Board Game Review - Felinia

The first thing I have to say about Felinia is that I cannot decide how to pronounce the name. I'm not sure if it should be 'Fel-eye-nee-uh', which sounds like 'vagina', or 'Fel-eh-nee-uh', which sounds uncomfortably similar to 'fellatio'. Neither word is one I want to call out when asking close family members if they would like to play a game. But then, maybe it's pronounced so it rhymes with clamidia, though that's not an enormous improvement.I...

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RPG Review - Blue Planet

Blue Planet has always been kind of an elusive game for me. It's not that it's not interesting. In fact, it has one of the most compelling settings I've ever seen. It's incredibly well-developed, with a fascinating world that puts the 'science' in 'science fiction' and a system that makes hydrofoil gunfights and alien exploration feel real. You don't have to suspend much disbelief to play Blue Planet, is what I'm trying to say.But it's hard as hell...

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Board Game Review - Oh Gnome You Don't

I don't try to hide the fact that I'm a sucker for a good theme. It's more fun to play a game when it feels like you're doing something else. That's also why I'm a Star Wars nerd - I want to fly spaceships around a planet far, far away. It's probably also why I can't stand romantic comedies. You're not escaping anything if you wind up pretending that you're a dorky kid with a crappy office job who falls for the cute chick from the typing pool, unless...

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Upcoming Board Game Review - Startup Fever

The Internet has created hundreds of new kinds of businesses, enterprises that just could not have existed when we all had to go to the library for our information, instead of using Google for bizarre misinformation and randomly erroneous semi-factoids. Facebook, for instance, would never have worked as a mass-mailing campaign, and how lame would Twitter have been if it were just random postcards tacked to the office bulletin board?My current favorite,...

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Contest - The Spoils

Just last week, I reviewed THE SPOILS, which is one heck of a good game. The only problem is, I never even heard of it before a reader mentioned it to me, and that means more people need to be playing this game. Considering how much better it is than Magic, it distresses me that The Spoils doesn't have more avid fans.I intend to remedy that. And the way I will get more people playing The Spoils is to give people the game and tell them to play it....

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Board Game Review - Wrath of Ashardalon

Wrath of Ashardalon is one of those games that can be problematic for a reviewer. It's not exactly an expansion for Castle Ravenloft, because it is a complete game all by itself. The problem from where I'm sitting is that it uses the exact same rules as Castle Ravenloft, which means it can be tough to tell you anything new when I already reviewed the first game. It's still fast, still smart, still fun, and still crazy expandable. It's still a dungeon...

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Board Game Review - Viktory II

Everybody knows the saying that good things come in small packages. Whether or not it's true depends entirely on what's inside the package, of course - if you're comparing a package containing a diamond ring against a crate full of urine-stained packing peanuts, it's true, but box up a couple pounds of cat litter and put it next to a package with a car inside, and the saying goes right out the window.Slightly less known is the saying that goes, 'good...

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Announcement - A Rut

I'm in a rut.I like writing game reviews. But now and then, I just get bored. I have dozens of games I love to play, but I never have time because I'm always playing the new crap that shows up in the mail. I have to write about these games, and I've set myself a pretty lofty goal of three articles a week, which is sometimes pretty tough to do. When I'm tired and dragging and working on deadlines, I just don't feel like making boob jokes about board...

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CCG Review - The Spoils

The Spoils has to be the strangest collectible card game I've ever seen. Admittedly, I have not played them all, but I would wager there are not very many games that pit elves who only write in 733t speak against bankers who are, quite literally, fat cats. And that's before you roll in a commodities market that buys and sells natural forces like gravity, tiny illegal aliens that are actually inch-tall robots, or any of the other exceptionally odd...

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Expansion Review - Loot and Scoot Expansion

I'm going to get this out of the way, right off the bat, so that we don't have to keep talking about it - the game components produced by Victory Point Games suck. Sure, it's great that the games don't get made until you order them - but that just means they're all printed on cardstock you could buy at Staples using an inkjet printer that would embarrass you if it were in your house. Cheap cardboard squares haven't been cool since LL Cool J was on...

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Card Game Review - SPANC

People have different reasons for reading reviews. The most obvious reason is to find out about games they might want to purchase, but there are other reasons. You might read a review of a game you already own, to see if you agree. You might read a review because the reviewer is entertaining. It's crazy, but it happens.But I have a different sort of people who read my reviews. I have people who read my reviews simply because they hope I hate the...

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Card Game Review - Eleminis

I'm going to try a word association exercise. I'll say a word, and then you can say the first thing that comes to your mind. Don't bother saying the word out loud, though. I can't hear you, and your co-workers will think you've been huffing the canned air.Ready? The word is 'Eleminis.'Ha! Got you, didn't I? You couldn't think of anything! Probably because that's not a word. That's like two words, only they're all scrambled and nonsensical. Word association...

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General Gaming Rant - Gaming Gluttony

I've been thinking lately, which is a change from my normal routine of staring at my shoes and falling asleep while I'm driving. It doesn't happen very often, but now and then I find it refreshing to mix it up and use my head for more than a paperweight (which is not that useful anyway, because my drool keeps smearing the ink).And my latest epiphany is that there are too many games. That may sound like heresy, especially when this site survives because...

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