Board Game Review - Cave Evil

As lord of the Abyss and Master of inappropriate Capitalization, I vow to bring death and madness to all who would deny the Pure awesomeness of Cave Evil, where death rules and evil also Rules. Those who would refuse to dive into the well of Pustulent disease and play Cave Evil have failed to appease the dark overlord of Darkest darkness and will be condemned to listen to Justin Bieber and bad hip hop while we revel in the pure unadulterated Evil...

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Board Game Review - Grave Business

If you have an office job, you're familiar with the concept of working with zombies. Lots of us just wander mindlessly through the day, drudging from one menial task to the next before we photocopy our butts (that can't be just me).But if you play Grave Business, your co-workers will be actual zombies. Not office drones in need of a caffeine fix, either - I mean walking, groaning, reanimated dead people. Which would be bad for morale, except that...

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Board Game Review - 1812

Once, a long time ago, there was a war. On one side were the Americans, who were pissed off at the British and more than a little land-grabby. On the other side were the Canadians, who were still pretty much British, but they were also Americans because North America is a big place, and we just call people from the United States 'Americans' because it sounds kind of stupid to call ourselves 'United Statesians'. Plus there were Indians who were not...

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RPG Review - Don't Rest Your Head

When you think of role-playing games, probably the first thing that comes to mind is a world of dragons and people with pointy ears. You might also conjure up space adventures, or near-future science fiction with virtual universes, or post-nuke holocausts. You probably do not, on the other hand, think of a crazy world where bad guys have thumbtacks for heads and all the heroes are desperately sleep-deprived. But when the crazy bastards who made Don't...

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Board Game Review - Venture Forth

My favorite kind of game is the dungeon crawl, where you traipse around an underground lair, kill things you find there, steal their stuff and maybe rescue prostitutes who may or may not be so grateful that they give you freebies (granted, very few games include the grateful hookers, but that sure would make a cool game, even if it meant you couldn't let your kids play it). Venture Forth is not that kind of game.But it's OK, because my second favorite...

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RPG Review - Fantasy Craft

The wonderful thing about role-playing games is that there are so many different kinds. There are the games with almost no rules, where everything is about telling a story. There are some played with cards, and some played with poker chips. There are even some with a bunch of rules and no dice. Then there is the kind that involves one of you pretending to be a burglar and the other pretending to be the surprised housewife, but those are a little...

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Kid's Game Review - Dunger Derby

Racing pigs is a time-honored tradition among people who ride tractors to work and have shared sets of dentures. (Please, take no offense if you race pigs. Instead, just remember that for most of us, having children with first cousins is incredibly taboo, and you are a member of the privileged few.) But now, thanks to a silly little game, your children can also enjoy this storied and thrilling sport!The game that recreates this exciting pastime is...

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Racing Game Review - Nitro Dice

I am not a fan of professional car racing, as a sport, though I am more than willing to concede that it could be pretty cool. But I might be a lot more willing to sit through a few laps of NASCAR if a giant indicator on top of the vehicle told me how fast the car was going at a glance. Of course, in the case of NASCAR, I'm pretty sure they go the same speed, running in circles, for about three hours, and then someone crashes and takes out spectators...

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Board Game Review - Clue: Harry Potter

Having a fire take out every game I own really sucked, mostly because it left me with a real shortage of review copies. Not only that, but when I go to play a game, I can't just pick up Bootleggers or Risk Legacy or Nightfall, and I haven't been totally dazzled with a game since the fire. Sure, there were a few I liked, but none of the new games I've accumulated since December can compare to Nostra City or Claustrophobia for sheer 'holy crap...

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Board Game Re-Review - Startup Fever

A while back, I reviewed a prototype of a game called Startup Fever, which was, at the time, running a Kickstarter promotion to turn it from a wooden puppet box into a real game. The creator of the game told me that if I liked it, he would put Vietnamese prostitutes onto one of the scandal cards. I did like it, so I was excited this week when my real-game version showed up. The first thing I did was unwrap all the cards and look for one about Asian...

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Board Game Review - My Happy Farm

When I was a kid, I always thought the country between Eastern Europe and Russia was called The Ukraine. Like there was more than one, so they had to call it out with an article that would designate theirs as the original. 'Sure,' they would tell their friends, 'you could visit some other Ukraine, but you'll never find one as good as The Ukraine. It's The Best.'Turns out, the country is just called Ukraine. There's no article. I guess that's what...

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Board Game Review - Mob Ties

There are not very many games like Mob Ties. Yes, there are mobster games, like Nostra City. And yes, there are games with lots of diplomacy, like Battlestar Galactica (or, you know, Diplomacy). There are even games with a lot of dead bodies and player elimination, like almost every game that is awesome. But I don't think I've played very many games that only end when an atrocious number of players have been murdered or imprisoned, and I especially...

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