BOARD GAME QUICK REVIEWS FOR GLORY AND HONOUR!

For games played by men (and women) with beards, such as tabletop RPGs.

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BOARD GAME QUICK REVIEWS FOR GLORY AND HONOUR!

Post by Joose »

I don't know why I called it that.

This thread is a Boardgame (or card game, or weird little party game, or whatever) mini-review thread, similar to the ones we have for telly and films. Big title of what game you are talking about, small review underneath. Go nuts.
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Re: BOARD GAME QUICK REVIEWS FOR GLORY AND HONOUR!

Post by Joose »

Android: Netrunner

I love this game.

What it is: Its a card game by the game design legend Richard Garfield, creator of Magic the Gathering. As I understand it, Netrunner is pretty much Garfield looking at Magic and saying "yeah, OK, that works well and is dominating the CCG universe, but I think I could make something even better". Which he then did. The biggest difference is that Netrunner is not a CCG. Instead they are calling it a LCG: Living Card Game. There are no packs of random cards, there is no collecting and trading. You get the core game and that gives you a set collection of cards. There are expansions to give you more cards, which come out on a fairly regular basis, but the expansions are also set and you only need to get the ones you fancy. Basically, you always know what you are going to get, and there is no longer any risk of "Pay to Win" as everyone has access to the same stuff (expansions give you stuff for both players at the same time). This simultaneously pwns the two biggest complaints against MtG: It is no longer a case of the guy with the most money to spend on cards being at an advantage, and as there are defined sets you can reasonably know and understand all the cards in a given set (although that still isn't really required).

So that's the background to the game, but what is the game actually about? Its set in a near future cyberpunk world, which should be immediately familiar to fans of Bladerunner, William Gibson books or indeed the Cyberpunk RPG. Think Shadowrun without the fantasy elements. The two players actually play two different games: One is a hacker, trying to build a set of hardware and software to attack the other player. That other player is a megacorporation, trying to build up their evil schemes and protect their servers with Ice (IC, or Intrusion Countermeasures. Firewalls and such, although some of these firewalls are waving digital swords around). The two games are balanced, but asymmetric: the corporation does everything in secret with most of their cards placed face down, whilst the hacker does everything out in the open but has more control over what happens when.

Why its good: Oh god, for so many reasons. Besides the fact it has solved a problem that no CCG has ever solved before (the Pay to Win problem) it is just a glorious piece of design. The Corporation plays almost all their cards face down, not only the things they are trying to protect but the things they are protecting them with. The hacker has to decide which one of these stacks of face down cards they should attack, often with no direct information on which ones hold juicy game winning Agenda cards and which are just a pile of horrifying ice stacked in front of a painful ambush card. Essentially, the corp player ends up playing an elaborate shell game. Whilst that would seem to put the corp at the advantage, the corp for the most part cant attack the hacker directly unless the hacker is attacking them, so things only get loud and shouty when the hacker is good and ready. All together this gives the game a wonderful sense of theme: The hacker player is all agile, poking at the corporate defences to try and glean useful information whilst the corp player is a slow moving secret monstrosity, investing in shenanigans, hedge funds and wet work teams. Despite the fact that the game is ultimately fair, it still manages to feel like a David and Goliath fight. Its brilliant.

Its also super generous, which is something you cant normally accuse CCGs of. The base set includes cards for three different types of hackers (The nutty Anarchist, the greedy Criminal and the "doin it for the lols" Shaper) and four Corporations (the Japanese geneticists Jinteki, the media giants NBN, the drone manufacturing Haas-Bioroid and the one-corp Industrial-Military complex that is the Weyland Consortium), with instructions on how to mix and match to make your own decks. That is, in technical terms, a bumload of cards. The solid themes carry through as well, playing as an Anarchist is a mad rush of self injury for advantage whilst being a Criminal gives you all the money in the world. Jinteki like to try and remotely fry your brain whilst Weyland will just drop uranium rods on your house from orbit. Its just so much fun.

The best bit for me is that although it appears at first glance to be complicated as balls, its actually reasonably easy to pick up and get into. So much so that I have not only persuaded Mrs Joose to play, she enjoyed it and indeed kicked my ass. Thats something I could never have hoped to achieve with MtG.

