Top 5 Retro Games (that are still good)

Blooooog

*cranks handle*

*content spews forth out of your internet pipes*

Bloooooog

*cups ear* what? 

Oh, it doesn't work that way? I actually have to write things to keep this blog going. Well, okay. 

In case you hadn't picked it up by now (and it's practically painted over this blog on letters exactly 97 feet high), I'm a big gaming fan. Someone magnificent recently posted on Facebook a list of IGN's top modern videogames and suggested that I give my take on it. Well, I'm definitely going to do that, but since I've been on of a nostalgia trip recently (or as I like to call it a DIVNG EXPEDITION THROUGH TIME AND SPACE), I though I'd instead start with my top five classic games.

Now, this would be no fun if I shared all these games and you had no way to experience them for yourselves. You don't want to go diving through Cash Converter's back room to find a 15 year old PC running windows 3.1 that can play these in the original, crisp technicolor fidelity for which they were designed. Nor do you want to spend four hours getting them to run in an emulator only to find they're so horribly dated that you can't get through more than five minutes without your brain sliding out of your right ear. 

So I've limited myself to five games that you can still play and that aren't so antiquated in their design as to be unplayable. Sure, they'll be dated, but many of these are actually better designed than some of the high-budget mass market crap that people spend £40+ on these days (some of it. There's still plenty of quality out there, even in the mega AAA launches). You'll largely be able to pick these up for less than a tenner. Or free! How neat is that?

Okay, so let’s jump in. 

5 - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

This is undoubtedly a classic. I’m with many people in thinking that the follow-up, Majora’s Mask, is a better all-round game, but Ocarina of Time is the enduring memory. It was one of the first games I played that gave me a sense of open-world adventure, of optional and demanding side-quests that really let you dive deep into the game, and above all, gave me that sense of wonder. I’ll bet most of you have played this one in some form another, but if not, it’s still pretty easy to get hold off, thanks to a number of remakes on just about every system Nintendo’s made over the last tyears. Therein lies the downside, however - Nintendo tends to keep a pretty tight hold of their franchises (which is arguably all they’ve got going on right now chortle chortle) - so if you don’t have one of their consoles, you might struggle a little. That said, it’s very easy to find as an emulator ROM, if that’s your thing.

4 - Monkey Island 2 - LeChuck’s Revenge

Now, this list could have easily been composed entirely of nineties Lucasarts point-and-click adventure games. I’m realising more and more that they are some of the finest games I will ever play. It still amazes me whenever I revisit them and I’m reminded of how instrumental they were in forming my language (and love of it) and humour. Sure, many of them suffer from that totally unfathomable video game logic at times, where you are required to rub together two objects that appear entirely unrelated to achieve a bizarre effect to further your goal, but these games all contain moment after moment of utter joy.

I’ve allowed myself just two of these games on this list. The first is Monkey Island 2. The original Monkey Island game was, unsurprisingly, phenomenal, but I prefer the second in terms of moving ahead with the design and humour of the original.

If you haven’t played this sort of point-and-click adventure game before, I think you’ll find it pretty different from most games on offer these days. There are a few studios trying to do the same sort of thing (the example that sticks out most in my mind being TellTale Games), but I honestly believe you can’t beat the originals.

Gadzooks, how do I play it? 

Another easy one - Lucasarts launched ‘special edition’ versions of Monkey Islands 1 and 2 before the studio was closed down (it’s to my eternal sadness that they never finished the equivalents for some of my other favourites). These rereleases feature enhanced graphics/art, voice acting, and a UI overhaul. The original versions of all of these things are great, but the excellent and faithful paint job does actually add to the experience. The best part is you can switch at any time between the original and enhanced versions.

3 - Oddworld - Abe’s Odyssey

I’m pretty sure this was the first game I owned on the original Playstation (perhaps other than Time Crisis - I forget. But what a great Christmas that was!). Fiendishly difficult, I enjoyed it but struggled immensely with it. Having replied it in the last couple of months, I can see why. It’s a demanding puzzle/platform game in an utterly bizarre universe (it’s called ‘Oddworld’ - I’m not sure what I expected), putting you in control of Abe, a slaughterhouse worker who finds that his people are next on the menu. He has to escape the corporate dystopia, rescue his comrades (or get them killed in interesting and highly amusing ways), and bring down Rupture Farms. 

It is tricky and rewarding. The sequel, Abe’s Exodus, is also excellent, and adds some features to make it more playable, such as quick save, but I think it dilutes the experience a little. If nothing else, it was the first game I played that had a dedicated ‘fart’ button.

Getting strange creatures killed in bizarre and perversely hilarious ways? Sign me up!

The original games are both playable through Steam, and Abe’s Odyssey has just been rereleased in a ‘remastered’ edition - ‘New n Tasty’. It’s not out on all platforms yet, and I haven’t had the chance to play it, but it seems to carry the spirit of the original.

2 - Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis

And here we have the other Lucasarts game. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is another game for which I am only just starting to appreciate the excellence of its design. It’s my favourite Indiana Jones adventure over any of the films in the trilogy (yes, trilogy). Dr Jones is set on the trail of the lost city of Atlantis, a global yomp featuring Nazis, mysterious metals, hot air balloons and one of Plato’s lost dialogues. It’s basically everything I want in a game. 

