Two thin men face each other in a dusty street. Residents peer from around corners, atop overturned carts, and through thick window glass. A lone tumbleweed hops down the thoroughfare. No sounds can be heard except for a slight desert breeze. The Arizona sun glares directly overhead, forcing both men to narrow their eyes into slits.

“Draw.”

I rolled two six-sided dice, hoping to earn an advantage over The Accountant™ by scoring a hit before he had a chance to return fire. Unfortunately, I am playing the role of a young cowboy, full of guts but low on experience. I miss.

The Accountant™’s grizzled gunslinging veteran unholsters his Peacemaker and cracks off a shot. He gets a +2 on his combat roll, which allows him to score a hit. I slide my health meter down by one. Three more hits like that and I’m dead.

I don’t know if I should move or keep shooting — the rules don’t allow me to do both — and if I make a break for it and get shot again I’ll definitely be too wounded to win. What would a gunslinger do? I think, rolling the dice in my hand. Stand and fight.

Roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll … I’m dead. But I died with my boots on, and that is what Cowboys: The Way of the Gun is all about.
Read the rest of this entry »

The excellent European board game Ticket to Ride is coming to the Xbox 360 today. The game will feature local and online multiplayer. At 800 points the game seems like a must-buy. I hope they will release the other countries/games as expansions.

Thanks to Arsian and 360 gaming buddy Agreschn for the reminder.

Some games are labeled as group games, and some games are REALLY group games. You can have four people in a Cranium game and still have a good time. But there are some games that are only fun with a big group of people — and become even more fun as you pile on more bodies. If you are looking for a game for ten folks or more, Hasbro’s Catch Phrase is about the most fun thing you can do in a group and still keep your clothes on.
Read the rest of this entry »

I wrote a review about zombie board game Last Night on Earth this January. I praised the production value of the game, but disliked the ambiguity of the rules and felt that the humans were very over-powered. I found the humans to be unstoppable with their fast movement and higher combat rolls. Even if a zombie player could corner them, it was nearly impossible to hurt a human, let alone kill them.

The good thing about a blog is that people eventually find out when you bitch about stuff. A few people responded to my negative post about LNoE and suggested I was playing it wrong. Despite their efforts explain it, or say that the game was really slanted towards the zombies, I kept my nose pinched shut and shelved the game for about four months.

Luckily, my friend The Accountant™ was in town and we gave LNoE another try. We read the rules for EVERYTHING, even if we felt like we already had a grip on what to do.

Turns out I was wrong on a very fundamental but game-changing issue: humans roll, but do not add their 2D6 combat dice. They just choose the highest die. G Ramon Gomez tried to tell me, but it bounced off of my thick skull. Sorry Ramon, you were right.

Suddenly the game became a challenge. Humans weren’t wading into zombies unarmed or searching a two-space building while five zombies were knocking outside. That isn’t to say the humans were defenseless; The Accountant™ stumbled upon a nasty combo that allowed one of the characters to roll four combat dice: one for the chainsaw, and one for a hero event card that also killed zombies any time she won instead of when doubles were rolled. The headshot: she was also “lucky,” and could make a zombie player re-roll any one die. I attacked her with about ten zombies and she killed them all without a single bite.

The rules are still unclear in parts, particularly for some scenarios such as the Manor. We decided to draw a different scenario altogether after trying to discern a particular scenario rule. This game needs a real FAQ, forum, or examples of combat, none of which Flying Frog has readily available.

I liked playing LNoE so much that I am considering buying their Growing Hunger expansion. Now if I just had a large enough tabletop gaming group to play it consistently ….

In an effort to expand my collection of board games that look really cool but we never actually play, I purchased Monsters Menace America from Tanga.com in December of 2006. It so intrigued my friends that I’ve only played it three times so far. I kept trying to push it on them, but they wanted to play Settlers of Catan, Pecking Order, Magic: the Gathering, or any host of other games. Even Hoity Toity got a nod over MmA.

Sometimes life tries to give you omens and portents. STAY AWAY FROM THIS GAME, PLAY SOME OTHER SHITTY GAME INSTEAD!! But most times, I just don’t listen.
Read the rest of this entry »

So, the store final for the Magic: the Gathering City Champs tournament I wrote about last month was on Easter Sunday. I had low expectations going in since this was my first “real” tournament. I was going to play against folks with a lot more experience and a lot better cards. I kept the deck I used in February basically the same, and set out with Stilts with one objective: to ruin someone’s day.

