Lost Treasures of the Eurogames Reclamation Project

iguanaDitty wrote:

charlest wrote: Hour of Glory

I believe this isn't talked about because it's not easily available in the States (right? at least I've never seen a copy and every time I look it's Euros only to purchase). It's been on my radar forever because it sounds cool...anyone actually play the damn thing?

I bought it several years ago and we played it a good number of times before I eventually sold it. It's actually a very cool game, it kind of does the whole Metal Gear Solid sneaking around thing (I could literally imagine the exclamation points above the guards heads), and it does it better than almost any other game I've played. The theme is also pretty neat.

The problems with the game are the components are (were?) shit. The map tiles were actually thick and good, although kind of plain. The cards themselves were print 'n play quality. They were perforated edges like an old 80's Avalon Hill game, and they were as thin as cereal box cardboard. I sleeved them and they still felt incredibly cheap and thin.

The characters standup cardboard pieces sucked as well, so we used WW2 miniatures which greatly enhanced the game.

The mechanics were pretty damn good, but the game only comes with a single scenario so it can get kind of old. They had additional scenarios in their PDF magazine thing they sold for cheap.

It's probably a great example of a company which probably should use kickstarter to get an actual boxed version of their game released with quality components.

Michael Barnes wrote: Please refer to the list of approved ERP games. If you can produce proof that you have purchased at least five, you will be granted Elite membership.

I am not sure where the approved list is, but as a retired Holy Euro Warrior of the trash wars, I am certain I have most of them.

(One which I just traded to Barnes)

Looks like I've lured Chapel back over here to bolster the ranks...for you youngsters, Chapel was kind of like the "good" alien that Robert Englund played in the V miniseries. A bona fide cube pusher, but he was sympathetic to our side. I'm thinking about making him an ERP lieutenant.

I played Hour of Glory once, it was pretty cool but it felt sort of overcomplicated and not very finely developed. But I think I was playing an early copy, maybe even some kind of prototype or something.

I didn't like Traumfabrik the time I played it...but there again, 10+ years ago.

On the "lost" AT games...I don't think there's many of them because so many of them came from just a couple of sources. There are some- I would consider Lineage II to be an example, and before the reprint Monster Derby would have been one- but there's not as many as in the Euro side. There are a LOT of really mediocre to bad AT games that came out 2005-2013 that are better forgotten (Dungeoneer, World War III, Horus Heresy, Tomb, etc.) MMA was a good one though, that game just got completely forgotten. WAY simpler and more fun than many later AT games.

How about Augustus, that seems like it's definitely a pull and play family game...CSI has it for $15 today.

black inferno wrote:

VonTush wrote:

scissors wrote: Hope A.R.M. gets here soon... must not give up... must... not.... g...

I do think this is a valid statement. There have been some AT games that I think fall under the radar that capture the ERP spirit. Again, what I feel captures the ERP spirit, are those family style games, the ones that play quick, Pull-and-Play games - So I'm not talking about StarCraft:TBG, TI3, Android, Earth Reborn...Or even Merchants and Marauders and Chaos in the Old World for that matter. I feel those fall more under the Gamer's Games category.

And I'm sure around these parts everyone knows the staples such as NexusOps, DungeonQuest.

But what would be some of those forgotten or overlooked AT games?

Top of my list is Monsters Menace America. Yes, there is the dice-fest end game. But everything leading up to it is gold. Simple rules, running around destroying things, controlling the military to throw up obstacles to your opponents. All around a great game, except of course that end game. But, that said it keeps the game from going too long and it is one of the more exciting dice fests since the winner/loser does hinge on it.

The thing about the ARP is that there wasn't that explosion like there was euros. So I don't think there were titles that were overlooked by this crowd. There are very few hidden/forgotten gems I think. I could be wrong though.

I love Monsters Menace America.

Granted, I'm more of a eurogamer, I may have a different definition of Ameritrash than the rest of you. That being said: the Hasbro Avalon Hill line (1999-2005) was the last great thrust of True Ameritrash. The joyous amount of plastic in those games, the heavy boxes, the pull-and-play feel, the heavy emphasis on classic Ameritrash themes of militaristic domination, of crushing your enemies, of pew-pew laser battles. All of it bankrolled by a colossal international toy conglomerate.

Here's the thing. Here's the dirty little secret about Ameritrash. There's something that nearly all classic mass-market Ameritrash had: extremely well-written rulebooks. Rulebooks that reek of multiple drafts by multiple technical writers, rulebooks that have been rewritten and re-edited until they've been whittled down to contain only the clearest, most concise instructive language possible. With only a couple of exceptions, Hasbro Avalon Hill had great rulebooks. Hasbro AH had rulebooks that revealed their pedigree; these weren't just hobby games; these were hobby games being produced by a massive multinational corporation, being designed by folks who also designed mass-market games for the Targets and Wal-Marts of the world. And these rulebooks showed the same concise, incisive clarity that you'd expect from a mass-market game.

One of the many, many things that prevents Fantasy Flight Games from claiming the Ameritrash mantle? Their rulebooks. FFG's sprawling, poorly-organized, overwrought rulebooks that are -- without fail -- two or three times longer than they need to be. They're circumlocutory, they're counterintuitive; they're a chore to read and parse. That's not Ameritrash. Ameritrash is corporate. Ameritrash is plastic. Ameritrash is great shit like Risk: Godstorm and Star Wars: The Queen's Gambit. It's wonderful mass-market corporate shit like Heroscape and Star Wars Epic Duels. Ameritrash has lean, mean rulebooks that have passed through the hands of a half dozen technical writers, compressing the game down to the purest rudimental elements, then expressing the mechanics in clear, unambiguous, didactic language. Those lean rulebooks serve to reinforce the fundamental pull-and-play feel of the best Ameritrash.

