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Let’s take a moment to reflect on the events of a year ago, when both Stronghold Games and Fantasy Flight announced a reprint of Richard Hamblen’s Merchant of Venus. Confused fans had every reason to be pessimistic. The ensuing silence only fed fears that the lawyers had been sent in to do battle. We may never know all of the details of how the whole thing happened or how it was resolved. But what I do know is that the resulting reprint of Merchant of Venus succeeds beyond anything my heart dared to hope for. ...

Gaming is littered with quirky little titles that play bait and switch with gamers, masqerading as a style of game they don’t actually provide. It’s not a problem, as long as the game is fun. Indeed it adds to the novelty and charm of the title for the open minded. Dungeonquest, for example, looks like a role-play mimic but is in fact a push-your-luck title and a wonderfully brutal one at that. Infiltration is equally deceptive. At first glance you would expect this to be a fairly straightforward cyberpunk adventure, where the players take the place...

 Hot fuzz!

You should not buy second-edition Descent. I think I can make my case pretty clearly for why you definitely should not get involved with this game. For starters, Descent 2 is addictive. If you buy Descent 2, you will want to play it. And if you play it, you will not want to stop. You will be sitting in your living room, watching a perfectly good television program, and you will say to your friends, 'I think we should turn off this show and play Descent, because we all know how much we love it.' And do...

Red, Cardboard, Deadly, and What the hell does this piece do?

  Still playing catch-up with 2012 reviews, thoughts, and impressions.  This week I'm talking Mage Wars, Rumble in the House, Serenissima, and the colossal production screw-up of Exile Sun.  "I have blah blah insurance, so person come help?!"  

Does the world really need another Civ game? If you had asked me a year ago, I probably would have said no. Not only is it a crowded genre, it’s crowded with classics. There’s the old Francis Tresham game from Avalon Hill, still played by people with more time than I have. Vlaada Chvatil’s Through The Ages is one of the highest-rated games on Boardgame Geek. Kevin Wilson and Fantasy Flight cashed in on the popular computer game license a couple years ago with their own civ game. And I’ve personally always had enormous respect for Serge Laget’s Mare...

You may remember that I wasn’t hugely impressed with the initial releases in the new mix-and-match miniatures skirmish line Dungeon Command from Wizards of the Coast. The absorbing tactics of the maneuver phase had to be counterbalanced against a dull and predictable combat mechanic. But there was potential there, the maddening hint of unfulfilled promise.Stand-alone games don’t get a second bite at the cherry. But this isn’t a stand-alone game, it’s a series of modular packs meant to combine together and increase your options. And so I thought I’d put the second set of releases, Tyranny of Goblins and...

Next of Barnes- Come, join us won't you?

Hope the New Year is treating you well, gentle readers.  This week, I'll talk a small bit out the plans for this years Reader's Choice awards, and delay my own retrospective of 2012 as I dig into the last few games that hit my doorstep over the last month of last year.  To that end, I'll discuss two of AEG's entries in the Tempest line, the luscious Love Letter and the cubey Courtier.  Join us, won't you?