I'm kind of surprised Scrabble hasn't really gotten any mentions here. While not perfect, it has an overall good design, balancing player skill against chance on each letter draw and allowing players to play both offensively and defensively.

I approve.

I would tend to agree with that for any game played professionally, maybe the competition itself may still be enjoyable, maybe even more than normal at that level, but the amount of work you would have to put into it to maintain your skills would seriously detract from the day to day enjoyment of it. I'd apply that to poker, chess, settlers of catan or counter-strike.

I don't mind chance in games, so long as it complements the skill/strategy aspect of the game. I like poker as an example, chance determines the hands in play but a skilled player can turn the weakest hand at the table into the winning hand, at the same time chance can override a seemingly impossible to beat hand.

And then there is Mario Party which destroys relationships.

I like my board games to be based purely on chance. #LifeforLife

While it doesn't have a single player mode, you can "sim" one by creating a match and setting it to invite only, it just irks me that it includes an offline local multiplayer component that still requires a network connection.

I've got no issue with PS+ being required for online multiplayer as I was a longtime xbox live subscriber with the 360, my only gripe with the game is that it has local offline split screen multiplayer and PS+ is required to access that mode as well.

Unfortunately, didn't look closely at the package when we bought it, on the box it states that a connection is required. Getting home we found out that PvZ doesn't just require a connection, it requires PS+, I'd have passed on it for that reason alone except my significant other really, REALLY wanted it and isn't as "principled" as I'd sometimes wish ;)

We ended up getting a PS+ account in order to play it, maybe it would have worked after initial sign in with networking disabled, I suppose I could always test it.

I more or less posted this on the last thread, I can't speak for Xbox One as I do not have one, but the PS4, it's games, disc or download work just fine without a network connection as long as THE GAME doesn't require an internet connection.

During the outage I only had 2 games I was unable to play, Destiny (where online is kinda the point) and Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare because for whatever reason EA requires a network connection on that game even though it has a local play mode. The rest worked, regardless of whether or not they were on disc or downloaded.

Maybe they figure that by the time you get through the second step you'll have reconsidered buying a blender that plays "margaritaville" while it blends.

I spent a few years living in Japan. I miss not needing to own a car.

Can't answer that question as we unboxed and hooked up before the network went down and I can't remember if we were able to get into the main system before setting up the network.

We could also make the argument that the sound from the trumpet is itself digital, with an exceptionally fine grained sampling.

My experience has been that unless you are already in Offline mode (or put the computer in sleep vice shutdown), Steam and most of the games (some older games and indies will still run directly from executable) will not work unless you have a network connection and can connect to Steam. I travel a lot for work and am often without network connection, so this has been a huge deal for me, especially when offline mode decides it needs to authenticate and prevents me from accessing my games for the remainder of my trip (work around, sleep mode). The button "Start steam in off-line mode" that pops up when there is no network connection/steam unreachable has NEVER worked for me.

Unless they've changed how the system works with a recent (past couple months) client update, I'm sure these issues persist. Maybe it works for you, great if it does, but I wouldn't doubt _xeno_'s post either as their experience has been similar to mine.

I can't speak for MS and the Xbox, but I managed to score a free PS4 at a work holiday party and there are only two games I have on disc that have been unplayable during this outage, Plants Vs. Zombies Garden Warfare (the game has an 'offline' mode that should be accessible when the network is down, but apparently not) and Destiny (on-line is kind of the whole point of the game, so at least understandable that it doesn't work). Everything else I own, even the stuff that was acquired digitally and downloaded straight to HDD works just fine.

So yeah, Sony did not create a hard dependency where there never needed to be one. During the outage the system has been playable, the majority of the games have been playable, disc or not. Instead of playing Destiny, I played Samurai Warriors 4. Aside from not being able to play on-line games, the only real difficulty I could see someone having is with a new console needing an update in order to play some newer games as I'm not sure if there is a work around for that. In the past I've seen companies ship games with console updates on disc, not sure if that practice still happens.