Card Game Review - Sturgeon

Come with me on a magical journey into the mind, where we will think deep thoughts about important questions that settle deeply into the minds of all gamers. The first question we shall examine is perhaps the most important ever to be presented. Namely, who thought breeding fish in a lake would make a fun theme?Well, OK, ignore Go Fish. That doesn't count, because you can play it with a deck of cards, and as we all know, any games you can play with...

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Board Game Review - Monopoly Revolution

You know how, when you tell a normal person that you play board games, they always go, 'you mean, like Monopoly?' And then you realize that you would have more in common with that person if you were a fan of Peruvian line dancing? And then you try to explain that the games you play go way, way beyond Monopoly, and you don't even like Monopoly? And then they walk away because you start to foam at the mouth a little bit?Well, that's not going to get...

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Expansion Review - Wrath of the Elements

I reviewed Thunderstone a few months ago, and decided that it was 45 minutes of fun, which would be great if it didn't last an hour and a half. When I got Wrath of the Elements, the expansion for Thunderstone, I was optimistic. I wanted to like Thunderstone, and really hoped the expansion would fix all the problems.It didn't.Really, my main issue with Thunderstone is that so often (and by 'so often' I mean 'every frigging time I play'), it feels...

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Bored Game Review - Pressure Matrix

In the future, the game shows will suck.Well, maybe not all of them. If that old video game Total Carnage gets made into a game show, I'll watch the hell out of it. But if Pressure Matrix is a glimpse of game shows to come, I'll be watching a lot of Wheel of Fortune re-runs.Pressure Matrix has everyone competing in a contest where you have to run really fast, all over the place, and every turn, you hit a spot and score something. Eventually, the...

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Cheesy Game Review - Defenders of the Realm

I'm not normally a fan of cheese in my games. I kind of like my games to be like the cheese shop in that Monty Python sketch - you know, completely uncontaminated by cheese. Tight design, efficient rules, and a damned good reason for every part in the box - these are marks of a good game. Using those criteria, Defenders of the Realm should be a failure.Somehow, though - and I don't know that I could say how - it's not. In fact, it's an extremely...

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Board Game Review - A Touch of Evil

I wish games were like music. Not because I want to be a board game virtuoso, but because I want to have groupies.If games were like music, some companies would be super bands. Like Fantasy Flight would be KISS, Rio Grande would be The Police, and Mayfair would be Captain and Tennille. And some companies would be one-hit wonders, but with rabid fans who follow them in beat-up VW bugs when they tour.Flying Frog would be Men Without Hats.Last Night...

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Card Game Review - Nile

My last review discussed Legitimacy, a game that can be labeled a disaster in just about any way that counts. And that's unfortunate, because Minion Games actually has some design chops. I can tell there's some smart in there somewhere, because one of the other games they sent, Nile, is very good.Nile is a card game, Euro-style. You're all trying to plant a wide variety of veggies, which would be a lot easier if the river didn't keep flooding and...

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Board Game Review - Legitimacy

Think about how many people you know. Exclude any that you met just because of games - they skew the data for this intellectual experiment. Your lawn guy, your barber and your mailman - they all count. So let's say you know 200 people you know through the course of your daily, non-game-related life. You probably know more, but 200 is an easier number.Now think how many of them are game nerds. If you're like me, that number is 1 or 2, and that number...

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Expansion Review - Growing Hunger

One of my favorite games of all time is Last Night on Earth. I've never played that game and not had a total blast, even when the humans mop up the zombies like spilled orange juice on a linoleum kitchen floor. I've played every scenario at least once, and many of them a lot more than that (I really like the one where the survivors have to protect the manor house, especially if I'm the zombies, because it's so crazy easy to kill them when they're...

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Card Game Review - Mad Zeppelin

It amazes me sometimes what games make the cut and get published, especially when I look at all the very good free games available to print and play. How do those games not get bought up, and so many stinkers make it all the way to distribution? I mean, some of these games are even published by big publishers who should know better, and yet, I could still go print out a copy of Zombie in My Pocket.I'm referring specifically to Mad Zeppelin, a game...

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Annual GenCon Rant

It's that time of year again, kids. When the fat man rolls up in big red ride and brings joy and cheer to all the gamers of the world. Only in this case, the fat man is in a YuGiOh shirt, his vehicle is littered with mostly-empty Mountain Dew cans and discarded candy wrappers, and the joy and cheer he brings is accompanied by copious amounts of horribly offensive body odor. Also, he probably has a foam sword.Yes, it's GenCon season, and for the first time in five years, I'm NOT there. It's hard to explain to your average nerd why I'm happy to miss...

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Dice Game Review - Delve: The Dice Game

Here's a little primer on how to be completely unprepared for a week of game reviews.1) Schedule your gaming for a Saturday morning, have a bunch of multiplayer games ready to go, and then somehow arrange it so that nearly everyone cancels. Thanks to illness and generally being wicked busy, my usual Saturday group wound up with only two of us, and me without any two-player games ready to play.2) Get busy yourself. I spent the weekend doing a bunch...

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