Board Game Review - Kemet

Ancient Egyptians had the coolest stuff. I mean, I love my iPad and my cable TV, but they had houses that could teleport them and they could adopt giant snakes and ride on their backs. I would definitely trade my iPad for an enormous scarab beetle I could ride to work, especially if I could train him not to poop in the house.Of course, it wasn't all sunshine and roses. In exchange for all their awesome magical crap, they also kind of died a lot....

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Movie Review - Skyfall

My dad introduced me to James Bond movies when I was pretty young. We watched Goldfinger when it came on television - and keep in mind, this was before you could record a show, because it was before everybody had a VCR, so we had to watch all the commercials. While I was a little young to really understand why my dad chuckled a little at the name Pussy Galore, or what Sean Connery was doing with her in the barn, I was still old enough to think it...

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Board Game Review - Gentlemen Thieves

The last game I reviewed from Asmodee was River Dragons, and I didn't entirely care for it. So tonight, to flip it around, I want to review a game that is a real wing-dinger (wing-dinger, incidentally, is from the latin 'Wingus Dingus', which literally translated means 'impressive phallus,' and is thus inappropriate for use around small children). This impressive game is called Gentlemen Thieves, and features characters who are apparently a big deal...

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Board Game Review - Courtier

Alderac Entertainment is doing something I think is crazy cool. They're telling a story through games. OK, that's not new - people do that all the time - but in this case, the story starts in one game, goes to a second game, then through a third game, and to a fourth game, and if you don't get the idea by now, you probably can't read English very well anyway.The set of games is called Tempest. It's about a city-state. Can you guess what the name...

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Video Game Review - X-Com Enemy Unknown

You probably have some fond, nostalgic memories of playing through the first X-Com game. Then the second, where they were underwater. Then the one in the big city, though that one sort of sucked so maybe the memories aren't as good. Then the first-person shooter that was an utter abomination and effectively killed the franchise because of how much it blew goats.Well, in the world of video games, nothing awesome stays dead forever, so X-Com is back....

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TV Show Review - The Americans

I apologize in advance. I'm about to get all 'in my day' old-manny, and this is going to make some of you roll your eyes and think I'm a crotchety old fart stuck in the 80's. But then, I probably am a crotchety old fart stuck in the 80's, so I accept that.You kids today don't know how bad you have it. Why, in my day, we had real spies, and real threats, and we were damned sure we were all going to die. And we kind of loved it, because it spawned...

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Board Game Review - River Dragons

I love a game with a good gimmick (as opposed to games with bad gimmicks or cheap gimmicks, which don't usually work and then just irritate the piss out of me by making me suffer through this crap that some designer thought was a good idea but it turns out the game might be great if he had just got rid of this one stupid thing that doesn't work, but he refused to let it go because that was the part that made him think he was super-clever for inventing...

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Expansion Review - 7 Wonders Cities

There are some games that simply beg for expansions. You play them a couple times and then go, 'man, this would be so cool if there were just more of it!' Those kinds of games may be good enough on their own, but really only shine when you can add more to them.7 Wonders is not one of those games. It's a good game, one you can play in a short amount of time and engage your brain just enough to keep conversation flowing without getting bored. But it's...

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Movie Review - Hit and Run

I have a total man-crush on Dax Shepard. I also have a regular crush on Kristen Bell. I would really love to be friends with both of them so I could hang out at their house and tell stupid jokes to Dax Shepard, who in my imaginary world would laugh at them and then grab me a beer, and while he was out of the room I would pretend not to be terrified that I would say something moronic to Kristen Bell just to fill the dead air.So even though Hit and...

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Massive Game Review - Twilight Imperium

You know how sometimes you want a whole lot of game? Like, you want to spend most of your Saturday around the table, having to stop every two hours for food or bathroom visits or to remind your wife that you haven't died yet? When that happens, it may just be that you want to play Twilight Imperium. But pack some Snickers, because you're not going anywhere for a while.I've heard a lot of people compare Twilight Imperium to Eclipse, and the comparison...

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Board Game Review - Richard III

I didn't like Wizard Kings. I actually even felt kind of bad about not liking it, which is weird for me, because I don't usually mind not liking games. I kind of take a perverse pleasure in cursing bad games like a gypsy hag, but Wizards Kings is pretty much sound, except for the fact that we never could figure out how to kill people. So it was with some trepidation that I agreed to try another one.Despite getting a negative review for the first...

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