August 1, 2015: Car Wars: The Card Game Revs Into Gear

I'm really excited about the return of Car Wars: The Card Game. While it's completely different in gameplay from the original Car Wars, the game's basic idea -- drive fast, shoot your buddies, blow stuff up -- remains gloriously intact. And this new edition has new weapons, new gadgets, and new tactical options that make the game even more exciting.

A really cool game gives you a memory to go with it, and I've got one for Car Wars: The Card Game. The game debuted in June of 1990, and I was living in Los Angeles. I got invited to a small game convention in San Luis Obispo. Also on the trip was my old friend Mike Stackpole, who didn't want to make the drive alone all the way from Phoenix, so he flew in to Burbank and we drove on up to SLO from there. The convention was on the Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo campus, a university whose most famous graduate was twisted songsmith "Weird" Al Yankovic. But that's another story for another time.

And we played games -- lots of games. My favorite was Car Wars: The Card Game. Everybody wanted to play it, and it was one of the hits of the con. But my best memory from that weekend was a non-gaming moment that's still as geeky as it gets. The entire con shut down Saturday night as we gathered in one of the dorm party rooms to watch the classic cliffhanger Season 3 ending episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

You remember that one, right? "The Best of Both Worlds" it was called. And the Borg captured Captain Picard and assimilated him into the collective. And when Riker gave the order to fire on the Borg with Picard still on board, the "To Be Continued" graphic sent 100 or so geeks into screaming fits of awesomeness. It was a real bonding moment with the rest of the Nerd Collective, and I was proud to become a little bit more assimilated that weekend.

Good games and good times become good memories. And that's why I love games.

-- Scott Haring