Game Review: Space Alert

This is one of the best games that I have ever played. And the one game that I get to play very little.

Hugely successful, the first run of this game sold out very fast, and it took what seemed an absolute age to get a reprint. I finally got my hands on a copy at the 2012 Midlands Game Expo, and boy was I excited to get it home.

The game revolves around you and the other players being dumped in a spaceship to babysit it whilst it goes out on a expedition mission. You move your un-named characters around the ship, refuelling the core, manning the guns and other things. Games last around half hour a game. The thing that sets this game apart from anything else is the way it works.

First, its a CD game. You play a CD, and each track throws different events at you. Its a cold, monotonos track, and perfectly captures the essence of deep space exploration.

Second, you have to program your characters. You get a hand of cards to begin with, and these all have different actions on them. You get a short amount of time to discuss what you need to do, and each player plays his cards. Heres the catch.. after a period of time elapses, you cannot change the order of these cards, you have to move onto another section and start again.

Thirdly, the game is quite random. Enemies and events are in decks of cards, so you never know whats goind to come next, even if you have heard the CD tracks a few times.

Photo from www.spieletest.at

You play the first round to decide what you are going to do and program your cards, then play the track again and act out how well you managed the situation. This is where friendships are broken.

So the CD tells you that a enemy has appeared, so you start to manouver around the ship to fire the guns and reload the guns. and charge the shields. The clock is ticking, and you have limited choices, and sweat begins to run. You think you are all locked in place correctly, and the round ends. Time to play this out and see if you all die a horrible death.

You reload the gun before someone fires it, but thats all wrong. You wanted to do that afterwards. You actually shoot the guns at the wrong time and miss. The person who is supposed to be recharging the shields moves the wrong way... this mission is a failure.

Yes, this game thrives on arguments. But when you get that one game where you do it all right, the elation, the high fives and hugs that happen because you survive are second to none. Grown men will cry.

And thats why we dont play this game very often. It is one of the most stressful board games ever made. Ever. But thats where the charm is, and why you need to have this game. I have not even gone into the fantastic pieces you play with, or the rule books (yes two) which are written in such a great story telling manner, these are all icing on the cake.

One of the best games ever.

 

New Addition!

I have just added an new addition to this blog, the Mentioned in Blog Store!

Games and items mentioned in this blog will go into that store, giving you a easy way to go straight to Amazon and buy what you have seen!

I hope to get some more game reviews up in the coming weeks.

Rockband over...

After 275 weeks of dlc, Harmonix have announced the last tune to be release for the Rockband franchise.

The song is American Pie by Don McLean.

They say the are working on other projects, which need more time invested in them.

So the end of one of the giants is upon us, with only Rocksmith now being the only music game being updated. However, there should be some life left in Rockband due the sheer size of the library that they have.

The Swarm

We need some brave people to go on this terrifying mission....

http://www.look-at-this-now.co.uk/lkymf

Follow the link for more details.

Talisman: The deadly magic wand

Talisman is a great game, we can all agree on that one, but there is one problem with it, and that is the magic wand.

We had a guy in our group that always went for it, and would kill you to get at it. The problem with this was it was like giving him the Crown of Command in game. He would always have a full compliment of spells, and would burn through them to get the powerful spells.

Now I do see the point in the magic wand, and a lot of groups wont have players like that. The first time this happened was quite fun, but got old as EVERY game he would go for the wand. This led me to confiscating the card from the adventure deck. Some may say that was harsh, but the people who played with us agreed that it was the best course of action.

However, this card did lead to one of the greatest moments in this game I have ever played.

The wand had become the Crown of Command, and I was fed up of all the spells being thrown around. So I decided to take my Monk, and take the wand from him. I charged around the map, and finally landed on his square where I could challenge him to combat. Even with my unbuffed monk, (and I think a very lucky dice roll) I took the wand from his clutches, and fled. Straight to the alchemist.

Ill never forget the look on his face as the card was melted down, I got a gold for it, and it made its departure to the discard deck.

The bards sang about that day for a long time.

Board James

I have been watching AVGN for a good long time now, but only recently found out that he did some board game reviews as well. In the style of his video game reviews, they are very funny as usual.

Filled with bad language, and the usual smattering of comic violence James can muster. Check them out!

