Card Game Review - Agoniste

There are lots of days I wish I could borrow pieces from other people. I don't want to completely be someone else - I'm pretty happy with my own life - but how cool would it be to have a body like that werewolf kid from those Twilight movies? Or a face like George Clooney. Or money like Bill Gates. I don't want to be Donald Trump, you understand, I just want to be able to make a phone call and destroy a local economy.Today, though, I want to have...

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Card Game Review - En Garde

Reviewing games is kind of a mixed bag. I get a lot of games, but I don't always want them. I would love to only get the games I want, but it doesn't work that way. I'll get Arkham Horror one week, and the next week I'll get a box full of Reiner Knizia games.To be fair, I do like some Reiner Knizia games. I love Blue Moon, for example. But so often, a Reiner game is just boring math wrapped around a stupid theme and packaged with two rules and some...

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Big Announcement - Drake's Tales

I've decided to try something new. I had an idea based on a few different factors.Factor 1: I like writing stuff. I may not be the next Steinbeck, but I do enjoy working in the English language. And frankly, writing game reviews all the time can get stale after a while, and I want to write different stuff.Factor 2: For many people, writing is not a strength. Many people struggle to put together an email that doesn't sound like it was originally drafted in Portuguese and translated by a pirate. They're probably good at a lot of things at which I...

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Board Game Review - Robosoccer

It's been my slightly unpleasant experience that small-press publishers tend to make ugly games. This is not always true, but it seems to me that most of the do-it-yourself game creators want to publish their games without debt or investors, and this usually means they get a little skinflint with components, printing, and art.Happily, Nestorgames gets it right. They could have made cheap boards with crappy pieces and ugly art, but instead, they have...

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Board Game Review - Catacombs

I like dungeon crawl games. I also like flicking games (you know, where you flick a little wood disc with your finger in an attempt to put out an opponent's eye, or lose the piece under the refrigerator). The question before me tonight, however, is whether you can mix flicking with crawling and make a fun game. I contend that if you do it properly, you wind up with Catacombs, which is, in fact, a fun game.If you had asked me to create a dungeon crawl...

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Board Game Review - Uncle Chestnut's Table Gype

I should have a warning label or something. I would think that the title page alone - 'crassly opinionated game reviews' - would be a pretty decent hint that I'm not always a very nice guy, but it seems many people ignore that completely. But just to be perfectly clear, to put any budding game designers out there on notice:The surgeon general has determined that letting me review your crappy game can be bad for sales, not to mention what it will...

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Board Game Review - Infinite City

I think we need a national push toward a little corporate honesty. For starters, I think all MacDonald's commercials should, from this point forward, include only fat people. Wal-Mart ads should quit featuring perky suburban housewives with lovely children, and start showing us mullet-wearing throwbacks in camouflage hot pants. And publishers who use the word 'infinite' in their games titles should be forced to make games that last longer than half...

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Card Game Review - Irondale

If you've never played a game from Small Box Games, you're depriving yourself. The entire company is basically one dude and his wife, and they print everything locally and ship it all over the damned place. The designer, John Clowdus, has a thoroughly twisted mind. Not like baby-oil-and-shaved-badgers' twisted, but more like how-the-hell-did-you-think-of-that twisted. His games are simple to play, once you learn the rules, but they're so unlike anything...

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Announcement - Geek of the Week

This will be quick, because I'm posting from my phone. I'm Geek of the Week, so if you want to ask me a bunch of questions, now is your chan...

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Card Game Review - Thunderstone

I have a theory. I'll walk you through it, and then you can tell me I'm an idiot, and I can tell you that you're retarded.Dominion is one of the most influential games of the last ten years. Whether or not you like it, it's tough not to see that a whole new kind of game has been invented. The game has drawn a huge audience, and people from all over the gaming spectrum have been drawn to it like skeeters to a bug zapper. That kind of success draws...

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Movie Review - The Crazies

I hate gross-out horror movies. For one thing, they're almost always really stupid. Take the first Saw movie, for instance. The cops are completely mentally handicapped - they get a tip on the biggest serial killer in the world, and decide just the two of them will go check it out. I watch Cops, and real cops call for backup if they pull over some bonehead and find out he's got a joint in the glovebox, but these two flatfoot dicks go tromping into...

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Card Game Review - Jaipur

I like a game with a lot of theme, and I don't pretend to apologize for that. But sometimes a game can be fun, even if the theme is totally weak sauce. Example: Jaipur.Jaipur is one of those games made by European people who think that mundane crap like sorting mail and stacking boxes is exciting enough to make into a game. In this two-player game, you're each merchants in Jaipur (which explains the name). You're competing to make the most money...

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Event Review - Whiskey Tasting

I have the coolest wife in the world. Many of you might dispute that statement, possibly arguing that you, not I, have the coolest wife, but in order to prove my case, I present the following three pieces of incontrovertible evidence.1. My wife is a gourmet chef. Not for a living, or anything - just for me. I eat like a king. That's not an exaggeration, either - on any given night, there is a remarkable possibility that I am eating better than the British royal family. She's that good. For instance, what did you have for Thanksgiving? Turkey? Because...

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Board Game Review - Risk: Balance of Power

I've said before that I'm kind of a Risk whore. And by 'kind of a Risk whore', I mean I would be very likely to trade sex for Risk, as long as the person with whom I was trading was attractive and female, though in all fairness, if she was attractive and female, she would probably rather have sex with someone who was not interested in trading sex for board games. Now that I think about it, actually, I would make a horrible male prostitute, though...

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