Games Review

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 in France but are virtually unknown among the uncultured plebes who read (and write) this website.

Gentlemen Thieves recreates the adventures of Arsene Lupin, whose name I have probably spelled incorrectly because I lack the capacity to create umlauts and accent marks on my computer (that, or I lack the capacity to give enough of a crap to figure out how to do it… yeah, it's that one). I had to look him up, and when I did, I discovered that he's like the French Sherlock Holmes. Only instead of being a crime-fighting genius, he's a cat burglar. And instead of being addicted to iocane powder or whatever, he's, I don't know, French.

So anyway, in the game, you each take on a secret identity, one of the people in the Arsene Lupin novels, and then you do crimes. You'll be split into teams, but you won't know who is on your team, and the team that successfully completes a heist will split the loot and get paid. The other team gets to grumble in French.

The interesting part here is that the teams are split according to color, but you're the only one who knows what your color is. So nobody actually knows, when they place equipment at a crime scene to try to help the robbery happen there, if they're helping you or stealing from you. This is important to the game - you have to bluff and lie and throw your opponents off your scent if you want to win, because otherwise you'll get stuck on one team with everyone else on the other and they'll all beat you out of the best crime scenes.

This bluffing element is the central feature of Gentlemen Thieves, but lots of different pieces are moving around to make this part trickier. You've got special tiles you can activate, different colors of equipment, and an anonymous score tracker. The person choosing teams changes every time anybody successfully robs something, so everyone gets a chance to screw it all up for everyone else. Sometimes it's even worth it to throw the heist to the other team, just to make everyone think you might not be the winning color, after all.

Gentlemen Thieves isn't a particularly involved game. It's not overly complicated or long. You can explain the rules in five minutes and finish the game in another thirty. But it's an intense thirty minutes, because every time you play you're trying to both further your own goals and confuse everyone else, and those goals are often directly opposite each other.

Of course, it's also a dead-sexy game, because it's from Asmodee. The box folds open and the lid becomes the game board, and the art on every part of the game is brilliant. The different elements are incredibly clever, and everything works together like a well-oiled machine. Because there are always five thieves, the game plays just as well with two players as with five. You don't have to know anything about fictional French burglars to enjoy this game. I can prove it, too, because I don't know anything about fictional French burglars, and I enjoyed Gentlemen Thieves.

Summary

2-5 players

Pros:
Damned good-looking
Fast and smart
Great components used brilliantly
Tons of careful bluffing

Cons:
Wildly obscure theme (unless you're French)

You know what? I don't even know when this is coming out. I really need to review Kemet, because that one, at least, is one shelves somewhere.

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 of the city-state might be? If you guessed 'Constantinople,' you are mistaken. Neither is it Instabul. It's Tempest. I mean, that should have been pretty obvious. I think I was kind of telegraphing it.

The first game, and thus the first chapter of the story, is called Courtier. It's about influencing important people until they bring you money or alcoholic beverages or maybe sign bills and stuff. It should be very political, and I guess it is in the sense that you're simulating politics, but it's really more about putting your little cubes onto the right spot so you can say you control the king and the poet at the same time. Maybe you can catch the merchant in bed with the admiral and threaten to start a nasty smear campaign if they don't both start working for you. The actual specifics of how you control any particular courtier are unimportant. What is important is that the merchant and the admiral are both married men, and their wives are going to be totally up for a little revenge nookie (though the merchant's wife has a gnarly mole on her lower lip that has hair growing out of it).

Anyway, in the first story, you're trying to manipulate all the people in the city to do the stuff you want done. What exactly you want done is not all that important - you might be trying to build a new sewer system, or organize a medieval sports team, or just get zoning permission to start up a kick-ass titty bar. What matters is that you get together the right people to get your job done. And you do that by controlling certain members of the court (or courtiers - thus the name). And you do THAT by playing cards that let you put colored cubes onto spots on the board underneath pictures of important people (though it could be argued that the jeweler is not quite as important as he thinks he is).

If you just played cards to place cubes, Courtier would be kind of a lame game, story-telling masterpiece or not. But you have two kinds of cards, and where one kind of card generally lets you put out one cube at a time, the other kind of card does awesome stuff, like switch cubes with someone else or place special neutral cubes or stand in for someone else on the steering committee for the new public-school lunchroom down at the monk's academy.

As if that wasn't enough, every group of people on the board has a special ability that it grants to whoever controls it. The church will let you play twice. The guild will let you place influence wherever you want it. The artists will let you smoke imported cigarettes and drink absinthe while you pontificate about the duality of man. Controlling the right groups at the right times can make a world of difference, and sometimes you'll be trying to sway the cardinal just so that guy who is controlling the church doesn't get to keep going twice every turn.

So how is all this telling a story? Because the game ends when the queen is arrested for treason. The story continues in the next game, and you'll play out what happens to the city of Tempest after that monumental event. I don't want to completely spoil how this all goes, though in all fairness, it's not like this is Breaking Bad and you're going to be all, 'Holy Crap! What happens next! Damn you, mid-season hiatus!' You're playing out the story in a connected series of games, but the story is less important than the game.

Even standing alone, Courtier is a very original, very fun game. It is a little on the complicated side, with a few elements that might make your first game a little rocky, but once you get it down, this is a hoot. The fact that it links perfectly to the next game, which hooks up with the one after that, is just gravy. Super awesome gravy, sure, but Courtier would be a very cool game even without the continuing saga. Fair warning, though, in case I didn't describe it well enough - it's very European in flavor. The closest it comes to violence is when the queen resists arrest and the royal police have to hit her with the tazer. And even then, they're very polite about it.

Summary

2-4 players

Pros:
Interesting cube-placement game with some nice twists and constant competition
Lots of interaction (just no blood)
Really cool ongoing story continues in the next game in the series

Cons:
A few tricky rules might throw you on your first game
No blood (but lots of interaction)

 Noble Knight Games has a very reasonable price on Courtier. I recommend it:
DON'T TAZE ME, QUEEN

Pros

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. They've rolled the whole series back to the first game, the one where the entire world was defined by a square grid and aliens only ever crash-landed in fields owned by corn farmers, and they retained that sense of wonder and amazement you got the first time a sectoid fired a plasma pistol at your barely-armored X-Com troopers. They also included the feeling of filling your pants the first time a giant walking tank took a rocket blast to its alien face and laughed it off right before shooting a fusion ray through your midsection.

Of course, the graphics are all updated. No more pixelated body armor, no more graph paper floors, no more clunky sprites. Now you get a line around the area where your trooper could move and still get an overwatch action, and a second line where he can go if he wants to hang his ass out over the side and ask aliens to blast him an extra bunghole. Those sprite-animated movements have been replaced with troopers who will jump over a stack of crates, run in a crouch across ground littered with burning debris and dead bodies, then flatten against the brick wall that they hope will provide some protection from the Muton's heavy plasma cannon.

The gameplay is all updated, too. If you did manage to play all the way through any of the X-Com games, you remember how tedious it got when you had to respond to yet another terror attack in Mombasa (a city that looked remarkably similar to Paris and Moscow) and it took forever to find that last alien, moving half a step at a time to make sure everyone in your squad could get an overwatch shot if the son of a bitch popped out behind you. That tedium has been almost completely eliminated in Enemy Unknown, and every single squad mission is fun now.

In fact, where the original games recycled locations for the squad missions like an inner-city high-school using textbooks from the 1950's, Enemy Unknown actually shows you different terrain for different parts of the world. When I investigated a crash site in Japan, the burned-up forest looked completely different from the battleship I shot down in Arizona. This isn't entirely consistent, and sometimes I blew up the same gas station in Mumbai that I destroyed in Vancouver, but I didn't tend to see the same damned thing over and over. There was plenty of variety in the maps, enough that I never said, 'yeah, I know exactly where the bad guys are on this map.'

