Race for the Galaxy

Card games hold an interesting niche in the board gaming world. Whenever a big bunch of gamers get together we sometimes run multiple games at the same time. This can cause one group to have some downtime if they finish their game and want to wait for the others to finish theirs as well. This is generally when the card games come out, as they’re generally easy to learn and quick to play.

Race for the Galaxy fits this bill nicely. It’s very amusing and can easily be played in about 20 minutes. The first time I played it took 30 minutes only because two of the three players were new and one of those new players was understandably distracted by her child. Needless to say it plays fast, but that doesn’t stop the game from having an epic scope and a much bigger feel than its lot as a card game might suggest.

Race for the Galaxy was originally supposed to be a card game version of Puerto Rico, and this is plainly obvious to any Puerto Rico player after getting the first explanation of RftG’s rules. The game adapts quite well to its new space exploration/conquest theme, and even takes the ingenious step of using undrawn face down cards from the deck as tokens and trade goods. This means that the only thing in the box is the deck of cards, a few victory point chits and the rules, and further adding to my surprise at the games level of emersion. This also makes expansions stupidly easy to insert into the main game and furthers the games replay value.

Race for the Galaxy gets an 8 of 10. This is a fantastically amusing game that easy to teach to just about anyone and even easier for a seasoned board gamer to dive into. The card art is good and the fact that is plays fast means that it can be brought out for a quick game at any time.

Agricola

As a board gamer, I see a lot of games set to a myriad of themes. Many times these themes include things like commerce, the political process, or even farming. While conquering the galaxy, fighting monsters, or questing for treasure might seem like the only way for a board game to be fun, most board gamers know that a great game can take a seemingly mundane theme and turn it into a marvelous board game. This is precisely what has been done with Agricola, a game where you play as a farmer and his wife as they build their farm and family.

I'm going to stop for just a second so that this can sink in. Agricola is a game about farming. You plant crops, raise livestock, have children and improve your house. This should neither be fun nor interesting for a bunch of nerdy city folk, and yet it is. More so, Agricola is an awesome game. It's definitely one of the best board games I've ever played.

The strength in Agricola lies in its replay value. In every game, each player gets a different hand of farm improvements and occupations that provide benefits. These are where players generally get the direction for their particular strategy that game. In addition, the types of actions that can be taken by the player’s changes depending on the number of players in the game, and later actions have a level of randomization to them. Finally, the before-mentioned occupations and improvements can come from one of three decks. These decks include an "easy", "complex", and "interactive" level of play with a more humorously themed X and Z deck available as well.

All of these aspects combine to make each game of Agricola truly different from the other. Beyond playing the hand that's literally dealt to you, it's even possible to eschew your cards and simply build a competitive farm without bothering to spend resources on occupations or improvements. I've not seen the kind of variety available in board game that Agricola has since Twilight Imperium. It may seem strange to compare these two wildly different games, but when you consider that both offer extremely deep replayability the comparison makes sense. Many of the actions are not even printed on the board itself, making easy to release card-only expansions that can drastically change the way the game is played. I can easily foresee playing Agricola for years to come and not getting sick of it in the least.

Agricola is a near perfect board gaming experience, getting a 10 out of 10 from me. It's challenging, great fun, and easily adaptable to any group of players.

XBox Live Arcade Round-up

Today I'm looking at my three most recent XBox Live Arcade purchases, namely Braid, Castle Crashers and Portal: Still Alive.












First up is Braid, and when I say that Braid is one of the most beautiful games that you will play I mean it. The music is fantastic, and the levels and character design are all sublime. The magic of Braid comes from combining all this visual wonder with the interesting game mechanic of time manipulation. Depending on the level, you're slowing down, reversing, or even stopping time and giving every level a new dimension. This is a phenominal game that everyone deserves to play.












Next up is Castle Crashers. Where Braid is cerebral, haute, and almost snobby Castle Crasher is good ol' beat-em-up fun. Don't get me wrong, the animations of the characters are fluid and the music is surprising compelling, but the heart of this game is simple, mindless destruction of your enemies. The leveling up of your characters and improving their strength, magic, defense, and agility adds another layer to an already awesome game. To all those kids who played Final Fight and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the arcades and 7-11's, this game is for you. The game's biggest weakness is by far it's online multiplayer, which is buggy and prone to dropping games. Hopefully this will get fixed as some point. This doesn't take away from the gameplay in general nor the offline multiplayer. In fact, playing w/ 4 people in the same room is one of the games strongest points.












Finally, we have Portal: Still Alive. For starters, you must understand that this is mostly a port of the original Portal game in XBLA form. There are new, challenging achievements to be had, but aside from that and the 14 new maps, Portal: Still Alive has little else to offer. Depending on who you are, this may not be a bad thing. If you're a rabid Portal fan who owns an XBox and curses the PC crowd for having all of the extra mods and maps, this is for you. If you (for some moronic reason) haven't bought The Orange Box, this is also for you. If you have $15 with nothing better to do w/ it, this is for you. For the casual Portal fans, this isn't a good buy. I'm glad I picked this up, but I truly wish there were more maps. The price of the game is justified if you're not already an owner of the game, so the rest of us are somewhat hosed. Still, I bought it and am enjoying it all the same. The new achievements do add a new kind of challenge to the game, especially the Out of the Blue award.

In closing, Braid gets a 9 out of 10, as does Castle Crashers. These are two must-own games for your XBox Live experience. Portal gets an 6 out of 10 if you already own The Orange Box or a 10 out of 10 if you don't, mostly for being just Portal which is awesome on it's own.

