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Entries in review (31)

Wednesday
Dec222010

Review: Greenpeace's Anti-oil Propaganda Board Game: Deepsea Desperation

Review

Deepsea Desperation

Terror Bull Games

Free Print-and-Play

**Click Here to Download from Greenpeace.org**

Normally it would not occur to me to review a free print-and-play game released as a political tool on a company website.  It is not that I don't find the use of board games as a propaganda tool interesting.  It is just that free print-and-play games usually suck.  Deepsea Desperation, however, has a huge advantage.  It wasn't designed by a sub-committee in the marketing department, but, instead, sprung from fertile, and wholeheartedly satirical, minds of the guys a Terror Bull Games--a company actually formed and dedicated to the idea of using board games as political and social tools.  Terror Bull's War on Terror is easily the best satirical board game of the last four decades or so, finally giving the classic Nuclear War some company in the satirical-board-games-that-are-actually-fun-to-play pile.  Also of note, Terror Bull likely attracted Greenpeace's attention with an earlier print-and-play game inspired by an oil spill--Operation Bullshit Plug (note the bolded letters).  

 

Now we get Deepsea Desperation, commissioned by Greenpeace, and aimed not just at BP, but at BIG OIL in general.  In the game, players take the role of either heroic Greenpeace activists or evil oil company drillers.  Each side takes turns performing one of three available actions.  A sure sign this is a "real" board game is that the two sides have assymetrical choices and goals.  On the activist's turn, he or she can choose between these three options:

 

  • Move 
  • Occupy oil company ship (which costs the company money, but sends the activist ship back to its starting spot)
  • Create a marine reserve in the four spots orthogonal to the activist ship.  These spots may no longer be drilled.

 

One the company players turn, he or she has the following choices:

 

  • Move
  • Lobby (which removes reserve tokens adjacent to the company ship)
  • Drill ("...baby drill!") Company player rolls a die twice and gains money equal to the difference between the first and second die roll.  If a double is rolled, a "blowout" occurs and animals in adjacent squares are killed.  The deeper the water, the larger the blowout.

 

The goal for the activists is to form nature preserves on all the deep-sea spaces.  The oil company is simply trying to make money.  Both sides can lose if all of one animal species is wiped out during a blowout.  Of course, to ratchet up the satire a bit, you could always considered wiping out a species to be an alternative win condition for the oil company. 

And that alternative win condition might actually be needed to balance the game out.  The activists seem to have an advantage in our test games and I found myself drilling the heck out of deep sea spots hoping for a massive blowout just to keep the goody two-shoes activists from claiming a victory.  Regardless, the game is a cool little filler.  It plays in around ten minutes and actually provides some opportunity for playing well and earning a win.  I'm going to throw my copy inside my Nuclear War box and maybe it will get some play in the coming years--something I wouldn't have expected when I first heard of the game.

 

Score:  7/10

Tuesday
Apr062010

Netflix comes to Wii: For Parents, it is a mixed blessing...

 

We've finally got some time with the Wii version of Netflix streaming. Despite the fact that I have four devices in my home that can stream Netflix content, the Wii release is exciting for a few reasons.  First, like many families, our Wii is not hooked up to our main television.  The Wii doesn't support HD and doesn't benefit from being on our main setup, so it is in the little home theater area we set up in the children's playroom.  This meant that if Netflix worked smoothly, my daughter could take in an episode of iCarly or whatever while we watched other things on the big screen.  We don't have a sattelite receiver on that set because we strictly monitor what our children are allowed to watch.  This brings me to my second reason for anticipating the Wii release.  Since the Wii is a family-friendly console, I had hoped that the parental controls for the Netflix software would be more flexible and utilitarian than they are on the competing consoles.  Unfortunately, though the interface, controls, and streaming work really well in the Wii version, Netflix Wii features no additional parental controls beyond those built into the console.  Overall, this is a successful release, but there are some improvements I'd like to see in later releases.

If you have used Netflix streaming on the Xbox and PS3, you will notice that the Wii versiion more closely resembles the PS3 software.  The most obvious similarity is the need to load the software off disc each time you use it.  This is clunky and means the kids (or adults) have to keep up with a disc and keep it scratch free.  Speculation (though nothing official has been released) is that the disc is a way around an exclusivity agreement signed with Microsoft when Netflix first appeared on the Xbox 360.  Whatever the reason, the disc-based method is clumsy and I'd like to see a workaround as soon as possible.

Once the software is installed, there is little difference in the service.  The interface resembles that of the PS3.  The Wii-mote is fine for selecting the drop-down category menu and for scrolling through the available films and televison shows.  Once a program has been selected, it loads a bit quicker than the other versions, perhaps because it doesn't require a test for connection quality that the others use to scale the quality of the picture.  The max quality here is roughly the equivalent of the mid-range quality on the PS3, PC, and Xbox streams.  I watched a variety of programs and the only noticeably bad quality was on the Starz branded films.  Otherwise, the picture quality looked pretty much like standard definition cable television.  I really can't say I miss the HD since the television we have the Wii on is an old, standard definition CRT.  I can't imagine too many people own HD sets yet only have the Wii as an option for streaming Netflix.  Obviously, if you have HD and an Xbox, PS3, or supported Blu-ray player, those are a better option.  Otherwise, the Wii does a solid job delivering the content.

