I don't try to hide the fact that I'm not all that fond of the people who tend to get elected to lead our country. Our presidents seem to be less and less interested in disguising their corruption, and the wars in which we continue to find ourselves entangled seem less and less just. You can spout on about our global war on terror, but from where I'm sitting, Iraq had jack squat to do with terrorism and everything to do with oil and a vainglorious quest for a legacy.But no matter how much I find myself disillusioned with the nation's so-called...
Monday, 31 May 2010
Friday, 28 May 2010
It seems a little odd to me that a game about history's most famous serial killing psychopath is a cute deduction game that's perfect for playing with the kids. Well, one kid - it's only a two-player game. But my daughter loves it (though she loves it a lot more when she's beating me) and doesn't mind at all that the goal of one player is to capture the world's most notorious murderer, and the other player's goal is to allow the bloodiest back-alley...
Monday, 24 May 2010
The reviews I write tend to come in one of three basic flavors. Your first flavor is the bland vanilla, and it goes something like this:This game was OK if you like this kind of thing. Here's a joke about boobs or the mentally handicapped.My second basic flavor is the beatdown review. It reads a little like this:This game is horrible, and the designer should be embarrassed. Now here's a dick joke.The third flavor, and my favorite to write, is the...
Sunday, 23 May 2010
As many of you are aware, I own VixenTor Games, which makes dice towers and other gaming accessories. We're considering launching a new product line, and we need a little help. I've heard these 'give something away already' grumblings, so I'm killing two birds with one stone here.Run over to the VixenTor Games website and read the front page news story, then click the link and take the survey. You'll be entered to win fifty bucks store credit (enough for a deluxe dice tower), and you'll be doing me a sol...
Saturday, 22 May 2010
Regular readers may have picked up on the fact that I like games that have what polite women sometimes call 'hoochies'. The harem in Dominion: Intrigue, for instance, is one of my favorites, mostly because it features scantily clad females who have a lot of sex. After reading the rules for Feudo, I decided that I liked at least one element of this game before I even played it, because one of the units each player controls is the seductress. She's...
Wednesday, 19 May 2010
I often make cheap sport of Reiner Knizia because so many of his games are overly simplified, but I must admit that when it comes to making games, fewer rules is generally better. OK, two rules is usually a little weak, but the overall idea here is that less stuff to track makes a game easier to play. Reiner takes this principle to the highest level possible, and thus manages to ruin hundreds of otherwise mediocre or boring games and turn them into...
Monday, 17 May 2010
Every now and then, you'll see one of these silly interview questions that asks something like, 'if you were stuck on a desert island, what three games would you want to have with you?' I always thought that was kind of a stupid question - my pick is going to be whatever game includes canned food and a satellite phone, because frankly, if I'm stranded at sea, the last thing I'm going to do is break out a game. For one thing, we're assuming you're...
Saturday, 15 May 2010
So much for theme week. I was considering doing three heavy games this week, but then I got to Friday and didn't have anything else that would hurt your head. In fact, the only game I have ready to review right now is a party game for children or inebriated grownups. It's called You Robot, and it's only slightly sillier than that 'Honey If You Love Me Smile' game we used to play in eighth grade as an excuse to sit close to a girl.You Robot will not...
Wednesday, 12 May 2010
I've done theme weeks in the past, where I reviewed three games with something in common. This week's theme appears to be 'slow and complicated.' Maybe I should tack Through the Ages onto the end. Too bad I did that one already.Today's slow and complicated game is EVE: Conquest. It's based on a video game (strike one) and is published by White Wolf (strike two). Yet somehow it still manages to hit a double. Not a home run, certainly, and if you're...
Monday, 10 May 2010
It's my opinion that games with backstories should build on those themes and bring them to life. Like, if I'm playing a spaceship game, I want it to feel like I'm flying around the dark space between planets and blowing up asteroids, and if I'm playing a farming game, I want to feel like I have a boring, menial job. I think that's why I like Carson City so much - it really lets you feel like a cowboy settling an Old West town, especially because...
Friday, 7 May 2010
I used to play a whole lot of roleplaying games. I played everything from small-press rags to big-dollar productions, and I played Dungeons & Dragons more than anything else. It wasn't my favorite, really, it was just that it had more modules and stuff, and everyone knew the rules. Sure, I would have rather played Deadlands or Blue Planet, but when everyone around you plays D&D, you either play D&D or you play online solitaire. And I...
Wednesday, 5 May 2010
Educational games have a long history, and most of it involves them being boring and preachy. They are usually designed to make children learn things whether they like it or not, and so actually being fun pulls a far second place to being chock full of knowledge.Riches & Rascals follows this storied lineage as if there were a formula. It is immensely educational, but sadly, it is not a good game. However, since it is most likely to appeal to...
Monday, 3 May 2010
As I sit here in the clutches of a powerful sinus infection, my mood darkens to the point that I want to find a crappy game and piss all over it (you know, metaphorically speaking. I would never actually urinate on a game. That would reduce trade value considerably). And as I look about my cluttered office, my gaze lights on Risk: Lord of the Rings, and I decide that it is the perfect candidate to accept my cathartic wrath.It's not that it's an ugly...
Saturday, 1 May 2010
Publishing your own game is really hard. First you have to get past your biggest hurdle - your game probably sucks. Then, assuming your game does not suck (or you decide to publish it anyway, because you lack sense) you have to figure out how you're going to produce it. You can try to sell it, but that's an incredibly difficult proposition because there are literally thousands of other people doing the same thing. Or you can try to make it yourself,...
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