D&D 4th Edition: The Barbarian: First Impressions

The original 4th Edition gave us a reimagining of some classic Dungeons and Dragons classes and in addition gave us the notion of more clearly defined party roles. I've been enjoying my time playing as a fighter in the defender role. However my character has taken a turn for the worst and now I'm in the position of creating a new character. I'm going to be going w/ an other defender (a Dragonborn Paladin), but something caught my interest while browing for ideas for my new character's build. I ran across a playtest for the upcoming Barbarian class. I was all excited, as the barbarian was one of the better tanks in 3rd. Despite their general low AC, their d12 hit dice and rage boost to CON could allow them to soak up a lot of damage while dishing out a lot of punishment.

The new barbarian is a little different. He's listed as a striker (a mobile but fragile high damage dealer), doesn't get nearly as many hit points as his 3rd edition counterpart, but gets a lot of attacks and abilities that grant temporary hit points. The only archtype available in the playtest is the offensively minded build, meaning that the more leadership inclined abilities and powers are not yet released.

Basically, the builds I'm looking at do quite a bit of damage. Unfortunately, "quite a bit of damage" doesn't go as far as it used to, and a shitty AC means that my guy will be running low on HP in a longer fight. My previous fighter had a good AC for his level, and a good amount of hit points, and still got in trouble a lot. The barbarian is supposed to be a striker, but he lacks a lot of the elusiveness that rangers and rogues seem to have. Rangers and rogues also have high DEXs, which directly contributes to a higher AC. He also lacks the ranged attacks that the warlock possess. Sure he can push someone back w/ one of his at will powers, but there's nothing stopping that same someone from walking right back up to him and clobbering the poor barbarian.

My first impressions of the class are that barbarian needs more HP overall. Right now the barbarian gets the same starting HP and HP per level as a fighter, who's generally got a higher AC. The barbarian also gets one less healing surge per day. The barbarian does get a bunch of temporary HPs from dropping people and from one of his At-Wills, but judging by how much damage we've seen dished out by non-minion monsters it's not enough to keep him in the fight for long.

I also don't care for the rage abilities to be tied to daily attack powers. That means it takes a standard action to rage, where as it was a free action before. That also means that you also get less rages over your career, with no way to get extra rages via feats. I think there should also be a lesser encounter type rage that grants a small stat boost and empowers your daily "greater" rages even more.

I'd give the barbarian 17 or 18 HP + CON score at first level, with 8 or 9 HP per level gained and 10+CON mod surges per day. His AC proficiencies are fitting with the flavor of the class, and the same goes for his lack of ranged weapon profieciencies. I'd also make his rage powers have a little more damage to them, with either a CON or CHA boost to damage. Despite being a striker, he's going to be on the front line getting the crap beat out of him. He needs more HP.

I look forward to playing him, but I don't expect him to last more than a session or two. I've not decided between a human or dwarf, and a gensai barbarian seems like it'd be pretty sweet.

Speaking of barbarians...

Cleopatra and the Society of Architects

I imagine that most board gamers are like me and played with a lot of toys when they were kids. At some point, most of us give up playing with bits of plastic and move on to more intelligent pursuits. Some of us, still hold on to toys and while we don't play with them anymore we keep them around. They have their place on our desks and mantles, and we imagine their exploits and battles in our heads. This is why games like Warhammer, Twilight Imperium, and Battletech are so cool. They fire up our imaginations as we play out the battles in our minds, with minatures and terrain helping us play.

Cleopatra and the Society of Architects offers a similar kind of stimulation. The game has a lot of essential plastic bits and even the game's box is a part of the set up. In the game, the players take on the role of architects building a palace for the eponymous Egyptian queen. In order to complete the various parts of the building, such as the garden mosaics, throne, honorary obilisks, and sphinxes. As more elements of the palace are completed, Cleopatra approaches the front doors. Once she reaches the doors, the game ends and a winner is determined by the number of point accumulated by complete parts of the palace.

There's a catch though, and this part truly makes the game stand out. Since all the players are competing for the attention of the great Cleopatra, there are shortcuts the players can take to complete their projects before their rivals. Shady workers and specialists and ill-gotten goods speed up the completion of the palace, but at the cost of corruption at the hands of the crocodile-god Sobek. At the end of the game, the player with the most corruption loses. No reprieves, no appeals. The player with the most corruption comes in last place. Everyone else is judged on the points they've recieved over the course of the game.

Cleopatra is mechanically similar to other building games like Ticket to Ride in that every turn you must choose whether to gather resources or build. The key differnce here are the pieces, which are awesome. Some players have even taken to adding custom paintjobs to their bits. For this, the 1 hour or so play time, and the rather nasty-but-fun corruption mechanic, Cleopatra and the Society of Architects get a 7/10 VP. I'd say the only bad thing about game is putting it away, which can be somewhat of a hassle, BECAUSE OF ALL THE AWESOME PIECES. :D

Railroad Tycoon

Computer games made into board games may seem like an unnecessary step backwards in the evolution of gaming. Computers, and by extention robots, are capable of keeping track of the minutae of a game such as dice rolls, modifiers, range and so forth, leaving the player with the burden of directing his overall strategy and having more fun. Did I mention how awesome robots are? It saddens me that I can't have an army of robots vacuuming my carpet, mowing my lawn and doing the busy work around the kitchen. Robots, and by extention computers, have no feelings and are generally unsociable folk. This is where board gaming wins, with the joy of human contact and the imperfection of not remembering that you did get a +2 from flanking and actually did drop that goblin.



So how does one take an established and excellent computer game and make it into a board game that fun to play yet deep enough to excerise your brain? Well in the case of Railroad Tycoon, you take an established and excellent board game (Age of Steam), tart it up with new plastic bits and pieces, put in all on a HUGE board with a load of new art, and viola you've got Railroad Tycoon: The Board Game. Perhaps I'm not being entirely fair. Yes, Age of Steam is a great game but it's also pretty minimal in terms of art and bits. RT:tBG addresses that in spades, and did I mention the FUCKING HUGE board? Seriously, it's like it's own acrage. Twilight Imperium doesn't take up that much space. Huge.