However, even with all the great updates that have been applied to Enemy Unknown, they still kept so much of what you loved about the original. Cyberdiscs and chyrsallids, sectoid commanders and ethereals, even the Firestorm with a plasma cannon. You'll still get totally attached to your troops and have a sick feeling when your entire squad of veteran ass-kickers gets devoured by hideous alien insects. And when your soldiers board an enemy ship, and their boots make that metallic ring against the floor that is exactly the same sound you recognize from the original, you'll be forced to smile. Unless some mutant cybernetic killing machine blows their faces off. That will ruin your smile.

If you've never played any of the X-Com games, maybe because you're only 15, you're in for a treat. Fast action in a turn-based tactical game, carefully planned research, and strategic satellite reconnaissance - this is what's waiting for you in X-Com Enemy Unknown. If you did play the originals, you're also in for a treat. Everything that was great about the original games is still here, including the brutal difficulty levels, the excitement of unlocking new enemy weapons, and the thrill of bringing back the bad guys in one piece so your slightly sociopathic science team can interrogate them before turning them into spare parts. This game is every bit as excellent as the original, and even better.

Summary

Pros:
Excellent turn-based tactics and long-term strategy
Exciting graphics upgrades make it fun to watch your troopers kill bad guys
Squad missions never get as tedious as they used to be
A great story with a surprising twist at the end
All the same nostalgic elements you loved about the original in a vastly improved package

Cons:
Slightly prone to crashing (mine froze up twice)

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 the coolest genre of movies - the cloak-and-dagger. But ever since the Cold War spun down and Clinton decided we didn't need the CIA, the entire spy movie genre is stuck chasing people of Middle Eastern descent. Back in the 80's, spies were saving the world. Now they just save middle-income suburbanites and corporate interests. We had Red October and Scarecrow & Mrs. King; you have Covert Affairs and Burn Notice. I miss those cloak-and-dagger backroom deals and knowing that one wrong move means the end of civilization as we know it.

Which is why I was so excited to watch The Americans. It's old-school cloak-and-dagger, but updated and spun on its head. It's about a couple of spies during the height of the Reagan-era Cold War, and they're husband and wife, but the real trick here, the thing that never could have happened in 1985, is that the protagonists of the show are the Commies. They're deep-cover secret agents working to undermine the American government. They've been here for decades, they have kids, they speak flawless English - and they steal military secrets and assassinate enemies of the Party. This show never would have worked in the 80's, which is one reason I am so glad to see it now.

See, in the 80's, when we absolutely HATED the Soviet Union and people were actually patriotic (as opposed to this slipshod jingoism that makes people sing 'Proud to Be An American' and put ribbon magnets on their cars), nobody but nobody rooted for the Rooskies. James Bond put bullets in Soviets - except the hot female agents, because he put something else in them. They were the biggest villains we had ever known. Bigger than Hitler, because at least Hitler wasn't in a position to nuke the whole planet to glass.

Today, though, we just don't see the world as black-and-white as we did then. Today we have to live with the fact that our own government is taxing the piss out of us to pay off rich assholes who ripped us off. We may not be too fond of Al Qaeda, but we're also supposed to understand that most Muslims are actually decent people, even though we're blowing holes in their home countries. Our heroes are flawed, often outright villainous. So now, we can watch a TV show where sworn enemies of our homeland evade capture, commit murder, and steal our secrets - and we can hope they succeed.

Of course, it's also easy to watch a show like this when we know that the USSR didn't win the Cold War, we were never invaded or nuked, and in the end it was all mostly smoke and mirrors. When we know how the story ends, it can be fascinating to see how the other side played it. In the 80's, when The Americans takes place, we were too uncertain to root for the other side. Now we can just look at them as people doing an interesting job.

One of the best things about The Americans, outside the fact that it never could have been made twenty years ago, is the statement it makes. There were spies doing spy stuff all over the place, the threats were considerably more terrifying, and yet we would have staged a revolution if Reagan had told us he was tapping our phones. Take off our shoes at the airport? Only at gunpoint. And yet now that the world is safer than it was, when we have the audacity to believe that it's the president's job to keep us safe, we're fine with surrendering basic freedoms that would have inspired a bloody coup in the 80's. And the most ironic thing is that had the Soviets decided to really screw with us, they wouldn't have sent a half-dozen religious nutsacks with rudimentary flight training. They would have sent FREAKING MISSILES. We had a real threat then, one that scared all of us all the time. I'm less scared of Al Qaeda than I am of an angry chihuahua.

But you're not here wondering how I feel about the political undertone in The Americans. You want to know if the show is worth watching. And I am happy to report that I like it a hell of a lot. It hits a perfect balance where it's serious without being too dark, fun without being campy, dramatic without being a total queen about it. Keri Russell plays the wife, and even though she always seems like she's either angry or about to cry, she is pretty darn easy on the eyes. The real star, though, is the husband, a dude I've never seen before but who should be a household name in a few years. He steals the crap out of every scene he's in, and he's a fascinating mix of morality and ruthless determination.

Plus there's all that awesome spy crap. There's the umbrella with the hidden poison knife in the end, the clock with the hidden transmitter, secret codes that don't appear until you soak them in vinegar. There are stakeouts and tails, disguises and seduction, knife fights and gun play. I love a good spy show, and I really love 'em when the stakes are high. When a misplaced word or a botched dead-drop means the world expires in a fiery meltdown, and when the bad guys are just as well-funded and professional as the good guys, then you've got the kind of tension that makes The Americans a pretty darn kick-ass show.

I wouldn't normally review a TV show after only three episodes, because I generally like to wait and see if it can maintain. But this one is pretty damned cool, and if you have any kind of On Demand service for your television, you should be able to get caught up. If I tell you about The Americans a year from now, it could be hard to find the reruns. It's on FX, so if you have cable and like spy shows, get up to speed and see how secret agents did it back in the good ol' days.

Summary

Pros:
Great old-school espionage
Great acting, especially the husband
A thought-provoking statement that is absolutely not preachy

Cons:
Keri Russell always looks constipated
Some really bad wigs

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 it while he was sleeping off a whiskey bender in his mom's garage).

River Dragons has a gimmick, but it's one that is actually pretty well implemented. You've got this board with a big pond in the middle, and you're trying to get your little rice-paddy worker to the other side by tossing rocks in the water and stretching boards between them to make the world's least secure bridge. In fact, River Dragons adds a second interesting element to the game by having you plan your turn, selecting five cards that represent your actions for that turn that you will take in the order you selected them.

This second part is kind of like Robo Rally, one of the many games I have played that have caused me to wonder if everybody who loved it had extensive brain damage. I freaking hate Robo Rally, but I know lots of people are big fans. That thing where you hem and haw over a pile of cards, trying to plan your turn to the last detail, and then watch it all go directly to hell because someone else is messing with you - that drives me nuts. Not only do you get to see the absolute worst of the guy who can never make up his mind, so that you're done planning your turn and then the other guy is just sitting there looking at his cards, picking up his cards, putting down a couple, swapping them out, then grabbing them all and starting over. But on top of having to sit there while one guy takes forever (and it seems the identity of this culprit changes every turn - one turn you've got it all figured out, and the next turn you're the one delaying the whole table), then you play out your turn and all your plans fall apart and you wind up falling into the water, or into a pit full of sharp saw-blades, or into a two-day marathon of The Real Housewives.

To make things more interesting (or more painful, depending on your point of view), everybody has dragon cards that will negate a card chosen by another player. So you decide to lay down stones, then lay down planks, then hop onto your new bridge - but someone plays a dragon on you that kills the card where you built a path, and since your rice farmer is an idiot, he skips the part where he makes a bridge and just runs headlong into the water. That kind of random silliness makes for great fun - if you like games where you spend five minutes making plans just to watch them go up in smoke because your rice farmer is a drooling buffoon.

So I am not a fan of River Dragons just because I don't like those mechanical planning exercises, but there's an even bigger reason I didn't like River Dragon - the gimmick is fundamentally flawed. When you play the card that puts a stone in the water, you actually pick up a little gray disc and place it on the board. Then when you place a plank between two rocks, you pick up a flat tongue depressor and put it down. For both of these actions, you use your fingers. You remember your fingers? The ones shaped like breakfast sausages that fumble anything smaller than a shovel handle? Yeah, those fingers.

