Words cannot explain how both fun and frustrating this game is. I’ve only played for a few hours thus far and holy hell, what a learning curve. It doesn’t help that the manual is eighty pages long, nor does the fact that some of the tutorials are in German. I pretty much just winged it and hoped for the best. Did I succeed? You be the judge.
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“Dominion” was one of the first board games I purchased when “Dad’s Gaming Addiction” was but a mere speck on the horizon. The idea of building your deck during the game rather than before it was definitely a foreign concept to me at the time. “Trains”, surprisingly enough, plays a lot like “Dominion” in that you’ll be building a deck of cards as you play by purchasing them from the available supply. At the same time, you’ll be constructing rails/routes on the map, similar to that of “Ticket to Ride”. It’s as almost as if “Dominion” and “Ticket to Ride” went out on a date and got a little bit too tipsy during the obligatory nightcap (close your eyes, kids). At any rate, I wanted to see if the game was any good, seeing as how I am a fan of both games. The results may (or may not) surprise you. Before we begin, I’d like to quickly thank David Trudeau from Alderac Entertainment Group for providing me with a free press copy.
Let me tell you a little story…the year: 1990-ish. Gym class and I rarely got along, mainly due to the fact that I favored the academics as opposed to the athletics. I couldn’t catch a football to save my life, but that didn’t stop me from managing my very own football team in “Tecmo Bowl” for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was through video games that I learned how to “play” sports…by play I mean hike the ball, send my quarterback fifty yards in the wrong direction, and throw a hail mary for one hundred yards hoping that my receiver would catch the ball in the end zone. Why am I taking you on a trip down memory lane? Before I answer that, I’d like to thank Clay Dreslough from Sports Mogul Inc. for providing me with a press copy of “Masters of the Gridiron”, a game that is currently seeking your support on Kickstarter. It’s important to note that prototypes aren’t usually representative of the final product, making everything featured below subject to change.
“Masters of the Gridiron”…now there’s a game I never thought I’d see cross my desk. For those of you who know me, sports and I have a love/hate relationship. I (at best) tolerate watching them, but I enjoy interacting with them via the art of board games and video games. “Masters of the Gridiron” is of the former genre and will be shortly seeking your help on Kickstarter to reach the homes of American pro football fans everywhere. I’ll be covering the game in an upcoming preview so I won’t divulge too much, but I will say that this is one sports game that I can get behind as it is fast and easy to play…even for someone like me who doesn’t live and breathe football.
Cats can be a$$hats, there’s no question about it. I own two, for the record. The constant throwing up, the mysterious pile of rubble I’d find on the floor when I come home…I honestly believe that they do it because they find it funny to see me blow a gasket. Being an animal lover myself, I can forgive such behavior (almost)…though finding this game on Steam’s Greenlight page certainly helped me to understand why my cats are such &*%$heads. Apparently, it’s fun to trash stuff that isn’t yours. “Catlateral Damage” puts players in the role of the cat and tasks you with creating as much havoc as possible in order to score points…you have to see it to believe it.
“Next Car Game” is honestly one of the most fun wreck-em-up games I’ve played in a while. The physics are amazingly realistic, even for an Alpha. For those of you who have never heard of this particular gem, “Next Car Game” is a demolition derby themed racing game that features both racing tracks and derby arenas. At present, the game includes just one arena, two racing tracks, and two cars, but I’m finding it a blast to play. Multiplayer is unfortunately absent, but there are plans to introduce it down the line.
We named “Castle Panic” as our favorite cooperative board game in our 2013 DGA Awards and with good reason…it’s both easy and fun to play, without the need to worry about competitive players. Some of you may already be familiar with this little gem, though I’m willing to bet that most of you didn’t know that there was an expansion to the game. “Castle Panic: The Wizard’s Tower” is the official expansion to “Castle Panic” and it goes without saying that you’ll need the latter to play the former. What’s in this expansion? Fire, mega bosses, wizard cards…essentially all sorts of goodies to take your game to the next level. It’s worth noting that because this is an expansion, I’ll be switching up my usual review format with something a bit more informal.
Show of hands…how many of you used to build castles as a kid using Legos or the equivalent? Okay, how many of you used to pretend that your little Lego men would have to defend said castle from G.I. Joe, The Ghostbusters, or whatever action figures you happened to have out at the time? If you did in fact raise your hand, then you may enjoy “Castle Story”. In a nutshell, it’s a voxel-based strategy game that tasks you with building a castle for your army of bricktrons.
