Card Game Review - Glory to Rome

It is a well-known historical fact that at some point, ancient Rome caught on fire. Also known is that Nero played a fiddle. What is not as well known is that after he finished his violin solo, Nero went out on his patio, saw that the fire was out, and hired a bunch of his buddies to fix the town. That's where you come in.Glory to Rome is a seriously engaging card game that has the players all acting as Roman patricians attempting to rebuild their...

Read More

Board Game Review - Field Commander Napoleon

I have the coolest dad ever. Not just because he plays tons of games with me and took me backpacking a lot when I was a kid, and not just because he survived Vietnam and has kick-ass scars all over his body. No, my dad is the coolest because he willingly volunteers to play games I don't want to play, then takes the time to write reviews about them, thereby saving me time and effort and freeing me up for a night whenever I get to post his writing...

Read More

Movie Review - Paul

Movies that reference other movies are not exactly rare. We watched Rango, which is cover-to-cover full of references to other movies, and then we watched Paul the next night, which references nearly every big science-fiction movie or TV show made in the last ten years. But there's a big difference between obvious, unoriginal references that damage the continuity of the film, and well-placed references that make everyone chortle with glee because...

Read More

Card Game Review - North Pole

Penguins live in the South Pole. Not everyone knows that, but everyone should. So if you're a penguin, and you live at the South Pole, where would you vacation? Warmer climates are pretty much out - you've got more insulating fat on your gut than Dom DeLuise, and there's no way you can drink enough margaritas in Cabo to keep from melting into a pool of fat cells and tiny tuxedo feathers. Seems to me your only option is a place that's just as cold...

Read More

Announcement - Social Media

It has finally happened - I have fallen prey to the siren song of social media. I've had a Facebook page for years, but never really used it because it irritated the hell out of me. I just didn't need to know which of my friends had recently purchased sandwich meat. I don't need regular updates on the after-work plans of people I barely know who live hundreds of miles away. And Facebook is ridiculously difficult to use. Would it kill them to have some kind of navigation menu? The buttons are all over the place!But a few months ago, Asmodee...

Read More

Russian Game Review - Potion-Making Practice

Russian Game Week is coming to a close, and I saved the best of the batch for last. I need a big drum roll and maybe a man dressed up as a dancing bear. This last game requires some fanfare, because it's one of the most entertaining games I've played this year. If I was a lot less lazy and bothered to rank things, this last game could be a contender for Game of the Year. But I don't, so it's just really fun.The game is called Potion-Making Practice....

Read More

Russian Game Review - Evolution

Ever since I was old enough to dissect a dead frog that had been soaking in formaldehyde for weeks, I wanted to play a game that would allow me to create an enormously fat fish with a tapeworm. Until now, there just weren't games that would let me manipulate genetic codes that way, but thanks to a brilliant Russian game designer, now I finally have the option to genetically engineer a burrowing wolverine the size of a brontosaurus.Evolution looks...

Read More

Russian Game Review - The Kingdoms of Crusaders

Russian Game Week started off with a bang. Maybe a flop. Maybe the sound a dead fish makes when it slaps onto a cutting board. But the second review - now here's a good game. The Kingdoms of Crusaders is surprisingly good.I was not looking forward to playing Kingdoms of Crusaders when I got the box. After I read the rules, it looked even worse. It's painfully basic - you've got a hand of five cards, you draw one, and you lay one down. That's it....

Read More

Russian Game Review - The Enigma of Leonardo

Being a child of the 80's, I have fond memories of the Cold War. Sure, we were all going to die in a nuclear holocaust that would fry most of us like marshmallows at a campfire, and the rest of us were going to have all our hair fall out before we were covered in horrible bruises and died barfing our guts onto the floor, but the movies were great. It was a time when "cloak and dagger" had absolutely nothing to do with rogues in elven footwear, and...

Read More

Board Game Review - Conquest of Nerath

I don't know if growing older has jaded me or just made me realize how stupid Dungeons & Dragons really is. Probably both. But either way, I have trouble signing off on a fantasy setting with such a willfully improbable collection of bizarre beings, especially when the ramifications of most of the elements in Dungeons & Dragons are never adequately explored. By way of example, look at your average dungeon. There are hundreds of humanoid...

Read More

Word Game Review - Flashwordz

Tonight I will review a game called Flashwordz. It is a spelling game. If you were sitting near me as I type this, you would hear me saying, 'Wow, a spelling game with a misspelled title. That does not seem like a good idea.' Of course, that's assuming I talk to myself while I type, which I generally do not do unless I am very angry about something. And frankly, a 'z' at the end of a word where there should be an 's' is mildly irritating at best....

Read More

Board Game Review - Ikusa

A long time ago (well, a long time ago in Internet years) I reviewed Shogun, the old 1984 Gamemaster Series game where everyone sets out to conquer feudal Japan using samurai soldiers and peasants carrying antique firearms. The summary was that I liked it, but couldn't describe the ending because I was never able to finish a game. I even took it to GenCon and set up for a marathon 5-player game, and then one of my pinhead friends spilled a rum and...

Read More

Stupid Game Review - Awkward Family Photos

Party games are the catch-all dumping ground of gaming ideas. For a long time, most of them seem to start with Apples to Apples, change two things, and publish. Seriously, how many variations of 'guess who said what' do we need?Apparently, we need at least one more. So a bunch of guys without any good ideas got together, licensed a silly-but-entertaining website and made the Awkward Family Photos game. In this game, you'll look at pictures that are...

Read More

Horrible Game Review - The Greatest Day Ever

Kids are not stupid. OK, that's not exactly right. Kids are stupid. But a kid's stupidity is generally related to things like riding his bike off the roof or lighting the curtains on fire, as opposed to not having the mental capacity to recognize when a game is blatantly lame.Unfortunately, the people who made The Greatest Day Ever think your children are mostly brain-dead. They believe that your kids will be amused by a game that offers no interesting...

Read More

Expansion Review - Thornwood Siege (Thunderstone)

It's time once again for a review from my old man. I could go into a belabored explanation about how I don't like Thunderstone, and he does, and how when he was at my house on vacation a year ago I gave him my copy of the game. And then I could explain how whenever Alderac sends me Thunderstone expansions, I box them up and mail them to my dad, so that he can write about them, because it saves me the trouble of playing a game I don't like, plus it...

Read More