Reviews 2 - Shut Up & Sit Down

Review: John Company: Second Edition

Holy moly, it’s the big one. In this nearly 50 minute monster, Tom is taking a thorough dive into John Company: Second Edition – a frightfully expansive game with lofty ambitions in both its mechanics and themes. Touching on some truly horrifying, very real history; this game pushes the limits of what can be comfortably represented on your kitchen table. For this reason, we’ve pulled out all the stops to comprehensively cover this beast of a box.

Thank you to so many folks for helping this review come together. My friends who came with me to film at Powis, Matt for his extensive colour-grading work (doesn’t it look lush!), HotCyder for help on these absolutely cracking thumbnails, and the countless people who watched, rewatched, and gave advice on how to put this video together. Thank you also to Cole and Drew, for making such a fascinating and complete work of art that created such complex feelings in most everyone I played it with.

This video has given me a huge amount of professional satisfaction and joy; yet I can only see the flaws in it, at this stage. I’m not upset about this fact, though! This is all a first baby step in making more of these kinds of videos. I’m excited for all the bigger and better videos to come.

Matt: Hello and welcome to The Shut Up & Sit Down 2023 Gift Guide Extravaganza-wham-o-palooza-video! We have got an entire pile of games for you, in a variety of different categories.

Tom: We’ve got so many games… it’s too many! Three categories!

Matt: Hello! My name is Matt from Shut Up & Sit Down, and maybe you want to play a game with your family in the not too distant future.

Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered!

Today we’re going to go through a bunch of games, most of which are available almost all of the time, because we appreciate it’s a pain in the *** when we say “hey, we love these games” and then you go on the internet and they’ve all gone.

Not only that, we are going to be giving you two options for each of our suggestions – we’re going to go with like “Yes! This is a great suggestion, everyone will love this. You cannot go wrong.” And we’re also going to give you a side suggestion for each game that’s a dash more spicy! And what do we mean by that? The second options will be the sort of thing where you start playing with your dad and then halfway through he says “I don’t understand the rules. I don’t like this. I want to go home.” “Dad, you can’t go home. This is your home. We’ve talked about this. And secondly, I love you, but gosh if you don’t understand how the game works just tell us before we get to the end?”

We got a big stack of games here and we’ve categorized them into all the different types of games that you might want to play. So feel free to just watch it all and pick a favorite, or scrub and jump around like an absolute maniac.

This week, Emily gets in the spooky spirit with her review of Phantom Ink. Does this ghostly game of word communication have what it takes to be your next favourite party game? Let’s find out!

Tom and Quinns are BACK with the second part of their double-bill of Reiner Knizia reprints! This week, Bitewing’s re-imagining of Quo Vadis, Zoo Vadis, is up for questioning by our daring duo. Is this the absolute belter of a box it’s cracked up to be? Will the site finally agree on a negotiation game?! And, most importantly, should you buy this… or a game from 1992…

This week we review everyone’s fave local space-orb: MOON. But what is the moon? What does it taste like? Is it better with two or three players? Can a Clanger ever truly know love? None of this and more in today’s vid.

Emily’s SECOND video is a review of Bamboo – the game that asks: ‘Can you make your family happy, with but a rock to your name’?

Review time! Matt is UNWELL and enters a fever-dream realm, loosely tackling a review of EARTH aka SOIL aka MUDTIMES FOR FUN.

This week on the show, Tom and Quinns take on the first in a double-bill of Reiner Knizia classics reprinted by modern publishers! It’s Amun-Re this time – the 2003 Nile-Em’-Up that features “Pyramids”, “Points”, and “Peculiarly Long Acrostic Poems”! The boys also take a minute to talk about the expansions provided by Alley Cat Games in this new 20th Anniversary Edition, as well casting their critical eye over the recent 25th Century Games reprint of Ra. It’s a good one! Enjoy!

It’s the beans game – and a review that’s something of a cursed chalice for team SU&SD – a filming session where seemingly everything went wrong based on half a script excavated from a Google Drive. Bohnanza (and Bohnanza:25th) is a game near and dear to Tom’s heart, and hopefully this fully unhinged first half and ponderous second makes for a compelling case as to why this horrible yellow box deserves a spot in your collection.

Review: John Company: Second Edition

SU&SD’s Christmas Gift Guide 2023

Top 10 Games to Play with Your Family This Christmas

Review: Phantom Ink

Review: Zoo Vadis

Review: Moon

Review: Bamboo

Review: Earth

Review: Amun-Re

Review: Bohnanza

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