Who likes to lose?

I do! Well, in a way. It's probably more accurate to say that I enjoy not always winning. Mike and I were talking about Left 4 Dead tonight -- a game that has mercilessly destroyed us any time we've attempted it with four human players -- and it led to the subject of difficulty levels in games. Mike, for example, might play through Halo 3 on the "normal" level of difficulty and be satisfied with the completion. It was apt that he used that game as an example, as I believe the original Halo was the first game I was inspired to immediately play through again on a greater level of difficulty after finishing the first time. Since then I've made a point of flogging myself through the likes of Call of Duty games on the Veteran level of difficulty. If it's an incredible challenge, I'm accomplishing something, right?

Last week I happened upon the play-by-post forum games of the Battlestar Galactica board game over at Penny Arcade. I maintain that the franchise is important enough to justify purchasing the game, comfortable with the likelihood that I will never find people to play it with. After reading through a couple of sessions of the game I admit that I am determined to try and rope people into it at least once. They do a great job of capturing the flavor of the show and sticking players in the middle of it. What you have is basically a big team game where all the players are good guys working together to accomplish a common goal. The chocolatey-awesome-excitement comes from the fact that a couple of those people are not on your team, and their job is to see to it that you lose without ever knowing they were against you. Assuming, of course, you are one of the good guys.

The game should arrive from Amazon tomorrow or Thursday. I may be super-geeky and play through a theoretical game all by myself, just to learn how it works. Then I'll post here about whether I was able to trick myself into believing that I was a cylon, when in fact I was the cylon all along.