Two player stealth games are very appealing in my book. They not only offer a bit of strategic depth, but feature a hide-and-seek element that gets the adrenaline pumping. “No Photos, Please!” is one such item, putting two players in the role of either a security guard or photographer who have their own agendas. The photographer must take pictures of his targets (exhibits in a museum) before the security guard can apprehend him. With the museum bustling with activity, the security guard will have his hands full just finding the photographer in the first place. Special thanks to Andreas Grech from The Basement Studios for providing me with a press copy of the Alpha build.
What happens when you take elements from games like “Dungeon Keeper”, “Terraria”, and “Dwarf Fortress” and roll them into one neat little package? Why, “Craft The World”, of course! I discovered this game on Steam’s Early Access today and after reading the description, I knew I’d have to give it a whirl. Thanks to Denis Shishkin from Dekovir Entertainment, I was able to do exactly that. It’s an interesting mix of different genres, but I found it to be the most reminiscent of “A Game of Dwarves”, even though “Craft The World” has a “Terraria” look and feel about it. There’s crafting, exploring, minion (Dwarf) management, tower defense…for $14.99 (as of 1/10/14), there’s a lot to love, even with the game still being in an Alpha state.
When I saw this game hit Steam’s Early Access page today (January 10th, 2014), I knew that I had to reach out to the developer and inquire about a press copy (a big thank you to Jani Kahrama from Secret Exit Ltd. for accommodating). I am a big fan of games that feature realistic physics and so far, “Turbo Dismount” isn’t disappointing. Just to give you a bit of perspective, “Turbo Dismount” was inspired by “Stair Dismount”, a personal impact simulator, released back in 2002. In “Turbo Dismount”, you’ll be doing your darndest to cause bodily harm to Mr. Dismount in order to maximize the number of points you receive. To add insult to injury, you can crop photos of your friends’ faces onto Mr. Dismount…there’s no better “thinking of you” card out on the market. For obvious reasons, this game assumes that you have a sense of humor…if you don’t, you may not want to read any further.
In my review of the base game, I called “King of Tokyo” a “fun, light dice rolling game”. While there was a luck factor at work, players could minimize or maximize the risk at will, depending on how aggressively they wanted to play. Today, we’ll be taking a brief look at the “Power Up!” expansion, which introduces a few new concepts to help mix up the core gameplay mechanics. I should note right off the bat that this expansion requires the base game to play. Since this is going to be brief, I’ve opted to switch up my regular review format with something a bit more informal.
I’m not too big on Kaiju movies, but I do enjoy playing Kaiju related games from time to time. “Rampage” for the NES was one of my favorites, even if the monsters’ names were George, Lizzie, and Ralph. “King of Tokyo” puts players in the role of a monster who is wrestling for control of, you guessed it, Tokyo. There’s punching, there’s healing, there’s special abilities…but there can only be one monster left standing at the end of it all. Will it be you?
I made a vow that I’d never play this game. I don’t even like most candy, especially now that I’m watching my weight. Yet, mostly everyone I know on Facebook is playing that blasted game as if their life depended on it. What is the appeal? It’s just a match-three game like “Bejeweled”, and there’s absolutely no shortage of match-three games on the market. If you were to look up “overkill” or “redundant” in the dictionary, you should find the words, “see match-three” right after the definition. As a games journalist, I had to know why this game was all the rave…it’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it. *Grumble* *Expletive* “Candy Crush Saga” *Incomprehensible Muttering*
In the mood for a little “Dungeons & Dragons” but don’t have a lot of time on your hands? “Dungeon!” may just be what the doctor ordered, as it is a simplified version of the aforementioned game. I admittedly have never played “D&D”, mainly due to time constraints. There’s also the fact that I seem to enjoy simpler things the older I get…just ask the kids. I’m apparently hilarious when I attempt to work that blasted DVR on the TV remote. At any rate, I picked “Dungeon!” up on a whim to see if it was as user-friendly as it claimed to be. If you’re curious as to whether or not a “D&D” game can be simplified enough for the layman, read on. For the record, my copy is the English fourth edition, released in 2012.
Just because word games are educational doesn’t mean that they can’t be a lot of fun to play. “Qquip”, a two to six player card game currently seeking your help on Kickstarter, seems to be the best of both worlds in that regard. It not only features intuitive wordplay, but will force players to make some pretty tough decisions…as a gaming dad myself, these games are typically ideal for family game night.