Saturday, April 23, 2011

The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game - Review





While visiting one of the local gaming stores, they told me about a new "living card game" that was being put out by Fantasy Flight Games. Not being familiar with what an "LCG" is, the owner told me that they're basically a type of constructed card game environment with the exception that it's not collectable and a new expansion comes out every month or so. They were very excited about this one and were knocking off 30% for all preorders for it, so I decided to give it a chance.





Opening up the box revealed two small bags of cards, another bag with two thick cardboard page punch outs, a moderate sized card sorter, and of course the rules of play.





The bags that everything came in were resealable, which was a very pleasant surprise. While the token bag was far larger than would be needed, the deck bags work great. After punching everything out, we thought we were missing a few pieces that held two dials in place on a "threat tracker", but after lifting up the card sorter, we found another bag at the bottom of the box with the missing parts.





Game play is very different from your traditional constructed card game in that this is actually a cooperative game. The core set is designed for two players (although you could stretch it to 4 with minimal effort) and more can be added with additional core sets, or future expansions. Players work together to take on a three part quest, exploring new areas, and battling monsters. To do so, you pick three heroes from the series to lead the way. They will act as resources to play additional cards from your hand, consisting of allies, attachments, and events.

After bolstering your forces, you then try to take on the quest. You commit whatever characters you wish to adding progress tokens to the current quest. There's two hitches to this, one, you are basing your decision on who to commit before knowing if anything will be coming out to stop you, and two, anybody who is questing won't be able to assist with combats this round.





After committing your forces, you then reveal an encounter card for each player in the game. Encounters can be locations to explore, monsters to fight, or treacheries that work against you. Locations and monsters work against your own characters in making it more difficult to complete your quest. If you have more quest points than they can overcome, you put all the additional points on the quest as progress points that will eventually lead to overcoming the quest. If the monsters have more points on their side, each player's threat meter goes up per point. When the meter hits 50, that player is out.

Now that there's monsters and locations out there that are making it harder for you to fulfill your quest, it's time to go out and deal with them. Locations can be traveled to, which removes their threat, but now will take progress counters before your quest does. Not all locations are bad, some give bonuses for going to them or finishing them.

Once done traveling, you engage any monsters that are out there. Engaging follows a sort of threat index, players with the most threat take on the monsters with the highest threat levels. The monsters fight first, Nd then whatever characters are left over are able to strike back. Once everybody gets their strikes in, the whole sequence starts over.





Okay, now that we've gone over how everything works, how does it all come together? It's a bit rough, to be honest. The rules are 36 pages long, and go over each detail, but seem to like to throw important details as a sort of seasoning. I also found at least one error in it, albeit a minor one, involving the card numbering system for the first game.

Once we did figure things out, it went pretty smoothly. We actually did need to work together in order to finish our quest. The rules specifically state that you cannot read from the cards or name them, so there is some level of trust that you'll need to build in order to win.

I've only gotten to play the two player version of the game and am definitely looking forward to trying out a larger game. I've also only tried playing with the preconstructed decks that were included in the core set, so I wonder how a constructed tournament style deck works still.

All in all, it was a fun experience, but a rocky one. There's not a whole lot in the way of cooperative games, let alone expandable ones, so if your group likes fantasy environments and looking for a new game, you might want to give this one a shot.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Bulletstorm - Review


When Bulletstorm was first announced, I mostly ignored it.  Another first person shooter, bur this time they kept score and expected you to come up with creative ways to kill your opponents.  When the demo came out, I decided to give it a shot and see what it was all about, and I liked what I saw.  But I didn't $60 like it. So I waited for a bit for a sale and some free time to play through, and have to say I enjoyed it quite a bit.

You play as Hunt, an ex-soldier who found out that his assassination jobs targeting "important targets" are actually hitting innocent people.  He takes his team on a revenge fueled mission to bring down their old boss, General Sarrano, a foul mouthed old military type that reminds one of the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket.  He uses his small ship to punch a hole through the General's warship, bringing both of them down to the surface of a dilapidated resort planet, now teaming with gangs and mutants.

Or mutant gangs, you know, whatever works
The gameplay is linear, moving from one area to the next, shooting at whatever happens to cross your path.  The fun in the game comes from trying to find new ways to kill them via the 135 different Skillshots you can pull off.  From the simple: getting a headshot, to the complex: Halloween, which consists of placing a nom parasite onto their head, and then sending them into an electrical object, there's no lack of creative ways to earn points in this game.

What use are the points?  Well, they're how you're going to keep armed to the teeth.  Your points allow you to purchase new weapons, upgrades, and most importantly, ammo.  If you're just running and gunning the whole game, you're going to run into some problems keeping up with what they're throwing at you.  You'll spend these points at strategically placed checkpoints that will also tell you what kind of Skillshots you can earn.

You're going to need as much ammo as you can muster
 The dialog in the game is what really puts it over the top.   You can't help but smile as Hunt cheers on Waggleton P. Tallylicker, a giant robotic dinosaur that you get to take over for a few areas, or Hunt's efforts to keep Ishi, his recently cyborganized friend, from giving in to his robotic half with crude jokes and humor.  It all adds up to be some magnificent writing, and I want to see more of it.