It sounds like I am a clumsy idiot, but I'll tell you, my hands are plenty steady. I painted all my Warhammer Quest minis (before it went up in the fire) and I'm almost done with my Super Dungeon Explore miniatures. I can paint the eyeball on a kobold and then add a pupil and a white dot that makes it look glossy. I have some control over my hands, but River Dragons made me feel like I was a half-drunk autistic man with cerebral palsy.

Let's assume that you have enough of a gentle touch to balance the plank where you need it. Then when you move, you pick up your little cone-headed pawn and place him on your makeshift bridge. But because your bridge is made out of slick, nearly frictionless wood, it instantly slides out from under your guy and sends half the board into complete disarray. Planks and stones and rice farmers are scattered everywhere, and the best you can hope for is that you can rebuild the board before you forget where everything went.

This gimmick would have worked if the pieces didn't slide around so much. I know this because, frustrated with my inability to finish the game before it fell apart on me, I went and bought a pack of that sticky goo you can peel off in chunks and use to hang posters in dorm rooms (as opposed to if you own your house, in which case you actually use a hammer and nails, because that's how grownups do it). I applied thin layers of this sticky crap to the bottoms of the planks, and then played again - and it worked great, and I actually enjoyed the gimmick. I didn't enjoy the game, but that was just a personal preference thing because I hate programmed move games.

Now, if you can get past the slickery pieces that turn River Dragons into a game of pick-up sticks, the components in this game are actually very, very nice. I mean, this is even nice for an Asmodee game, and that's saying something because Asmodee makes some truly gorgeous games. The individual pawns are all painted with different little rice farmers (you can tell they are rice farmers because they have cone-shaped hats). The different-length boards have numbers so you know if you've got the long one, and they're made out of real wood. The illustration on the board is beautiful, and the art on the cards could be framed and used to decorate your house. I mean, this is one good-looking game.

So, to sum up - if you like programmed move games, and if you don't mind sticking Blu-Tac to the back of every plank in the game, you might really enjoy River Dragons. If, like me, you dislike games that feel like math exercises with an unhealthy dose of chaos, or if you think your games should be ready to play when you get them, I would skip this one and try something else.

Summary

3-6 players

Pros:
Clever planning mechanic
Beautiful production, with great art and excellent wooden playing pieces

Cons:
I hate clever planning mechanics
Wooden planks slide all over the damned place and make it virtually impossible to play this game

I seem to have procured another game that isn't out yet. Keep your eyes peeled, it will come out sooner or later, I'm sure.

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 also completely playable right out of the box, and when you play, you won't be complaining about needing something else to make it interesting unless you just don't like the game.

However, just because something is not needed does not mean nobody will make it. The publishers of 7 Wonders have actually done this twice now, first with the Leaders and now with Cities, and while both expansions certainly add new stuff to the base game, it's debatable whether Cities actually adds any play to the game.

On the surface, it would seem like new mechanics might zap a little energy into the old game. For example, you can go into debt now and end the game with negative money. You can also get all diplomatic and skip the battle phase, allowing you to ignore the military escalation part of the game completely. This is great if you've always felt like the warfare was too powerful, but not as big a deal if nobody else at the table gives a rip about building giant armies.

The real point of adding the Cities expansion is to add the city cards, which show up here and there and add virtually nothing to the game in terms of playability. You won't have to rethink how you play this game. You won't change your strategy to accommodate the shifting face of the future. You'll just play the cards when they come past you, the same way you did before. So in terms of making a good game better, Cities doesn't really provide much in the way of a persuasive reason to drop the coin for it.

However, if you like to play 7 Wonders in great big groups, then Cities might be a very important expansion, because now you can play with eight people. Not only that, but you can play in teams. If there's one good reason to buy Cities, this is it - the ability to play 7 Wonders with more people than I am ever able to put together in one room.

I've been dancing around my actual opinion of Cities for the entire review, and it's time to stop dancing. For one thing, my feet are tired, and I'm all sweaty. I need a drink, and I came to this bar to pick up chicks anyway, not to hop around like a frog on a hotplate. So here's my opinion - I cannot come up with a single reason to buy Cities unless you have a really huge family. I don't want to play in teams. The city cards hardly add anything interesting. The game is just as good without the expansion, and while it's great to see a couple new ideas, they didn't need a whole expansion to do that. The diplomacy could have been in Leaders (an expansion that actually did make 7 Wonders better) and the debt hardly ever comes up. The city cards are just normal cards that do a little more.

If you're just looking for a way to part with some money, Cities might be a good solution, because you can expand your game without having to actually change the way you play. If you want an expansion that actually makes the original game more inviting, Cities is just going to piss you off. It's not bad. It's just not any better than the original.

Summary

Pros:Adds a couple new ideas
Some new cards
Now you can play with eight people

Cons:
The new ideas don't add anything
The new cards don't add anything
I don't even know eight people

So you may be wasting money if you buy Cities, but the good news is that you'll only be wasting 20 bucks if you get it here:
http://www.coolstuffinc.com/p/164905

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 Run looked kind of like a romantic comedy, I wanted to see it because it has Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell. I'm pretty sure those two could do an actual romantic comedy with no action scenes and just crappy date-movie antics, and I would still watch it. I wouldn't admit it, though.

Turns out, Hit and Run wasn't just funny with an element of romance. It also has car chases, gun fights and brawling, and one particularly awesome scene where the very likable bad guy steals an abusive asshole's dog after making the muscle-headed jackass eat kibble.

The story behind Hit and Run is interesting enough to be the kind of movie that Vin Diesel could ruin. An ex-bank robber in witness protection leaves his comfortable backwater of a town to take his girlfriend to a job interview in Los Angeles, where the guys who he put in jail (and who got out) are waiting to cause him considerable consternation. You could put The Rock in this movie, and it would just be a bunch of gunplay and vehicular manslaughter, with occasional mugging for the camera and showing everyone how enormous his neck is. Instead, Dax Shepard makes it light and funny even as people are shooting and punching and causing freeway mayhem.

There are loads of little things that make Hit and Run more fun than it would have been if someone else had made it. There's the gay highway patrol officer who develops a crush on the bumbling US Marshal, the obsessive tool of an ex-boyfriend who chases his girl to the big city, the lecherous college administrator who knows she's never going to amount to anything more, and a supporting cast of goofballs and hardcases that is sure to entertain.

Unfortunately, that romantic angle still plays in, but since the romance is between Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell, it's actually thoroughly palatable. I'm not above some mush in a movie - don't tell anybody, but I liked Love Actually - but I'm not usually this interested in the obvious chick-appeal part of a movie like Hit and Run. But when these two do it, it's fun, even when it's a little sugary. They never take themselves too seriously, even when they're dead serious, so while I personally could have done without the extended cuddling and protestations of adoration, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie even though, technically, it's a romantic comedy.

There were plenty of ways that a weaker cast or less capable director could have totally ruined this movie, but the creators of Hit and Run did an outstanding job of putting together a fun action/romance/comedy that entertains without trying. It's not some powerhouse emotional roller-coaster or high-suspense thriller, and it's not going to wind up in anyone's pile of favorites-of-all-time. But if you're looking for something that will appeal to just about anyone, with some laughs, some kick-ass car chases, and some excellent casting, rent Hit and Run and enjoy an amusing romp.

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 is valid, but that does not mean that Eclipse can replace this massive classic. Eclipse is a very good game, and it is quite a bit faster than Twilight Imperium, but Twilight Imperium does lots of things that Eclipse doesn't do.

For one thing, our favorite thing about Twilight Imperium is something you won't find in Eclipse - politics. And I don't mean the kind of politics where you go, 'OK, I have three votes, you have two votes, so I win this one thing that means I get a point.' There are in-game politics in Twilight Imperium, but more importantly, there is a ton of actual political maneuvering happening as you play. You might send your massive battlefleet to attack one enemy as a favor to another because that other guy let you pick up the extra planet you needed to boost your production and recruit a couple extra soldiers. And then when your ally of convenience gets too close to winning, probably because his fleet was not blasted to ribbons by yours, you'll kiss and make up with your mortal enemy so that both of you can sabotage the rising star's hopes and dreams.