It follows the standard Lucasarts ‘point and click’ formula, with a few variations. There’s less of a focus on the humour (don’t get me wrong, though, it is funny). There’s a (rather clunky) combat mechanic - though you can avoid using it for the most part. In fact, you have a choice how to pursue the bulk of the story - as part of a double act, using Indy’s wits, or relying more on your fists. Each change up the way a good third or more of the game plays out, which is actually really awesome when it comes to replaying it.

It’s a sweet romp of a game that lets you feel like you’re playing out one of the great ‘whip and wonders’ adventures of the big screen. And it’s the game that taught 9-year old me where Algiers was (and presumably still is).

What good’s a whip in this day and age? Who am I kidding, how do I play it?

Sadly, no remastered edition for this one (boo), but you can pick it up on Steam. Old games always tend to have a few compatibility teething issues, but this has always run just fine on my Mac and PC.

Honourable mentions here are Day of the Tentacle and Sam and Max Hit the Road. Beautiful, hilarious, utterly absurd.

1 - Baldur’s Gate II - Shadows of Amn

C’mon, was there ever any doubt?

Anyone who has had the (mis-)fortune to engage me on the topic of video games for any length of time will hear me talk about BGII. It is, in my mind, the paragon of gaming achievement. Sure, there are games that are my new darlings, for a time, occasionally even taking the title of ‘favourite’, but it’s all temporary. It always comes back to BGII.

It’s a proper Dungeons & Dragons RPG game. You pick a class, pick a race, wake up in a prison, and go from there. It’s an adventure that takes you overground, oversea, undersea, and off the Prime Material Plane altogether. Your character is whatever you want them to be, they can end up owning a castle, running a guild of thieves and assassins, or owning a really nifty extraplanar transportation contraption. The characters around you are rich, deep and have real personality. All this with decades-old sprites, text and damn fine voice acting. It’s an epic which still to this day has my finding new little things I never came across before.

Alright, I’m starting to gush. And this is making me really want to play it. That happens a lot.

GIVE IT TO ME NOW

Sure. It’s still possible to find the original (and it works - e.g. on GOG), but the knights in shining armour at Beamdog have done a snazzy Enhanced Edition of both Baldur’s Gate games. Utterly faithful to the original, just packed with more stuff and some playability improvements and bug fixes.

Okay confession time. I’ve never actually finished it. Well, okay, I have, but I’ve never truly, really got to the end, which is to say the concluding chapter of the whole thing - the epic ‘Throne of Baal’ expansion. I’ve got right to it, just ran into stonewalls that sort of...stopped me. What I’d love to do, and hopefully will do if I ever have anything like enough time (and interest), is to stream and/or record it. From the beginning. Start of the original Baldur’s Gate, right the way through.

This time, I might even finish.

What are you top picks for old games, whether they’re still easy to find and get running or not?

Vigilo Confid...Damnit, Missed the Target

I'm looking down the sights, the plasma-rifle wielding X-Ray at the other end. He's taken out half my team already (damn these Thin Men alien bastards), but I can still pull this one out and stop the abductions in Italy. I just need to take this guy down, then the other two members of my squad can bury the last two with explosives.

32% hit chance.

Never tell me the odds.

Squeeze the trigger.

Fuck.

Despite all my careful sequencing, that one miss screws up my entirely plan, causing the remaining aliens to quickly mop up the last three poor sods unfortunate enough to be sent on 'Operation Sinking Feeling'.

---

'We can save this world'

Anyone who has played XCOM is probably familiar with this sort of experience. Playing the game is an oddly masochistic relationship - somewhat a characteristic of the roguelike experience (while I've only rarely heard XCOM described as a roguelike, it does share many of the same properties - encouraging repeat play, refinement of strategy and a willingness to fail and relearn).

If you don't know what XCOM is already, seriously, check it out. If you have any love of strategy games, roguelikes, or just videogames in general, it's worth a look. Heck, even if you like boardgames, the pacing and play style can feel very 'boardgamey'.

My usual MO with this game is to sink 10-20 hours into it over a week or weekend, before finally setting it down after an excess buildup of frustration and coming back to it a few weeks later.

The alien threat is consistently paced just ahead of your own soldiers and technology until at least the mid- to late-game. Then, if you have been playing right and have got just a little bit lucky, you can start to pull ahead.

Suffering breeds skill. Progress is fun and frustration is, well, frustrating. It falls into the niche of some games from the last few years (Demons' Souls and Dark Souls spring to mind) that make success all the sweeter for being hard won. No hand holding, no desperation to show off the story, just a good, consistent challenge.

I believe this is the point where I started singing 'Shittity-doo-dah'

Not that the game doesn't play on your emotions - in fact, it does so in a way that it shouldn't really be possible in such a story-light game. Part of it is the frustration factor, yes. Even the best-written story in a game struggles to compete with the sheer controller-throwing frustration of a properly challenging game (sidenote: we PC gamers really lose out on the 'throwing controller' front. Hurling a keyboard and mouse is a) expensive and b) challenging, what with all those cables. Any tilting tips?).

The face of XCOM pain

But XCOM kicks that up a notch - the ability to name all your soldiers can just make the pain of losing a soldier mid-mission so much worse. I like to name them after my friends and loved ones. That might be a little weird (it is), but it seems metaphoric self-flagellation is what I look for in my spare time.