I don't really have a whole lot in the way of complaints for Bulletstorm, but if I had to be nitty gritty, I would say that the pony that Epic and People Can Fly parades in front of us is very limited in its tricks.  The entire package comes together really nicely, but I wonder if I would want to do the same thing again in a sequel.  I think they're really going to have to put some effort into it to make it stand out from the rest of the games out there, and packaging the next one with a Gears of War 4 beta code may not cut it.

Or a whole lot of nothing for PS3 owners, you know, whatever works
All in all, Bulletstorm is great for what it is:  a fun shoot em up that doesn't take itself too seriously.  If you're looking for something to spend a weekend with before Duke Nukem Forever hits the shelves, Bulletstorm is probably right up your alley.  I do suggest, however, waiting to find it on sale. 

Monday, April 4, 2011

The Ones to Watch - April 2011

April is a bit of a bad month for gaming.  The holidays are long over, so the gift cards have run out.  E3 is right around the corner to get everybody excited about the fall releases, so people keep their cards close to their chests, and it's just really lackluster all the way around this time of the year.  Fortunately there's a couple gems in the desert, so let's take a look.

Patapon 3 - 4/12/11 - PSP


Every so often I like to throw the handhelds a bone.  There's some fantastic games that hit the portable systems, and the Patapon series is one of them.  It's unique rhythm based gameplay mixed with an RTS make it a great portable game.  If you have a PSP it's definitely worth a look.


Portal 2 - 4/19/11 - Multi-Platform


Valve is one of my favorite developers, despite their inability to release things in a timely manner.  But let's face it, the great ones get to play by their own rules.  Portal 2 is the follow up to the completely under the radar smash hit Portal that buyers of the Orange Box were pleased as punch to get to play.  The original could have been a toss-away game, but GlaDOS turned the game from just fun to over the top game of the year material.  This will be another triumph for Valve.  I'm making a note here right now, HUGE SUCCESS.


Mortal Kombat - 4/19/11 - Multi-Platform

Back in the 90's, Street Fighter single-handedly added another decade to the lifespan of the American arcade.  Shortly after it's success, Midway thought they could put out their own fighting game, throw in the chance to decapitate your opponent at the end of a fight, and completed for the top spot for the next several years.  Now, Street Fighter 4 has breathed new life into the 2D fighting game market, and shortly after it's success, Mortal Kombat follows in its footsteps with its own reboot.  Will it be able to hold up to the new standard?  We shall see.


That's it folks.  That's April in gaming.  There's a couple titles that could be interesting, like Darkspore or the new Driver, but based on previous experience with prior titles in the series, they likely won't amount to much of anything.  May has some promise so check back here in a month's time to see what will be worth watching then.  Until then, Happy Gaming!

Friday, April 1, 2011

Beastly for Wii - April Fools Day Review


Note from Video: This was our first April Fool's Day post, and I'm pretty proud of it, so it's going to stay in the archives.  For anybody who is looking for a review of Beastly, well, imagine everything below is said with a heavy dose of sarcasm and go find something, anything better to play.  Happy Gaming!

About a month ago, I was getting ready for my "Ones to Watch" articles and stumbled over Beastly, a game being put out for the Wii and the DS based on the movie of the same name.  "This can't be!" I said to myself.  "Why would anybody make a game about Beastly of all the things to make games about?!"  I challenged my Facebook and Twitter followers with this one line:  "If somebody buys me Beastly for the Wii, I'll review it".  There's two things that I didn't expect to come of that, one, that somebody would actually take me up on it, and two, that it's actually a really great game.

You're damn right I'm going to the dance floor
I was a bit worried when putting this game in.  "How can I live up to the awesomeness that is the Beast, Hunter or be as beautiful as Lindy?", I thought to myself, nervously powering up my Wii-mote.  Thank goodness I didn't have to worry about any of that, as I got to play as one of the background characters.  This allowed me to not only help Hunter and Lindy, but to watch their love for each other blossom. 

Please to meet you, too, Lindy!  Omg BFFs!
There's several different mini-games, 14 to be exact, that let me pretend to be a student out and about the town in high school again.  Pulling fire alarms, casting spells, standing in line, counting ballots and taking pictures of my new friends while watching true love grow, all of the things that being a teenager are about, are covered in these enthralling breaks from the story.  Completing mini games unlocks still frames and video of the film, so there's always something to look forward to when trying to take on these challenges.

And golfing, don't forget golfing
As you can tell from the screenshots, the graphics are stellar on the Wii platform.  Beastly really puts the graphics processor to the test.  The creators go to great lengths to not make any individual stand apart from the crowd with differing features or facial expressions, which really made me feel like I was part of something bigger than myself.  That analogy really goes a long way in this game, and the developers knew it.  Bravo.

Except for the "Strange Man" part, but I don't see what's so strange about him
All in all, I'm a huge fan of this game.  Beastly shows us why the Wii is the king of the consoles with its graphical presentation, new and exciting mini-games, and timeless love story that has only been told and retold half a dozen times.  If you love gaming, want to re-experience those undeniably glorious days from high school, or just looking for a heart warming tale, look no further than this one right here.  Until next time, happy gaming.

APRIL FOOLS!