Vintage Game: Blockbusters

A game based on the popular UK television show from the 80's. Adorned with a picture of Bob Holness in a blazing, and I must say very sharp white suit, what is this game actually like?

Made by Waddingtons and designed for three players. The white team has only one player, but has less spaces to travel across the board and goes first. Blue team has two people, and has to travel one more space. I think most people will know how this plays. You choose a letter, and have to answer a question where the answer begins with the letter you chose. Answer correctly, and a block of your colour goes on the board and you choose another letter. Link across the board and you win.

The game pieces are very nice in this game. You get a nice 3d blockbuster board, similer to the tv show. There are a lot of questions, and a nifty holder that blocks all the answers on the card apart from the one you need, so there is no need for a dedicated question master.

This can be played with two people, just one on each side quite easily. A variation that we played was rolling a d12 to select the question that you got from the card, as sometimes you can get a run of really easy questions, and a run of really hard questions if you just read from the cards.

The only main problem with this version is that most of the questions are very dated, and will give you a mind workout, sometimes you won't even be able to answer a question due to the dating. But none the less this is a fun game with some really difficult questions, but you will surpise yourself when you know the answers.

Game Review: Cadoo

Now this is not the usual game that we review here, but we played it last night and I must say I found it enjoyable.

Part of the Cranium! Range of games, this one is aimed at the kids. The basic idea of the game is to get 4 in a row connect4 style, of your tokens on a board. To do this you must complete challenges, either solo or combo.
All the challenges come on cards, and what you have to do is decided by a die roll.

Solo challenges have a question on them, and you must answer it then look at the answer. The great thing is that the answers are hidden, and you need to use the red tinted glasses supplies with the game to see the answer. Complete the task, and you place one of your counters.

Combo challenges have you performing a task describing something, through acting, drawing or using modelling clay to make the item in question. The other players then have to guess what you are describing. If someone manages to, then you both place a token on the board.
The game plays this way until there is a 4 in a row, or no more pieces can be placed. The winner in this instance its the person with the most pieces that win.

Although aimed at children, this game is great for adults. The thought process that goes into the questions is different, and I found some of the questions difficult because my logic is different from a child's. It is easy, but with a group it is fun, and that's the main thing. A great party game for all ages.

Game Review: The Haunting House

A earlier game by Twilight Creations, along the lines of zombies, without the size or time needed to play.

The game is based on that you have a bet with your friends, to enter the haunted house, run through and out the other side.

The game is played with 38 tiles, 2 being entrance an exit tiles, the others being random corridors and trapdoors. These are dealt out on the table in a 6 by 6 square, randomly. The entrance and exits are then placed in opposing corners, and the game starts.

Now actions are dealt in this is a interesting way. You have a hand of cards, always the same cards. The first round you get 4 random cards, and play these actions in order. Actions include move one space, move to spaces, miss a turn, switch places and enter trapdoor. After these first 4 moves have been done, you then get to choose four cards that you want. This is like programming your character, you place them and then play them in order. This makes for some tense turns, especially if you are racing for the exit and you and your opponent are making all the right moves.

The game pieces are simple, but nice. The board pieces are around 2 inches square, cards are normal size with nice art on them, and the 6 character pieces are nice, of the usual standard of Twilight Creations. The instruction sheet is a small, but well thought out affair. Some of the wordings need reading twice, as they could have been written better. I found reading the whole rules twice made everything clear.

This is a fun game with two people, but really gets going with 4+ people. The programming stage gets very interesting, as you try to outwit your opponents without making a mistake yourself.

All in all a great game for parties or filling some time. A few games of this is great, but we found that any more than around 5 left us cold. There is just not enough to do, and in some games there may not be any player interaction. The upside of this game is that it does not take long to play, games usually lasting around 10 minutes, so really great for those times when you need something quick to play.

A call to you nerds out there

how many of you have seen Artemis? Its a starship bridge simulator, and I want it, I want it now

to play you need 6 people. and 6 computers one of which needs either a huge screen or better yet a projector, each of the 6 people take on a role, coms, weapons, engineering, helm, science and captain, 

Everyone apart from the captain gets a computer, you station shows the information relevant to your role, the captains job is to sit in the middle and lead with the 6th station runnig the main view and the main bulk of the game

I saw this in its planning stage a while back and though it was cool but details at the time were vague and it looked very much like a simple concept, now today i hit upon it again and the videos I have seen are  a delight.

clubbing together to get a game of this working wont cost the earth with all 6 players chipping in for the $40 price tag (or even the free demo) a lot of fun could be had for a little outlay as everyone will already have a PC to cart along or a laptop, and these days large LCD TVs are everywhere for the main screen

check out the site here

to see it in action here

or head over to our facebook page here or drop a comment below and let us know what you think

Game review: Politika

Earlier today we decided to give this a shot, we were looking for a strategy game to play, something to get our brains warm and ticking over, and this had been hanging round for a while now, always as a possible option but overlooked.

Today however it had its chance.

Long story short, it kinda blew it,

Setup

Right out the box it needed a little set up, stickers put on pieces with little in the way of instruction as to where they went. The stickers themselves were a fair margin smaller than where they needed to go, while this makes sticking them down easy it did make the playing pieces look cheap.

