Right out the gate, Gears of War: The Card Game has a hill to climb. Steamforged Games’ take on this Xbox franchise is always going to be fighting for ground against Fantasy Flight’s 2011 Gears of War board game. That fantastic dungeon crawler was one of many classic titles birthed by the FFG studio during…
Christopher McDowall’s The Doomed is a piercing guitar riff. Something distorted and fuzzy, cutting through a smokey room and blasting eardrums with ferocity. It’s ugly and unclean. It’s heavy. The Doomed is part of the modern wave of agnostic miniatures games that have become increasingly popular in the past decade. Games of this style trace…
Space Marine: The Board Game is nothing like Space Marine the video game. Contrary to that rich over-the-top digital release, this product is a stripped-down ruleset that is vaguely reminiscent of the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop experience. It’s 40K LaCroix. If you cock your head toward the North and take a deep breath, you get a…
Borderlands: Mister Torgue’s Arena of Badassery is a long and absurd title. It’s not snappy or easy to remember. By all accounts, it fits the content. This is a cooperative skirmish game that is absolutely over-the-top. It features a somewhat complex ruleset that will furnish some first-time jitters and take effort to get right. The…
The Binding of Isaac: Four Souls is a card game adaptation of the hit indie video game series of the same name. If you’re ambivalent to the concept or have no idea what any of this means, just say no. There’s nothing here for you. If you’re a Binding of Isaac fan, perhaps even someone…
The Snap Ships toy line is a neat creation. They’re spacecraft built of modular blocks that link together, not unlike Lego. There are cool bits such as cannons, missile pods, various wings, and all kinds of little greeblies to add distinction. They’re totally rad and a joy to tinker with. Look, I’m a 38-year-old man…
Tim Armstrong’s Imperial Miners is of a new style. It shares the approach of contemporary engine-builders Jump Drive and Earth, inverting the modern Euro paradigm of scarcity and instead offering abundance. This is a game that just buries you in gold and then sets you free to earn points. Refreshingly, it requires only a modest…
TITLE SCREEN RESIDENT EVIL That start sequence still echoes through my subconscious. It inspires nostalgia with an undercurrent of dread. Resident Evil is one of the best horror video games ever produced and it proved a monumental hit on the original Playstation. It continues to find success as the series has seen many of its…
Inheritors is sort of a blur of a game. It’s ostensibly about factions in conflict over the inheritance of a recently vacated throne. But this isn’t King Lear. It’s not evocative or dramatic or even ambitious in expressing its themes. Rather, it’s a system flush card game whose principal elements are found on the perimeter.…
There’s nothing more revolting than modern politics. That is, from the perspective of people living in the real world where policy causes suffering and disagreement often leads to violence. But politics in games? Well, that’s something entirely different. Politics, as played out on the tabletop, is gripping, reflective, and devoid of actual repercussions. It’s purer…
Player Elimination 