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Car Wars, anyone?in my youth I spent hours designing cars for Steve Jackson Games' Car Wars, smashing or shooting them apart in slow motion. the engineering exercise of balancing between armor, weight, space, armaments, and speed originally drew me to the game, but lately I've been amused with the post-apocalyptic aspects of the game. Car Wars was a thought-out world based on speculation of what would happen in a future without cheap oil, weakening of federal government, and a grain blight. Oil-rich states seceded from the union, high density cities became uninhabitable due to high crime levels, and the majority of the federal highway system fell into disrepair. televised "death games" were legalized, and autoduelling became widespread. fun stuff. I've recently been cracking my old collection of Car Wars materials, and while I don't have anyone to play with, I have been getting a big kick out of reading through scenarios and imagining how to put together battles of my own involving a post-apocalyptic trips around the Portland area. Hop harvest convoy, anyone? At the turn of the millennium, SJG revamped the Car Wars rules a bit, ostensibly to make the game easier to play. Unfortunately, this "fifth edition" does not include revised vehicle construction rules, and seems to be concentrated strictly on the board game facet of the game. I've ordered a few sets, and will see if I can't cajole a few people into playtesting with me. There are a few die hard Car Wars players out there on the net. Gear Jammers maintains a database of car designs, Car Wars Forums at SJG is still mildly active, and there are enough nutters online to run games on-line through VASSAL. |