Conclusion: If you have ever looked at things like Magic and thought "that looks interesting but I just cant be bothered with that much of an investment of time, attention and money" you should definitely check out Netrunner. It is the new standard that all CCG style games should aspire to.
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Re: BOARD GAME QUICK REVIEWS FOR GLORY AND HONOUR!

Post by Dog Pants »

That wasn't such a quick review, but I like the sound of it. I baulked at the $40 price tag until I saw you get 250 cards.

I have Arkham Horror and X-Wing begging to be played and stored up for a bash, I'll review them when I can.
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Re: BOARD GAME QUICK REVIEWS FOR GLORY AND HONOUR!

Post by Joose »

Dog Pants wrote:That wasn't such a quick review, but I like the sound of it.
I did get a bit carried away there.
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Re: BOARD GAME QUICK REVIEWS FOR GLORY AND HONOUR!

Post by Dr. kitteny berk »

Monopoly

Notable, as the first ever board game where the board spontaneously takes flight less than an hour in.

Otherwise, fucking awful.

:)
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Re: BOARD GAME QUICK REVIEWS FOR GLORY AND HONOUR!

Post by Dog Pants »

I never liked Monopoly.
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Re: BOARD GAME QUICK REVIEWS FOR GLORY AND HONOUR!

Post by Joose »

It is a terrible, terrible game. I could write a full review detailing all the ways in which it is shit, but it would make me angry and sad.
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Re: BOARD GAME QUICK REVIEWS FOR GLORY AND HONOUR!

Post by FatherJack »

Is a CCG a Collectable Card Game? It does sound as if it's avoiding the obvious pitfalls of many of those (ie: you having a deck full of Magikarps when your rich mates have got Gengars, Abras and MewTwos) while still catering for people who do like to collect.

We played a fair few games of Fluxx at Grimbash which was rather fun.

Fluxx

It's a card game with a set deck (although you can use multiple additional-themed decks for more complexity). It starts simply, in turn each draw a card, and place one down, but gets more interesting as various multiple Rule cards which everyone has to abide by are placed down. These can be to draw or discard extra cards, or even require you to talk like a pirate or groan like a zombie. Keeper cards are placed in front of you and are used to determine the winner, based on the (usually single) current Goal card - which tells you what you need to win. Creeper cards generally stop you winning, but can be overridden by some Keeper or Goal cards. Action cards are single-use cards which when played can horse players to pick up, play or discard cards and even steal/trade Keepers/hands from other players. Surprise cards can be played even when it's not your turn and can turn a game around quickly.

With the rules and goals constantly changing, it's possible for anyone to win suddenly at any time and you have to be careful you don't accidently make someone else win part-way through executing what you think is your master stroke. There's a bit of good-natured dicking each other over by nicking the cards which give you immunity to some things, but it's a testament to how balanced the game is that you can do that as nothing grants you full immunity from everything. Being forced by rules to play cards you really didn't want to, or building yourself a lovely winning hand only to have to discard it or swap it with another player is all part of the charm.


So that's two card games in the board game reviews, better do a quick board game review. Here's my obligatory in-depth Monopoly review:

Monopoly. The dog is the best because he can stand on his nose. He always pips me in the beauty contest, though.
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Re: BOARD GAME QUICK REVIEWS FOR GLORY AND HONOUR!

Post by Dog Pants »

I have Fluxx, another game I'll probably have to wait until a bash to play. Diskworld is similar in that you spend more time wondering how to dick the other guys to stop them winning than you do about how to win. I also have Death Angel, which is like Space Hulk with cards, is pretty good, and can be played solo. I'll let Anery review that though, he's played it far more.
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Re: BOARD GAME QUICK REVIEWS FOR GLORY AND HONOUR!

Post by Grimmie »

Joose, Joose! Do a review of ESCAPE! Curse of the Temple!
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Re: BOARD GAME QUICK REVIEWS FOR GLORY AND HONOUR!

Post by Anery »

I'll keep this one short and sweet

Relic

It's Talisman in 40k for up to 4 players. Race to the centre to beat up the bad guy, en route kill other bad guys, complete missions, level up stats, accrue war gear and relics. Immensely fun, dice CAN fuck you over but thats part of the charm for me. Can be a long game too, several hours isn't unusual.

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Re: BOARD GAME QUICK REVIEWS FOR GLORY AND HONOUR!