I'd argue that WotC has continued the "true Ameritrash" tradition quite well, except now all of those games have a D&D license. The D&DAS and Nerath are both more evolutionary than revolutionary, but they do right by the ARP.

I played Hollywood Blockbuster for the first time this year and was not into it. It's a closed market economy and the money is too thin for my tastes. Give me Medici.

I played some version of Hollywood Blockbuster a while back and just didn't see what the point was. The auctions weren't too interesting and I seem to remember some rich-get-richer aspect of it.

San Il Defanso wrote: I'd argue that WotC has continued the "true Ameritrash" tradition quite well, except now all of those games have a D&D license. The D&DAS and Nerath are both more evolutionary than revolutionary, but they do right by the ARP.

Oh, for sure, those D&D titles contain the purest essence of Ameritrash. Shit-ton of plastic, classic American license, throwback kill-or-be-killed gameplay. Oh, and good rulebooks, written in the second person, as is the colloquial way of classic corporate Ameritrash (lest we forget, those D&D games are produced under the watchful eye of Hasbro). Even a eurogame-hugger like me can't help but love those games.

There's a fine point that often gets missed...most TRUE ameritrash games actually come from corporate/mainstream sources...Dark Tower, Survive!, Nexus Ops, all of the MB Gamemaster games, Heroquest, Heroscape, Thunder Road, Battle Masters, every D&D thing ever released...even Magic: The Gathering.

Yeah, I kind of remember Traumfabrik as feeling like a lesser Knizia auction game (as compared to the holy trinity of Modern Art/Ra/Medici) but with a cute theme. I played the version with real films/actors. It was cute, but only because of the mix-ups and the overall concept of running a movie studio, which is yet another underused setting.

Medici is so damn good. Flip lots, decide when to put them under the hammer, fill your boat. The competition can be fierce. Simple bonuses for having the most of something and cornering the market. I play it on IOS a lot, it's so easy and enjoyable. It works really well F2F with six, and plays very quickly.

I went ahead and jumped on Augustus after re-reading Thrower's review. Sounds exactly like what I want right now.

Right now, my big wants are Evo (the one with the Metal Hurlant style art), Around the World in 80 Days, and Africa. Not sure why I want Africa so bad right now, but there it is.

I like Trau better than MA/Ra/Medici because it has a Taj-like look-ahead, pick-your-lots planning element to it.

I kept Africa because it's one of the very few games that my wife will play. I find it fairly benign; I don't like VP accumulation games, but any game with a map gets ticked up a rating.

Michael Barnes wrote:

There's a fine point that often gets missed...most TRUE ameritrash games actually come from corporate/mainstream sources...Dark Tower, Survive!, Nexus Ops, all of the MB Gamemaster games, Heroquest, Heroscape, Thunder Road, Battle Masters, every D&D thing ever released...even Magic: The Gathering.

I'd argue with you over M:tG being a large corporate/mainstream source. WotC was one of those 'two guys in a basement' outfits, until they struck gold with Magic. It was money hats for everyone when that happened.

Well, that's definitely true...but the mainstream accessibility afforded by the corporate buy-out is what has made Magic stick around for longer than the usual "interest span" of the typical hobby game.

Michael Barnes wrote: There's a fine point that often gets missed...most TRUE ameritrash games actually come from corporate/mainstream sources...Dark Tower, Survive!, Nexus Ops, all of the MB Gamemaster games, Heroquest, Heroscape, Thunder Road, Battle Masters, every D&D thing ever released...even Magic: The Gathering.

Yeah, exactly; my Hot Take is that true Ameritrash is only made by Hasbro, can only be made by Hasbro, and has only been made by Hasbro for quite some time. Fantasy Flight has become its own genre; FFG's artwork style, design tropes, "instructions" etc. are distinctive and unmistakably their own thing. It doesn't feel like pure Ameritrash -- it feels like Fantasy Flight. Besides, there's little-to-no penetration into the mainstream marketplace.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about that first wave of heavy-box Eagle Games from the early 2000s (War!, Attack!, etc.), and how that was perhaps the last non-Hasbro stab at pure Ameritrash with mass-market ambitions. Unless I'm completely misremembering, that guy initially had bold aspirations of marketing his games beyond the usual hobby store niche. I worked at Media Play (defunct big box chain) during college, and I definitely remember seeing copies of Attack! on the shelf. All the other games we sold were mainstream Hasbro stuff, and this was still a time when it was somewhat unusual to see hobbyist games at big box retailers. Anyway, those giant boards and copious amounts of plastic emanated a classic Gamemaster vibe, although IIRC it was all countered by clunky gameplay and those weird triple-tiered rulesets. And the Civilization debacle.

Yep, I bought War! Age of Imperialism at a CompUSA. I think Drover intentionally wanted to go for the mainstream market with those, to fill the gap left behind by games like Axis and Allies. It was really just kind of the wrong time because Eagle was coming on right as video games were on the fast track to effectively replacing tabletop games in the hearts and minds of the mass market consumer.

FFG is not, nor have they ever been, primarily a producer of AT games. They make hybridized hobby games. Somehow they tricked folks into thinking that was what AT was.

Media Play...man, that takes me back. I used to buy laserdiscs there.

Olympos is a good relatively low profile euro, but it may be too recent to count (the expansion should have been included with the main game).

I liked Olympos, but I tend to like Phillipe Keyaerts games in general (see also: Small World, Evo). I traded it a while back, it's one I'd be willing to pick up again. I actually didn't know there was an expansion, what does it add?