This political part is pretty awesome. You can find this sort of deal-making in nearly any game that includes conflict, but in Twilight Imperium, it's not just possible, it's practically required. Considering that there are times during the game when you will have to vote on particular galactic laws - laws that could ruin one player and save another - the half-meant handshakes and flimsy alliances are critical to surviving in the cat-eat-dog universe of Twilight Imperium.

Since the win conditions depend largely on cards that pop up every turn, and you'll never be entirely certain what might help someone else win on their next turn, the most important thing to do in Twilight Imperium is just to do well. Explore planets. Build fleets. Invent new tech. And secure those senate votes, because you can be a total bad-ass in the deep black of space, but you're nobody if you can't get a bill passed.

And sure, Twilight Imperium takes longer than Eclipse. But when you play Twilight Imperium, it's not just a game. It's an experience. It's three or four hours of negotiation and battles, outmaneuvering and betrayal, Mountain Dew and swamp-ass. You may be a little exhausted when you're finished, but at the same time, you'll know that whether you won or lost, you just enjoyed a whole hell of a lot of memorable quality time. Heck, I haven't won Twilight Imperium, but I am delighted that I got to play.

All the other stuff you want out of a space civilization game is in Twilight Imperium, probably because Twilight Imperium was kind of the founding member of the space civ club. You can research technology, discover planets, build spaceships, and wage war. Mysterious alien races with supernatural abilities create giant starships that will bring entire galaxies to heel. The galaxy is different every time you play, and there are enough different races to try that you'll have to play half a dozen games before you see them all.

Twilight Imperium might sound pretty sweet, but you may still be avoiding it based on the amount of time you're going to spend playing it. Well, good news - the third edition of Twilight Imperium has been considerably streamlined, which means that while a huge game will still take several hours, it won't be the twelve-hour marathon of the first version. We finished a three-player game in under four hours. If I ever manage to recruit five friends who bring lots of Red Bull and some amazing mental stamina, I think we could probably wrap it up in under six hours. So not only is this a spectacular game with lots going for it, it's faster than it used to be (or so I hear - I never played the old one).

I can't recommend Twilight Imperium to just anyone. You have to be a certain kind of person to want to bite off this much game. You have to enjoy games where stuff explodes. You have to have the mindset that says, 'I'm in this for the long haul, and win or lose, I'm going to give it my best shot.' You have to be willing to make deals and break them, to trust your enemies and betray your friends, to sit around a table for so long that your butt molds to the shape of your chair. This is a whole lot of game, and you have to be up for it, but if you are, man, are you going to love Twilight Imperium.

Summary

3-6 players

Pros:
Shore is purty
Board changes every time
The politics - both in the game and around it - are amazing
Tons of stuff to do
Strategic options abound, and tough decisions everywhere you turn

Cons:
Still pretty darn lengthy
Not for people who are scared off by big rulebooks

Twilight Imperium is a damned expensive game, but I got a discounted copy from Noble Knight Games and saved a pretty decent chunk of change:
HOLY CRAP, THAT'S A LOT OF GAME

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 block game I played, Columbia Games wanted me to give them a second shot. So they gave me Richard III, which is another block wargame where your guys spin to tell you how many times they've been stabbed in the spleen. I was skeptical, but the guy was so nice I said I would give it a shot.

I am so glad I did. Richard III is GREAT. It's got tons going for it, from limited actions and long-term planning to copious piles of body parts and political maneuvering. It's still basically a block game, where you use these blocks to hide your army's strength from your opponent until it's too late for him to run away. But where much of the maneuvering in Wizard Kings felt sort of arbitrary, the maneuvering in Richard III is painfully critical. One block in the wrong spot can be the mistake that costs you the game, so you'll agonize over every decision.

However, unlike many games that really punish the guy who makes mistakes, Richard III feels more like it rewards the guy who plays better. Sure, there's still luck, but if you go into a battle with an overwhelming force (and your lead nobleman doesn't decide to change sides before the bloodshed starts, which can totally happen), you're going to mop the floor with the other guy.

And you can't just charge into battle, either. You have limited actions provided by cards you play every turn, and if you want to put together a really huge force, you have to position your troops for a few turns in a row. But if you set up correctly, and your opponent doesn't figure out some way to stop you before it's too late, you can have some gigantic Shakespearean throw-down with body counts that will have carrion birds coming from miles around.

The game takes place over three campaigns, each representing a decade of this really long period of unrest. You'll bring in mercenaries from Calais, shuttle troops by sea up to some English port city where they make stinky fish sandwiches and all the bars have really low doorways, and try to convince the guys attacking you to change sides and completely throw the other guy's plans into disarray. At the end of every campaign, you find out who has more support in the noble houses, and then the loser has to go to France. I don't know why this is so bad - I've been to France, and it was very nice. Maybe they have to go to France and tell the people to go to work, which I understand is not popular in France.

As you probably know if you're any kind of history nut (I am not, so I did not know this), Richard III ascended to the throne of England right around the time of the Wars of the Roses (before or after, I wasn't really clear on this part). The game recreates the War of the Roses, and not the divorce movie from the 80s, but the actual wars where thousands of people got killed. You can win if you can manage to keep the nobility in your pocket - but you also win if you kill all the heirs of the other house, because then those shifty noble assholes don't have any choice but to vote for you.

Being something of not-a-history-buff, I am unmoved by the historical accuracy presented in Richard III. For instance, there's this one guy who can play kingmaker and raise all these other guys to fight for him, Warbucks or something, but I just thought it was weird that he follows this completely different set of rules from the other nobles. But even though the history lesson is completely wasted on me, the fact that I was playing out stuff that actually happened made it more interesting. If I actually cared about those wars, I'll bet I would have been totally stoked.

While I did really enjoy playing Richard III, I do find myself with some gripes. First of all, the map is a pain in the ass. It's just printed on cardboard, and folds up, so it won't lay flat. If I hadn't put a leftover window on top of it, we couldn't have played the game without constantly asking, 'hey, where was this red block whose back I cannot see because it is facing you, but that I know is Earl Blakinford of Chesterbester because he just fell over as he was sliding off the board?'

And while I dig the block idea, it is not very much fun to put those damned stickers on all those damned blocks. There are a lot of them, and even if you're a huge fan of putting adhesive paper onto little wooden squares, it will still get old after twenty or so. Happily, this is a job you only have to do once, and when you do (and then get a spare window to put on top of the board), you will be ready to play a very tense, very fun game.

After having played Richard III, now I kind of want to try other block games, only this time, maybe some about eras of history I actually care about. I'll have to see if Columbia Games has any block games about pirates or cowboys. I know a ton about pirates and cowboys, and now that I know those block games can be pretty wicked, I'm kind of itching to try another one.

Summary

2 players

Pros:
Tense and engaging
Limited actions and stacking restrictions put the emphasis on smart plays
Two ways to win means you can try different strategies every time you play
Historically accurate (which is lost on me)

Cons:
Cheap cardstock board makes it tough to play
So many stickers!

I broke my baby teeth on my old man's wargames (not literally - he would never let me near them when I was teething), so I have a soft spot for them. If you have a similar soft spot, check out Richard III at the Columbia Games website:
KILL THAT WARBURTON DUDE

I just finished an amazing comic book series. And when I say, 'just finished,' I mean 'half an hour ago.' I've been plowing through it for two months, and finally read the grand finale. And oh, man, was it grand.

The book is called 100 Bullets. Like many of the comics I prefer to read, it's done. The story has been told, and tied off with a bow. In this particular case, the bow is stained with blood, soaked in gasoline, and burned around the edges. This grisly bow wrapped the title three years ago, which meant that I was able to read every issue, in order, in the course of two months. Not bad for a book that ran for ten years.

If you read any of the blurbs about 100 Bullets, they will tell you that it's a story where an old dude gives somebody a briefcase with a gun, 100 bullets and irrefutable proof of the person who wronged them. Oh, and carte blanche. They can kill people like it was free.

