One of me and my friends' favourite pastimes is playing multiplayer Pro Evolution Soccer on PlayStation 2. Although the controls of the game take some time to get used to, when you get the feel of the game the experience is awesome. Add 5 of your friends interacting with you through the game to this experience and you have the perfect definition of great time.

Well, who wants to have great time when you can enjoy the gut-flinching feeling of fierce competition with your peers? I thought that sometimes you could switch the relatively laid-back feeling of generic PES multiplayer gaming to somewhat more competitive mode. As it is, we try to divide the players evenly between teams to avoid having to play against AI and also to avoid clogging up the field too many players in the same side.

But how would you arrange such a competitive event? Here are my thoughts how to best arrange a PES tournament for two-player teams among your friends. What you need is an interesting setting and parity (or balance) between the teams.

I stumbled upon Robert Bohl's The Inpependent Insurgency podcasts earlier this week on the Story Games forums . And yesterday I listened to podcast n:o 006 featuring Joshua A.C. Newman on Shock: Social Science Fiction . What an excellent show! It made me want to try Shock immediately. The way Joshua described the main idea behind the game (to allow people to create social science fiction stories together) and what features of the game make it achieve its goal were very inspiring. 

Podcasting is a difficult art, requiring the ability to produce interesting stuff that pleases the ear so that you can bear to listen to the 'casts. The latter part has been lacking in many of the more promising podcasts I've listened to in the past but II doesn't have that problem: For my ear it is really well produced (at least in the latter episodes) and Robert also has a good radio voice which always helps.

And the content: Who wouldn't want to hear an indie Rpg designer talking about his/her game for an hour? I mean (as Joshua A.C. Newman also noted) writing is the hardest part of making indie rpgs, so much of the writer's intent tends to not get communicated. So hearing about the game from the one that knows the most about it and is the most obvious champion of that game is very important. And also (at lest with Joshua A.C. Newman) it is always fun to listen two guys knowledgeable with the important genre movies (such as Blade Runner) talk and talk and talk...

So, now you have to go to Independent Insurgency and listen for yourselves.