More funny pics

NGTZombies on YouTube

Just a quick shout out to a YouTuber I have been following for a while now.

Has videos with strategies, theories and insights into all things Zombie fps.

NGT Zombies Youtube page

(I am in no way endorsed to do this, I just love NGT Zombies)

Chrissy Oldskool!

An old school (oldskool?) friend sent let me put this on YouTube... Now he has some moves!

More funny pics

Rocksmith new DLC available now!

3 new songs available for Rocksmith in the store:

Get Love Song
Just Like Heaven
The End of the World

All by The Cure. Available now on PC, Xbox and PS3

Biting Elbows: Bad Motherf****r

Not safe for work, but man is this awesome! And I might have to check this band out some more.

There is a definite hint of Hitman in there..

Trains vs Zombies 2 Review

Yes, you heard that right. Trains vs Zombies. 2.

Available on Steam to download for £9.99, this standalone game is based on Train Simulator 2013 tech, and  puts you smack bang in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, armed with only your, ahem, train.

The storyline is entertaining enough, and the game gives enough of a challenge to be enjoyable. It might be frustrating for people who have never played train sim, but with the addition of simple controls, should not be to difficult to get to grips with.

As mentioned, this runs standalone, so you do not need to have Train Sim 2013 to play this, which also serves as a introduction into that game as well.

Graphically this game is very good. You will need a computer with some power under the hood however to run it on max settings, and I had to play around a little to get a good compromise between graphics and smoothness.

This does have some replay value in it, as you try to do things again to a degree of perfection. The downside is it only took me around 3 hours to complete, but that may be because I am a old hand at train sim and knew what I was doing from the outset.

A good little fun time waster.

Funny Gaming Meme's

Just a collection of the funny meme's that have made me chuckle this week.

Film review: Video Game High School

So was looking around Netflix for something interesting to watch when this caught my eye.

The story starts with our main character managing to kill one of the worlds top players on a online fps game, and he then gets invited to attend the Video Game High School, a place where people get trained in playing video games. The rest of the film revolves around making new friends, enemies, and overcoming hardships.

Originally broadcast a a web series on YouTube, made by Rocket Jump studios, it has now been put together into a 2 hour epic.

There are some big names appearing in this film, from Freddy W to Zachary Levi, and a lot of other faces that you will recognize from around the world of the internet.

Storywise, there is plenty to keep you entertained during the running time. But the thing that entertained me the most was the vision of technomogu that Rocket Jump studios have. Computers that you carry around with you, which connect to the closest screen when you want to play, to the pizza in a can from the vending machines, and even the school itself. It's apparent that a lot of money went into this movie, and was well spent aswell.

The action scenes in this film are incredible. These are shown when the characters are playing a game, mainly the fps game throughout. They really portray how a fps game would look if it was real life, with clever computer graphics and some great stunts. If there is ever a Call of Duty movie, I think that these guys should be the ones making it.



A great film, well worth the time to watch it. It will leave you wishing that the Video Game High School was actually real, and it was the school you went to.

Winning like a boss

This bloke is a legend. John Carpenter wins Who Wants to be a Millionaire like he owns the show.

(I will be getting back to boardgames soon, don't worry! Just a lot of things I need to get sorted in the mean time!)

Funny internet pics of the day

Just some of the funny internet pics that popped up on my Facebook throughout the day. They made me giggle, I hope they do the same for you.

I find the Blade/Twilight one the best.

Rocksmith progress

Heres a brief progress update on the songs that I am playing

Bring me to Life:  Now have this up to performance level

Surrender: Almost there with this one, just over 85k points, just a little push more with this one

Carry on my Wayward Son: Just cracked 75% on this song. Still a few parts that I am having trouble with, mainly the solos

All the small things: Got up to and completed master mode with this one. Easy song, great to rock out to though.

Where is my Mind: Again, almost unlocked master mode on this one, just need to nail the solo a little better and this is done

Thats my five favourite songs, soon I think I am going to have a good bash at Nightmare by Avenged, but that solo... I dunno.

Rocksmith Xbox 360 Review

I have had this game from the day it was released in the UK, and it was one of my most anticipated games ever. Made by Ubisoft, this is the next generation of guitar music games, and I think that the end of plastic overpriced guitar "games".

