Pokémon Black and White were a breath of fresh air for a series that, while not exactly stagnant, was best known for incremental adjustments over dramatic changes. Restricting players to only the 150-ish brand new critters until they became Champion was like throwing even fifteen-year veteran trainers back to Red and Blue for the first time: everything was new, and nothing was certain. The comparison of Black and White to Red and Blue is fitting, as there are many parallels between the newest iterations, Black Version 2 and White Version 2, and the follow-ups to the originals, Gold and Silver. READ MORE
Chris Ingersoll
Miniatures-based games are a topic you are not going to see that often in this space, mostly because they tend to require a much more in-depth commitment than regular board games, and I personally use that time for Magic instead. In addition to assembling armies, frequently carefully spending a predetermined limit of points on each piece and ability to keep opposing forces balanced, many minis gamers will spend a crazy amount of time just painting the often-undecorated metal figurines or physically constructing simulated terrain to better enhance the play experience. READ MORE
When we last left our heroes, the Sentinels of the Mulitverse, I made a comment that the team at Greater Than Games had recently started what turned out to be a crazily well-funded Kickstarter for the next expansion and a revised edition of the base set. I also said that stuff was scheduled to arrive in August. Well, typhoons around China and US Customs delayed that about a month, but the Sentinels could not be stopped and now both Enhanced Edition and Infernal Relics are loose upon the world. The timing actually turned out to be quite serendipitous, since as I write this, the disc release of The Avengers has just arrived (and I actually have it on in the background right now, which is only a mild distraction), so everyone should be in a superhero team-up kind of mood anyway. READ MORE
Inka and Markus Brand’s Village tells the tale of up to four generations of families in a small medieval village. Starting with four family members (and one coin), each player will have to manage actions, resources, and time itself as they attempt to write their own history in the village Chronicle. New family members can be added along the way, which is good since every one of your starting meeples will most likely have died before the game has run its course.
Yes, died. But I’ll get to that in a minute. READ MORE
I do my best to not bring my Magic: the Gathering experience to this space. For one thing, the barrier to entry is so immense that they have actually (eventually) designed an entirely separate (video) game just to introduce new players to how Magic works, the latest in several attempts to make this process easier over the game’s nearly twenty-year history. Then there’s the commitment factor, especially when it comes to acquiring chase rares to make your deck as competitive as it can be.
Even playing casually demands more of an investment (in both time and money) than I feel is appropriate for this column. That said, there is definitely an overlap between collectible card game (CCG) players and social boardgamers, and that overlap is where Fantasy Flight Games and their “Living Card Game” (LCG) model come in. READ MORE