Tales of the Arabian Nights - Review

I recently picked up Tales of the Arabian Nights from ZMan Games originally released in 1985 and remade in 2009.  In it you assume the role of one of several famous characters from various Arabian lore, such as Aladdin or Sinbad.  You trek across the Middle East, exploring landscapes and cities, and encountering challenges along the way.  The first player to come up with their victory condition, a combination of Story points and Destiny points that they determined before starting play, and end their turn in Baghdad wins.

But first, the unboxing

Opening up the plastic cellophane revealed a high quality box.  The cardboard is thick and laminated over the illustrations.  It's pretty, and it's heavy.  The game easily weighs a few pounds, but you'll understand why after you unpack the box.

More prettiness

Inside you'll find a well made board, a few sealed decks of cards, placards for up to six players, dice, and several sheets of punch out chits.  You'll also, of course, have a rules manual, a codex, and the Book of Tales, the real heart of the game.  You see, the encounters you face are fairly random in their nature.  The book contains over 2000 paragraphs of text detailing what happens during any particular encounter, sometimes branching beyond their own section to offer choices to the players.

This is a bit more than 1001 Adventures

As an added bonus, they included plastic bags to keep each characters tokens separate for easy distribution and cleanup.  I did have to supply one Ziplock bag myself for skills, but otherwise was very happy with everything included.

Not enough games offer enough storage for everything they come with

Our first game consisted of six players, the maximum available, and the box read that a game should take 2 - 3 hours.  This estimate is grossly incorrect, as with six players it took us six hours to play through.  A second game of two lasted two and a half, so they really need to make an adjustment on game length here.

After we all selected our characters, we decided on a random distribution of skills.  Since we didn't know what we were facing, or what skills could be useful, we thought this would be the easiest way to get acquainted with the game.  Little did we know how much we would be using Courtly Graces and Enduring Hardship, two options that came up for us more than any other in our games.  The game doesn't even attempt to explain what skills are used for what, they're just sort of there and you're left to your own devices to try to figure out what actions you should be trying while having the skill of Storytelling.

The stories were a LOT of fun.  In one encounter, one of the players stumbled over Local Customs, and decided he would use the Honor action, leading him to potentially getting married, but Local Customs dictated that when their spouse dies, they are buried alive with them.  He decided to go for it, and sure enough, his wife died.  Instead of accepting fate, he tried to flee, but since he didn't have the right skills, he was caught, wounded, and buried.  A week later another couple we buried with them, but the alive spouse would not share their provisions, so he finally passed out from exhaustion.  Fortunately, a grave robber dug him out and left him for dead, but gave him the opportunity to escape, inflicting him with more unfortunate statuses.

Our typical Board State

Statuses are effects that are imposed onto your character, some good, mostly bad.  Some, like insane (an effect where the other players decide your actions), made for hilarious storytelling, such as the time somebody encountered Holy Flame, and was directed to Drink It.  Others, like Grief Stricken (unable to use any skills) are just brutal, especially when two of the players managed to get it within just a few turns.  Top that with being thrown in jail and not use your skills to get out leads to some frustrating hours of game play.

From what I have read over at the BoardGameGeek.com forums, the original printing of the rules had it where you would only have one status at a time.  This makes much much more sense to me, and I would encourage using that as a rule instead of allowing five or six bad statuses pile up all at once (one player was unable to choose where they were going, what they were rolling, or what options they would take for several turns).  This should cut down the game length significantly, as well.

Putting the problem with statuses aside, this is a very entertaining, very well made game. If you like the Choose Your Adventure type of game play, and are looking for something epic and adventuresome, I highly recommend checking this one out with your friends.  Just be careful what skills you pick, I hear there's some Hardships you might have to Endure out there in the desert sands.

Portal 2 - Review

There's two reasons why this is going up as late as it is.  One, I wanted something special for the 100th post, and two, I wanted to experience both single player and multi-player before posting the review of this one.  It should come to no surprise to anyone that I bought Portal 2 on launch day, took it home, and played through.  I wondered, as I put the disc in, what kind of personality the game would have after the events of the first game, and was very pleased to find that Portal 2 had much much more character to it than Portal ever did.