So this would seem to be a revenge fantasy comic book, but it's not. There's this facade, this fake front of a story that seems to ask you if you would kill someone if you knew you could get away with it. But it's much more than that. It's an enormous tale spun over 100 issues of grime and grit and wholesale murder. It's a tale of conspiracy and crime, villainy and treachery, with a distinct lack of heroics.

Although if we're being completely fair, the bigger story delivered in 100 Bullets also presents the same sort of moral dilemma as the simple attache case with the gun inside. Because the true masterminds of this international conspiracy act with no sense of remorse or repercussion, the story takes on a sort of double image - you've got Joe Street, getting away with murder, and then you've got the people that gave Joe the gun, and they're acting with just as much impunity.

But, the story goes on to ask, is any act as powerful as murder ever without consequence? Just because you don't wind up in prison, does not mean you got away with it. The measure of your crime might be a cascade of violence, where you become a target because you killed your target, or it might just be having to live with the knowledge that what you did is both irreversible and horribly wrong.

OK, that's enough about the philosophy of 100 Bullets. If it was just a head-twist comic, it wouldn't need to have ten years to tell the story. It could sum it up in one issue. For a comic this good to last this long, it has to have something more - and this one does. Great characters, killer fight scenes, intricate plots, and loads of sexy broads make 100 Bullets one hell of a great crime story.

The characters, in particular, bring this book to life. From the Hispanic ghetto girl who finds out she knows hapkido to the conscienceless Hawaiian killing machine with a perpetual mad-on for the entire world, the people in 100 Bullets are more than just plot devices. You can be just as entertained watching Curtis Hughes reconnect with his long-lost son as you are when Cole Burns shoots up a warehouse full of Russian mobsters. There's plenty of action in 100 Bullets, but the best parts happen when the characters, and not the bullets, take the main stage.

This being a Vertigo comic should be enough of a warning up front, but let me emphasize in case it wasn't clear - this is NOT a comic book for the kids. There are boobs. There are cuss words. There are beheadings and fiery death and people getting their hands blown off. And those aren't even the worst of it. Seriously, do not go into this book with a weak stomach. 100 Bullets throws punches that make Tarantino look like Walt Disney.

Now, you could probably do like I did, and get all 100 issues on Comixology, but in this case, I would recommend checking out the trades. There are 13 of them, and when you read the book, you'll understand why that's a lucky number. If you can get 'em for 15 bucks each, they'll still cost you less than buying them off Comixology. And as an added bonus, when you're done, you can loan them to a friend. Good luck doing that with a digital comic.

This link will send you to Amazon, where you can pick up this fantastic book pretty darn cheap, especially compared to what I paid for it:

FIRST SHOT, LAST CALL

You should not buy second-edition Descent. I think I can make my case pretty clearly for why you definitely should not get involved with this game.

For starters, Descent 2 is addictive. If you buy Descent 2, you will want to play it. And if you play it, you will not want to stop. You will be sitting in your living room, watching a perfectly good television program, and you will say to your friends, 'I think we should turn off this show and play Descent, because we all know how much we love it.' And do you know what will happen? Your friends will agree. You will never find out if Joey marries Jeannie on the uncharted island. You will only find out if Splig the fat goblin king manages to make off with the shadow binder.

In fact, when you play Descent 2 and discover that it's about as close to a role-playing game that you can come without having to work on a fake English accent and learning to use 'methinks' in a sentence, you may find that you cannot stop thinking about playing this game. When you discover that you can play out exciting stories, even an entire campaign with continuing, improving characters, and never have to do any accounting or erasing on a three-page character sheet, and never have to recalculate move speed in feet per round or carry weight for encumbrance, you may find that you lose your friends because you quit showing up at the Saturday D&D 73.75 Edition sessions.

And it gets worse. Because when you play Descent 2, you will be inclined to spend an awful lot of money. Yes, you can get by with the base game - but you won't want to. You can expand your experience with the Lair of the Wyrm expansion, and then you will want to spend more money. And when you hear that all you need to play with every single monster ever published for this version or the last is a relatively affordable card expansion that restats the monsters for this version of the game, and then when you further learn that you can actually use all those monsters in the base version of the game without having to change anything, you will want to go out and buy every single expansion for the first edition of Descent despite the fact that first edition Descent is Latin for 'look something up.'

You should also avoid supporting a company as diabolical as Fantasy Flight Games. They have created a game that will appeal to you on so many levels - tense adventures, fast gameplay, exciting battles, and thrilling stories - you will be powerless to stop yourself from throwing more money at them. You will want to buy one or two extra sets of dice, so that you don't have to pass the blue die around the table every turn. You will want to get an account at the FFG site so that you can access the quest vault and download more adventures. You will want to spend all your free time creating adventures, or more immediately, playing the crap out of this horrifyingly awesome game. Should you really be giving your money to a company so willing to profit off of your addictive nature? No. You should not.

Some of you may remember first edition Descent. You might laugh at my warning, because you remember how effortlessly you shrugged off the advances of the original game. You may think that you can as easily ignore the second edition, just because you remember the clunky mechanics, the constant puzzle-solving trying to make sure every corner was covered, the endless accounting of gathering and spending evil points (or whatever they were - second edition Descent has made me block out painful memories of the original). But don't be so sure you can resist the siren call of Descent 2. Everything that was wrong with first edition is gone, and everything that was great about it is improved. Descent 2 is better than its predecessor in every insidious way, and you will not laugh off its seductive allure so easily.

You may even decide that you can just dip your toes in the pool, that you can try Descent 2 without becoming hopelessly addicted. Well, heed my warning - just because you finish the main campaign that comes with the base game does not mean this game goes away. Because FFG is supporting your developing habit with a burgeoning online resource where you can try dozens of new quests, your addiction will not end simply because you finish with the quests in the base game. There will be no limit to your new addiction. You will be helpless. Descent 2 will come to your house, open your wallet, spend your money, and then force you to spend every waking moment either playing this incredible game or thinking about the next time you can.

Still not convinced? Heed this last, personal warning - Descent 2 is better than Warhammer Quest. And until I allowed myself to be hooked by this devil in disguise, Warhammer Quest was my favorite game of all time. But now, after my own failure to tear myself from the clutches of Descent 2, I am a victim! I am a slave to my new addiction! I cannot wait to play Descent 2 again, and I have hundreds of dollars of Warhammer Quest stuff that will now be collecting dust!

Please, for the sake of your family, don't play Descent 2. FFG has made a game so habit-forming that it may take professional counseling to turn away from it, and in the meantime, your social life will suffer (at least, your social life outside the people with whom you play Descent 2). Your wallet will suffer (well, only as much as you want it to, because you really can get by with proxies if you get the conversion kit). Your love of other games will suffer (because this one will make other games look like used kitty litter). And most of all, you may find that you don't need to own seven-hundred games, that you only need this one, and then nobody will be impressed at the photographs you take of a bunch of cardboard boxes on the bookshelf in your game room.

Summary

2-5 players

Pros:
None. This game is evil and insidious.

Cons:
Fixes everything that was wrong with first edition
The closest thing I've seen to an RPG in a board game
Online resources and a conversion kit mean you can play hundreds of hours with just the base game
Beautiful art and fantastic miniatures
Very, very addictive

If we were to start listing themes that make me want to play a game, brewing coffee would not be anywhere near the top of the list. It's safe to assume it would be near the bottom. However, for someone, this is a gaming dream come true, so they made it a game and even went so far as to publish it.

Viva Java is one of those European-style games with an unlikely theme that tends to make the top ten lists for Euro nerds. (Seriously? Your number-one game is about farming?) However, despite being a game about going to work, it's still actually a pretty cool game. Not one I will show to my friends who like games where you break things, but one I can show to my friends who like games where you pay your taxes and cook dinner.

Coffee might be the theme of Viva Java, but rationed cooperation is the name of the game. Every turn you'll have to work with one or two other players to decide whether you want to try to score or improve your position, and you can't succeed at anything by yourself (well, theoretically you can, but you probably won't). You'll have to work with the other players if you want to get ahead - but you'll have to be careful about who you help, and when. It's great to get in on that top-selling brew, but if you're scoring points for the guy who is winning the game, it hurts you more than it helps.