The gameplay is just like Age of Steam. Players are the eponymous tycoons of the railroad, building connections between cities while delivering goods to gain income to make more connections that build into the end game. Victory is determined by the income you're bringing in, not necessarily cash in hand. You periodically have to put yourself in debt by issuing shares to gain capital to build your railroad.





So we've essentially got Age of Steam with better art, on a big ol' board. It's not really fair to say that RT:tBG is any better than AoS as far as game play, because it's pretty much the same except on a bigger field. Simply put if you like AoS, than you'll like Railroad Tycoon as long as you have the room for it. Both games rate a 8/10, as the bigger better art of Railroad Tycoon is cancelled out by the near logistical nightmare that entails getting this game on the table. The FUCKING HUGE table.

Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition: Part 1

Player-killing. Wanna a song about it? Like to hear it? Here it goes...

Over the weekend, our gaming group got together to try out the Keep on the Shadowfell adventure. I'll just say that so far this module is quite brutal. I'm not sure that I've got anything good to compare it to, as I'm not personally familiar with anal penatration but it's pretty harsh. An ill-timed fight with one of the adventures mini-bosses ended with a total party kill, forcing us to make a whole new set of characters. This was after our original 1st level party of a human wizard, dragonborn paladin, dwarf cleric, and halfling rogue lost it's before-mentioned paladin (he was replaced by a human fighter). Even though we probably could have won the battle with the goblin brute mini-boss if we'd rested and recovered our daily powers, it would've still been an uphill battle. Our next iteration of the party was comprised of a tiefling warlord, eladrin wizard, half-elf warlock, elf ranger, and half-elf paladin. This very pointy party made easier work of the brute and his remaining lackies, despite his nasty damage output and 106 (!) HP. We've now learned that these fiends are in league with a cult that wishes to reopen a rift that could flood the world with Orcus' undead hordes. At this point we called it a session and we'll be finishing up the module over the next couple of weeks.

Overall, I'm enjoying the module and the new rule revision so far. The bloodbath of PCs has actually been pretty educational, as we've now seen all of the PC races and classes in action. So far, my impressions are:

• 1st level guys are a lot more interesting, especially the wizard and cleric. In 3rd Edition, a 1st level wizard with an 18 INT had 3 1st level spells per day, or 4 if they were a specialist. A 1st level cleric with an 18 WIS had 4 1st levels spells as well. Both classes also had 3 0-level spells that were mostly useless. In 4th Edition, a cleric or wizard has at least 2 powers that he can use as often as he wants that are just as good as most 1st levels spells with the exception of magic missle, grease (which is sadly absent) and possibly Summon Monster 1. Both classes, as well as all other PC classes, also have a power that renews with each encounter and a power that renews every day. This gives every single class a depth at first level that's a lot of fun and very interesting. This isn't new information, as the preview material listed the power advancement for the classes. Playing is believing, and I'm now a fan of this whole new power scheme. Mostly.
• While the lower levels are interesting, I can't help but think that at higher levels there won't be the same kind of variety. This is especially true of the classic spellcasting classes of cleric and wizard. Even martial adepts from The Book of Nine Swords have more maneuvers than any of the 4th Edition PC classes, and those maneuvers are more easily recovered and reused, even for swordsages.
• I'm still not entirely convinced that a party can go without a cleric. We'll soon see as my Warlord tries to fill the leader role in the new party. Even so, it looks like while it's not essential to have a leader providing additional healing in a fights, it's still pretty fucking important. Second winds and healing surges are nice, but it's still something that most characters can only do once in a fight. A paladin seems to help in a pinch, but that's still a more limited resource than a 3rd edition cleric that can turn nearly all of his spells into a cure spell of some sort. The jury's still out on this.
• More to the point of healing and hit points, everyone has more of them. I mean they really have a lot MOAR of them. As I mentioned before, the goblin brute mini-boss had over 100, while my first level wizard had 29 HP. The only "people" that seemed to have gotten the short end of the HP stick are the minion-typed monsters, who each have a single hit point while retaining OK defenses and damage output. While this makes wading through mooks more succinct and easier for the DM to track, it's made up for by all the other monsters types having just as many or more hit points than the PCs which can make for some very grindy fights. The damage output of the PCs is somewhat higher than before to make up for this, especially from rogues and rangers. Still, it can make for a somewhat prolonged fight when it gets down to the last few guys in an encounter.
• All of the skill mechanics are simplier and more streamlined, even relating to social encounters. This seems to give the DM a lot more latitude in using these skills as he sees fit. Gone are the days when you can just waste skill points on that Profession: Sous Chef or Perform: Bass Accordian. Now the skill catagories are more broad and seemingly more useful to both the DM and the PCs.

Well, that's it for now. More later, and a final review of the module when we finish it.

Battle Line

Two player games don't get a lot of notice from me. It's probably because I love the dynamics that come with having a group of people play a game. It started with Magic: The Gathering where I hated dualing, but loved building and using decks designed for multiplayer as it was much more interesting for me. These days the only two-player games that I partake of are the occasional games of Mastermind or the bedtime-frolicking with the girl, which has all of the negotiations, pain, thrill, heart-break, area-denial, and victory conditions of the best board games around. Yes, I just compared my married love life to a fucking board game. Blow me. :D

Then comes along Battle Line, a card game for two players that has a theme rooted in ancient warfare. The game has a Troop deck with cards numbered 1 to 10 in 6 colors or suites. Additionally there's also a rule-breaking Tactics deck that sees limited but powerful use. There are nine flags that represent the eponymous battle line. Players in turn play up to three cards in those areas in order to try and get essentially a better 3-card poker hand than their opponent. If a player can prove that their hand cannot be beaten, excepting the intervention of Tactics cards, that player claims the flag. The game is over when a player takes any five of the nine flags or when a player takes three adjacent flags, which represents an overrun in that section of the line.