Post by The Shutting Downs »

Ninja Burger

No matter how secure your office,
how deep your bunker,
how dedicated your guards . . .
we deliver your burger in 30 minutes or less or we commit Sepukku.

You play a Ninja Burger Employee, you must use the equipment available to you to complete delivery missions and get honour, its quite a quick game, and very funny to play as a group, and generally gets a group doing dodgy 'ninja action movie' actions and voice dubbing.
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Re: BOARD GAME QUICK REVIEWS FOR GLORY AND HONOUR!

Post by FatherJack »

Heh, sounds like Snow Crash, although that was pizzas. Pizzas mature well though, unlike 30 minute-old burgers. I think there was something similar in Kentucky Fried Movie which predates them both though.
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Re: BOARD GAME QUICK REVIEWS FOR GLORY AND HONOUR!

Post by Dog Pants »

Anery wrote:I'll keep this one short and sweet

Relic

It's Talisman in 40k for up to 4 players. Race to the centre to beat up the bad guy, en route kill other bad guys, complete missions, level up stats, accrue war gear and relics. Immensely fun, dice CAN fuck you over but thats part of the charm for me. Can be a long game too, several hours isn't unusual.

Dog Pants is a wanker.
I found Relic to be deeper and more interesting than Talisman. And I wasn't trying to fuck you over by nicking all your gear as you were on the final track, I was ensuring we had the highest chance of success by pooling our resources. For the Emperor.
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Re: BOARD GAME QUICK REVIEWS FOR GLORY AND HONOUR!

Post by Joose »

I've not played Relic or Talisman myself, but the criticism I often hear levelled at it is that there isn't a lot of player agency: Most of the decisions in the game are being made by the dice or the cards, not by the players. How accurate is that?
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Re: BOARD GAME QUICK REVIEWS FOR GLORY AND HONOUR!

Post by Joose »

Grimmie wrote:Joose, Joose! Do a review of ESCAPE! Curse of the Temple!
Oh, if you insist :)

ESCAPE! Curse of the Temple!

Hot piss, an actual board game!

ESCAPE! casts the players as Indiana Jones style characters trying to escape an ancient temple before it collapses around their ears. Its a co-operative game, where everyone lays down tiles to slowly build the board and explores the temple. This is done by rolling special dice: Everyone has five of these and different combinations are required to achieve different things. You need two little green running men to place a new tile down, you might need a man and a torch to then enter that tile. Eventually you will find the exit tile; when you get there you need to roll a torch for every gem token still in the gem pile. Initially that would mean you would need to roll more than 5 torches, which is obviously impossible, but you can remove gems from the pile by going to special tiles and rolling the required things on there: maybe three keys or 4 torches. Each die had a black mask on, which means you cant re-roll that die until you have rolled a golden mask on one of your other dice. If you get totally stuck, with all 5 dice black, other players can come to the tile you are on and free you with golden masks of their own.

At this point you are probably thinking "This sounds kind of dull". Thats because I havent got to the genius yet. You dont take turns. You all go at the same time. As fast as you can. Why fast? Because you are on a timer. If anyone is still in the temple when the timer runs out you have ALL FAILED!

Its genius. Its bloody hard. You will spend most of the game frantically shouting at each other, screaming "OH GOD, IM LOCKED! SOMEONE HELP!" or "OVER HERE! NO, THIS WAY! WE CAN CLEAR 3 GEMS HERE!" or "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! DONT REROLL THAT! I NEED THAT GOLDEN FACE!!!!" You will be frantically waving dice at each other and wailing in horror at the bong noise that means the temple is about to collapse. Play it.

Its just brilliant. I demand we play at least one game of it at BeardBash.
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Re: BOARD GAME QUICK REVIEWS FOR GLORY AND HONOUR!

Post by Mr. Johnson »

Boardgamegeek seems to have most board games on it, just putting it out there.

EDIT: This sounds a little passive aggressive now that I read it, which certainly isn't my intention. What I wanted to say is that boardgamegeek tends to have more information and pictures of people playing the games etc. than other sites (that I know of) so it could be worth linking to.

IT'S UP TO YOU.
Last edited by Mr. Johnson on January 24th, 2014, 11:01, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: BOARD GAME QUICK REVIEWS FOR GLORY AND HONOUR!

