Games News! 20/04/15

is anybody else hungry after reading this
Tash Kalar

Paul: Quinns, what is this place?

Quinns: Paul, this is the place I come to every weekend to prepare for Games News. Here they provide only the choicest cuts of gaming information, the freshest servings.

Paul: Quinns, I’m not sure all this stuff is ethically sourced. Look at the menu. There’s a platter of unattributed and speculative announcements, a buffet of Kickstarter links that looks long since spoiled and the soup of the day is just another expansion that nobody’s actually provided any photographs for.

Quinns: But we’re not eating from the regular selection. We’re going into The Back Room, where we can choose our still-squirming news, watch as it’s slain before us and prepared to exactly our parameters.

Paul: That’s horrific! What sort of a place would do such a thing?! Except I guess any seafood restaurant, which is all the proof you’ll ever need that seafood is disgusting and that everyone who enjoys it is bad.

Quinns: Come quickly. They’ve got a table for us.

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Review: Dogs of War

go after him, he's winning, get him, kill his parents, why are you all looking at me
Review: Dogs of War

Quinns: This was meant to be a video review. Alas, my PC overheated. Repair parts are already enroute (thank you, indomitable Gold Club members!) but the show must go on, so I need you guys to imagine everything that follows with the glitz of a fancy video.

Picture the light playing over linen-finished game boxes. My powerful arms cradling components as if they were a baby animal. The caramel baritone of my voice.

You see, it’s important for your board game collection that you take Dogs of War as seriously as possible. It turns out this is a fantastic game. It’s also a terrible, friendship-sundering thing that made me more angry than a game’s made me in months.

Let’s get started. There’s a war on, and you need to pick a side.

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Review: Friday

sex fruit, trilobytes, sticky vines, masayuki uemura's fabulous idea
Review: Friday

Paul: Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday.

Quinns: Paul! I hear that you have recently been playing the Friedemann Friese one player card game called Friday.

Paul: We, we, we so excited.

Quinns: I know it well and actually I thought you’d have some interesting-

Paul: Which seat do I TAAAAKE?

Quinns: DON’T MAKE ME BLOWDART YOU.

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Games News! 13/04/15

Rise of the Phoenixborn

Quinns: Hello and welcome, I hope you’re all ready for another piping hot serving of Games News. Today, we have a double news, in which I’m joined by Paul and we’ll be firing off the news together, manning the News Cannons. Rotating the News Turrets.

Paul: I had to get up very early for this.

Quinns: So shall we dive right in?

Paul: Because of the time difference, it’s 4am in Shut Up & Sit Down’s North American Office and also 1986…

Quinns: Let’s go!

Paul: …I’m using a dial-up modem.

Quinns: First up!

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SU&SD Play… Watch the Skies 2 (Pt. 2)

we'll get you out of there babe, no no, no, no no no don't
SU&SD Play... Watch the Skies 2 (Pt. 2)

OH MY GOD, it’s the thrilling conclusion to our Let’s Play of the largest game anyone’s ever played, ever.

Confused? Find part one here, and find our video of the original Watch the Skies here. Palpitations of excitement? Find sedatives here. And find the actual URL of the music we used here, as we misspelled it in the edit.

If these videos look like they were a whole load of work from a whole lot of people, they were. And we did it for you, personally. Enjoy.

NOTE: If you’re worried about spoilers, probably don’t read the comments first.

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Podcast #27: Japanese Ghost Welfare

STOP! This is the police. You’re under arrest for being in possession of 27th Shut up & Sit Down podcast. I’m afraid it’s very illegal indeed. First there was that scaremongering at the beginning about ghosts in Mysterium. Then they openly discussed how they were underqualified for their work as politicians in the recent Megagame, … Read more

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Games News! 06/04/15

Touchy Feely

(Image courtesy of Daniel Danzer of BoardGameGeek)

Quinns: Good morning everybody! I’m sick again, so expect a more sedate Games News than usual. Hello Lemsip, my old friend. Take me into your sweet lemony embrace. As Sherlock had his needle, I have my fruit-flavoured decongestants.

We start, as always, with the game with the prettiest header image. This time that means upcoming European-style game The Voyages of Marco Polo.

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SU&SD Play… Watch the Skies 2 (Pt. 1)

the olympics, the pope, the horror, the incompetence, we're so sorry Vietnam
SU&SD Play... Watch the Skies 2 (Pt. 1)

Last year, we were invited by the UK Society of Megagame Makers to save the world from aliens in a colossal 60 person game titled “Watch the Skies”. You can see our floundering, corruption and “charm offensives” as the nation of Japan in this video.

This year the Society invited us back for the sequel. With over three hundred players, this would be the most mega megagame ever staged. A game so big that the Pope was not only a player, he had his own team.

Could we save the world from aliens for a second time? Get yourself a hot drink, a comfy chair and find out. Enjoy, everybody! And when you’re done, go and watch part 2 right here.

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Review: Legion of Honor

firm snails, fertile imaginations, cardboard consciousnesses in a rich garlic sauce
Review: Legion of Honor

[We’ve got an unusual review for you this week! Legion of Honor is part wargame, part storytelling game, all labour of love. Images courtesy of BoardGameGeek.]

Thrower: Amongst the carrion on the field of Waterloo lay the body of Major Cholet. He was a favourite of Napoleon, having helped uncover a plot to assassinate the Emperor, but through ill luck, and an unfortunate penchant for duelling, he never managed to translate that favour into promotion to the highest echelons of the French army. Had things been different he might have been remembered as the hero of a famous French victory at Mont St Jean. Instead, his entrails are a feast for the crows.

Still, at least this way he never had to suffer the ignominy of the world realising that he was named after a womble.

This is Legion of Honor, the card game of career soldiering in Napoleon’s Grand Armee. Except that really it’s more of a competitive role-playing, story-telling game with cards. Think Tales of the Arabian Nights, if you took away the Rocs and Sorcerers and replaced them with garrison duty and overbearing Sergeant-Majors.

Like a garlic and gunpowder-smelling Arabian Nights, it’s also a game in which decision making plays a limited part in determining the winner. If your character survives all the way to Waterloo with nary a medal or a franc to his name, he can still win an instant victory by drawing one lucky card from the battle deck. And unlike Arabian Nights, this can happen after nine hours of play, instead of three. So if you dislike the idea of a nine-hour game that can be won by a lucky card in the final turn, walk away now.

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Games News! 30/03/15

Posthuman

Quinns: This Games News is dedicated to Shadow of Nerekhall, the Descent campaign that I finished this weekend. Above you can see my table after the Finale, where the heroes resolutely failed to stop the Overlord’s ynfaernal demons from overrunning the burning city.

Tim? Ian? You fought nobly. May your heroes rest in peace in the plastic bag in my copy of Descent for heroes who have died and can never be chosen again.

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