Counting the losses on my current Classic Ironman playthrough

XCOM makes it personal; it makes it hurt. It's simple to pick up and play (and there are some not-so-insane difficulties), but has enough depth that, even having logged 70 or so hours, I'm still finding new techniques, tactics and making stupid, glorious mistakes. It encourages careful planning, meticulous execution, and risk-avoidance, while practically forcing you to take risks at the same time.

In case you hadn't figured it out by now, I really can't recommend XCOM enough. It's one of my favourite games released in the last few years, and I seem to only be able to go a few weeks without coming back to it. It's on sale a whole bunch these days and is available on pretty much every platform (including iOS). If you love strategy gaming and a bit of pain, check it out.

Board Games Tube Map

I've mentioned the upcoming Draughts London Board game café before. They just revealed their 'Board Game Tube Map', and I think it's really rather great.

Check out their website if you're interested - they're on the verge of launching their Kickstarter to make this project a reality.

Twilight Imperium: First Impressions

I finally got the chance to play Twilight Imperium recently, and wanted to share my experience. It really  is the behemoth of board games, and it requires a significant time investment if you ever get the chance to play it, so it's worth knowing what to expect.

That said, I don't think its fair to couch this as a review in the way I did with Pandemic and The Game of Thrones board game, since I have only played it once. So, instead, here are my first impressions of Twilight Imperium (TI). 

Space: it's full of plastic

Firstly and most obviously is the scale and scope. The game has you vying for control of the galaxy following the fall of the tyrannical Lazax empire. While TI has much in common with Risk as a game of strategy warfare, it is so much more than that. You don't just have to consider the military arena, but also the economic, political and technological.

It's not only possible to survive while being militarily weaker than your opponents, but also to thrive, as you lean on your other advantages to gain leverage on the other players. I took on the role of a race that was, broadly speaking, the 'military-industrial complex' - the Barony of Letnev - while the player to my right was a race of more pragmatic, trading-focussed space lions - the Emirates of Hacan.

While I started in a position from which I could threaten and bluster my way into profitable trade agreements - to ensure 'mutual coexistence' given our proximity (read: not turning my fleet into a giant space vacuum cleaner and blasting the kitties into the nearest supernova) - his economic superiority, combined with some of my own poor fortune (read: poor planning), meant that I became pretty dependent on that relationship to maintain any grip on power by the middle of the game. Since my race needed trade goods to gain an advantage in combat, the cancellation of that trade agreement would have been pretty disastrous. I found myself Harkonnens, beholden to my very own Guild.

My fleets about to get into trouble with the dreadnoughts from my left

The fact that such a dynamic relationship is actually possible in the game speaks volumes of what TI is all about. But that also comes with its downsides. It took me around two hours just to clip out and bag all the pieces that came in the box. Setup and explaining the rules took around 30 minutes each - and this was with a group who had familiarised themselves with the principles ahead of time.

For all that there are a lot of rules and pieces to get your head around, the complexity of each part isn't so bad. Pretty much every piece of the puzzle makes sense in isolation, it's the just the whole picture taken together can spin the brain faster than one of my cruisers going down in flames.

Even once we had gone through all of the rules, it still took some hands-on figuring out before we really got to grips with the flow of the game, and I think it was actually pretty near the end before we got a good handle on how it 'should' be played. The game makes many different strategies viable, depending on the race you're playing, but it takes some familiarity to figure them out. As it was, being our first playthrough, we lacked the context to make defensibly sound decisions, but at least everyone was on the same level coming into it.

That's both a good and a bad thing. On the one hand, it rewards repeat play, offering a depth that allows you to experiment and find your stride, getting 'better' over time, which is generally very satisfying. Additionally, if one strategy bores you, there are plenty of alternatives available (play a political or trading race!). The flip side is that, given an average eight-hour duration, getting to play it with any frequency becomes a challenge.

There are also some well-known and well-justified balance issues. Generally, everything is pretty finely designed to avoid weighting advantage to any one player early on. However, one of the Strategy Cards (each player selects one Strategy Card per turn which defines their special action) is a fast and reliable means of scoring victory points - the whole goal of the game - meaning that it becomes 'technically correct', in terms of optimal gameplay, to select this card whenever you are able, regardless of the other choices. If the card is not available, your second choice should always be the 'Initiative' card, which sets you up to take it next turn.

As long as players are aware of this, it's not 'game breaking', but it does suck some of the fun out if you feel compelled to take it all the time, rather than trying to plot and execute a wider strategy. We were aware of this, but still didn't do enough to prevent it throughout the game. The expansions contain some alternative versions of this card which 'fix' the issue, but it's quite a frustrating limitation of the core game, and I'd recommend house-ruling it if that's all you're playing with.

At least the expansion has a normal-sized box

Twilight Imperium is a very deep game with more replay value than I've seen anywhere else. There are so many optional additions and other play styles enabled in both the core game and the expansions that you could play this game over and over without it getting stale. The playtime and dense-if-not-actually-high barrier to entry are marks against it, but, as long as everyone is on board with this from the start, it's actually fine. Just don't let it take you unawares. 

The group that I played with was overwhelmingly enthusiastic about how TI played out and the epic drama it let us build, and seemed interested in picking it up again if there was the chance (unless they were just trying to justify investing eight hours of their time...!). 

