Game: Bioshock Infinite: The Siege of Colombia

Players: 2 or 4

Publisher: Plaid Hat Games

Playtime(setup/play/clean-up): 150 minutes

Set Ending: Yes

TL;DR– Smart, interesting twists on a standard war game. 92.5 %

How You Play: Think Risk+ on  3-D rails.  In this game you take the rolls of either the Founders of Colombia or the Vox Populi.  Turns involve revealing a victory condition, voting on a new option for the players/upkeep, buying new units/structures, then moving and battling.  This continues until the event deck ends or someone has ten points.  Each turn you get a hand of five cards that give you additional options and are spent for votes, money, or point in battle/abilities.  While all this is going on, Booker is running randomly through the city destroying all of your hard work as he move to get the girl and whip away the debt.

Mechanics:  The mechanics of this game are a mix of some newer ideas in the gaming world.  Players have a deck of cards that give votes/battle points/money that you draw from.  This deck gives a new mix to the basic Risk idea of place people/roll dice.  Also, since you NEVER have less than five cards, you don’t have a runaway victor problem.  Also interesting is the fact that when you win a vote you become first player.  I almost didn’t want to be first player because I want to react to what my opponent did!  Really complimenting the theme through mechanics is the upgrade system.  Each time you win a fight, get first player, or a few other  things, you get to upgrade your cards.  This gives you more money, votes, attack, or unlocks a special ability on a card.  Also, preventing runaway victor is you cannot have three more upgrades than your opponent.  Games that auto-balance show elegance in design!  Fights are a simple die rolls by building a die pool based on the number and type of  people in each attack.  A problem here is the winner can never choose who to destroy in an attack.  I would have liked a card power that allows this, but it’s a small problem over all.  A final mechanic that reflects a part of the game is the skyline.  Since you can only move one space over land and only move four people, troop movement is critical.  However, you can skyline as many spaces as you want.  When you do, you roll three dice and look for thumbs up.  If not, you have to discard cards to keep your unit you are trying to move.  Can’t?  Then your unit dies.  In my play through, I underutilized this and it cost me the game.  Just like in the video game, you can move behind your enemy’s battle lines and wreck his day!  The random deck of events and victory cards also gives a nice flavor to this game as well as the random timeline cards for Elizabeth.  Lots of replay in a well thought out war game.  I just wish it was more than two or four player.  4.5 /5

Theme:  This game oozes theme.  Plaid Hat was handed the keys to the kingdom and got the basis for a great video game and they ran with it.  Everything feels like it’s in the world of Bioshock.  Nothing is out of place.  The power-ups in the game make appearances as cards that tip battles just like the game.  Bookers/Elizabeth’s random movements feel like two people moving through a world as you and your friend battle over it.  Every piece of the game feels like it belongs.  It feels like it’s 1910 in this box.  5/5

Art/Components:  Everything in the box belongs.  The money looks like video game money.  The first player token is big and great.  The board looks good, although it is a bit cramped and I wish the lines between places were a different color to help delineate the different areas.  I wish some of the art was a bit different as some things only differ between the two sides in that they are either red or blue.  Also, Plaid Hat likes to sculpt different looking figures for units, but the units do not really differ.  It’s a nice touch, but I want the different figures to do something different, but they all roll the same simple die.  Besides that, I left the game happy, and I don’t really like war games.  I’d play this again   4.5/5

Instructions:  The game has good instructions.  Some events make understanding what happens a pain for order of operations.  Here’s an example:  I used a card that removed a card from my enemy’s deck.  He also used the same card.   My card happened first as I was attacking.  Then his card happened and he removed my remove card I just played.  Did my card happen?  There are a few corner cases where events get strange.  Besides not covering the strange corner cases, the rule book is pretty good and well laid out.  Also, BONUS POINTS FOR VIDEO OF HOW TO PLAY!    4.5/5

Final Thoughts:  All be honest, when I first saw this game, I thought it was a cash grab by both the game designer and the video game developer.  Having played this game, I have to happily say I was wrong.  This is an awesome game of sup’ed up Risk with hands down better mechanics and story.  I loved my play through.  The game feels like it’s a new game set in a world I love.  If you hate randomness in your battles, then you will hate this as dice rolls DO play a large part of the combat.  But, there is so much more to this game.  Smart tactics in three dimensions.  Clever deployment of troops, structures, and upgrades.  Political discussions that give you advantages but drain your recourses down the line.  I just wish I could use this with more people!  92.5%

Publisher-Paizo

Price – ~$13

 

TL;DR-Great, well-done book, but you have to ask yourself if you will EVER use it- 98.75%

 

Art-Basic Pathfinder art.  If you like what they’ve put out before, you will like this too.  Well-done, clean, and non-obtrusive. 5/5

 

Mechanics or “Crunch”-This book is basically a well done splat book.  It adds to your character’s options pretty comprehensively.  Something to note, most of the book focus on divine characters.   There are non-divine options in the back, but much of the front of the book is spent focusing on giving divine options for each major god.  However, if you will not use the Mythic rules, this is not the book for you. 2.5/2.5

