Can the Freedom Five — Legacy, Bunker, Tachyon, the Wraith, and Absolute Zero — survive the Ruins of Atlantis in order to prevent the nefarious Baron Blade from activating his Terralunar Implosion Beam and causing the moon to crash into the Earth? Will Grand Warlord Voss amass his army of gene-bound minions at the Wagner Mars Base in order to take over the Earth before Ra, Tempest, Fanatic, and the Visionary can stop him? Find out in the next exciting issue of Sentinels of the Multiverse! READ MORE
As I mentioned in my Best of 2011 edition, Jay Cormier’s and Sen-Foong Lim’s Belfort (published by Tasty Minstrel Games) is a grand mix of various traditional Eurogame mechanics. Up to five players have seven months (rounds) to carefully place workers (elves, dwarfs, and to a lesser extent gnomes), manage resources, and vie for control of the five districts of the titular city as they race to construct it before the winter arrives and the yetis attack. That may seem like a lot — and it is. Early plays of Belfort will test you like few other games, and new players are likely to be overwhelmed by the options and strategies available. READ MORE
2012 kicked off in a big way for the board gaming community, as Gary Games finally unleashed the next standalone edition of Ascension in the form of Storm of Souls. Much like Chronicle of the Godslayer, Storm is a hundred-card center deck and enough “always available” and starter cards to accommodate up to four players. Storm can also be combined with Chronicle and/or its expansion Return of the Fallen to hold six players. As this is a “base” release, Storm also includes a new and slightly-revised playing board, along with the usual array of red and white honor crystals. Sadly, a more streamlined version for those of us who already have more crystals than we could ever possibly need and little interest in the board is not offered. READ MORE
Another year, another sense of amazement that I was able to turn out another twelve months of biweekly content (give or take an E3) for this column. And I’m certainly not going to stop any time soon; due to their recent releases, I haven’t even covered three of the games I’m about to list as my favorites for 2011! READ MORE
I thought 2010 was a rough year for me, but it was nothing compared to my 2011. I think I might have played maybe fifteen games this year, not counting a couple of throw-away DSiWare titles picked up out of boredom, quickly consumed, and then discarded. Only about five of these were on the Wii, which is to be expected given my limited genre interests (and the equally-limited offerings on that system of late), but what really hurt me this year was my lack of interest in the 3DS.
Not that the 3DS had a bunch of world-rocking titles or anything, but the industry’s shift of focus drew attention away from the DS and my options suffered accordingly. Also not helping was the industry’s continued inability to release quality titles (of my interest) between April and October. Nearly three-fourths of the titles I enjoyed this year were released between January and March, which made for an especially long, dry summer. I don’t expect this to change in 2012, especially if I keep avoiding the 3DS, but a man can dream. READ MORE
One of my non-gaming passions is Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels and other writings. I own over forty of his books (most of which I’ve read multiple times), two animated adaptations, three BBCTV movie adaptations, and even a couple of point-and-click computer games (although I still need to give Discworld Noir a try…). So when I learned of not one, but two Discworld board games coming out this year to say I was thrilled would be a gross understatement. READ MORE
Somewhere in the unlikely Venn diagram overlap of Dominion and Race for the Galaxy rests Seth Jaffee’s Eminent Domain, a Kickstarter-funded project published by Tasty Minstrel Games. In this deck-building game, two to four players are each given a starter deck of nine role cards and one politics card (a one-shot effect that replaces itself with a role card of the player’s choice) and one randomly-dealt start planet tile. READ MORE
One-half expansion and one-half revision, Dixit Odyssey continues the fine quality of Jean-Louis Roubira’s award-winning Dixit gameplay. Like the original Dixit and its expansion, Odyssey contains 84 cards depicting dreamlike images, bringing the complete Dixit arsenal to around 250 cards. Fortunately, Odyssey‘s box insert was specially designed to hold all of these cards, with three divisions meant to contain each release’s stack of cards individually if that’s the way you have them organized. This insert comes at the expense of the idyllic scoreboard of the original, which is a minor loss at best. The new scoreboard is literally more straightforward, just thirty spaces arranged in a row on a simple folding board. READ MORE
Since pretty much all of the Nintendo handheld attention for the last several months has been focused on the 3DS, those of us who have chosen to remain DS owners have felt somewhat ignored. Fortunately, a gentleman never abandons his fans unless he absolutely has to, and so Professor Layton has arrived once more to grace the puzzle-lovers among us with more brain burners. READ MORE
The political struggles of 12th-century Japan set the backdrop for Ninjato, a Z-Man Games publication designed by Adam West (no, not that one) and Dan Schnake. Ninjato combines elements of push-your-luck, set collection, and a limited number of actions (and rounds) to provide an engaging strategic experience for two to four players. READ MORE
