Mahjong!

Well, this post isn't quite video games, but it's close enough so I'm going to talk about one of my favourite table top games ever, Reach Mahjong.

Mahjong is a game that originally came from China, and then when the Japanese got hold of it, they tweaked the rules a bit and it became "reach" mahjong.  The reason for the naming is that when you "reach" it means you're about to win, which is something that you don't do in the Chinese game.

Anyway a typical mahjong game looks like this

The easiest way to describe this game to people who don't have a clue is that it's sort of similar to poker.  You use your tiles to make hands and try to be the guy with the most points at the end by creating certain hands. 

I'm not gonna use this post to explain the rules, but if you google it then there are plenty of websites that can teach you the basics of how to play.

So how is this video game related?  Well the real question is how the fuck is it NOT video game related?  There are literally hundreds of mahjong games for basically every system ever created.  Pretty much all of them are Japan only but the selection is huge.  The best mahjong game avaliable in my opinion is Mahjong 5 in the game centres.

In this arcade version the games are shorter, faster and a single mistake can cost you everything, shit is intense.  The coolest part about these machines is that they are all connected to the Internet, so you end up getting games with people all over the country, no need to worry about finding 4 players.

So that's a very brief overview of the awesomeness that is Mahjong.  For those wanting to give it a go, there is a site called Tenhou where you can play online


http://tenhou.net/

It's all in Japanese but it's not too hard to figure out.  There are also plenty of guides online and I'll probably use the free game Friday to explain it all, so give it a go!  Experience the greatness that is Mahjong!