One huge upside is that for a game about brewing coffee, Viva Java has a ton of interaction. Like I said, you can't play without working with other people, so unlike nearly every other game where you actually do something to the other people at the table, most of the interaction in Viva Java is nice. Help this guy research coffee growing, and you can earn the right to invest in the brew he makes later. Help the other guy whip up a mad batch of caffeine glory, and the two of you make millions together. Then help the third guy to get the beans he needs to make an even better brew, and you'll win by being the smartest at being nicest.

I don't usually spend a long time talking about the pieces in games, beyond mentioning whether they look good or not. However, Viva Java bears some discussion, because while the graphic design and art are outstanding, there are a lot of things not to like. My main beef is with these (insert favorite profanity) coffee beans. They are tiny, like a quarter-inch across, and they are half-spheres. Which means flip them one way, and they don't stay where you want them, flip them the other way and you can't pick them up. Trying to make these fantastically irritating little half-beads stay put is so difficult that it actually makes it less fun to play the game. I can think of half a dozen better ideas I've seen for markers. These things are infuriating.

And to make matters worse, you have to continually place these miniaturized frustrators on cards - which you then pick up and move all over the place, thereby spilling the 'beans' all over the table and then forgetting where they were supposed to go. The actual physical mechanic of manipulating these cards and beans is like a dexterity game all by itself, but one that if you screw it up, everyone at the table just gets mad at you.

If Viva Java were better, I would be willing to give the horrible little wood irritants a pass, but the game is only above average. One a scale of 19 to 203, Viva Java is better than mediocre and not as impressive as awesome. Granted, I would have liked it better if I could have killed something, but I really did like that a game that makes you play this smart also makes you play nice. Most games that require interaction force you to hurt your opponents; Viva Java rewards you for giving them a leg up. For people who hate to screw your friends (we call these people 'pansies,' but we like them anyway), Viva Java is a cool drink of water.

Summary

3-8 players

Pros:
How many games play 8 players? Yeah, not that many.
Actually a pretty clever game
Almost all the interaction is in the form of helping people
Engaging and attractive graphics

Cons:
Making coffee is a morning chore, not an idea for gaming
OH HOLY GOD THESE STUPID COFFEE BEANS!!!

You can only get Viva Java from Game Salute, but if you have enough people to play it, and you like to help more than you like to hurt, you can get it right here (ignore the 'preorder' tag - it's out now):
http://shop.gamesalute.com/products/viva-java-preorder

Well, will you look at that - my old man to the rescue. I was all 'man, I haven't written anything tonight' and 'I have stuff to do' and 'man, I am one lazy son of a bitch.' And then I open my email and there it is - a review by my dad!

Still not ready to give it a rest.

We’ve all had that moment when we thought, “Oh, for crying out loud!  Would you give it a rest!”  Most often it’s when someone is droning on and on about a topic you have absolutely no interest in, like the guy who wants to talk without interruption about his fight with his girlfriend.  For gamers, maybe it’s the latest variation of Monopoly (there are HUNDREDS of versions of Monopoly, including pet dog versions, the Simpsons, the gay version, and, well, more than any genuine gamer, who believes one was adequate, wants to ponder).  There are several games that I think publishers should quit trying to wring another nickel out their topic and “give it a rest.”  I was beginning to have some thoughts about this with Thunderstone, and when Root of Corruption arrived at my door I had those vague thoughts waft through my mind.  And then I opened the box.  I just have to hand it to AEG, they continue to come up with great innovations that really work and add more interest and fun to Thunderstone. 

The first thing you see when you open the box is a folded gameboard – it’s big!  My cynical nature was a catalyst for those “oh, no, not a folded-map-that-will-never-lie-flat-on-the-table game mat!”  Visions of SPI.  (When a cat jumps on your game of USN, those folds lead to disaster.)  But go ahead and set that aside and tear the shrink-wrap off the cards.  There are some freakin’ cool cards here!!  And again, the artwork is awesome.  (Not like that sissy artwork in that other deck-building game.)  Do those guys at AEG lose sleep over thinking up new cards?  OF COURSE THEY DO!!  Well, after opening a few of the shrink-wraps, my cynicism was gone.  I was ready to get some friends around the table and get the cards into play.

You can’t hit a homer with every card, and from my old grognard perspective, some of these cards range from silly to down-right stupid, but then I’m an old grognard and not your average Thunderstone player.  (I know some guys will love the Moonclaw hero, but it looks pretty silly to me.)  But for a few exceptions, I really like the majority of the cards in this expansion.  In fact, in most my reviews I only single out a few cards for “honorable mention,” but as I sit here and look at all the cards I’ve set apart for honorable mention, I know I can’t list them all or I’ll lose you before the end of the review.  So I’ll pare it down.  Point is, there are a lot of awesome new cards AND concepts in this box.  So let’s get to the cards:

Treasures: First off, Gold Hammer.  (First thought when I saw the card was “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” and if you know what that is, you’re dating yourself.)  Useful in the dungeon and in the village.  Sweet treasure. 
There are two shields you find on the dungeon floor; very useful and you’ll be happy to pick them up. 
Then there’s the Immolation Orb.  It’s kind of like throwing a white phosphorus grenade.  It’ll take out a lot of monsters, but it takes one hero of level 1 with it.  (If you didn’t know, you really can’t throw a wp grenade further than its bursting radius.)  It can be a mixed blessing. 

Spells: Circle of Protection definitely gets honorable mention.  I bet someone really did lose sleep thinking up this card.  It cancels some very bad things that can happen.  Very clever.

Items: LOTS of good stuff here!  To mention just a few: Elven Waybread = Lembas.  About time.
Mind Control: A card that promotes player interaction – not that the other player will appreciate it when you play this card in front of him, but it’s a cool card.  It forces the other player to fight a specific monster.  Play it on your wife in a friendly game, and you could end up on the sofa for the night.
Tincture of Victims: This is a POWERFUL card.  It grants Attack and Strength points, and converts Magic to Physical Attacks.  But it can also add a curse card to your deck.  Well, I like it.

Monsters: Lots of curses comin’ your way!  Djinbound: Not all that powerful, but they’re all a pain to take out. 
Elemental Earth: Level 3 and look it.  Kind of like Thunderstone Panzers.  They hurt you every time.
Royal Guard: For some reason beyond me, they all sap the strength of all heroes taking them on.  I suspect it’s their b.o., but I can’t say with any authority.  I haven’t played them in a game yet, but they might elicit a groan when one is turned up.

And of course, the Heroes: Honormain Gallant: Every time he goes to the village or enters the dungeon, you have to “discard 1 card or destroy a disease.  I’m puzzled.  Does this mean he has tuberculosis (ala Doc Holiday) or that he’s overdosed on vitamins?  He’s not my best friend.
Profaned Acolyte: Whatever this poor sap does, he gets a curse.  Next expansion we need a lucky rabbit’s foot to counteract these curses.
And my favorite in the box – The Silvertongue: He’s kind of weak as a fighter, but he can pull down gold, attack points, strength, and cards.  Every deck needs this guy.

In the box you also get new cards for all the previous “Ambushers.”  Thoughtful of them.

Now about the folded-map-that-will-never-lie-flat-on-the-table.  This is a new “game-mat” for the siege rules that come with Root of Corruption.  In honest fact, you can’t get it to lay flat on the table.  Time to pull out the plexiglass.  If you’ve followed my reviews of previous Thunderstone games, you know that the only one I gave a less-than-enthusiastic review was for Thunderstone Siege.  If it’s a siege, you shouldn’t need light.  But this time I’m more intrigued by these rules.  For one thing, Thunderstone now has a cooperative rules set – how cool is that?!?  If the monsters get inside the walls, they pour in and all the players lose together.  I love this new twist to the game.  And,  what if the monsters are coming in beneath the walls?  It could happen.  Then you need light to fight in the tunnels.  OK, I’m stretching, but I do like the rules here.  Unfortunately, I don’t own a sheet of plexiglass.