You start with being woken up by Wheatley, a blue personality core who is able to travel around the facility on rails acting as a guide to your ultimate objective - finding a way for both of you to get out.  The game takes place after the defeat of GLaDOS, the super computer who controls the facility, now dilapidated, until you unwittingly reactivate her.  What follows are many test chambers that improve upon each other while GLaDOS rebuilds the test facility.

Wheatley guides your way through the center trying to save you

For anybody who is new to the series, the basic idea is that you have a gun that shoots portals onto certain surfaces.  When two different portals are fired, they become linked together and you can then walk through one and come out of the other.  You'll use these portals along with different cubes to solve puzzles presented to you by GLaDOS.  Once finished, GLaDOS will usually make a back handed comment, seeing as those she's still upset from being murdered in the last game.
 
The puzzles, or test chambers, are very well put together.  There's never any point where you feel like you can't figure something out.  On the other hand, you don't always know what it is that you're trying to achieve, either.  You know you're trying to get to the exit, but it's not always obvious where it is, or what sequence of events needs to happen for you to get through its doors.   It's important to emphasize that the difficulty never unreasonably ramped up, I always felt that the game prepared me for the next challenge.

This is first and foremost a first person puzzle game, but the writing and voice acting cannot be ignored.  GLaDOS, Wheatley, and Cave Johnson are all done amazingly well, and add all of the character to the game.  Their quotes act as reason to figure out the puzzle you're in just so you can hear what they've got to say next.  They also reveal the story of the facility, what happened to it, and to some point, how you're involved with everything.

What am I supposed to do with these?!

The single player goes on for about 7 - 8 hours, and I was very pleased with it.  I don't know how they're going to go about doing a Portal 3, but I would never rule it out.  I just think that Valve is going to have a hard time topping themselves.

The multi-player adds on about another 6 hours of play, and must be played with another person.  There's no bots to help you out, but you probably wouldn't want to have one to spoil the puzzles.  Previous contributor Brian from the Castle Ravenloft reviews and I sat down one Sunday afternoon and plowed through the chapters.  He hadn't played the single player before we started, so it was a little bit of a rocky start, but once we got going, it was a lot of fun.

I had a hard time imagining what kind of puzzles they could do with multi-player that they couldn't with single player, but they pulled out all the stops to bring together a challenging, original, fun experience.  Each player has their own portal gun, each capable of firing two portals each.  This makes many of the puzzles to be more elaborate versions of the single player experience, but they always felt fresh and interesting.

You play as Atlas and P-Body, or Orange and Blue as referred to by GLaDOS

Alright, complaint time.  I have a couple minor complaints.  For one, some of the achievements are just there to be hard to do.  One of them is to hug three people on your friends list, meaning you have to have multiple friends who own copies of the game, and are wanting to go into multi-player. Another is to go through the multi-player (already requiring a friend the whole time) and then take another friend who has never played multi-player before through the calibration course.  Things like this are just there to be hard.  My second complaint seems to be pretty common, in that outside the testing chambers, it can be difficult to find exactly the right spots to place your portals to continue.  There's often a feeling of "I shouldn't be here", and yet you have to press on in the direction you're going to make progress.  I don't think we needed flashing arrows or anything, but hitting a tiny spot 500 feet in the air got old quick.

Portal 2 is a must pick up, if only for the single player.  If you have friends who want to go through the multi-player with you, you're going to just get that much more out of the game.  The writing, voice acting, puzzles, and story telling all come together in a delicious cake of awesome.  Don't hold off picking this up any longer, go and get it and have some fun... with science!

Top 5 Cards for New Phyrexia Pre-Release

I've spent some time reviewing the cards from New Phyrexia ever since the spoilers leaked a couple weeks ago. It's hard to get a good gauge for what the set is about. It feels like we able to mix in cards from unexpected colors by paying life for the Phyrexian mana, but I don't think that's what we're going to be doing this weekend. Instead, we'll be using those symbols to bring out bigger creatures faster than our opponents, and hoping to beat them quickly with them.

Despite that, there's not a whole lot of Phyrexian mana in my list, nor is there much infect. The cards I chose had some tricks to them and would put your opponent in a tough position, and per usual, are sorted by rarity, common through mythic, and then the "pick of the set". Here we go!