Read the rest of this entry »

Gary Gygax, creator of the Dungeons & Dragons and various other games, has passed away at the age of 70. I first played First Edition of D&D when I was probably seven years old, led by my half-brother who was visiting from college. In the next two-plus decades I played a variety of role-playing games, including every edition of AD&D from FE on.

To say that Gygax’s game had an impact on my life is a gross understatement. I have made (and lost) friends due to RPGs, and have spent countless hours telling stories with my gaming group. I would like to think that my ability to bullshit — I mean, think — on the fly is partially due to role-playing. There really isn’t much difference between trying to con your way past a troll guarding a bridge or a high-level executive that can bless or burn your pet project.

Rest in peace, Gary.

I learned about Iron Dukes thanks to a thread on Ars Technica’s forum (thanks, mojo-jojo!!). Iron Dukes part RPG, part shooter, and part arcade-like driver (well, “sailer” … is that even a fucking word?). It’s a nifty little Flash game so you can play it at home or at the office, should you dare to do such a thing. It’s not really a pirate-themed game, it’s not really a steampunk-themed game, it’s got a privateering bend to it where you’re out for blood but I just get the feeling that it’s not every man out for himself. The game’s them is sort of, well, pirate-y. You are the captain of a pirate-y type ship. You can command up to three crew members, whom you can hire at the Shop for free. You make money by diving for sunken treasure, fighting other pirate-y type duders, or navigatating OMG SCARY storms. You can spend your hard earned ducats on equipment or goodies for your crew. Each crew member has three equipment slots: head, hand, and body. Equipment raises one skill stat and health. Iron Dukes keeps things simple, and there are only three skills: fighting, diving, and being “salty,” which is a pirate-y word for “bad ass sailor.”
Read the rest of this entry »

Less than three months ago I got back into Magic the Gathering, thanks to my friend Stilts. We’ve spent just about every weekend since playing in some way, shape, or form, whether it be casually playing with other friends or drafting against other players at a local comic book store. I’ve had a great time, but never managed to break into the top four in the weekly draft competitions.

Wizards of the Coast, the folks who publish Magic, run several tournaments throughout the year. The least competitive, and least important, is the Cities tournament. Cities starts off with a four-event qualifying session at preselected retailers. The top eight from the qualifiers play for in the store finals. Wizards sends a box of product (36 boosters at $5 retail apiece) to serve as prizes. First and second place move on to the Virginia City championships in April, held in Virginia Beach. The Cities champion gets an invitation to the national championship, with 2nd - 7th place finishers getting byes in the regional championship.

I went along with Stilts and bombed the first three qualifying rounds. I earned a pity point from each event for just showing up. Stilts had taken second place in the first event and was assured a place in the store finals. By the time the last event rolled around, I was pretty demoralized. Stilts talked me into going and suggested a deck online that concentrated on punching your opponent in the face. No fancy techniques, no crazy combos, just melting face. Those of you who know me in real life realize this fits me perfectly. It was so Hulk-Smash that I couldn’t not go. Even if I didn’t earn enough points to advance to the store finals, I’d hopefully ruin a better player’s day with my vastly less expensive deck.

Not only did I piss in some pro tour player’s Cheerios by beating him, I took second place. :) Thanks for the pep talk, Stilts!

I doubt I’ll make it to even the top four in the store finals, but who cares? I earned prizes for the first time in a sanctioned event, and had a good time doing it. I faced a few serious players who had been playing for over a decade. I was nervous at first, and they were very grim at first. But making chicken noises or “meep meep” honking sounds when I attacked them soothed my nerves and made them smile. There was a bit of controversy in my match for first and second place — someone had walked out with one of the other finalist’s cards. Technically he had to drop the first game of the match to me, but that seemed like a lame thing to do since we were both going to the store finals anyway. After finding out I could waive the technicality I shook his hand and said, “let’s play Magic.”

It’s just a goofy fucking card game, after all. Let’s have fun. And I did, even though he stomped me 2 - 0. :)

Desire often trumps logic. Sometimes we want something so badly that we overlook flaws inherent in people, jobs, movies, or games. In my case, Last Night on Earth. The game seemed perfect: a co-operative, competitive table top game that pits human heroes against my favorite undead. The game comes with five different scenarios, eight different playable heroes, and a mostly-randomized set of map tiles that mean each game is just a little bit different from the last. LNoE comes a TON of awesome collateral such as an old truck, gasoline, and townsfolk tokens, and most importantly, a bunch of plastic zombies. The production value on this game is outstanding. With scenario titles like “Die, Zombie, Die!” how could we go wrong?
Read the rest of this entry »