December 22, 2023: The Curious Countdown: Number 6 – Drive Very, Very Aggressively?

Welcome back, now with the fifth installment of our "curious countdown." We've had four previous posts, so today we're looking at number 6. (The first post of this series contains the details of what we're doing here.)

As I was researching this number, I realized that we had two fantastic six-related possibilities. In deciding which one to choose, I found it interesting to compare/contrast them.

We recently saw the triumphant release of the long-awaited Car Wars Sixth Edition. This complete redesign for Car Wars retains the automotive action that's the fundamental core, then rethought the rest. The result? A game of fast-and-furious firefights. I especially love the tactile experience of manipulating those beautiful model cars; it's like rocket fuel for my inner eight-year-old playing with model vehicles, where crashing and carnage came with the territory.

The Sixth Edition of this game was first announced as a possibility during the Ogre Kickstarter, a super-successful campaign that came within a tank-shell's explosion of hitting one million dollars. That version of Ogre hit distribution as Ogre Sixth Edition. In contrast with Car Wars, this Sixth Edition retained the core rules and experience that made Ogre a classic, instead ramping up the production values of the game to utterly gorgeous proportions. This quintessential example of asymmetrical game design continues to delight fans old and new alike.

Two Sixth Editions for your consideration, making this a particularly curious pit stop on the curious countdown. And we're halfway to the end . . .

-- Steven Marsh