Burinating the Peasants!

gianthay

When I was a kid I used to watch British wrestling on Saturday mornings. Giant haystacks eh.. Other fellas and that was grand and dandy. It was a diversion, I knew it was all made up and I was nonplussed by the whole thing

Now I have some gaming buddies* who LOVE wrestling or more accurately watching others do it OR they did like wrestling when they were younger. I never really got it maybe that’s why I’m nonplussed by luchador. It could also be that it’s a bit too simple and samey or a couple of games are not enough to appreciate it. Either ways it’s not beeping my jeep

Luchador is a dice based combat game where wrestlers duke it out in a small cardboard ring WWE style. It’s small, portable and fairly cheap. It’s ok. It’s just ok. Bit like bread ,grand but nothing to get exited a about

lucador
You can play tag team matches too which is the standard game plus a couple of extra rules for tagging out. When I see rules written like you must high five or it doesn’t count I groan internally

Each round players simultaneously throw four wrestle dice onto the ring which is around 10″ square or if you think in metric 10″ square go google a conversion

The idea is to land your dice inside the ring and hopefully knock your opponents out. Only dice in the ring count. There is Zero skill in this just blind luck

The dice have a number of sides

Hit
Miss
Pin
Block
Counter

Misses miss. Counters change an opponents hit into one for you. Blocks block a hit and pins can happen if the opponents energy is low enough.

You can reroll pins.

Get a hit and you roll a damage dice and hopefully reduce your opponents energy a bit. Get two hits and you can roll a special move that May or may not do a lot of damage.

The game comes with a number of wrestlers all of which are slightly different to each other insofar as Duff original, Duff lite and Cherry Duff are different to each other

I would really like someone to tell me I’ve played this wrong or there’s an advanced set of rules that make it better but for me anyhoe I wasn’t gone on it. I thought it was as skillful as a national lottery game and just plain dull.

I’m sorry but not for me

I can barely Huzzah!

Vic

July 30, 2014 0

Snake in the grass

I’ve played some bad games in my time. I’ve often bought some honkers of games but it’s certainly been a while. Snake oil is a return to bad form. It stinks. Really really stinks. Two games is more than enough for a lifetime. One is bad. I played it twice. I’ll never get that ten minutes back

The idea is fine. You play the part of a snake oil salesman and try to use a combination of two single word cards from your hand of six to pitch a sale to another player. Players take it in turn to be the customer by drawing a customer card which sets them in the role of a Student, Builder, Policeman or some such. Having listened to each pitch they decide who’s was best and that player scores a point. Yes you can see the canyon like flaw in the rules. It’s not a hidden pitch nor can it be

I remember playing a game called scruples donkeys years ago and it was the same sort of thing and just as much dog shitty as this

I can’t help but feel a few things would make the game better (brain damage being one of them). Maybe if it had an adult theme like cards against humanity. A change to the rules to stop players from blatantly cheating, being able to flog multiple cards to empty your hand. I don’t know

I loved the idea of the game but the execution is terrible. Opening the box was a big “is that it?” moment.

However not one to give up easy, I’m going to try and improve on the game. I really think I can’t make it worse and I’m going to make it a long term project so expect results in the next twenty odd years but I may push that out

Snake oil. Don’t ask for it by name. I’ve saved you buying a turkey. Yes yes we’ll play it next thur

Don’t thank me

Huzzah!

Vic

July 20, 2014 0

RUN! Like a light breeze

Red in the face, puffing and panting and ready to give up and that’s BEFORE I start running. Zombies Run! is a game I’ve had on my phone for ages and only recently got around to playing. It’s clever. At it’s heart it’s a running app but it does it from an angle that will appeal to a gamer. In this case running for your life from packs of zombies.

The game itself consists of a number of episodes which can be set to either half or a full hour. You start off at your own pace and a story plays out where you’ve been sent to a survivors base and wind up becoming a runner for them and have to scavenge resources from the locality. As it plays along a number of characters are introduced and a back story expands. The whole time you’re jogging (or in my case stumbling) speed-ups are introduced to your pace by the appearance of zombies whom you need to outrun by increasing your pace. The program tells you how close they are and a handy sonar type blip lets you know if they’re gaining or you are losing them. A few minutes running is often enough to outpace them.

On your travels you also pick up random items such as medi-kits, food, clothing and so on all of which can be used later in the game. What’s really nice about the app is you never have to touch it while you’re running. It handles your inventory by itself. The story and voice acting is good. We’re not talking James Earl Jones but it’s good enough quality and very believable in the setting. So far the story is interesting and enough mysterious events are introduced to make you want to find out what’s going to happen next.