So, should you play TI, or even buy it? If you're a fan of 'big box' boardgames in general, it's hard to see you not liking this, since it's a big strategy game on steroids, so give it a go if you ever have the chance. That said, it is a reasonable investment to buy, not to mention store, so I'd say skip purchasing it unless you know and love the game already, or you have a guaranteed audience of (almost) equally enthusiastic people to play with.

Pax Magnifica Bellum Gloriosum

Top 5 Tabletop Games to Play in the Pub

One of the hardest things about games is finding the time to get everyone together in one place. This is particularly difficult if you need to assemble everyone in someone's house or flat - apart from being a pain in the proverbial, travel also eats into valuable gaming time or makes the whole affair untenable.

So great indeed is the game that you can play in the pub (or equivalent dispensary of jollity) with your friends. Sadly, there aren't that many establishments where you can get away with whipping out large box and battling for supremacy over Westeros - if nothing else, the giant throne tends to attract attention. That said, if you're based in London, check out the nascent 'Drafts', or any of other UK board game cafés, such as The Thirsty Meeple in Oxford, etc. In a regular pub, though, it's all about finding the right game.

Here are some of my favourites. Criteria for success are having a small footprint (no big boards or the like, which is why you won't see Forbidden Island on here, despite it being both portable and amazing), compact and portable, and as simple and light-hearted as possible, while still remaining interesting.

So here they are, in no particular order.

Fluxx

Fluxx is almost as simple as they come. Every turn, draw a card, play a card. At first, that is. The catch is that some of the cards change the rules as you go along, meaning it might become something different, like 'draw four cards, play three' every turn.

It comes in all sorts of flavours, such as 'Star Fluxx', 'Zombie Fluxx' and 'Chthulu Fluxx' (because what tabletop game can't be improved by adding 'space', 'zombies' or 'fhtagn'?).

Just look at him - doesn't he just scream fun?

It's not exactly what I'd call 'strategic', though, since the extremely high randomness and variance make strategic execution somewhat ...tricky. Normally, that's precisely what I dislike about Fluxx - it's essentially 'prescriptive', lacking many meaningful excision points - but in the pub, where people are already impairing their ability to follow an ever-changing set of rules, it seems more fun.

Play if: you want your game to move as erratically-but-amusingly as that man trying to find his way back to the bar.


Zombie Dice

Another pretty obvious inclusion here. I seem to include it just about every one of my lists. It's simple, it's easy, it comes in a cup, and none of the important components are made any the worse by acquiring beer stains. What more do you want?

Seriously, if you want to know more about it, check out my previous post.

Play if: all this talk of brain-eating isn't going to make you too hungry for a tasty and totally non-suspicious kebab.


Cards Against Humanity

Oh boy, what's left to say about this one? To call CAH 'foul mouthed' would be about as understated as saying the sea is 'quite wet', or that the Tube can be a 'wee bit cramped in the morning'. It's profane and contains some truly horrible concepts, but it has such potential for extreme hilarity.

For anyone not familiar, each turn, a player draws a black card and reads it out. This usually poses a question or 'fill in the blank'. The other players anonymously lay down an answer card from their hand, in a bid to impress(/amuse/disgust) the judge for that round. It's not for the faint hearted, but is genuinely far more funny than it deserves to be. It is, though, best played with drink in hand! to steel yourself if for no other purpose.

The one limitation is that, after repeated plays, you can get to know the cards a little too well, rather taking the edge off. Luckily, there is a slew of expansions to bulk out the material when you need to.

Play if: you want to feel like a bad person, and don't mind if the people at the next table give you death stares as you laugh about Boris the Soviet Love Hammer.


Story War

Story War is part of a crop of 'imaginative narrative games' that have appeared out of Kickstarter in the last couple of years. These are certainly not new (just look at Dixit), but there seem to be more and more twists on this theme.

The premise hinges on a couple of decks of cards, representing characters, such as Frankenstein or the Abominable Snowman, items, such as a magic carpet or a really fast car, and battlegrounds, such as the ice palace or a spooky graveyard. Players or teams then choose their character for the current round from the available cards, and then try to weave a narrative which shows why their choice would win in that fight, using the 'environment' of the battleground and items to assist. One player acts as the judge each round to decide outcomes.

As a game, it has its flaws, and it's not my favourite. Everyone has to be on board with the concept and be in roughly the same frame of mind. A hesitant or sadistic judge can lead to a round vastly outstaying its welcome. But if you have friends with a slightly sideways imagination (and, critically, drinks), this can be a lot of fun.

Honourable mention: there are actually a couple of games in this category that I prefer, but are less suited to such a publican environment. Machine of Death has a cooler premise and a tighter play-style, but has more 'moving parts' - more elks of cars and required components, and can cast a bigger footprint. Dixit cards is too beautiful to sully in a pool of London Pride.

Play if: you have friends who like to spin outrageous tales after they've had a few.


Love Letter

Ah, Love Letter. This one has been round for a couple of years now, but I only got to play it recently, and it's fast become one of my favourite 'quick' games, super simple, but rewarding solid strategic thinking. It requires only 16 cards (and a few tokens, but beer mats will do) to play, and can be explained in about thirty seconds.

If you haven't played this one before, check it out. It's truly elegant, and you can buy it for under a tenner.

Play if: the only courting you want to do this evening is of a beautiful (and thoroughly fictitious) princess.