I am a avid rocker as people know, I have been playing guitar for 10 years now, spent some time in a band and as a guitar teacher. Over the past few years, I have not played as much as I would like, as life gets in the way it always seems. When Rocksmith was announced, I knew all that was going to change.

Think Rockband, but with a real, bona fide guitar, your own guitar. That is the one thing about this game that I think gives it appeal, you use the guitar you own, not a plastic fake guitar or one made specially for the game, but the one that you have practiced on, the one that you have gigged with... and thats a amazing thing to do.

The game looks ok, nothing terriably special about the visuals, but that does not matter as you will not be looking at the screen much, and all the vital info is there right away.

Songs are transcribed note for note, which means when you learn to play the song in the game, you learn it in real life. The game does up the difficulty as you go along, so a basic notation is presented first, and as you get better, the song gets harder until you are playing the full song.

The notes are presented in a Rockband esqe fasion, with notes coming down the screen. There is a graphic for each of the strings at the bottom, 6 different coloured lines, and you play the note when it reaches the string. The hardest thing for me was to learn that the fretboard underneath this moves, indicating where on the neck you need to be. This is disorientating at first, but soon becomes second nature.

There is multiplayer, but not across Xbox live. This means you need two cables and two guitars, but that should not be to hard to arrange, and brings multiplayer back to a social expericance.

A broad range of songs is on the disc, with something that should please everyone, aswell as some basic lessons on the different techniques that are employed. Extra songs can be downloaded from the store, and there are some quite difficult songs that you can get, Megadeths Symphony of Destruction and Eric Johnsons Cliffs of Dover are available, if you are so inclined, or just want a real challenge.

Overall this is a great game if you do play the guitar already, but also a great way to get into playing guitar if you don't. I would however recommend getting some professional guitar lessons aswell as this game, to stop you from gaining bad habits, and to teach you the proper position for you hands to go in.


It is a difficult game to begin with. Stick with it, and you will soon be rocking out to a wide range of songs, and hopefully this game will create a whole new wave of bedroom rockers that will go on to create some truly great music.

A must buy game.

Available now on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

Dragons eh?

Found this doing the rounds on Facebook, and I think that its worth a share here. Tolkien knew what he was talking about.

Its from the Daenerys Targaryen Facebook page, well worth a look.

Life Hacks 2.0

Just a little thing that I have had knocking around on my hard drive for a while now, from the awesome webfail.net

Its amazing, but these things do actually work aswell..

Tigoda leather

A good friend of mine has been busily working away at hand crafted goodies for a while now, and helped me out when we started to make dice bags. Now he has set up a facebook page, with links to Etsy where you can purchase some of the great handmade items.

Go and take a look at some of the wonders that he has made right HERE, and drop him a like if your inclined to do so.

Zombie...cakes?

Having a COD: Zombies party? Walking Dead marathon? Zombie themed birhday party? Then these cakes are what you want!

These are just a selction of my favorite designs, taken from google. I will one day have a go to bake one myself!

COD: Black ops 2 Zombies

Over the past months, this is the one game that I have been constantly coming back to. Forget the campaign and the multiplayer, this is one game I cannot put down.

For people that do not know, it is part of Black Ops 2, available on PS3, Xbox and PC. At its heart, it is just a hoard mode, with lots of zombies to dispatch of. With a few modes, survival is the most fun. Start with nothing, and build your weapons and money up by killing the undead hoard, and survive as long as possible.

The game quickly racks up the speed and pace, and can get overwhelming very fast.


In further articles I hope to describe some of my tactics that help me to get further in the game, and I hope that there will be some information there that will help some people raise there game.

In all, this is one game that I would recommend to anyone that likes FPS games. Its tense, and rewards players who play and practice and strive to get better. Playing online is fun to, but the one thing I found is that playing with people that you don't know makes this game much harder. Get your regualar gaming buddies together, and plug your headset in, and you will be in good stead for a great night of intense gaming.

Return from the abyss

After not posting here for a good long time, I am starting this blog up again, with a few changes.

The retail side of Farlands Games has gone for the time being, it was a uphill struggle to compete in a market and cost me time and money, however, it is still on the cards for the future!

Now, I will post about things that interest me in the gaming world, and this will be expanded to computer and console games aswell.

Hopefully content will start coming soon, and I thank all the people who still visited this blog during the dark times.