And one last work that’s become kind of a trademark of my Thunderstone reviews, when you buy this expansion you get yet another large box that’s three times larger than necessary to hold the new cards.  It’s like AEG doesn’t get it, EVERYONE WHO BUYS THIS EXPANSION ALREADY HAS A WAY BIGGER BOX TO HOLD THESE CARDS!  Well, I’ve been carping about this since my first expansion review and they don’t care.  So now I have to find room to store another Thunderstone box.


Summary

Pros:
Continues to turn out great artwork.
New concepts that really work.
Blends in great with your other Thunderstone Advance cards and game play.

Cons:
OK, I HAVE to come up with some negatives.  Let me think about this.
The siege mat doesn’t lay flat.
The box (sigh) is way bigger than needed for the cards.  Still.
OH!  I have one honest complaint!  My cards were all curved from side to side, so they don’t stack well in a deck with my other Thunderstone cards.

I found a copy of Root of Corruption at Noble Knight Games. You can probably find it cheaper somewhere else, but it's real easy to get a picture from their site, and like I said in the intro, I'm lazy.
GET A GAME OR SOMETHING

There's this wacky little game company in Greece or Istanbul or Constantinople called MAGE Company. They make, well, games, including a Kickstarter they have going for 12 Realms, which I guess is kind of a big deal. And they sent one to me called Wrong Chemistry, though they apparently tied it to the back of a mule which they then guided by remote-control carrot all the way to Texas, because it took months to arrive.

When it did finally show up, the anticipation was killing me. I couldn't wait to play, because I had waited for almost half a year to see this little slice of genius. I'm happy to report that it's not as bad as you might assume a game would be if it came out of Bulgaria. And really, it's not fair to assume that Bulgaria would produce bad games. They have smart people there. They have modern technology like cell phones and remote-control carrots. Why would you just decide Bulgaria makes inadequate games? I'm ashamed of you.

The game itself is astonishingly light, but will still stretch your brain into salt-water taffy. The rules are two pages. And really small. There's this collection of hexes in the middle of the table, and you play a card and try to rearrange the hexes in a limited number of moves to match the image on your card. It's like an IQ test for game nerds. (You remember those grade-school IQ tests, where they made you rearrange blocks to look like stuff? I loved those. But I didn't want to make cats and question marks, I wanted to make robots and dragons. Sue me. I was eight.)

Anyway, the more complicated the card you attempt, the more points you get for it. And since you know what the board looks like at the start of your turn, you can figure out pretty quick if it's possible to create the shape you want. Only the board totally changes every turn, so you can't start planning your turn until your turn actually starts, which means you'll spend two minutes looking at your cards and mentally moving stuff around while your opponents wonder if you've been assimilated by the Borg Collective and your brain has shut down. They can't bitch too much, though, because they do the same thing on their turns.

The fact that the board changes every turn means you can't plan ahead, and honestly, that's the biggest problem I have with the game. You build what you can, expand your spacial recognition skills, maybe put together some clever plays with some of the special cards, and then your turn is over and you can rest your throbbing brain while the other players mess up any chance you might have of building a long-term strategy. Wrong Chemistry poses a fun mental challenge, but my favorite games let me plan for the long game. There is no long game in Wrong Chemistry. You play your hand and you move on.

However, just because the game is essentially new every turn does not mean it isn't a hoot. We played it a bunch of times, and that should be significant if you understand that I only needed to play it once to review it. So we played it once because we had to, and then several more times because it was fun. Planning? No. Fun? You bet.

Of course, I liked those grade-school IQ tests. I also like playing with Legos. I like rearranging things to make other things, and this game directly appeals to the parts of my brain that like building robots when I should be putting together one-way arrows. Wrong Chemistry is one part game, two parts puzzle. If you're hoping for interaction, forget it. If you want to build strategies, you're looking at the wrong game. But if you like brain puzzles and competitive spatial arrangement, Wrong Chemistry is pretty fun.

Summary

2-4 players

Pros:
Cute art
Easy rules
Mentally challenging
Essentially a puzzle competition

Cons:
No chance of long-term strategy
The parts won't let you build a dragon with a robot penis. But then, neither did those grade-school IQ tests.

 Want more info about Wrong Chemistry? You can get it right here:
http://www.magecompany.com/wc.html

Obviously, I am still a child. Not only do I play with games and toys, but I'm a sucker for a good cartoon. However, being an adult child, I am a little picky. For instance, I don't have the patience to sit through Adventure Time, and although Clone Wars is a cool-looking cartoon, I can't watch it because I know what happens to everybody (and it is not good).

But even with my distaste for superhero comic books, I still find cartoons I can dig. And my current time-eating favorite is The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. It's got all kinds of stuff I don't like - dimensional travel, silly costumes, Kirby-inspired face-masks, and a horrible theme song - but it's also got lots to love.

For instance, this cartoon (unlike the movie) got its background history right. The founding members of the Avengers were Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, Wasp and Ant Man. Captain America doesn't come on the scene until the originals find him frozen in ice. The cartoon got this part right.

Another thing that makes Avengers worth watching is the banter. Clearly, this team is built on both the original, Stan Lee creations and the newly minted movie versions. Tony Stark in particular is the cocky, brash genius made interesting in the movies, which we didn't see in the comics until he had been around a while. The dialog between Cap and Stark, between Hulk and Hawkeye, between Wasp and every villain she shoots in the eye, brings dimension to the heroes.

I also like that this team that saves the world on a monthly basis has its share of interpersonal dilemmas. Ant Man leaves, then comes back. Hulk leaves, then comes back. Hawkeye likes Black Widow, then he hates her, then he likes her again. There's a lot of tension between the heroes, which makes for interesting stories even for a comic book that is largely about punching things with magical fists.

But really, all those other things could be merely palatable as long as the story holds up. And while I am tired of time-traveling world conquerors, dimension-tramping frost giants and pseuo-Nazis with magical powers, the stories built on these characters are pretty darn good. The stories build from one episode to the next, culminating in a massive showdown that has been in the works since the first half-hour. If you're even remotely able to find a reason to sit through an invasion by aliens in space spandex who travel through time, The Avengers will have keep you entertained, at least for 18 minutes at a stretch.

Actually, make that 17 minutes. You'll want to fast-forward through the opening music. It is painfully obvious that Danny Elfman was not available to record the theme song, because they apparently had to go with a cheesy boy band that rhymes 'one' with 'won.' As in, 'forever fight as one, until the battle's won.' I could only hear this once, and then I had to fast-forward to guard my sanity.

There are still better cartoons than this one, but The Avengers: Earths Mightiest Heroes has one thing going for it that makes it attractive to me - it's all on Netflix. Both seasons are right there, so that you never have to wait a week to see if Hulk's super-soldier serum will give him shiny green gonads. Plus there are 26 episodes in each season, for more than 15 hours of campy cartoon fun.

So The Avengers has goofy armor. It has dorky villains pulled right out of 1968. It has the new, racially correct Nick Fury (who I would like a lot less if he were not Samuel L. Jackson). It has a theme song that is very similar to musical torture. But the stories are good, the characters are enjoyable, and the show is fun. If you have a whole bunch of time to kill, you can check it out on Netflix.

It's time for another zombie game review!

(I wonder if other reviewers get as many requests for zombie game reviews. Does Tom Vasel get hit up to write about zombie games every three weeks? Does that binswanger who does the flashy video reviews get zombie games thrown at him like confetti at a parade? Is it just me, or is everyone getting buried in games about the walking dead? And is there no other theme we can drive into the ground, hopelessly abused, until we're sick of seeing even the fun zombie games? If a zombie game falls in the forest, will it still be a boring, tired theme that desperately needs to be replaced with SOMETHING ELSE?)

The topic of this week's review is a game called City of Horror, in which you and a bunch of friends compete to stay alive while zombies eat almost all of you. It's not a zombie-killing game, or even a zombie-surviving game. It's really a game where you bribe your friends to kill your other friends, strike allegiances and then screw the people who saved you.