 

Story or “Fluff”-Well done again with an asterisk.  If you want more divine stuff, this is the book.  Learn about your gods and how you came from them.  Great.  If you want to be something non-divine, there is not as much for you.  This is right in the description of the book, so no surprises, but still a little disappointed. 2.25/2.5

 

Execution- This book has a nice, clean Pathfinder setup that really helps with finding anything as well as deciding if you need this book right from the front of the book.  If you like the previous books like I did, this is well done. 5/5

 

Book Quality- Again well-done.  Nice glossy paper with good binding and no ink smearing. 5/5

 

Final Thoughts-This is a good companion book.  My only problem is I will NEVER use this book since I usually play Pathfinder Society which doesn’t use Mythic rules.  I know this going in, so I’m not surprised.  I would want a bit more non-divine fluff/cruch, but all my negative comments are basically small things.  Well done, just make sure you are going to use this book before you buy it!  98.75%

 

Game: Elder Sign expansion Unseen Forces

Players: 1-8

Playtime(setup/play/clean-up): 60 minutes

Set Ending: Kind of

TL;DR- A fun game expansion that’s worth it only if you like the first game.  85%

How You Play: Think Cthulhu Yahtzee.  Players take the roles of different investigators in a museum trying to prevent the emergence of an old one.  Players roll dice on six different spaces trying to meet all the dice needs of a spot.  Can’t make a roll based on the what’s on the space?  Then you lose a die.  A player keeps playing until he rolls all the needed symbols or he/she can’t succeed.  Player keep playing until they get enough elder signs to seal away the evil or until the evil arises and kills them all.  The expansion adds new places, new evil monsters/ grand enemies, and the blessed/ cursed dice.

Theme: This game is a alternating awesome and horrible at theme.  On the grand scale, I feel Lovecraft through and through.  Each game feels tense and your life is on the line.  HOWEVER, no game is really that different.  The places that come up don’t change between Cthulhu or Yig.  The enemies you fight don’t really matter if its Azathoth or  Yog-sothoth.  And the events are a random pile of anything.  This isn’t bad, but its American style.  Its easily fixed, but that’s for down below.  2/5

Mechanics:  Roll dice, look at card, repeat.  That’s it. If you can play Yahtzee, then you can play this.  Nothing is too crazy.  The cards help when you need them.  Nothing seems overly broken.  Its hard, but its the kind of came where you cheer each other on as you lose as a group.  The expansion add just more stuff to play with.  I like the new mechanics of baring places from the players for the game.  5/5

Art/Components:  It’s Fantasy Flight, so it’s good.  Also, for a simple card and dice game, you get a crap ton of stuff.   5/5

Instructions:   Again, it’s Fantasy Flight, so it’s good.  And, the game just isn’t that hard to explain.  Even the added curse/bless die is pretty easy to figure out and comes with its own cards to help.  5/5

 

Final Thoughts:   If you like Arkham Horror and Elder Sign, then this is an auto add.  There is no question.  The new stuff is great, and the stuff they did add makes me pretty happy.  Its a bit more challenging, but I almost never lost the old game.  The theme is still the major problem as with the base game.  This won’t make you  instantly love the game, but it will give you some more hours with the game if you do love it. 17/20-85%

The Fix for Theme-There is a crap load of small cards and locations.  Why not label them with different icons.  Then have each elder thing have a icon list for me to make the decks with, exactly like Mansions of Madness?  Now the game I play drags me kicking and screaming into something!  Done and done!  Then you get a 100% rating from me!  Speaking of a game that does that a bit more….

And now the second review!

Game: Elder Sign: Omens

Players: 1

Playtime(setup/play/clean-up): 20 minutes

Set Ending: Kind of

TL;DR- An excellent iOS/Android game!-90%

How You Play: See above!  It plays almost exactly like the real game.  AND THAT IS AWESOME!

Theme: Remember above when I got mad and I wanted a smaller pool of cards for each monster?  THIS GAME HAS IT.  The card pool is limited for each monster.  Its not perfect because no cards directly reference the big bad, but its a hell of a lot more.  Also if you play a bit more, you get games that are crazy full of theme as you go after Cthulhu in a separate game board entirely!  4/5

Mechanics:  Roll dice, look at card, repeat.  That’s it.  It was awesome before, its awesome now!  I with I could go back a bit and look at some of the cards in my hand when I make some decisions on the iPad, but that’s an iPad/android  problem.  It’s caused me a make a few mistakes and cost me a game or two.  4.5/5

Art/Components:  Use many of the in game art stuff from the board game and adds excellent sounds! Creepy as all hell. 5/5

Instructions:   It’s got video walkthroughs. DONE AND DONE!  5/5

 

Final Thoughts:   If you like Elder Sign, then this is an auto buy.  There is no question.  Get the expansions because they are worth it!  Great game, with lots of theme.  New game modes for the expanded old ones.  Great graphics and music.  FANTASTIC! 17/20-92.5%