A quick note to close: in many of these, I put forward that these games are often more fun alongside alcohol. While that can be said of most tabletop games, none of these games are really the worse without it (with the possible exception of Fluxx), so people who do not partake don't need to feel excluded! Sobriety would probably improve your win rate in many cases...

Did you enjoy this list? Check out my list of Top 5 games to play with normal people, and my 'Top 5' worst board games.

'A Game of Thrones' Board Game Review

Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games
Players: 3-6 (best with 6)
Playing Time: 2-6 hours

Game of Thrones (still better known as ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ to the Sullied) has been gathering attention over the past four years, as the HBO show has climbed to stratospheric popularity. The game of A Game of Thrones (the board game) has been around much longer than the show, first released in 2003, but was given as second edition in 2011 (either unwittingly or presciently primed to profit from the show's rise).

A Game of Thrones places you at the head of one of six great houses from A Song of Ice and Fire in your own bid to conquer the Seven Kingdoms, capturing seven castles before any of your opponents do the same. The game has you mobilising troops, carefully managing resources, and making and breaking alliances in order to be crowned the victor. And as we know (and you can see what's coming here), when you play the game of Game of Thrones, you win, or you die.

Image featuring the old-style wooden pieces (Image: François Phillip, cc by 2.0)

Cardboard Crowns - The Product
I have bought a lot of stuff from Fantasy Flight Games. Their products are of a consistently high quality, and A Game of Thrones is no exception. It’s a standard ‘big box’ sized game, complete with board, plastic units, a plethora of cardboard counters and assorted cards, all with a great build quality.

Some of the beautiful House cards

What stands out immediately is just how good everything looks. The art is fantastic, particularly on the house cards, which depict several major characters from the books who function as your generals. The one thing that stands out above all others, though, is the board, a beautiful recreation of Westeros in all its bloody glory. As with many games of this size, there are a lot of components, making an alternative means of storage (a bit box or plastic baggies) if not essential, then an important addition.

This doesn't capture the magnificence of the board, but it does show some of the component sprawl. Also, essential Hobgoblin accompaniment.

The Fantastic Taste - The Flavour
It's hard to conceive of someone not having encountered Game of Thrones by now, the show has just become so pervasive. The game does a good job of not really spoiling anything. At most, if you go through the rulebook and dig into the context of the initial setup, there are some implicit spoilers for the first book/season, which, in the grand scheme of things, don't amount to much. I'm a big fan of the series, but I honestly don't think you have to be to enjoy the game. That said, you will get more out of the setting if you are already invested in it, but it's not a make-or-break - I have played with plenty of people not previously familiar with the world.

The game does a very good job of matching style and substance. I’ll talk more about the mechanics below, but it really does make you feel like you’re acting a part in that world, with devious machinations and warmongering bombast alike carried by the gameplay. I don't know whether the game was designed for this intellectual property in the first instance, or whether the game was developed independently of the licence, but I suspect the former. It just captures the vibe too perfectly to believe otherwise.

The Meat & Crackers - The Mechanics
As I said before, A Game of Thrones marries mechanics and mood very well (and you know that, where Game of Thrones and marriage meet, only good things can happen). The biggest part of this is the role of hidden information. During each round, the bulk of the action is split between players secretly assigning orders to their units, and then revealing and executing them. You can bargain all you like with your neighbour, but when it comes down to it, do you trust them not to attack you so you can shore up your resources? Do you use a defence order to hold the line, potentially wasting that action if they don't attack? Or do you lull them into a sense of security and come storming over their borders, knife between your teeth, while they still have their proverbial pants round their ankles?

I’m a sucker for precisely this mechanic. It creates a Diplomacy-esque moment of tension in every round, as everyone flips their orders and assesses the consequences. For me, the blind assignment of orders strikes an interesting balance between pure, calculated strategy, interpersonal relations, and evaluation of the other players' true intentions.

There are various other factors which enhance this process. One player holds the Raven token, which can let them switch out one of their orders after everyone’s have been revealed, potentially a major advantage. The relative influence of your factions define who enacts their moves first. Raid orders are executed first, and a well-placed, well-timed Raid can throw your opponent quite severely, frustrating their plans or advancing your own.

Orders in place.

Another thing I love about this is the scarcity of orders. There are only a limited number of each type, and, if you’re badly positioned, you won’t have access to some of the better ones. This means you have to prioritise your plans, since you can’t ever move or attack from more than three places in a single turn. It’s reasonably subtle, but forces some hard decisions at critical junctures.

The other major mechanic revolves around the influence tracks. These are absolutely crucial to staying on top. These define who has initiative, which orders you have access to, or who wins in a close fight. Every few turns (it’s randomised), these are opened up for bidding, and each player has to blind-bid with their power tokens to secure their spots. Since these Power Tokens are expended and not retained, you have to carefully prioritise which influence tracks you want to go after, or hedge your bets and try to be middling for all of them at best. The problem is, these Power Tokens are also needed to fight off the occasional Wildling threat, which requires everyone to pool resources to avoid mutually bad outcomes. This tension, between urgent, selfish need and the risk of penalties for all is a fantastic dynamic.

The influence system is also one of the minor issues I have with the game. Not that it’s a design issue, I don’t quite think it is, but it is where games seem to be most often decided, and I haven’t quite figured out whether people are just consistently sneaky, or whether it’s just bias from variance.