The games theme, the types of soliders printed on the cards from lowly pikemen to mighty war elephants, is awesome. The game actually plays pretty fast (depending on the players of course) and the endgame is wrought with game-breaking decision. Frankly the games only problem is that it's almost too short. This is easily remedied by playing a best of 3, 5, 7, etc game series. At $20, it's well worth it for any size gaming group.

Battle line gets a 10 of 10 VP from me. The game is just about perfect and deserves a spot in everybody's gaming library.

MWAHAHAHA!

Buying a game on completely on faith is something I generally don't do. In fact, I generally don't buy board games for myself at all, instead relying on my friends to help me with my gaming habit. I've actually only bought two games, Twilight Imperium (with the expansion) and Memoir '44.

We can now add MWAHAHAHA! to the list of games that I now own. I knew nothing about this when the shopkeeper recommended it, and bought it entirely based on his opinion. As it turns out, it's actually a fun little game with a neat theme a and a bunch of flavor.

At its core, MWAHAHAHA! is a card game where the players take the roles of different archtypeal supervillians trying to ransom the world with a superweapon you're attempting to build. The other players are trying to do the same thing, so conflict inevitably occurs with minions, resources, other assets are thrown into peril. There are several different scientist/villians to play as, and twenty different superweapons to try and complete. As you gather resources and other holdings, you steadily increase the power of your weapon, first threatening cities, then states, entire countries, then the whole world. The player that first successfully threatens the world wins the game.

The game has a lot of positives. The presentation and art of the game is first-rate. All the characters are well-drawn and given a lot of flavor. The minions and different businesses you can control also play well into the games irreverent but faithful theme. These are comedic villians, despite the wonton destruction of people and places. The dice-fest mechanics of conflict resolution also work surprisingly well. Initially, we were worried that we'd get to the endgame too soon resulting in a stalemate and a grind that would be long and boring. The game's end came at a good point, and we ended up enjoying the experience.

With 10 different mad scientists to play as and 20 machines to build, you'd think that there'd be a lot of replay value. I'm hoping that this is the case, but the biggest obsticle to this is the mad scientist characters themselves. Unlike the different races from Twilight Imperium, the characters available in MWAHAHAHA! have very few mechanical differences. In fact aside from the card art and what resources they are able to better produce, there are no differences between the villians. All of them have the single ability to spontaneously produce the resources they are least able to refine. It's an OK trait, but in the end game it's useless. It's pretty disappointing, as I was expecting the characters to have wildly differing powers, like bonuses to minion combat, or a bigger hand size, or resource penalies, etc. Anything that differenciates the characters in a game mechanics sense would have earned this game a lot of credit. I see this as the game's only flaw, but it's a rather large one. I'm considering adding a desk of cards where each player is given a character quirk or benefit. One might be "Inspirational: All minions fight at +1 die", or "Small-Minded: +2 die to threaten a city, -1 to threaten world", or even something like sacrificing minions to get extra successes in combat or threats.

I give MWAHAHAHA! a 5/10 VP. The game will most likely be played again, and the theme, mechanics, and art are all quite cool. It's fun and definately something different to get onto the table.

Take me down to the Liberty City!!!

Where the blood runs red and the bodies are plenty!!!









You might have noticed a little lack of updates, and truthfully this review was supposed to be up about a week ago. My time playing GTA IV has been most addicting. Remember when I mentioned a while ago my obbession w/ RPGish games? This isn't quite as bad, but it's been taking up most of my free time with the running and shooting and robbing and... bowling.

Grand Theft Auto IV is an immersive, expansive experience. In between the driving, the shootouts, and the intrigue, it's almost too easy to not notice just how realistic your surroundings are. Looking at the whole of Liberty City from the air or from the highway, it's truly marvel just how detailed the environments are. Granted, it's a lot less populous than the real NYC, but it's still a good play to have some mayhem.

All that said, the action in the game is intense. While most missions consist of find guy, fight goons, kill guy, several missions are reenactments of famous movie scenes. The one that stands out the most is Three Leaf Clover, which is almost bullet for bullet a recreation of the robbery sequence from "Heat". It's a thrilling mission, and for me the highlight of the game so far.

While many critics are quick to heap massive amounts of deserved praise onto the game, GTA4 is not without flaws. It takes a good couple of hours to get to any missions where you shoot anything. It's a really slow start that almost turned me off of the game completely. Fortunately things picked up right when they needed to, and it's been a hell of a ride since. I'm almost done with the story missions, and after I'm done it's off to the various side missions. Driving is also a bit frustrating, especially with the cheap cars that handle like lawnmowers on an ice rink.

GTA4 is among the top three games for the 360, right up there with The Orange Box and Halo 3. I give it a 9/10, as it's pretty damn close to being perfect. Believe the hype, and take a trip to the LC.

Shadows Over Camelot

Cooperative board games are a strange animal for some. For most people the idea of just about any game is to win over your opponents. Cooperative games like Pandemic or Shadows Over Camelot present a different challenge in that the only opponent is the game itself, and order to win the entire team must work together to overcome obstacles together. This can be a problem if your team is made up of jerks like mine usually is.

Jerks aside, Shadows Over Camelot takes place in the time of Arthurian legend with each player taking the role of a different Knight of the Round Table including King Arthur himself. Players take turns attempting several tasks, either challenging opponents like the Black Knight, questing for artifacts like the Holy Grail or Excalibur, and defending Camelot of seige engines and barbarian invasions. All the while the loom of evil advances every turn, either hindering quests or adding invaders to the board. Sometimes it feels like the game is actively trying to kick each and every one of the players in the junk while at the same time using the players loved ones as a humping post. There also may be a traitor in the midst of the players, and the only way for the traitor to win is for the entire team to lose.