Next there are then 50 tiny bits of card to split apart for each person playing, and by tiny I mean 3mm by 5mm tiny. Rather than pop the lot we picked our faction first to know which colours would be needed. We quickly found out the bits had a colour on only one side and were blank on the other, this caused issues as I picked the faction (at random) that was white meaning we were turning over little bits of card all the time to see if it was white all the way over or hiding a bit of green.

Across the top of the board is space for 3 sets of cards each with its own discard pile I could see little point for this other than bulking out the height of the board none of the cards once used are needed again.

After sorting out all the little bits of card across the landscape on the board and dishing out a few thousand dollars later (not rubles because they are apparently useless) we were ready to go.

Playing

Play proceeds in several rounds, each round has phases but with just 2 players two of the phases becomes defunct, one point of the game is to take over areas but you can faction with other players, there is little point to joining in a faction with your only opponent. Likewise with selling things you have or trading, either cards you hold or influence tokens so those were skipped.

You move your 2 play pieces around the board in to areas where your opponent has influence then attack by buying dice, and the defender gets 1 dice per influence point they have (the bits of card) and who ever has the higher roll wins (the combined score from the dice rolled), if you win you swap a bit of your card with a bit of your opponents and you slowly take over, its simple as that.

There are things around production and how you get your cash to play with but in essence its risk without the having to move armies about bit.

Ending

Play ends after 6 rounds (but you can decide on more rounds at the beginning of the game), who ever has the most little bits of card on the table wins though when we played it became obvious after about turn 3 that I would win. I had managed to get a lead (by luck not design) too great to be taken out in 3 turns even if I did nothing.

A game that looks this complex and has so many mechanics involved to play ends far too quickly to justify the set up time, even with the stickers on now and bits of card popped I think the set up is longer than it needs to be.

We are however going to give it another go in future with 3 or 4 people just to see if the factions add something

We both suspect however they won't.

Pros:

• lots of dice,
• quick half hour time waster

Cons:

• poor design of game peices
• very little strategy for a game that sells its self as strategic
• despite being dollars the paper money has Yeltsin's face on it
• generally dull

 

New style White Dwarf

So I walked into my local newsagents, and saw the new copy of White Dwarf sitting there, in a plastic outer bag with the words New! splashed across the top. I had vowed not to but another copy after the disappointing decline the magazine has taken over the past few years, but I picked it up and it felt, well, quality. So I purchased it, and eagerly rushed home.

The covers are of a fantastic quality, the pictures embossed on the cover. The magazine now has weight, probably due to the extra 32 pages now packed in. The magazine now has a brand new team, and it shows.

There is a in-depth look/showcase of chaos space marines, and this theme rubs through the magazine. A decent battle report, which shows off the new Chaos codex, and painting guides. Not as in depth as they used to be, but still useful for beginners to learn new techniques and advanced painters to better themselfs.

A new article, called kit bash, looks great. Focussing on the Ork Dakkajet kit, it shows some ideas on how to convert this model into some stunning pieces.

Also in this, which is quite unheard of, is a detailed look at the new Forge World Horus Heresy books, along with the models that Forge World are producing. I never though I would see the day when Forge World would get even mentioned in White Dwarf, let alone have a article about their new miniatures!

The photography has also gone up a lot. There are some really nice, well planned photographs all the way through out. Gone are the boring shots of old, the new photography really brings out the new models, and the mood set by the theme aswell.

There's loads more in this magazine that's new, and whilst being predominantly about Warhammer 40000, I suspect that it will switch between fantasy and sci fi on a monthly basis just like it used to.
It also looks like the 'Eavy Metal team are back on form, the paintjobs in this issue are definatly miles better than the rubbish that has been seen recently.

For the extra £1, this issue is defiantly worth it. If the new team can still keep up this level of quality every month, I may even re-subscribe to the magazine. Yes, it is still a glorified catalogue, but this time it appears to have some substance, with useful articles that you want to read, and fantastic photography. Keep it up guys, and you may have rescued what used to be a fine magazine.

Chronicles of Arax

This is a free solo rpg adventure that can be found over at DriveThruRPG (links at the top, and the bottom of this blog)

I was looking around for something that I could play one day when I I had some spare time. I saw this, and it caught my eye. I dont know what it was, something just drew me to it. So I downloaded it and had a look.

It details the core rules quite well, written in a way that even a newcomer could understand. All that is needed is some paper, a selection of poly dice and a pencil. I found it best to print off the file, and write in pencil, which can be erased to play again.

I wont go into detail on how to play the game, but the adventure itself is rather good. Be warned, it is very hard to get through this alive! But I found that multiple play throughs were a joy, not a chore. The big baddie at the end is one tough cookie, but great fun.

It is a basic swords and sorcery fare, barbarians and evil wizards type thing. But with a decent story to keep you held for a few plays, this is great for a free downloadable. There are other “expansions” for want of a better word. These come in the form of extra characters and adventures, but you do have to pay for these, although it is not expensive, $2 dollars at most. So for a outlay of a few dollars, you can play a game with multiple characters, through different adventures. Not bad in my book.

The other only downside that I see to this game is that it is not supported any more, so no more official content will be released for this game, which I feel is a shame as this was a good romp through a fantasy setting.

Get the free download at least, and if you like it enough, maybe buy some of the extras and support what seems to be a decent game developer and hopefully we will see some more content for this game.

Chronicles of Arax is a free downloadable solo adventure available from DriveThruRPG.