Items you find in the game can be dropped to distract zombies if you’ve run out of puff and those you keep after you complete a episode can later be used to build and expand able station via a simple farmville type interface.

There’s a number of extras outside of the episodes like a radio station that plays your music as tracks whilst inter spacing it with chat and events, challenges like running to a GPS point and back to recover supply drops and there’s a little bit of multi-player which I need to investigate.

So far it’s early days for me with this, but I’ll do another post on it when I’ve used it a bit more.

All in all I’m really enjoying it. It’s clever. The sounds of zombies closing in as you sprint is exhilarating and how the whole thing fits around your play list of music it very well done. This is my first proper Augmented Reality (AR) game and it’s better than I expected. I have high hopes for this whole area of entertainment. It’s surprising how the brain is fooled into a slightly different reality just through the audio and on the first run I was nearly looking behind me to see if I was being pursued or expecting to see a building that was being described to me as being just around the next corner. I struggle with running, it’s not something I’ve ever been really good at but I do see this as a big help with training. More soon.

Now if you’ll excuse me a pack of zombies are closing in, I have to run

Huzzah!

Vic

July 11, 2014 1

Hiving off work

Try and imagine this review being read in a David Attenborough voice or if you’re too lazy to do that I’ll imagine you are imagining it being read in a David Attenborough voice, either will work fine. It’s about a game called Hive and it’s got bugs in.

If you want to be doubly lazy just skip the next bit and go buy Hive it’s really good, it’s 1v1 btw

Hive has been described as being a bit like chess. I think it’s more a bit like jiu jitsu to be honest (but with way less punches to the head). It’s a Perfect holiday game. Quick. Simple. Cheap Portable and it won’t set off the security scanners leading to uncomfortable squatting and coughing. I’ve brought this with me on holidays for a number of years and it always gets taken out at some stage.

Unlike a lot of other games the theme does match the game. You can picture a big tangle of bugs battling it out complete with cartoon smoke and whiz-lines. Tasmanian devil style. If you’re having difficulty imaging it email me and I’ll image you imaging it and it will all be hunky dory.

The objective of the game is to capture the enemies slow moving Queen by boxing her in on six sides or her hexagonalilty (C) with any combination of friendly and enemy insects. (Yes it’s possible to finish the enemy off evil tyrant style with your queen or draw the game by killing both at once)

Your army of bugs consist of a motley crew ranging from handy (ants) to awkward (spiders) and just like any decent God they can all move in mysterious ways (and by sheer coincidence walk on water).

Each player starts the game with a dozen or so (count them in the picture) insects of various types and takes it in turn adding new insects to the tangle (called a swarm) or moving existing ones around to try and lock down the aforementioned queen. You have a limited amount of bugs on your side so tying up Two or more enemy bugs with One of yours is a good way to get ahead and give you more guys to surround the queen.

The game is VERY easy to learn, the rules could be written on an A6 and one game in you know what’s what. Strategy is another thing, you really need to think ahead and lead your opponent into a trap. It’s a very satisfying game I find as well to win. Most games are very close at the end and it can change quite quickly mid game. It’s also a little bit different, there’s no board, the pieces touch up against each other domino style (the game not the pizza) and there’s a lovely feel to the pieces. It’s available in a number of different materials, wooden, plastic, graphite and sapient pearwood. It’s also available virtually on a variety of platforms and if you keep your eye out it sometimes appears free on steam or the app store

This really is a game worth having, especially good if you have two too many at a games night and don’t want to kick them out.

Try it. Better still come to Knavecon at the end of August and I’ll play a quick game against you and you can see what you think.

Now hopefully Constonopolis this thur, but then again..

Huzzah!

Vic

July 2, 2014 1

Assemble the Fleet!

“But Mum! it DESTROYS anything it runs into, we need it ! “

Wise words from my son (who’s name is not Luke btw). I got to see the Tantive IV and Rebel Transport up close at the weekend, they’re all sorts of awesome. We NEED to have some of these at the next Knavecon for our big X-Wing game.

Being the resourceful gamers we all are, I reckon we can make it happen. I’m putting the word out, anyone who comes to the next Knavecon with a BIG x-wing ship under their arm will get a free Doughnut. There I said it, it’s now law.

I quite fancy an Evacuation of Hoth type scenario on the day. Picture it !

Let’s make it happen!

Huzzah!
Vic

June 3, 2014 2

Steam Streaming Beams

Since a number of boardgames are available on Steam I’m going to talk about something new just launched on that platform and I’m very excited about (I don’t get out much). Streaming.

Recently Steam launched a new feature quietly and matter of factly. Streaming.