The game is rather difficult for the Knights to win, even without the traitor covertly working against them. Often times the Knights are just a breath away from dying, have an army of catapults at Camelot's gate, and are losing the quests for the Grail and Excalibur. This can be pretty straining on the nerves of the players, especially if they feel like nobody's helping them on "their" quest. That said, it's a pretty satisfying accomplishment when you actually do end up winning the game, especially if you've also managed to ferret out the traitor.

This game gets a 7 of 10 VPs. It's always fun to play with the right group of people, but it's no fun at all if you get a player that particularly whiny and selfish. Still the theme, the beautiful art, and the detailed pieces all combine for an excellent and different offering for your gaming knight.

Yes that was both intentional and lame. :)

Galaxy Trucker

Since I seem to be on a puzzle game kick, lets keep this rolling right along to another foray into puzzley board games.
Kids seems to be fascinated with space travel, idolizing Han Solo, Chewbacca and Captain Kirk's adventures into the big black void that exists being worlds. As we grow up we learn that space is actually pretty dangerous and not all that interesting anyways. We haven't found aliens, nor to we have numerous colonies on the outskirts of space full of futuristic pioneers like the ones in Firefly. Speaking of Firefly, wouldn't it just be cool to grab a junky ship and head out to the beyond to find your fortune? Doesn't that rekindle all those old fantasies and thoughts of adventure? Huh? Doesn't it?
Galaxy Trucker is your game then. The idea is that your a privateer on the outskirts of human civiliation, one of many that have come out seeking your fortune. Everybody starts with a general ship layout mat, and a starting crew cabin. From there, it's a race to grab the parts you need for your ship from a communal junkyard and assemble your "new" ship before time runs out. You've got limited amount of space to fit things like shields, guns, cargo storage, alien life support, more crew quarters, and engines. After your done building, your ship is subjected to a series of randomly selected trials, including pirates, slavers, combat zones, and meteor showers. You also can collect goods and money as you race the other players to the finish line.
It's a real romp through space. Obviously my favorite part of the games is the shipbuilding, which is very similar to another rather amusing game. There are many different ways to build your ship, from a fast cargo hauler to a slowmoving gunship. Its all based on personal taste and even your mood at the moment, and it's a real treat.
The part that most puzzle gamers really hate about Galaxy Trucker is the actual trucking itself. It's VERY random, and even a well-built ship can meet a gruesome fate. We've had some games where the only piece of the ship to make it home was a single crew compartment. It's hard seeing your creation get torn up, but I was one of those kids that build a lego ship for hours then sent it crashing into the floor just to see it happen. Building is a lot of fun, but seeing your ship getting humorously picked to pieces can also be entertaining. This is especially true if your drinking, as this game is light enough to be able to play while consuming moderate amounts of booze.
Galaxy Trucker is not a very deep game, and it's replay value is a little lower than others even with some expansions. Keep in mind that our group has played this game a LOT, and even after all this I still am entertained every time it hits the table. The game also requires that you be good-humored about the inevitably bad fate that's in store for most ships. If you're going to whine about getting screwed by bad luck, this game isn't for you. That said, I give it an 8 of 10 VP. This game is fun, has an awesome theme and lots of cool bits and pieces.
This game is kind of hard to find right now, and while a US or Canadian release is promised, it's still not happened yet. As soon as it's available I recommend grabbing it up quickly. Yes, you can even call yourself Mal or Han if you want.
Here's a video showing a typical round of play. I'm actually in this one for once :D

Ubongo

When I was a kid in elementary school someone determined that I was smart and it was decided that I would be in some special classes for what was called the Gifted and Talented Program. While it was fun to get out of regular class, play some games and do some learning stuff that you wouldn't normally do, it seemed like this only served to initate the social isolation and awkwardness that smart people are subjected to. Sad and emo that it is, it's really neither here nor there and better suited for a more whiny, self-loathing drunk post later. Anyhow one of the most fun things we did was a set of puzzles called Tangrams, which are puzzles in which you try to make a set of shapes fit into a shape. I loved doing these, and I'd totally forgotten about them until I was introduced to Ubongo a couple of years ago.

Ubongo is a competitive puzzle-solving game. You're given a board, a set of Tetris-esque pieces, and have a minute to solve the puzzle your dealt, move your token and collect your points. In the end the person with the most of any single color of gem wins the game, so while being able to solve the puzzles correctly helps you greatly in the game it's not going to make winning a guarantee.

These kinds of victory conditions, meaning those that aren't directly based on the primary mechanic of the game (in this case solving the puzzles) are either a big plus or a negative for some players. On one hand it sort of evens the playing field for newer players and those that may not be a puzzle inclined as others. On the other hand this balancing of the game can annoy people who do excel at puzzles and can even be quite offputing. Personally, I like mechanic because it does strike a good middle-ground between those who grew up with things like Tangrams and those who had to stay in regular classes all day. :)

I'll just say that I've loved the game ever since I first played it. Its bits are quite well made and the quasi-African theme is an oddly appropriate fit to the game. It also plays VERY fast with 10 rounds each taking about two minutes for dealing the puzzles, starting the timer, playing the actual puzzle and turning in used playing cards. Even if you end up hating the game, you won't be stuck at the table for very long before you can go try something else.

All told, Ubongo gets a 10 of 10 VPs. Its fast pace and ease of learning make this a standout game and easily one of my all time favorites. It's even easy to find these days and I happily suggest that you try it out yourself.

Here's a video depicting a few rounds from our most recent session. Enjoy!

Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition Preview

The band Rush said it best in their song "Tom Saywer": Changes aren't permenant, but change is. Inevitably things change and evolve and this is especially true in the gaming world. Consoles come and go, franchises are created, updated, and eventually abandoned. The next iteration of Dungeons and Dragons, the ultimate expression of mainstream nerddom, is upon us and with it a slew of new changes to the most popular role-playing game to date.

So what's different about 4th edition, you might ask. Based on the material that's been released from playtesters and Wizards themselves, there are some major changes in the game regarding the abilities of the player characters (PCs). If you're familiar with D&D 3.5 and more specifically the Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords (Bo9S), some of the changes are going to look very familiar. Bo9S introduced a new mechanic for melee characters to use that are similiar to spells cast by wizards and clerics. These maneuvers were special abilities generally geared for combat that scaled just like spells. Moreover, the use of these abilities were not restricted to "per day" basis like spellcaster, nor were they as unlimited as the warlock's at-will abilities. Rather, they were automatically refreshed after every encounter or fight. A character using these manuevers could even change them out with 5 minutes of meditation, allowing for greater versatility.

4th edition borrows this "per encounter" idea, as well as the at-will abilities of the warlock quite heavily. In 4th edition every PC, from the fighter to the wizard has a collection of at-will, per encounter, and per day abilities. These abilities are called powers and come from different sources depending on the character. The duration of these powers has also changed. Some are instant, others last until the end of the encounter, and others last until the target character makes a successful save. No more ticking off rounds for effects, as the consequences of spells and abilities now flow more naturally with the situation at hand.

Character creation is also different as there is a standard rate at which all characters gain powers, much like the accumlation of feats in 3rd edition. Speaking of feats, they will be granted more often. Even though the Player's Handbook will only have 8 classes (Cleric, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Warlock, Warlord, Wizard), the options for these characters are increased with the selection of powers in addition to feats and skills. Characters are also relegated to different roles including Defender, Skirmisher, Controller, and Leader. Paladins and Fighters could fill the tank-like Defender role with Rogues and Rangers using their mobility and high damage to make up for their lower AC and hit points. Wizards and warlocks are the controllers of the party, setting the flow of the battle with their spells while leaders such as clerics and warlords use their abilities to buff and heal the party.

I'm going to hold off a lengthy retelling of the crunchy bits, as they're readily available to be read and digested, and am going to tell you what I think of the new changes so far. If you couldn't tell already, I'm really looking forward to the new iteration of D&D. I loved Bo9S, and am glad to see it's ideas incorporated into the core game. The generation of hit points as a result of leveling up is now a fixed amount based on your class with your constitution as a bonus only at level 1. I'm also looking forward to see if the designers remedy one of the biggest problems in the game which would be the almost mandatory inclusion of a divine healer in the party. From what I've read, their intention is to make any character filling the Leader role just as capable of keeping the party alive as the cleric. Some of the so-called Paragon Paths seem interesting, the Kensai for the fighter and the Doomsayer for the warlock sounding the most interesting to me. The new core race of Dragonborn has me intrigued, as it's merely a racial template right now.

The whole party role thing, especially the Leader role, is also a concern for me. I fear it'll be possible that warlords are just going to be shitty clerics, nothing will have actually changed, and you'll still need a banda... I mean cleric in your party if you expect to survive in the long term. Another concern is that of arcane implements. Powers are all initiated by something, be it a weapon, holy symbol, or arcane implement like a wand or staff. It always bothered me that in some story setting magic users were powerless without their implements. Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, I'm looking right at you. I guess it's just as silly as speaking words of magical power and waving your hands around to cast spells, but it still bothered me. I'm also questioning the splitting of the elves (again) into eladrin (snooty high elves) and elves (woodsy wild elves). I think there was room for both archtypes in the same race and when races like half-orcs are being left out of the PHB, I'm a bit skeptical. Some players are also turned off by the seemingly MMORPGish nature of the new system. I don't see that resembling a game like World of Warcraft as an inherently bad thing. D&D it's started as a miniature combat game, and I'm willing to actually get a few sessions in before I damn it for resembling a new popular type of game.

I've got the core books on preorder, so I'm obviously hoping for the best here. We've already got a DM for the new edition lined up and almost ready to go. As for my first character, who apparently will be starting at level 1, I'm going to have to see something really cool to not play a Dragonborn or dwarven fighter. Another player as also expressed interest in the ranger, while our third player has yet to even consider what he might be playing and could very well be rolling up his character the morning of our first session.

To quote another song: The waiting is the hardest part.

Kingsburg

If you've read some of my recent reviews, you'd notice that I seem to be harping on games heavily for incorporating dice-rolling in their combat systems. This might seem strange to people who know me even a little, as my two favorite games (Twilight Imperium and D&D) are based around rolling die to fight. Perhaps I'm being a bit too harsh on those games, and maybe I need something to help out with my irrational hatred of unfamilar dice rolling combat.

Kingsburg seems to be a step in the right direction for me. Like Liar's Dice or To Court the King (affectionately called Yahtzee: The Gathering in our group), its mechanics are almost entirely based in rolling six-sided die. Speaking of To Court the King, Kingsburg borrows a lot of themes and ideas from that game while polishing said ideas to lustering shine. In both games, your roll of your dice determines which characters you can claim turning your turn. These characters in both games provide varying benefits, and the higher you roll the better the characters get as far as their abilities are concerned. This is where the two games diverge some, while To Court the King's theme is almost an after thought to the mechanics of rolling dice and tapping cards for stuff to happen, Kingsburg tries its hand at being a civilization-building game. Where To Court the Kings characters provide you with the means to add and manipulate dice in your quest to roll 7-of-a-kind, Kingsburg's characters provide you with the resources you'll need to build your city and fight off the enemies that attack at the end of a round. It's a neat twist that provides some real strategy to an otherwise mindless game. Do you intentionally take a lower character to get that stone instead of the gold? Do you go with a militarized city that'll help you fight bad guys, or do you go with an industrialized hamlet to more effectively gather resources? This was the fun of the game for me, and I found that the near constant dice-rolling to be a lot of fun.