(If you don't have kids, or don't care what they watch, you can skip the next section) 

 

Before I watched a single program, I played around with the parental controls.  I had hoped to have flexible parental controls built in to the Netflix program itself.  Unfortunately, there are none.  Instead, parents only have the option to turn on the network parental controls on the Wii.  Anyone who has used that to block network access will know that it is an all or nothing feature.  If it is on, a password must be entered before the Netflix program will launch.  Once that password is entered, parents can't set a rating level for the films that can be watched.  This seems like a huge oversight.  I would have liked to have seen it on the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions, but I actually expected it for the Wii--a system that sees lots of its base installed in children's bedrooms and playrooms.  So be warned, if you leave your kid watching Angelina the Ballerina, you can return to them watching Spartacus: Blood and Sand, assuming your kid has no taste in television shows whatsoever.

 

Overall, Netflix streaming for the Wii is a welcome product.  I have a one-year old passed out on the couch at the moment and my daughter is watching Angelina Ballerina in the toy room, far enough away to not wake the little one.  The fact that so many Wiis see installation away from the main entertainment center means this release give families more flexibility in their entertainment options.  The fact that it works well and is easy to navigate makes the release even better.  Only the lack of parental controls keeps me from being completely satisfied with the release.  So, Netflix and Nintendo, if you could get on with that, I'm sure lots of parents would appreciate it.

I'll leave it at that and wait for the snarky comments about how it is not Nintendo or Netflix's job to monitor my kids.  As always, I'll assume those comments are coming from 15 year-old Nintendo fanboys with no children of their own.

Saturday
Apr032010

Review of Masters Gallery from Gryphon Games

 

The Story:  The players play art critics who influence the price or different artists masterpieces through out the game.  The player who best anticipates the changing taste of the critics gets to make off with the most valued collection.

Play:  In Masters Gallery, each player will start out with 13 cards drawn from the masterpiece deck.  In this deck, their are 95 works by different artist, represented by 5 different colors.  There are 5 artist cards laying in play representing, Vermeer, Degas, Monet, Renoir and Van Gogh.  Each player will go in order laying down 1 card out of there hand, influencing the value of of the artist that they play.  Some cards have symbols in the corner allowing you to do a little more than the average turn, for example lay a second cards face down, or maybe draw a card.  Play continues around the table till there are 6 of 1 color in play among all critics.  The round ends and value tokens are laid on the Artist Cards.  The artist with the most represented masterpieces gets a 3 token, 2nd most gets a two, and 3rd most gets a one.  Everyone adds up the scores of their gallery and discard their played cards, four more cards are dealt out to each player and play continues, doing the same thing as round 1 leaving the tokens on the Artist Cards.  This leads to higher scores toward the end of the game, weighing the importance of the latter rounds.  You play four rounds top score wins.

My Take:  When deciding what "Bookshelf Game" I wanted to review next, Masters Gallery was high on my list.  I'm a fan of Knizia, and his game Modern Art, which is loved by many, never really set well with me when I played it years ago.  Masters Gallery is the card game based on Modern Art.   Really the only difference is that there is no bidding in this game, where as Modern Art had a variety of bidding.  Some would argue that this takes away a layer of complexity from the game, however I don't see why this is a bad thing.   The different types of bidding is what had always threw me off on Modern Art and losing it is an addition by subtraction situation my my opinion.  After a few plays of this I can really see that it is going to be a great filler game for my group of friends.  Ive already worked it in with a couple that are not gamers at all and they seemed to not only enjoy the game, but also understood the little things needed to get themselves the win.  Modern Art was on one of my last big orders from Funagain, but with the arrival of this game, I don't think I am going to be in any rush to get it to the table.  Masters Gallery certainly fills a niche that would normally be covered by it's more complex older brother.

The Components:  100 cards and 17 tokens and a well written rulebook.  The card stock is fantastic, I could see these things lasting forever.  One thing that I have noticed while rummaging through my 4 different "Bookshelf Games" is that the components for these games leave nothing to be desired.    With the relatively small price tag, Gryphon makes sure that you get more than your moneys worth out of each game.  I am looking forward to trying out more stuff from them.

8/10

Wednesday
Mar172010

Review of Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age by Gryphon Games

Roll through the Ages by Matt Leacock and Gryphon Games is a dice game themed to match Through the Ages, a fairly more complex civilization game by CBG and Eagle Games.   Roll Through the Ages is a part of the bookshelf collection and from all the talk it is also one of the better ones.  I have an extensive collection of board games and lately I have turned my eyes to trying to acquire said 'bookshelf" games.  Also I wanted a DICE game that had some meat to it, assuming that was even possible.  

