Expansion Review - Babel 13

I've wanted to play Neuroshima Hex since it was new, but it was a Z-Man game, and Zev has sent me, in the entire time I've been reviewing, exactly one game - and it wasn't Neuroshima Hex. So when I sold a bunch of games to Noble Knight and wound up with a hefty store credit, I used it to get the elusive Hex game and the first expansion. But even after playing several games of the original, I still had not played with Babel 13 until Thanksgiving,...

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Expansion Review - Omen: Shattered Aegis

It almost makes me hurt a little when I see enormous brilliance limited by small thinking. Look at Einstein - he thought big. If he had been content to make a couple theories in his garage, he never would have made the atom bomb, and then where would we be? In a world without Fallout, that's where.Now, if we could just make John Clowdus see that he is depriving thousands of nerds the opportunity to experience his genius, maybe John could create the...

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Board Game Review - Neuroshima Hex

Experts will tell you that a nuclear war will result in the near-complete decimation of the human race, with survivors slowing starving and dying of radiation sickness. But those of us who know better have a different scenario in mind. Namely, people will mutate into totally kick-ass monsters, probably with green skin, and have giant battles against evil robots in dune buggies. At least, that outcome would be a lot more interesting, and maybe even...

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Board Game Review - Star Wars : Epic Duels

Here's a quick anecdote to illustrate what a smart son of a bitch I am.Several years ago, I was walking through the toy section of my local Target store and noticed a couple Star Wars games. These had pictures on the front featuring miniatures that were painted by aboriginal chipmunks, and a bunch of art cribbed off of movie stills. I was momentarily intrigued, but then I remembered that when I was a child, I had a game based on Captain Caveman,...

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Expansion Review - Blood Country for Nightfall

Nightfall has one of the cheesiest settings I've ever seen in a professionally published game. Not only that, but the setting has almost nothing at all to do with the actual game you're playing. And yet I have absolutely no problem at all overlooking the thematic flaws, because Nightfall has grown on me like a fungus, and is now barely edging out Puzzle Strike to be my number-one go-to deckbuilding game.And if there's one thing that games like this...

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Expansion Review - Leaders for 7 Wonders

If I ran an ancient civilization, it would be called Drakatonia, and I would rule it with an iron fist. I would be an immortal god king, sending bloodthirsty soldiers to every corner of the globe to bring me back tasty exotic fruits and the heads of my enemies. I would have a harem the size of Madrid, and a collection of rare action figures (all of which would be carved out of stone, because this is pre-plastic).And if I had a card in 7 Wonders:...

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Card Game Review - Kamakura

Gamers as a group tend to be biased against really small games. I have a few theories about this. See if any of these make sense:1. You don't want a tiny game because you will lose it behind all the big box games you've got stored on bookshelves lining your basement walls.2. You don't buy the tiny game because when you get to the store, you're dazzled by all the enormous boxes covered in sexy art drawn by people with more talent than is easily explained.3....

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Board Game Travesty Review - Terrax Warriors

I hate having to give bad reviews to guys who are trying really hard. It's hilarious fun to slam the piss out of a Reiner game - after all, he can have a bowel movement and wind up with a new game. But when a guy is really putting out the effort to create something, and just doesn't have the sense to make it an actual interesting game, it's a little sad.On the other hand, I did warn him. I showed him some of the reviews I've written that were downright...

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Event Review - Surgery

Surgery today was a beating.No, not me. I'm fine. No surgery for me, at least until I get prostate cancer or my kidneys throw in the towel and decide that thirty years of diverting hard liquor to my bladder is two years too long. My wife had surgery today, because she has lupus and she's been getting sicker for the last several years. Her doctor is pretty confident that it was caused by a body part I don't understand doing something it wasn't supposed to be doing (which I also do not understand).So today, they went in with a camera attached to...

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Card Game Review - Hemloch

Odd characters in a wacky world battling for control of a decade of sunlight makes for a pretty bizarre backdrop for a game, but it sure is imaginative. John Clowdus has pushed the envelope on interesting settings with Hemloch, a game about - well, it's about that odd-characters-in-a-wacky-world thing. It's basically a card-based worker-placement game, but instead of workers you have rotten bastards who manipulate the city's denizens while all the...

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Card Game Review - Expedition Altiplano

Ohio Bob slipped past the ancient guardian statues and made his way through the jungles surrounding Machu Picchu. Wiping the sweat from his eyes, he entered the gloom of the ancient temple, eyes casting about for clues to the location of Maco Capac's mummy. There, in the darkness, he spotted the ancient treasure. He grabbed it and ran for the door.Then a jaguar ate him.That's about how it goes when you're playing Expedition Altiplano. You'll concoct...

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Board Game Review - Super Dungeon Explore

Sometimes, I like to kill things. Real men play games where people die, because games where people die are more fun. This explains why I like dungeon crawl games so much - guaranteed body count. Until last weekend, my body count game of choice was Warhammer Quest. But then I got Super Dungeon Explore, and given how much I like to kill things, it's no surprise at all that I absolutely adore the game.Super Dungeon Explore doesn't look like it should...

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