Kingsburg is not perfect. As demonstrated in our session, it's VERY easily to essentially get knocked out of the game with a bad first round. Additionally some of the characters vastly more powerful than others, the king and queen being prime examples of this. The queen is superior to the king, providing more benefit for a point less than the mighty king. This is an obvious nod to the power behind the throne being more effective than the guy sitting as king, but I feel like I've seen this before. Additionally the game suffers from what all chance-based games do, and that players simply getting screwed by bad rolls at bad times. It's almost unavoidable in games of this type, like faulting Twilight Imperium for being to complicated and long while it's simply part of the game. I would also like more monsters to fight, but all of these complaints are relatively minor. Kingsburg is a fun and easy to learn dice-fest that will continue to entertain me for sometime. I'm glad that it seems to be getting more popular with my group, and I hope that it hits the table again soon. Since I'm considering buying my own copy, I'm giving this one a 8/10. Fantastic game, beautifully packaged, and easy for anyone to get into.

Here now is a video of the first round of play. Well, not quite all of it, but you get the idea.

Princes of the Renaissance

When I introspectively look at the games I play and how I play them, I find that I'm a rather violent person. Show me a game where I can build a military and blow stuff up or beat something down and I'm all over it. This was most apparent in a recent game of Fire and Axe where I ignored building my viking civilization by settling cities and trading for riches, and instead went on a rampage sacking all the cities I could, including Rome, Paris, and Constantinople (not Istanbul). While it was really cool having all those plastic trophies of my glorious victories, I ended up with the least amount of victory points. By a lot. Clearly I need reevaluate my stratigeries when playing any game that has even the hint of a fighting aspect.

The game to heal me of my aggro affliction is Princes of the Renaissance. The backstory of the game involves foppy Italian families getting various cities to fight seemingly pointless wars for fun and profit. I say seemingly pointless, because no matter how much you fight you never EVER lose a military unit you've purchased. This floored me as the rules were being explained and I was beginning to wonder whether I'd made a mistake in sitting down to this silly game. As it turns out, the point of fighting is not actually to kill anyone, it's to make a big show for the city that you're fighting for at the moment. Win or lose, you get paid if you're fighting but it's the honor of the city that's on the line. This game is really an investment game, as players slowly buy "shares" of the individual cities hoping that they'll be worth more by the final turn. In fact, it may be to your overall benefit to have a really crappy army and fight for cities that you want to take down a peg, or want to buy into on the cheap. I really ended up liking this a lot, especially coupled with the auction mechanic that takes up a majority of the game.

Now for the not so good. The packaging is really minimal, and while it's really not cool to judge a game by it's box, it's hard to ignore the medicore bits the game comes with. In addition, the battling in the game comes down to dice rolling, and while that's fine for other games that I like, it really bothered me in this one. I'm probably being way too harsh, but it almost seems that when you boil down the mechanics of this game you're almost better off just playing Ra. It's got a lot fewer rules to learn and is just as or more fun. I will say that getting into the theme of the game is pretty easy, and we were talking like snooty royals and role-playing a little near game's end.

In the end, this is a game you really have to be in the mood for. As a new player, it took me a while to get into how I was supposed to play and win. I ended up in second place out of four players by 5 or 6 victory points. I had fun, and give this game a 6/10 VP. Definately something I'll be playing again soon.

Still Alive?

Yep, just been busy with work and house hunting. Still, that's NO excuse for laziness! I'll make it up with a couple of new reviews this week for Kingsburg and Princes of the Renaissance, from this last meeting of the Super Fantastic Gaming Hour group. For now, here's a video of one of the most stupidly awesome games to have come out ever. Seriously, it's random and retarded all at once. Just like your mom. :D

Puzzle Quest

Apparently this game had some sort of following before I'd stumbled upon it on XBLA in between sucking at Grifball and trying to gold star "Vasoline". I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I was pleasantly surprised when I found the game to be much lighter than your average RPGish fare. See, I've got somewhat of an addictive personality, especially when it comes to games involving XP, lootz, and spells. The drive to get more levels and get a buffer guy consumes me. This is why I don't play games like WoW, EQ, or even single player adventures like Elder Scrolls or Mass Effect. I actually want to have a life, and I know that for me personally such a life cannot exist while I'm hunting orcs on some electronic media. Puzzle Quest isn't like that, which isn't to say that it's an addicting and yet interesting game. It's puzzle are quite entralling and I do find myself thinking about colored gems dropping in patterns when I'm not playing, but I do find I can put it down quite easily. I'm not sure if this is personal growth on my part, or some mechanic of the game, but I'm not compelled to sit in front of the TV for hours leveling up my character. Perhaps it's the way that you can more or less choose which fights you get in, but this non-junkie behavior is quite a refreshing change for me.

The most surprising aspect of the game is the music. It's regal, majestic, and almost unappropriately good for what is essentially Hexic with XP. One almost gets more entranced with the medieval fantasy-inspired soundtrack and forgets that their actually playing a puzzle game to besiege that city and pillage the citizens for greed and fun.

If you haven't already, jump on this colorful bandwagon and match some pretty colors for the glory of your... uh... kingdom, and not in the least for your own gains. $15 or 1200 MSP makes this one of the more pricey Arcade titles, but I'm feeling that it's worth it. I give it a 8/10 VP.

Overkill

I've been playing Halo 3 for a while now, and I've been at 995 gamerscore for almost as long. The Overkill achievement has long eluded me, until tonight.