Every time I have played, there has been at least one round of influence bidding where one player has totally cleaned up, taking the best position and more or less defining the position of all the other players as they choose, which, more often than not, has been enough to close out the game. I don’t think this is just because those players have intelligently hoarded Power tokens (though it is partly so!), as I have hoarded like the lovechild of Smaug and Scrooge McDuck, and still not been able to pull that off. It becomes a little self-enforcing, as if one player gets to that position, though, it can be very hard for someone else to claw advantage back.

One other slight shortfall of the game is the balance of the houses. It’s hard to evaluate holistically, since there are a large number of elements that add up to make the whole, with different generals, starting troops and geographies, but there is definitely some imbalance, necessitating some specific early-game tactics from a couple of the houses to stop themselves being locked out of the game later on. The claustrophobic map, forcing players into each others’ way, combined with different viable strategies for each house, is partly a strength of the game, preventing anyone from being too comfortable, but the Greyjoys, Lannisters and Starks definitely have it worst off, and playing as one of those houses brings its problems. If everyone is on the same page, all’s fair in love and board gaming, but for newer players in particular, it’s something to be wary of.

Playing the Power Game - Accessibility
With the world of A Song of Ice and Fire becoming ever more popular, I can see more players approaching this game. On the whole, it is pretty accessible; a slightly-less cut-throat Diplomacy in a more interesting wrapper. It comes with some general caveats that for ‘big box’ style games, notably their relative complexity and extended play time, but, in general, while the right tactics at the right time are rewarded, the necessities are such that new players are not automatically frozen out. That said, with the balance issues I noted above, a new player in one of those seats faces more of a challenge, although that partly depends on the playgroup.

The View from the Wall - Summary
A Game of Thrones is a lot of fun. It lets you do all the things you want to do while playing in the Game of Thrones sandbox on this scale, with a blend of politics and warfare every bit as devious as the show. It’s definitely best with the full six players, as this has the greatest scope for interaction and politicking, but is perfectly playable with three to five. Some minor balance issues aside, it’s a very solid game. If you’re a veteran of the game, firstly, thanks for reading this far! You should already have been sold on the concept… Secondly, there are a couple of small expansions with different scenarios and setups to shake things up: A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons (though be warned, potential spoilers for those books implied in the setup), which don't seem to have been widely picked up yet.

The Best
Feeling like Tywin Lannister, making the masterful, cut-throat move that puts you ahead of your rivals.

The Worst
Feeling like the Mad King as someone stabs you square in the back.

Rating 
Five heads on spikes

Pandemic Scenarios, Ruined Friendships, and The Cones of Dunshire

Not a full post today, just a couple of links that I thought it was worth sharing together.

Harking back to my review of the fantastic Pandemic, I stumbled across a couple of 'scenarios', one of which is put together by the game's designer, Matt Leacock.

'Isolation' plays out with the West having tried to cut itself off from the infected rest of the world, limiting the movement of the players (and increasing the area focus of the infections, to an extent). 'Government Shutdown' reduces the number of actions available to each player until certain conditions are met which push the government to unfreeze vital funding. The latter, in particular, seems like it would add an additional sense of panic and doom, and I can't wait to try it out.

You can access them both here: http://zmangames.com/product-details.php?id=1246

This is an old article, but I enjoyed finding it again: Top 5 Board Games That Really Will Ruin Friendships: http://kotaku.com/the-top-5-board-games-that-really-will-ruin-friendships-1443867215

And, finally, for any Parks and Rec fans, a way-too-in-depth analysis of The Cones of Dunshire (sorta): http://www.vulture.com/2013/12/cones-of-dunshire-parks-and-recreation-game-oral-history.html

Top 5 Board Games for 'Normal People' to Play

'Normal people' is definitely a bit of a hook here; something convenient to fit the title. There's no such thing as a 'normal person', or, at least, I've never met one. What I have here instead is a list, in no particular order, of the five games I consider to be the best to play with people who are not traditionally gamers, games which are much, much better than the boardgames people tend to have encountered during their childhood. A common thread here is that none of these games tend to result in newer players getting shafted due to lack of experience, for different reasons in each case.

Most of these have been featured on Wil Wheaton's Tabletop at some point, so I've included the links below if you want to learn more about the games.

Zombie Dice

This one is as simple as they come. A press-your-luck dice game that fits in a small pot, with rules that can be explained in about thirty seconds. The major part of it is luck, but there is just enough depth to allow for some strategic decision making. It's carries with it the right mixture of the casual and the competitive, and is good for travel, the pub, or just as a nice, low-intensity game that still has the potential to entertain. As a bonus, it's short.

Buy it on Amazon

King of Tokyo

THE KING IS SAD (couscous salad not included)

This one can go both ways - I've had people love and it and not really warm to it - but I guess that applies to everything on this list, really. You each play as a kaiju monster, competing to tear up Tokyo. It's very quick to pick up, and doesn't take too long to play. I love the vibe of this game; it makes you feel like a giant smashy monster, even down to the slightly oversized dice. A different style of press-your-luck dice game, there's plenty to do and plenty of drama that is at the same time impossible to take seriously, a winning combination.

