Card Game Review - The Isle of Dr. Necreaux

Let me tell you about this game idea. It's not my idea, but it's a good one anyway. The game is called The Isle of Dr. Necreaux, and it has huge cool potential.First, it's a pulp game. That's cool right off the bat. A group of heroes has to infiltrate the island lair of the evil genius Dr. Necreaux, who is holding hostage a whole bunch of scientists and about to blow up a doomsday device and destroy the planet. So far, this is brilliant.Also, it's...

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Poetry Game Review - Cyrano

Reiner Knizia (who is, despite my constant haranguing, a brilliant man) once said that the goal of the game is to win, but it is the goal that is important, not the winning. For most games, that's kind of true. I think if you're being honest, you have to admit that it's more fun to win. But if you're playing Cyrano, that quote is ironclad truth. You'll have the most fun with this game if you're really pouring your heart into winning, but when the...

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Announcement - Ratings System

A month or two ago, someone mentioned I should have a ratings system, so that people could know at a glance which games I like, and compare them to each other. At the time, there were a couple reasons I was opposed to the idea.The first reason was the most obvious - I am pretty damned lazy. Creating a whole system for rating games is way too much like work. I can make a couple snide jokes at the end of a review and call them my summary, but an actual ratings system might require some effort. And I'm generally opposed to effort.The second reason...

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Pointless Ramble - Pathetic Men

I know I said a few weeks ago that vaping beats hell out of smoking, but there's a downside - battery life. I have three batteries and two chargers, and every now and then, I still find myself jonesing with no way to get a fix. So last night, I left the house at 11:45 and drove to the corner gas station to pick up a pack of Winstons. I don't care, really - if I smoke a pack every two weeks, I think I'm still doing pretty well.This isn't a story about smoking. It's a story about sad little men. Because the guy working at the Shell station at midnight...

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Card Game Review - Straw

I am sick to death of games that involve cruelty to animals. I am putting my foot down. We must not tolerate games whose entire goal is to torture helpless animals, even if those animals do stink, step on your foot, and spit in your face.I am talking, of course, about Straw, a game whose goal, as clearly stated on the outside of the box, is to do physical bodily harm to a camel. That is just wrong. 'The game that broke the camel's back', it says....

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Board Game Review - Monkey Lab

There's something about a game that includes monkey madcap adventure that screams 'Play Me!' Seriously, monkeys are fun. That's why Speed Racer had Chim Chim and The Man in the Yellow Hat had bleeding ulcers. Even the Murders in the Rue Morgue were more fun because the killer was an ape. Heck, look at 28 Days Later - throw a monkey into something, and it's instantly more entertaining.In Monkey Lab, you're all genetically altered monkeys who are bound...

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Video Game Review - Red Dead Redemption

I buy two or three video games a year. It's not that I'm cheap, it's just that I'm usually really busy, and many of the games I want to play aren't all that appropriate to play when my 14-year-old daughter has friends over. But when I do buy a game, I tend to buy those go-anywhere games that game nerds affectionately call a sandbox game. Why they call them that, I don't know. Sandboxes are small places full of dirt. Sandbox games are not small, and...

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Board Game Review - Abandon Ship

It's a well-known fact that rats have magical powers. OK, in all fairness, not everyone knows that, but that doesn't make it less true. Think about it - have you ever seen a rat who couldn't get out of a pair of handcuffs? No, you haven't, because they're magical. Plus they have really tiny feet.It turns out that rats are also able to stop a ship from sinking simply by having two of them working together. This was not actually one of the magical...

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Card Game Review - Arcana

This probably doesn't happen to many other people, but earlier this evening I started writing a review of Arcana and realized something horrible - it wasn't the least bit entertaining. I mean, if I wanted to write boring rules summaries, I could just leave it to Tom Vasel. I had the whole thing written, and went back to check it, and said to myself, 'Self,' I said, 'this review is less interesting than the safety instructions of a box of Kleenex.'...

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Special Update - Drake's Flames Tuck Boxes

If there's one thing about this hobby that might be a downside, it's the fact that there's never enough money to buy everything I want. For instance, I'm trying to collect enough old Citadel miniatures to play all the expanded monster tables in Warhammer Quest, and I love finding old RPGs at Half Price Books. I would love to have the prepainted miniatures for Okko, and I've been seriously considering buying a handful of cowboy minis and converting HeroScape into a Wild West setting.And to make matters worse, I want other stuff, too. I really want...

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Preview - Three New Games from Petroglyph

I know I’ve said before that I’m a total whore for free games. That’s why I’m here at all – well, that, and the love of my adoring fans, who call me clueless and stupid and insensitive and racist (that last one I still don’t understand). But mostly the games.So when Petroglyph Games offered me the chance to write a preview of their next three board games, and then get review copies when they’re available, it took me less than two minutes to decide it sounded like a good idea. After all, it’s free games.The idea was, I would ask some questions,...

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Supplement Review - Summoner Wars Expansion Packs

I have to check a calendar, because I would swear my birthday wasn't for a couple months. It sure feels like it, though, because I just got the Summoner Wars expansion decks and I'll be damned if I didn't expect it to come with cake and ice cream, and maybe a lame office party where everyone brings whatever crappy food they either bought at the supermarket on the way to work or threw together the night before, except for that one lady who can actually...

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