Now that I've gotten my Commander rating, I was back doing the Lone Wolves playlist. This also meant that I had another shot at the achievement. This particular match started OK, as I grabbed the shotty and got two quick kills. I then was killed by an invisible dude, respawned and found myself the shotty I'd dropped earlier. What ensued was by all accounts raep of a high order, as I used every round remaining to go on a 7 kill shotty spree culminating in finally getting my overkill. I'd like to thank the players in that game for unwittingly helping me out. I'd also like to thank that shotgun for not running out of ammo before that last kill, and I'd like to thank my wife for putting up with the hootin' and hollerin' that followed. :D

Fire and Axe: A Viking's Saga

Vikings have an interesting and varied history. Not only were they accomplished explorers, but they also took the time to dabble in pillaging and mayhem. Who doesn't enjoy a little mayhem every now and again, but I find myself wandering from the point. Vikings are just plain cool and most things that involve them are pretty cool too.

Fire and Axe: A Viking's Saga, is no different. Boardgamegeek lists the game as a nautical/medieval game with action point and area movement mechanics. Basically during a players turn, you have 7 action points (days) to spend. Everything requires at least one day to complete, and loading your Viking longboat can take even longer, since load a single unit or trade good requires an action point. The board includes a space for keeping track of the points a player has used in their turn, but it's pretty superfluous. It's not THAT hard to count to seven. Points in the form of gold are awarded for completing quests, or sagas, raiding cities or trading goods. Gold is also awarded at the end of the game as bonuses for controlling all cities in a given area, or having the most completed quests of a certain type. End-game bonus points are also awarded for having the most sacked cities. Our groups end scores ranged from around 145 to 170.

The game play is pretty straight forward, and it's pretty fun to load up your boat and go kick some ass. That said, the combat sometimes devolves into a dice-fest, and it's possible for a player's clever planning and positioning to get ruined by some bad rolls. There are also rule-breaking action cards that also add in a random element, but this is much less annoying than getting dice-whipped.

Overall, this game is worth playing. I question it's replay value, but it's definately good for a least a few plays and is simple enough to be introduced quickly to new players.

Pros: Excellent board design and art.Plastic are of good quality and pretty cool to play with.The game play is smooth and pretty quick. A game can be completed in a little more than an hour with veteran player or about 90 minutes with n00bs.

Cons: The combat can be frustrating.Replayability is questionable.

I'm going to try out a new rating system where 1 is a game I'd never even glance at again (The Simpsons: Don't Panic) and 10 is game I'd trade my pinky for (Twilight Imperium). I'm giving Fire and Axe a 7/10. I'm going to try and avoid decimals and other cliches, except I will be giving my system a cheesy name, like 7/10 Victory Points or wooden cubes or something. I've not decided yet. :)

Pics:

Quicky Update

Just some gameplay videos. I'll have a review for Fire and Axe up later, as well as a D&D post. Speaking of D&D and in case you having already heard, somewhere Gary Gygax is playing D&D with Einstein and some other famous nerds. :(

I'm The Boss


Galaxy Trucker, again!

Dreadnaughts, Gold Stars, and the West.

Wednesday night brought us another round of Twilight Imperium. I'm happy to say that I was able to pull out the win, thanks to some careful maneuvering and some fortunate fleet deployments that were just enough to ward off the other players. Go me. Let's see if we can get a streak going.

This morning my wife and I played a few hours of Rock Band. Before that, I was warming up on some easier songs on Expert vocals. After some screwing around on Mississippi Queen and Nightmare, I retried Time We Had. Gold Star. I had impressed myself. I then tried Maps and Gold Star'd that one too. Now I was really happy. After that, me and my wife's "band", The Dorklesons, proceeded to mop up Seattle and nearly complete Sydney. :D

Moving on, the second half of the NBA season is turning out to be a lot more interesting than the first. As you can see, the Western Conference is loaded as hell. As of right now, there are only 5 teams from the East that even have .500 records. My beloved San Antonio Spurs are at the top of the Southwest Division, which in and of itself has at least 4 playoff bound teams. This is probably going to be some of the most exciting, heart-breaking, and intense playoffs in a long time. Well, at least for the West.

I'll post back later with my thoughts all the Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition stuff that's come out in the last week. Not only did WotC release some juicy bits, but it looks like some NDAs probably ran out.

PS, kobolds FTW

This last Saturday was spend avoiding the rain and playing some games at an awesome little place here in OKC called The Little Shoppe of Games. This was the site of this month's Super Fantastic Gaming Hour.

Many games were played, including Caylus, Pirates of the Spanish Main, and Carcassonne. Personally I played RattleSnake, Cockroach Poker, and Twilight Imperium with the expansion. Here are some videos of wackiness. WACKY!





Sunday was spent Twilight Imperium'ing again, since we were missing a guy from our D&D group. Boo. Also, our DM is sick and can't make the session up this week. Double boo. My beguiler/wizard/ultimate magus just leveled up and wants to try out his new stuff.

You know, Rock Band is a seriously cool game. My wife and I just got done w/ a 12 song set, and as many times as we've played together, it's still a lot of fun. <3

A slow start

Currently I'm trying to get my domains pointed here, to allow for easier access and such. Also, having wanderinggamer.com is just plain cool. We'll see if this can get worked out by this weekend.

In gaming news, we had a blast on Saturday. We started off w/ Twilight Imperium, then moved on to Heroscape, Medici, Vegas Showdown, Hollywood Blockbuster and finally Galaxy Trucker. On Sunday we played another round of Twilight Imperium and finished out the day with a surprisingly productive D&D session. Good times all around.

Shifting gears, this whole Roger Clemens thing comes to a head today. It'll be interesting to see what occurs, although you'd think that our governent would have more pressing matters than juiced up athletes. Ultimately it's the MLB's fault for not keeping their house clean.