Buy it on Amazon

Ticket To Ride

(Image: Chunky Rice, cc by-sa 3.0)

Slightly further out on a limb for me, since I've not played this one in its true cardboard form, but I've played it plenty on the iPad (Google Play link), and have read and seen enough about it to be happy including it on the list.

Ticket To Ride puts you in the place of a railroad tycoon (not that Railroad Tycoon) trying to build train routes across the continent. The mechanics are fun, and it's competitive enough without being grounds for any fights. One of the big things for me here is that the competition is not based around warfare, the driving metaphor behind many boardgames, and an element I know turns some people off.

Buy it on Amazon

Tsuro - The Game of the Path

In Tsuro, you play as a majestic dragon, swooping around the board, trying to be the last one standing. You are dealt a series of tiles with 'paths' on them, and take turns to place these down before your dragon. Each player with a new 'path' before them moves along it as far as they can. You're eliminated if you collide with another dragon, or are swept off the edge of the board.

It's simple, has great pacing (nice slow start, building to an unpredictable and dramatic conclusion), is quick to play, and is visually stunning.

Buy it on Amazon

Forbidden Island

Forbidden Island is one of my favourite games. You are put in the role of a daring explorer, landing on an island to loot it for its ancient treasures. The island, though, has other ideas, and is gradually sinking into the sea, taking with it its treasures, and, if they are unlucky, any daring adventurers who happen to remain.

It's a cooperative game, which is a plus for some people who don't like competitive play as much. It's simple to learn, though optimal planning and tactics take a little longer to pick up - offset by the teamwork angle. It has a nice set of visually appealing components, second only to Tsuro on this list. Above all else, it's fun, with plenty of depth and replay value, without relying on confrontation or individual tactical mastery.

Buy it on Amazon

Honourable Mention: Pandemic

It feels wrong not to include Pandemic on here. The only reason I didn't is because it is so very similar to Forbidden Island, and I didn't want to have both on here side-by-side. The mechanics are very similar, the play style is broadly analogous, and it is almost equally as fun.

Forbidden Island edged it out for me because a) it's slightly cheaper, b) it's a lot smaller to transport and easier to set up (fitting into a handy tin), and c) I find it slightly easier to sell people on the metaphor ('you are an intrepid adventurer' sounds better than 'you work for the Center for Disease Control'). Not that Pandemic isn't fantastic in every way.

Buy it on Amazon

Top 5 Worst Board Games

Games are, at least in principle, a true joy, something which I have argued before is fundamental to human nature. It's generally a healthy and enriching pastime. But that's not universally true, and there is nothing quite as frustrating as being stuck playing a bad game. So here are my top 5 worst games. It should go without saying that, as with any list like this, this is all ill-informed and fully-biased opinion, and while I've tried to justify my selection in each case, your mileage may vary.

Trivial Pursuit

Okay, I'll admit, this one is a bit of a stretch. I've not got that much against Trivial Pursuit per se, and I do enjoy playing it. The problem is, I feel that quiz-based tabletop games are flawed, and this happens to be the most prominent example. Two of the most obvious flaws are limited replay value, as people get to know the questions over time, and the way in which the questions become dated (though that is a great way to release and sell new versions of your game every year! It's as if Hasbro know what they're about). 

Above all, though, my problem is that this type of game depends entirely on what you bring to the table. While all games to an extent reward learning and repeat play, I think quiz games are not learned activity in and of themselves, nor, really, is there much strategy. It's based on what you have in your head combined with the luck of the questions; there's no room for development within the game itself.

Scrabble

This one definitely comes from personal bias. I've never liked Scrabble, as much as I love messing around with words. However clear the guidelines, I find this is a game that does little more than spark endless small disputes, which take up a disproportionate amount of game time to resolve. A 'casual' game should not require a 674-page book to play effectively! Again though, a good way to sell more stuff (Hasbro again...).

The draft of the next Scrabble Dictionary.
Photo credit: Jacob Bøtter, Licensed under Creative Commons

Cluedo

Ah, now we get to the juicy stuff, where I get to start stomping on people's beloved childhood games. I know this is a game for kids, really, and that it's supposed to teach deductive reasoning, but it's just so dull. It has relatively little interactivity, player elimination (which in games that can run for longer than an hour is generally a bad thing), and builds to a usually unsatisfying conclusion.

Ultimately, it's a game where you could guess randomly on your first turn and still stand a chance of winning. If you don't do that, it essentially becomes a giant game of Guess Who, with no real lines of play or satisfying strategy. It's a game that I think you could play on your own with almost no loss in quality and tension, treating it as a logic puzzle, which begs the question, why spend your valuable time with friends and loved ones playing this when there are many finer choices?

Also, can we talk about the terrible theme/mechanics matchup is here? You're walking round a house filled with potential murder weapons with an actual murderer, essentially walking round pointing at people, asking 'was it you?', rather than worrying about the fact that there is a murderer in this spooky house with you. What's more, if your character is the murderer, you still win the game by accusing and outing yourself as the killer. In what world does that make sense?

Risk
This will be a divisive one, I'm sure, much like the game itself. I personally dislike Risk, but accept that there are those that enjoy it. The main reason I'm including it on this list is because the length of play is disproportionate to the depth of the game. Even if you enjoy Risk, there are other games out there which can give you an similar-but-better experience and play in about the same time. Game of Thrones springs to mind, whether you're into the setting or not. Heck, even Twilight Imperium would be better if you have 10 hours to spare (and if you were thinking of playing Risk, you had better!). 

