I have no doubt that, left unchecked, Clix’d have us be sleeping in cardboard boxes, playing all day and night and muttering to ourselves in coherently.
Fortunately, we’re all mature adults, and realize that would be a bad thing. But the temptation man, oh the temptation!