Reviews 28 - Shut Up & Sit Down

Review: The X-Wing Miniatures Game

We’ve got some continuity to sort out after last week’s sci-fi special, but let’s sort out another bit of continuity first.

Almost two years ago Quinns sat down to write this review of the X-Wing Miniatures Game core set. Today, Paul joins him in the stifling cockpit of internet television for a review of the game proper.

HUGE thanks to our fans at Industrial Light & Magic for providing that intro sequence. We were skeptical at first when they asked for literally all of our donation money, but the results speak for themselves.

Enjoy, everybody!

So Mars is under attack from Reiner Knizia, right, and Team SU&SD are the only ones who can stop him. We also welcome back Susie Pumfsk, and Brendan is an alien!

Look, don’t ask questions. Basically we had too much sugar and when we regained our senses we’d filmed this extra-special episode, featuring reviews of Infamy, Time’n’Space AND Rex: Final Days of an Empire, with time to spare for a re-review of Netrunner (original review here).

Huge thanks to Rachel Leipacher for her vocal stylings and to Team Covenant for their sexy Netrunner footage. And everybody, beware of Knizia. Even if some of his games are suspiciously good, he’s still out there. Watching. Waiting. Mathsing.

Thanks so much, everybody!

(Donor note! This is the second of our super-videos, promised in the stretch goals of our first donation season. Did you miss the first, our Megagame Special? Definitely don’t miss that! That would be awful. — Team SU&SD)

Industriousness! Caution! Precision! Forethought! Patience! All skills vital to construction work that we don’t have. Surely then, an architecture game that we like must have done something wrong?

Or maybe not. Blueprints is a clean design, constructed by professionals. Does your collection have space for a small game of building tiny little structures, out of dice? Let’s be honest, now. How could it not?

UPDATE: It had to happen eventually. We got one of the rules for Warhammer Diskwars partially wrong. We played the game again with the correct rules and you can find how that went here, though it didn’t change Quinns’ mind hugely. Apologies to everyone involved!

Today Quinns takes Warhammer: Diskwars out for a spin, the thinnest miniatures wargame a round. But will it be flippin’ great? Or wheely bad? Or just worth giving a quick whirl? We have to know! The world revolves around board games, after all.

OK, that’s all I got. And something tells me I’m still going to get shown up in the comments.

It’s not hard to catch SU&SD’s eye. An award on your box will do it. Or a panda! Or the colour pink. Or three-dimensional components. Or an inlay with phallic slots. In offering all five at once, though, Takenoko could have been made for us.

Is it a good Opener, though? The perfect game to open a friend’s mind to the wonders of board gaming like you were opening a cheap tin of brain-beans? Tell us, Matt! We have to know.

Are you ready for the most half-arsed impersonation of explorers Lewis & Clark the internet has ever seen? We’ve got you covered. We’ve also got a lengthy review of much-hyped board game Lewis & Clark, on the off chance you come here for the board game reviews.

It’s an interesting game, though. In a year when fantastic eurogames are coming thick and fast, like hail in the Great Plains, this one looks pretty enough to make a name for itself. But does it have that frontier spirit? Quinns will let you know. Probably. Assuming he doesn’t get distracted and start talking about sodding Timeline again.

For literally our entire lives, Paul and I hadn’t played Mice and Mystics. Then we played Mice and Mystics. Then it was out of stock!

But this month will see a new printing of the much-discussed game scurrying onto shop shelves the world over. A game of daring-do and wild adventure! A story of tiny heroes with huge hearts. A tale… of cheese.

And so it was written that Shut Up & Sit Down would perform “The Review”, and take a quick peek at Mice and Mystics: Heart of Glorm, too.

What’s this? Looks like your donations weren’t enough, everybody. Paul and Quinns are now moonlighting as space marines. No way this could go wrong! Especially not in the spooky space-lanes of Theseus: The Dark Orbit.

This was one of the trickiest reviews we’ve done in some time. If we have any designers reading this, do you think you could make your games a little less distinctive, nuanced, rich and basically a bit worse? As critics, we’d really appreciate it.

EDIT: Audio gremlins now fixed!

The Opener is back with another perfect game to start your board game night, your collection, or set your friends down the Cardboard Path. It’s Pandemic and penicillin! Meaning a whiskey cocktail called a penicillin. Going to your friends’ house and eating their mold colonies is not only unpalatable, it’s quite rude.

It might sound less attractive than Skull & Roses with fresh pizza, but you haven’t lived until you’ve had a great game of Pandemic. Catching that redeye flight to Seoul, praying you can prevent an outbreak? Driving around Africa, crates of your precious cure rattling around in the back of your jeep? That’s the good stuff, and it gets even better with Pandemic: On the Brink, and even more nightmarish with Pandemic: In the Lab.

G’wan! Treat yourself and pick up a copy. No other game is this tense and rich, and yet this accessible.

So many games feature dice, but so few capture the thrill of gambling. Why is that?

The answer is, of course, to just buy Machi Koro and shout “WHO CARES!” right in your friend’s face while buying a fourth bakery. Though if you’re looking for a dazzling little economic card game for 2-4 players, we’ve also taken a look at Splendor… and a look back over our shoulder at Mundus Novus.

Wow! On reflection, we really do make your lives difficult, don’t we?

Review: The X-Wing Miniatures Game

The Second Sci-Fi Special

Review: Blueprints

Review: Warhammer Diskwars

The Opener: Takenoko and a Hot Toddy

Review: Lewis & Clark

Review: Mice and Mystics

Review: Theseus

The Opener: Pandemic, Expansions & Penicillin

Review(s): Machi Koro Vs. Splendor

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