Maybe not Tom himself, but Sam Healey comes pretty close to my tastes (barring his holy roller Christian condemnation of some stuff). Zee Garcia usually comes off as someone’s Bridge-playing grandma accidentally wandering into their taping.
But man, check out SU&SD’s reviews of Scythe, Eldritch Horror, and Blood Rage if you want to witness reviewers completely missing the point.
I think those are some of their most insightful reviews. I appreciate how they manage to not get taken in by the hype train and present a rounded viewpoint. I particularly agree with them on the overhype of Scythe and the failings of Eldritch Horror.
To each their own. I certainly don’t always agree with their final opinion and have bought and enjoyed games they didn’t recommend (and I am the same with Sam Healey). But the review process which describes the game and the experience of playing it is very helpful to me.
And SUSD puts a lot of thought and content into that, which I find really helpful. With the video above, I know exactly why they don’t think combining the games is a great idea and their concern about a third game coming out next year.
And, honestly Dice Tower and No Pun Included are the same for me. I can also disagree with their conclusions. But I find they all put some effort into telling me what playing the game will be like and how my friends/family are likely to cope with it.
This exactly. I don’t always agree with Tom Chick reviews or SUSD reviews. But I always know why they end up feeling the way they do about a game they’ve reviewed.
Nah, even separated from the final opinion, those reviews were their worst.
Usually they at least give a good impression for the feel of a game, and will try their hardest to explain the appeal of a game and who it’s for even if they ultimately don’t care for it. For god sake they managed to drum up some positives for dull as dishwater stuff like Brass this way.
Their Scythe review gives very little explanation of the game, or its feel. How is the economic cube pushing different from their favorite Terra Mystica? Do you guys even get that’s it’s not a war game? Apparently not if you think Rex is a better substitute.
How is Eldritch Horror any more random than the entire rest of the co-op genre? No mention at all is made how it’s about managing limited strategic resources. To say it’s all theme with no game behind it…did they even play the thing?
I’m not terribly crazy about Blood Rage, but their takeaway was plain wrong that someone runs away with the game early. It took me all of one play to realize that the majority of points come in at the final age and there are huge swings there. Did they play half a game and give up? Who on earth thinks Battlelore is anything like Blood Rage? That’s like saying don’t bother playing Twilight Imperium when you could play Battlefleet Gothic instead.
Tom Vassal would be a pretty great name for a board game AI, though.
I have just accepted that the fine folks at SU&SD are looking for very different things in boardgames than I am. Like they absolutely adore lightweight games about bluffing and lying to your friends and I get absolutely nothing out of that sort of game.
Jeesh. There are other mythos to explore, game designers.
But public domain!
yeah, and to be fair to CMON, they’ve done a few interesting things other than Cthulhu. Other than Moloch, I can’t think of another one.
I have the feeling this public domain thing with the mythos is going to explode at some point. While the mythos themselves are public domain, derivative works of public domain works are protected via copyright. This means stuff like monster design could eventually be covered if original and distinct enough.
Before, with so few people taking advantage of the mythos, it was not an issue, but I’m sure at some point somebody is going to assume something is public domain when it really isn’t. Not going to happen with a big company (that’s what producers are for) but a smaller company can fail the perception test.
I love CMON, but this is a bullshit Kickstarter. They’re really being shitty with this one.
I’m not experienced with physical game kickstarters, what’s the shitty part? Other than Cthulhu world, obviously. It’s the second worst place to set things.
Yeah…it used to be pretty excited to get something Lovecraft-themed. It felt like a very small and rather insular fandom breaking out into the mainstream a little bit.
Now it’s getting as stale and lazy as generic elfy/dwarvy fantasy.
They keep doing this thing where they have this special addition figure and they keep doing 100 at a time, and upping it 5 bucks every time.
Lol that’s the one with the ‘mini’ that’s bigger than a small child eh?
yeah, it’s nuts.
A number of coworkers and I have been playing GMT’s Falling Sky through VASSAL and having a blast.
I tried a different COIN game before (Cuba Libre) with two players and we found it hard to grok but doing a full 4P experience has been awesome. I can definitely see why there are so many fans of this format now.