There I said it twice so it’s real. Streaming is remotely playing a game on another PC. “So what” says you we’ve been able to remotely access PCs for a long time now. True but it’s never been fast enough to play a game on. Now it is. The only caveat is you need to do it over your local area network. Although I reckon a decent enough internet connection would let you do it remotely remotely too.

It’s all sorts of awesome now that you can open steam on a fairly basic PC/Laptop/Mac and then run a game that you haven’t installed and definitely wouldn’t run on this basic set-up by accessing a kick ass PC somewhere else on the network (Possibly surrounded by flashing lights and dry ice) . This is (pardon the pun) a game changer.

The idea has been around for a while, a few companies have tried it via the web with limited results and remote play via a Sony PSP and a PS3 has been done. So far it’s been limited although a lot of companies have seen the future and tried to make it happen. I think Steam are really onto something. I like Steam, always have since the Half Life 2 days. I wish them the best with this and am curious to see where it goes next when they release their own OS.

The whole thing is so simple, you just install Steam on another PC and login to it. It shows you all the games installed on any machine in the mix and you pick it and hit the stream button, BAM It fires it up on the games machine and you get all the gaming goodness from a safe distance.

If you have Steam installed, try this, believe me you’ll be impressed

Huzzah!

Vic

May 28, 2014 2

Wargaming Ireland

If you’re Warhammer fan, then make a visit to the Wargaming Ireland forum. A lively get together for Warhammer players in Ireland.

“A nice bunch of lads”. (Well a shiver of sharks but still a nice bunch of lads)

http://www.w-ired.org/forum/

April 23, 2014 0

The Coffee Has Landed!

I’m delighted to announce that Pónaire Coffee will once again be the official coffee supplier for Knavecon. Based locally in Annacotty these guys know their beans.

The other thing people remember about the last Knavecon was the coffee, fresh, strong and sharp (just like myself boom boom). I dropped into the guys at the weekend to pick up a Large batch of coffee for next weekend they’d been specially roasting for the event. I just finished a few cups of it and I have to say it most definitely passes muster.

We’ll be serving Pónaire coffee all day Saturday so your sleep is now invalid. Make it your business to call into us in the Kilmurray lodge on the 1st March. Even if you can’t stay for gaming, drop in, have a GOOD coffee and a look around. See you on the day.

Huzzah!

Vic

February 22, 2014 0

The Gathering Limerick coming to Knavecon

“It wouldn’t be a party without the Gathering” (C)

We’re delighted to announce (as if you didn’t know already) that The Gathering Limerick will be once again at Knavecon. Gary and the lads will be there not least of all to defend their honor against Dungeons and Donuts in the big Shop v Shop Netrunner throw down.

The Gathering is one of the oldest game shops in the country. It’s been a bedrock of gaming in the west for longer than I care to remember and it’s gone from strength to strength over the years.

The Gathering is a treasure trove of all things gaming, boardgames, card games, collectibles, Warhammer, Books, Horby, Airfix kits, GW, Paints, Gaming Paraphernalia, you name it the lads have it or can get it for you.

As always the guys are bringing something to the party so if you’re interested in trying out The Game of Thrones Living card game, they’re going to be doing demos of it all day. Better still they’re running a Store Championship the next day after Knavecon in the shop.

These sanctioned events by Fantasy Flight are something special. If you’re a collector it’s the only place you can get some unique game items

If you’re in Limerick make it your business to call to the guys, it’s always worth a trip in not least to shoot the breeze and find out what’s running in the shop. There’s ALWAYS something running in the shop.

https://www.facebook.com/ConclaveLimerickGamingConvention

February 19, 2014 0

An Occasional Good Idea – Gaming Tokens

Occasionally I come up with a good idea, you’ll have to be patient another one isn’t due for a while….

A lot of boardgames we play have coins in them. Usually (with the exception of Age of Empires III) with cheap nasty cardboard coins or worse still flimsy paper notes. I can’t be doing with it. If I’m going to cough up coin for something in a game I want something solid. So here was my plan

I wanted to get a set of coins, metal ones I could re-use in any game. It struck me that there are some really funky real world currencies out there, some with holes in them (check the pic) and some with eagles but unfortunately no dragons (that I know of).

My constraints were

Had to be Cheap
be Cool looking
and be Cheap

I put a post on boardgamegeek and a few people suggested using Mexican or Japanese coins. I was very impressed with BGG, within a short time I had hooked up with someone in Toyko who said he’d send me a stack of coins fresh from the bank in exchange for boring old euros. The exchange rate it very low for Yen.

As it turned out getting money to him was difficult so I got him something else, a set of replacement meeples for a game he had and lo and behold true to his word a stack of yen arrived today.

It’s PERFECT for gaming currency, looks funky, isn’t too heavy but has that nice authentic money feel to it.

Result!

Vic

February 17, 2014 2