Post by Joose »

Board Game Geek has a lot of content, but it tends to be a bit...metacriticy. It has that problem that everything with user submitted reviews has: Popular ends up meaning the same as good, which in reality isn't always the case. Its better than nothing though, and like you say it does have information about every game ever in there.

Personally I prefer Shut Up and Sit Down for news and reviews. They really know their stuff, and are both informative and entertaining. I've yet to play something they have recommended and be disappointed, although I disagree with some of the things they don't like. Still, they describe what the game is like and their experiences playing so well that I can often see when they don't like it but I probably would (and occasionally vice versa).
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Re: BOARD GAME QUICK REVIEWS FOR GLORY AND HONOUR!

Post by Anery »

Dog Pants wrote:I found Relic to be deeper and more interesting than Talisman. And I wasn't trying to fuck you over by nicking all your gear as you were on the final track, I was ensuring we had the highest chance of success by pooling our resources. For the Emperor.
Uh huh, no matter what, that remains my lasting memory of Relic. Well played.

Discworld, Ankh Morpork
2-4 player game, the materials are basic but nicely produced. Markers etc are stained and polished wood, board and card artwork is good and in the Discworld style and card is of a good quality too.
Each player draws one card from a personality deck, this gives that player their win conditions. These vary, some are to amass certain amounts of money, some are to control x amount of territories.
Each player then takes 5 cards from the events deck.
When it comes to their turn they can play a card, each card has different attributes that let you do certain things. For example a card could let you steal money from an opponent, or take one of their cards. Often there are several attributes per card that enable you to chain them together, some are also utter garbage (the better to palm off to unsuspecting opponents) The main game revolves around control of Ankh Morpork, in order to control an area you must be able to place a minion in that area and be able to place a house on that area (each requires you to be able to play a card with that attribute) there are certain conditions that need to be met, there can't be another minon in that area, it must not be controlled by anybody else and you must have the cash to be able to buy it. Areas controlled can add to your cash every turn or let you draw extra cards. The rest of the game is taken up with guessing the motives of your opponents and attempting to achieve your own.
Oh, and dealing with chaos cards.
Chaos cards are drawn when somebody plays a card with the chaos attribute.
Chaos cards are where the game really starts to mess with it's players.
For example a chaos card can cause areas of the city to flood, destroying all minions and buildings in that area (no building in that area no control) or a fire could break out and will burn down everything in sectors decided by a rolled dice (and only stops when you eventually roll an area that has no buildings) or it could end up with a player suffering from schizophrenia and switching his personality. You can be on the cusp of victory when some wanker could play a card that destroys half the city, removes all your minions and causes somebody else to go schizo, change their personality and win conditions and then win the game - thereby fucking everybody over and losing the game even for the chap who played the card. I think there is even a card that ends the game there and then, nobody wins.
It's all about trying to guess what the others are up to and fuck them over, and its hilarious. Most of the time people end up screwing themselves over.
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Re: BOARD GAME QUICK REVIEWS FOR GLORY AND HONOUR!

Post by Dog Pants »

Ankh Morpork is fucking awesome. It's an emotional rollercoaster where everyone is trying to throw each other off.
Joose wrote:I've not played Relic or Talisman myself, but the criticism I often hear levelled at it is that there isn't a lot of player agency: Most of the decisions in the game are being made by the dice or the cards, not by the players. How accurate is that?
I played Relic first, then the iPad version of Talisman. So my views may be tainted by that and skewed towards Relic. With that in mind, I find Talisman to be considerably luck based, but it's directed. You do have choices, enough to make you feel as though you're playing the game, but a lot depends on dice rolls and cards drawn. I enjoy it, I expect as a board game with friends it's quite fun, but I doubt there's a huge amount of interaction between players. Relic is very similar, you still roll dice and draw cards, but there's a lot more choice. While in Talisman you have two stats - Strength and Spirit(?), of which Strength tests are much more common - in Relic you have four and they're pretty evenly spread. That means every move is more of a gamble of risk vs reward. In both you get a mixture of cards to use (gear, spells etc), but the ones in Relic seemed to be more active and situational rather than passive bonuses. And in Relic you can interact a bit. The Ratling Sniper nicks stuff gathers resources, the Bounty Hunter tracks down other players. I found the random in it to be fun rather than decisive.
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