• Thanksgiving Day, we’ll be open from 4:00 PM until 10:00 PM. Since that’s only half our normal hours, the day pass for that day will be only $10.
• Black Friday we plan to be open from 10 AM to 2AM (normal schedule). Stay tuned for any upcoming deals.

Well you’re in luck. Starting tomorrow (Friday at the latest), Game On! will have Bawls back in stock.

Come get some.

The premise is fairly simple. You are in control of a civilization which you get to build from the ground up to become the kind of place you want to be. You begin by selecting what kind of cilivation you’re all about, from the likes of Ghandi to the ruthless Ramesses II, and this choice affects the units you make and how the game reacts to the player’s actions. Winning can entail anything, from conquering neighboring nations to becoming culturally advanced, to taking off into outer space. From ancient are, you grow onwards, into the future that may as well resemble Manifest Destiny.

The game can be played alone — and I speak honestly when I say the AI can play aggressively against you — or in the company of friends. Here at Game On we’ve witnessed sessions that last well into the night. A little like more familiar table top adventures, games can be saved and played over several days, weeks, months, but it’s also addicting enough that once you start, it’s hard to put Civilization down for long.

The map itslef is composed of invisible hexagonal tiles. All menus rely on basic left and right click of the mouse and no part of the UI is complicated or hard to navigate. A giant “searchpedia” exists to answer and all questions you might have about all aspects of the game, but strategy still relies on your own wit and skills.

As part of the promotion, two hours are provided free for your give Civilization 5 a shot and let us know what you think. From time spent playing, we’ve discovered that it can be very enjoying and challenging to team up (humans vs. AI is always interesting) and also to win through anything besides conquest. Your mileage may vary.

I’ve also heard it told that they might be dropping by this Saturday, so you might make your way over to check them out.

Those of you that regularly frequent our LAN center and ALSO use a microphone for either Ventrillo (or team chat, what have you) might be aware of the fact that several of the rear audio/mic ports on our machines are rather finicky. Some seem to have an intermittent short, while one is presumably picking up some random frequency, constantly broadcasting static over the mic whether or not a microphone is even plugged in!

Sadly, this issue wasn’t one of our highest priorities as not that many of our patrons regularly even use the microphones, and the resolution would involve spending some cash we could sooner put into some other projects we’d like to work on.

Thus swooped in Friday Night Frag Fest to the rescue!

Yesterday afternoon, two of the fragfellows dropped by with a pleasant surprise: sixteen (16) 6-channel PCI sound cards! Now, these certainly aren’t top of the line pieces of hardware – much to our appreciation, as we certainly don’t want anybody spending gazillions of dollars on lil’ old us – but they’re certainly on par (if not better) than our onboard sound, and there can be no disagreement that the friendly donation of sixteen sound cards is ABSOLUTELY an upgrade over onboard sound that ISN’T EVEN WORKING RIGHT.

So, when all is said and done, these guys single-handedly eliminated one of our more annoying and pervasive tech issues. Please, feel free to visit their site for more information about their LAN event, follow them on Twitter, or add yourself to their Facebook group. They’re among the store’s oldest friends and continue to support us.

Plus, you know, they’re throwing that LAN in June! Who wouldn’t want to keep up with that?

Game On! will close around 6 PM on Thursday December 24th so that we can all take a well-deserved break. We may re-open again Friday December 25th at 6PM but that is still under debate. We’ll tweet the results sometime before then so be on the lookout if that’s something you’re interested in.

In addition, we will be going as late as people want to stay on New Year’s Eve (December 31st) and opening again at around 6 PM on January 1st.

As always I would like to thank all the people who play in our LAN not just for hanging out but for being awesome company. Now that we’ve gotten to know some of you, it would feel lonely without.

Suggestions? Comments? Want to sound off on anything? Go HERE

The game has several characteristics that distinguish it from Defense of the Ancients. Every player is required to create a free account which then tracks their stats, friends lists, and various other information. Players, known in League of Legends world as Summoners, have a customizable talent tree, the ability to level as themselves (in addition to their Heroes leveling over the course of a match) and customize gameplay with various talents and runes.

In terms of game play, there are obvious similarities between LoL and games like DotA and HoN. It’s a single map with three paths, a.k.a. lanes, that players can take to reach the opponent’s base and eventually victory. What makes League of Legends unique however is the level of customization available to players (both for free and via collectors’ packs) and the matchmaking capabilities of the game.

To speak more of them, one has to address friends. With separate accounts for each player (absolutely free), users can add friends to their friends lists and chat with them through the LoL interface. This same list can be used to create matches where all friends are placed in a match on the same side (up to 5 people) and the matchmaking interface them pairs them up with other players of similar level and player count. In this fashion, friends can play together without the hassles inherent to Warcraft 3′s Battle Net.

So, the game is here and we welcome you to give it a try.