It's actually very fun. It didn't have to be a zombie game to be this fun - it could have been outer-space aliens, or parasitic fungus creatures, or fourth-graders on energy drinks (that's a seriously untapped market - if you've ever volunteered in a fourth-grade classroom after recess, when all the kids smell like stale sweat and dirty Twizzlers, and seen them get cranky because they need a nap, you know how terrifying they can be). But it is a zombie game, I think because Nazis as a group are now protected by the ACLU.

Every building has a certain number of spots, and every turn, you have to move one of your people and hope there's room so you don't get stuck in the street with the zombies. You have to scrounge for drugs and food and guns, and you have to share with your friends - but there's never enough to go around, so there will be some politics.

The core mechanic in City of Horror is voting. You vote to see who gets the best stuff, and you vote to see who gets eaten by zombies. The moving part is only there to make sure you don't get too comfy. The actual game play might sound a little like this:

RALPH: Oh, man, zombies are going to eat either my mom or Bob's bookie. Anyone want to team up with me to vote that they eat Bob's bookie?
GERTY: Why would we do that? I hope you both get eaten, because you made me stand outside last turn and my little boy got his arms torn off.
BOB: Ralph, I get two votes. There's no point in voting. You can't win.
RALPH: If I vote for my mom this time, and don't give you any heat, will you help me out when it comes time to eat Gerty's other child?
BOB: No, seriously Ralph, it's a non-issue. I have two votes. You have one. Your mom is dead.
RALPH: Gerty, help me out here. I'll give you this antidote.
GERTY: Ralph, are you high? I'm not in the church. I can't vote.
BOB: Ralph, dude, your mom is toast. Stop flailing.
RALPH: Hey! Debbie! Help me out and vote for Bob's bookie!
DEBBIE: Shut up, you idiot. I'm not even playing. I'm trying to watch Matlock.

The voting phase is all kinds of brutal. There's a ton of choosing who gets to die, and you'll see a lot of arguments that point out how much better someone else is doing, to try to throw your friends under the bus. It all comes down to pointing fingers at each other and hoping you didn't catch the short straw, and that means nice people tend to win this game, mostly because nobody wants to pick on the nice people. I doubt I will ever win this game.

After four turns, the National Guard shows up in helicopters and evacuates everyone who is still alive. Presumably they also shoot all the zombies, but that part is sort of vague. They might buy all the zombies Hostess pies so Spider-Man can web them and hang them up in front of the police station. It really doesn't matter. But it is fun to picture all the zombies getting distracted by apple pies.

(If you don't get the Hostess pie/Spider-Man reference, ask a nerd who read comic books in the 70s.)

City of Horror is an interesting social experiment, if nothing else. It's interesting to wonder if this is how actual live-or-die encounters would go in real life - would your best friend force you out the door to save a crippled old lady? Would he kick you out to save himself? You hope not, but let's face it, you'll never really know. I would sleep with one eye open, if I were you.

If you're a fan of games where social interaction is more important than making the smart play, and you're not tired of zombie games yet, you might really like City of Horror. I had a great time, though I don't see a scenario in which I can ever win the game. I enjoyed the backbiting and deal-making and underhanded politics that went into making sure the toddler on the tricycle died before my jaded businessman. The art is brilliant (it's from Asmodee, so that's a given), and the rules are straightforward and easy to grasp. Which is more than I can say for my aging comic-book references.

Summary

3-6 players

Pros:
Excellent social interaction
Massive body count
Get to know which of your friends are real bastards

Cons:
Cardboard standup zombies (not that I need any more plastic zombies)
Ye Gods! Not another zombie game!

If you're not tired of the zombie-game craze yet, you can get a copy of City of Horror at Noble Knight Games:

THE TIRED UNDEAD

Oh no! Not another road trip!

Do you love games, and just hate when you have to leave your house and all those wonderful games? Well, we want to introduce you to a wonderful new product, designed just for you! It's the Minigame Library, and you're going to love it!

The Minigame Library delivers magnificent games that you can play any time, whether you're driving down the highway at 70 miles an hour or sleeping in the car while a bear shreds your tent.

(Drake's Flames does not recommend playing games while driving, unless you're on a closed course and you're not at home. It's fine to try stupid stuff you see on TV, as long as you're not at home.)

 Boring night at the in-laws house? Liven up any party with Grimoire Shuffle, a team game for either 4 or 6 players where the board shifts all the time and every player has special moves! Your wife's mom will hate you forever if you don't eat her horrible lasagna, but she'll forgive you when you break out this hilarious game of high-spirited hijinks!

Of course, we couldn't call it a library if we only had one game, so we added Noir, the game of sliding cards and deduction. Two players face off in this hunt to flush out your opponent's secret identity, and the only way you can do it is to slide cards around and see if the other guy says 'yeah, that one is me!' Add another player or two and try a whole different game! Literally, the rules are completely different.

So how much would you pay for a box that had two great games in it? If you said 500 dollars, you're insane! Nobody would pay that! But if you said 100, you're STILL too high! The Minigame Library can be yours for just 60 dollars (plus shipping and handling). Amazing!

Too good to be true? Not yet! Because if you act now, we will also add Infinity Dungeon, a game so stupid that just opening the box will make you a little dumber! It's like a role-playing game that you play with cards, especially because nobody wins! (Technically, the rules say that the person who had the most fun wins. Sadly, that means nobody wins.) You'll cross a dark room full of pit traps using a laser blaster and a pirate ship, and make sure you steal the garden gnome or... There is no or else! Not only is there no reason to try to win this game, there's not actually any reason to play in the first place!

Now how much would you pay? Don't answer yet!

We know how much you love games, so we just kept shoving them in there. For those times when you've got a reasonable good-sized tabletop and half an hour you don't want any more, you can play Master Plan! Become a comic-book villain on a death-race TV game show, and beat your opponents to the trophy while avoiding bombs and pit traps! Yes, we added more pit traps! This game is at least not stupid, though it does get a little slow, but you'll probably love it because it beats the hell out of getting eaten by bears!

All these games can be had for the low, low price of just 60 dollars (plus shipping and handling), but we're not done yet! Call in the next ten minutes and we'll add Blades of Legend, a game designed for people who have a lot more friends than I do! At Drake's Flames, we hope you'll really like Blades of Legend, because we don't have enough gamer friends to play this wild hidden-identity game! And we've been sitting on this review for almost two months as it is, so we're writing it anyway!

What an amazing deal! Act now, and you can get Grimoire Shuffle, Noir, Infinity Dungeon, Master Plan and Blades of Legend for just 60 dollars (plus shipping and handling)! That's five games for the price of one! Or two! Maybe! I mean, they are card games. Those aren't usually sixty. Those are more like 20 or so. So maybe it's five games for the price of three! Yeah, we'll go with that.

But wait! There's more! We've gone flat-out buck-wild crazy, and we're adding one more game! Get your hands on the Minigame Library, and score your own copy of Pixel Tactics! We've saved the best for last, because Pixel Tactics is pretty kick-as! This two-player, head-to-head game of smart plays and smarter plans is the highlight of the Minigame Library, and the best candidate in the box for the game we could sell without all those other games! But you can't get it on its own, so pick up a copy of the Minigame Library and buy five mediocre games and one great game for the price of three decent games!

(Offer not valid in Wisconsin or the Giza Strip. Well, if you want it that bad, maybe they'll ship it to you. I'm just the lawyer. I am also required by law to tell you that some of these games are fun, at least one is too stupid to have ever been printed, and one is downright bad-ass. The idea of putting six games in one box is pretty cool, but it would be even cooler if they were all more awesome. If 99 Designs sells Pixel Tactics by itself, pick it up, because it's pretty wicked. The rest - you could take them or leave them. Especially Infinity Dungeon. Leave that one, for sure.)

Summary

2-12 players, depending on the game you choose

Pros:
Really cool idea, putting six games in one box
Some of the games are actually OK
Nice quality cards and some entertaining art
Pixel Tactics was kind of awesome

Cons:
Doesn't seem like a great deal when you're selling me games I don't want
Infinity Dungeon is dumber than a bag of hammers

If you want more information on the Minigame Library, check out the 99 Designs site at:
http://www.lvl99games.com/?page_id=1459