Play:  Each player starts off with 3 dice, a score sheet, 6 pegs and a peg board.  Each player will roll dice in order to

A:) Build up food for their workers

B:) Get more goods to trade in for coin to spend on developments

C:)  Add more workers, for your cities (which increases the number of dice you roll) or for your monuments 

D:)  Coin, which can be spent that turn for developments like irrigation and agriculture, which help you with future rolls etc.

E:)  Skulls, which are paired with 2 goods as well.  Skulls you have to keep every time you roll.  A build up of skulls cause a list of disasters that effect you or all of your opponents in a generally negative way.

You roll the dice keeping what you want or what you have to, three times re-rolling unwanted dice. You use the final results to develop your score sheet in the way you want to attempt to score points.  Each of the developments are worth points and each of the monuments are worth points, as long as you are first to build them or the second to build them.  The game ends when all the monuments are built or any one players gets 5 developments.

Components:  The components are great.  There are wooden dice and peg boards which are very pleasing to look at.  The score pad comes with like a billion (estimated) sheets in it, I'd imagine that you would have a very hard time running out of them unless of course this was the only game you EVER played and you played it all the time.  My one complaint is that the pegs don't set into the peg board perfectly even but that is just a picky thing that I assume normal people wouldn't pay all that much attention to it.

Finale:  I enjoyed my 1 play of this quite a bit.  There seems to be quite a bit more depth than say the CATAN dice game that I also like very much.  You have alternate routes to victory, some player interaction, and really nice looking components.  There really isn't much more you could ask for out of a dice game let's be honest.  I highly recommend even the most casual gamers to pick this up, I plan on using it as a gateway game as I tend to have a lot of friends that haven't delve to far into the gaming world.

Provisional Score while awaiting more games:  9/10

Wednesday
Jan062010

Review of Word on the Street

 

 

 

Word on the Street

 

Out of the Box Publishing

 

MSRP: 24.99 USD                                                        

 

Available for around $20 through online retailers

 

 

The Spin: “The Hilarious Tug of Words”

 

 

The Story: Word on the Street is a simple word game played on a board that is shaped like a long, narrow street and divided into squares. Letter tiles are placed down the center column of the board. Throughout the course of the game, players will say and spell words based on cards that are drawn and pull the letters in the words toward their side of the street. A team wins when they have pulled eight letter tiles off their side of the board.

 

The Play: The brief description of the game above almost covers the entirety of the game. Players divide into two teams and choose to play with the easy or difficult cards. The cards have conditions on them that the players will use to generate a single (though not necessarily singular) word. For instance, the card might say “Method Actor.” The team whose turn it was would have thirty seconds to decide on an actor, say it, and spell it while moving the letters in the name one square per time used toward their side of the board. In the above example, the team might say “Brando” and move the B, R, N, and D toward their side of the board (vowels and some other letters are not on the board from the start).

 

Players must spell the word correctly and both the spelling and the appropriateness of the word can be challenged by the other team. We play the spelling rule pretty loosely and only penalize the team if the misspelling helped them, not if it hurt them (not sure how nice we are being there).

 

Proper nouns are allowed assuming they are appropriate for the card, as above, and all English words including plurals and hyphenated words are allowed. This is far less strict than many word games and we appreciated the looser feel.

 

The combination of simple game play and the 30-second timer make the game fast-paced and sometimes a bit hectic.

 

My Take: I really enjoyed Word on the Street. I played it with both our regular groups and with some students from one of my courses and it went over well with every group. As I left the last game session, one of the players said “you need to give Word on the Street” a good review. Well, here it is. The game is quick and fun. It is simple and easy to explain which means it works well with casual gamers and new gamers.

 

My only complaint is one I've mostly had with trivia games over the years. Some of the cards are too wide open, meaning way too many words would work. The one that came up in our first game was “Name of a Street or Boulevard.” I'm not sure what word the other team could have said that could not have been justified. It reminded me of the Planet Hollywood trivia game where players went back and forth naming actors or movies that matched specific cards. When the card said “John Ford Films” or something, the game worked great and rewarded the players with the most knowledge. When it said “beautiful actress,” it bombed because a team could justify any answer: “Well, I think Whoopi Goldberg is stunning!” Luckily, not too many similar cards have come up since that first game and it is really only a problem when one team lucks into a majority of the wide open cards.

 

That small complaint aside, I have no trouble recommending Word on the Street to our readers. The back and forth action on the board feels fresh and unique, and I expect the game will be played at our house for many years to come.

 

Components: I'm rarely unhappy with the components from Out of the Box. Word on the Street is no exception. The tiles are heavy and have a great tactile presence. The board is attractive. The cards are good, not great, quality, but considering that they don't get handled or shuffled often, they should last through many plays.

 

Score: 4 out of 5

 

Pros: Easy to teach, good for a variety of groups, attractive on the table

 

Cons: Some unbalance cards