The common: Razor Swine





One of my favorite tricks from the last set was to give first strike to infect creatures. It's a brutal trick, and when it's on something cheap and common, its just down right wrong. If you're drafting red, pick up as many of these as you can, if only to destroy their creatures quickly.


The Uncommon: Isolation Cell





Slowing down the enemy in a limited format is deadly. Most opponents will choose to lose the life, at first, but as their totals dwindle down in late game, they may not be able to get their bombs out and give you your chance to seal the game.  If you manage to get more than one out, this is a lock down.


The Rare: Norn's Annex





Right along the lines of slowing down your opponent, an artifact in a set with limited artifact removal that makes your opponent pay life (or mana they may not have) to even attack may cause a big problem. Add in that it fits into any deck and you have yourself a threat.

Honorable Mention: Moltensteel Dragon





Drop 4 mana and four life on turn 4 (or three if you're lucky) and then fly in and bring your opponent to his knees, finally finishing off their life by sacrificing your own. It fits into any deck, but works best with red, and I would not be disappointed if I were to pull one.


The Mythic: Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite





All of the praetors are amazing, but the white Elesh Norn is on an entirely different level. Destroy your opponents weak creatures, weaken their strong ones, and boost your own, it's a rough proposition. I don't want to be facing this one.

The Pick: Karn Liberated





Karn fits into any deck, eliminates any threat on the board or your opponent's hand, and resets the game, most assuredly in your favor. Karn is going to be a beast to deal with, and should be your first choice in any pack.

While I normally recommend leaning towards black in Pre-releases, I'm going with Boros colors this weekend. Red and white look amazing, and I'm confident that they'll be the strong winners this time around. If you can't go those colors, just watch out to not sacrifice too much, and grab as many creatures as you can. It's going to be a rough weekend with few stand out bombs, but those that are there are going to win the day.

The Ones to Watch - May 2011

May is upon us, and after the lackluster games of April (Portal 2 and Mortal Kombat aside), we really need something new to play.  Let's take a look at May's catalog.

Brink - Multi Platform - 5/10/11

I know some people who are excited about Brink.  It's a new multi player shooter being put out by Bethesda that allows you to develop your character online or off and switch between then.  The trailers show off a lot of acrobatics moving from one spot to another which is supposed to be handled by their SMART button that gets you where you're trying to go.  I'll believe it when I see it.


LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean - Mult  Platform - 5/10/11

LEGO fans have a new game to look forward to, if they've already grown tired of Star Wars: The Clone Wars.  This feels a little too soon to be coming out, but I understand their need to tie into the upcoming movie.  If you've played any of the LEGO series, you know what to expect, if not, family friendly fun that tends to humorously follow the story lines of the movies that are out without touching on the one about to come out.


The Witcher 2 - PC - 5/17/11

Witcher was a fairly successful PC game that was a bit bawdy and deep at the same time.  It's often been sited as one of the better role play experiences out there, so it's no surprise that Witcher 2 is giving its players more of what they want.  That M is there for a reason, so don't you parents get mad when you see lots of naked ladies on your children's monitors.


L.A. Noire - Multi Platform - 5/17/11

*sigh* Rockstar and I have a love/hate relationship.  I've purchased each of their Grand Theft Auto games, hoping it will capture me like it has captured my friends, but the long and short of it is that open world games are only interesting if you really like the setting.  The facial feature technology they're using in this game is a bit impressive, and I'm sure it's going to get a lot of positive reviews like most other Rockstar games, but I'm steering clear of this one... for now at least.


Dirt 3 - Multi Platform - 5/24/11

It would be a disservice to the Dirt franchise if I didn't mention them.  Dirt has become the gold standard for realistic rally car racing.   It's dirty, it's fun, it handles well, and if you're a racing fan I shouldn't need to tell you any of this.


Hunted - Multi Platform - 5/31/11

Hunted looks like it could be good.  Fantasy cooperative play using the Unreal 3 engine, and it looks pretty.  Hopefully the control and gameplay is worth the pimping they've been giving this game for quite some time now with pre order bonuses.  Keep your eyes on this one as a big maybe.


Not too bad of a haul for May.  A couple of bigger names, and even a potential blockbuster.  June looks promising, with the return of several franchises, including one that we've been waiting over a decade for.  We'll see you next month to take a quick peek at the Ones to Watch.