Pictured: Actual Risk players.
Photo credit: Tambako The Jaguar, Licensed under Creative Commons

Those who know me well know that I have no problem with long games (hell, they're usually the ones that I enjoy the most), but I just think if you're going to invest that much time in a game, you want to have enough depth to match, and Risk is a little too one-dimensional and swingy for me, but maybe that's just down to personal preference. Also, for that length of game, I prefer I different approach to player elimination. While in games like Game of Thrones and Twilight Imperium, it is perfectly possible to eliminate other players, doing so is not necessary for the game to end, and doesn't seem to happen all that often. This means that there is more sustained interactivity for everyone who is putting the time in.

This is weirdly apt for the time, but should also 

be the fate of all Risk players everywhere.

Monopoly

This is it. The big one. 

I know I'm not alone in my hatred of Monopoly. It's another one that people often seem to love as a holdover from their childhood. But no, it's a horrible game in just about every way. If I weren't making this list, I could still write a whole post on everything that's wrong with Monopoly and feel like it was time well spent. If you are a parent, or close relative of young kids, please please please don't play Monopoly with them. There is a vast number of more worthy, rewarding, and educational games out there.

Where to start? First, the simple one; as with Risk, the playtime is waaaaay out of whack with the depth of the game. Speaking of depth, here we have Monopoly's big flaw - playing it is absolutely no fun. If you play it 'optimally', it is stagnant - almost entirely non-interactive. You buy every property you land on, do not, under any circumstances, sell them, and only trade them if it's significantly beneficial for you. If everyone's playing that way, it's quite hard to get anywhere. Outside of your turn, there is little or nothing for you to do, leaving you with lots of downtime.

What about strategy? Well, if I told you that the orange properties were the ones which were landed on most often (thanks to their placement in relation to the Jail area), what would you do with that information? Well, nothing really, since you can't control where you land, and you should be buying every property you can anyway. The game is totally lacking in meaningful decision points, which makes it, if you'll pardon the pun, 'strategically bankrupt'.

So say we all...

Then there's the little things. So many variant house rules for this game seem to exist, putting fine money under Free Parking being the most prevalent. Though here's the thing - while that seems like a cool thing to do, making a generally dead space on the board more meaningful, it just makes the game run longer by increasing the amount of money in circulation among the players, and can either bring someone back from a losing position (prolonging the game even further) or further polarise the game by increasing someone's leading position. Way to make a bad game even worse.

I think I've got most of my bile for this game out of my system, for now, so I'll leave you with this gem. According to Hasbro, the longest game of Monopoly every played lasted 1,680 hours. That is two and a third months, or approximately 210 games of Twilight Imperium. Just remember that next time someone invites you to play.

What would you put on this list? Which of these games do you still love? Why do you hate Monopoly? Sound off in the comments.

What I'm excited about from E3 2014

Edit: I blatantly missed one of the big ones
Evolve

How this one slipped me by yesterday, I don't know, especially since I had been following all the news. The newest title from the team behind Left 4 Dead, Evolve looks pretty interesting. It's a 4 v 1 multiplayer game with a team of hunters versus some giant, hulking monster, with the added bonus that the planet's flora and fauna also seem to be trying to kill you. This looks genuinely exciting, but I feel it will have the caveat that most of these games have - the ceiling for fun will be strictly reserved for when you can fire this up with 4 friends, and I don't think that that will be quite often enough. It might also get repetitive, but Left 4 Dead generally managed to overcome that.

Rise of the Tomb Raider (2015)

Scant few details on this yet, but I'm pretty stoked. I found Tomb Raider (2013) to be unexpectedly brilliant, and it held up magnificently when I replayed it a few weeks ago. Plenty of room for screw ups, I guess, but I have high hopes, bolstered by the fact that, as I infer from Twitter, at any rate, Rhianna Pratchett will be returning to write it.

Alien: Isolation

I haven't been following this one too closely, but we're about due for another decent Alien game. Seriously, it's such a great IP, it's difficult to imagine how any competent studio couldn't produce at least a passable game from it if given half a chance (*cough* cheap shot *cough*). It looks innovative enough it it's approach it will at least be interesting to watch as it develops.

Batman Arkham Knight

No colons here. This is an easy win for me. I've loved every instalment in the series so far, including Arkham Origins, produced by a different studio. At worst, if they just clone the gameplay from any of the previous ones, I'll still be happy, so don't necessarily trust my opinion here. The gameplay teaser trailer was interesting, though the (admittedly extremely narrow) snapshot of the writing and voice acting sounded a little off to me. Still, can't go too far wrong. Let's just hope it doesn't live up to my recent pedigree regarding delayed games.

Mass Effect 4

Again, the details are basically non-existent, but I have almost total faith in Bioware, assuming EA don't get their grubby paws too far into the honey-filled genie bottle.

Grand Theft Auto V

...on PC. Most of the news outlets have been focussing on the 'on PS4' angle, but I'm a PC purist when it comes to GTA. One of my greatest regrets about Rockstar is that they may never publish the unparalleled Red Dead Redemption on PC.

Grim Fandango Remastered

I never got to play the original, but any case where old LucasArts games are being remade is an automatic win, as far as I'm concerned.