z22
5721
Hah, I made the exact same New Years Resolution. It lasted until mid January when I bought Axis & Allies, and similarly to you, I bought Space Cadats and Exodus. Oh well. GAME ON!!!
=)
I have Railways of the World coming, along with 1989: Dawn of Freedom making the shipping free.
We have really enjoyed Ticket to Ride, but I want a train game that you are BUILDING the railroad. This one looks to be the ticket (to ride). Ok, that was bad, I know.
1989? I really enjoy Twilight Struggle. This one looks like more of the same, but different.
All in all, really excited for either tomorrow or monday!!
I completely agree about that from pretty much every reviewer this day.
Played Archipelago last night. What a mess of a rule book. The game was actually very interesting. Vote is still out and I’m not sure if I like the traitor aspect or not seems very powerful as my British friend (who is always a traitor in the games) just sat back and refused to do anything and was able to win by essentially not playing the game.
Tom Vasel actually gave an angry, scathing review of Shadow Era a few days ago, which threw its fans into a frenzy on their forums, with all kinds of nasty insults being sent Tom’s way.
I think it’s because of those kinds of reactions that a lot of reviewers tend to avoid giving overly negative reviews.
serling
5725
Holy shit. I have never seen Tom that pissed before. Scary.
It does have a very “who pissed in your Cheerios?” vibe to it, and I’m a guy who frequently suspects urine in his breakfast cereal.
To review the review:
You don’t start a review of a game’s qualities by complaining about boring flavor text. Theme can act as icing on a good game, but it’s secondary to the core mechanics. There are a lot of well-regarded games which are deficient in theme.
From Vasel’s review, the only salient bad thing is terribly written rules. His complaint about the rest of the system is that it’s not original. That gets you a 2/5 score (or maybe 7 on the 7-9 scale), but not a 1/10.
Maybe there’s more to dislike. I haven’t played it, and never will, since as a recovering Magic junkie, I hate the CCG money sink with a passion. But I’ll never know from Vasel’s review. My impression from what he says is that it’s merely pedestrian, not actively bad. There are lots of really awful games out there that are considerably worse than pedestrian.
It’s particularly weird since, as others have said here, Vasel seems insufficiently critical of most games.
Agreed. He was practically shaking. Honestly it was kinda odd.
ShivaX
5728
I like how the thread in their forums says everyone should go over and downvote and "This guy apparently has a fan base ".
And there are only 60 downvotes.
Pretty sure Tom has more than 60 fans.
As far as him getting pissed. I don’t really have an issue with it. Its a money grab game. He thinks it hurts the hobby. Hes slightly invested in said hobby. So he’s pissed. It looks boring as shit and bland to me.
I don’t agree with Tom on everything by any means, but I think I’d agree with him on this one.
As it happens, I downloaded Shadow Era on Android last week. It is derivative and not particularly exciting to play. But Tom is right in saying that the app version (be it on iOS or Android) is reasonably slick. You can learn by going through the tutorial and watching the AI opponent play, which helps. Still takes a few games to grasp what the mechanics they don’t explain are though.
It’s not a great game. But it’s free and will pass the time with decent card battles. I’m not planning to spend any real money on it though.
If I had to pay for the physical version and deal with those rules, on top of the game not being great, I have to say I would not be very pleased with my investment. But as an app, it’s worth a try.
Wendelius
What drove me nuts about Shadow Era was the fact that a lot of the basic art on the cards looked very much like the first couple of sets from the World of Warcraft TCG. Nothing that would get them in trouble, mind you… but the layout and organization certainly aped the WOW cards.
That’s a fine opinion to have (and one I mostly agree with, though some of my favorite games in my library are there due to how they implement their theme), but Tom Vasel would definitely not agree with it. If you watch his reviews, he’s pretty clear that theme is really high on his list of important qualities for games. There’s a reason most of the Euro games Dice Tower reviews are reviewed by other guys.
Tom is famous for throwing Vasco da Gama off a roof because the theme was so dry and overdone. :D
That he prioritizes theme over gameplay routinely just reinforces the idea that he’s a bad reviewer.
I like theme, and one reason that I didn’t bring Lords of Waterdeep along to the last Christmas gathering was it felt way, way too abstract to me. Yet if we examine the extreme ends of the spectrum, a game can be an excellent game with no theme at all, but if it’s pure theme and crappy game mechanics, it’s still a bad game. Poker, Bridge, and Chess aren’t bad games because they lack theme. If you dressed up Candyland with a Star Wars theme, it would still be a bad game.
serling
5734
Man, I had a blast playing Space Alert this weekend. One of the absolutely best co-op board game experiences I’ve ever had.
In one hilarious instance, we were trying to get around one of the advanced simulation scenarios from the rules. It went swimmingly - way too professional and coordinated for it to last. And naturally, it didn’t take very long before it all went to shit.
We were basically taking down internal and external threats left and right, with minimal margin. We took some hits, but everything was planned and calculated. Then, during the last phase, one of our key members played a wrong card! He mistook a blue and a red arrow, suddenly finding himself on the other end of the ship. It was the only mistake he made, so he was actually executing everything according to plan - except, he was doing it from the wrong section.
It cost us the round, but man, what a hilarious moment, tracing his actions step by step, as he ran off into the starboard side of the ship, firing cannons at a giant meteor that was on a whole other trajectory. Awesome.
Can’t wait for our next session.
I like theme a lot. I’ve played a ton of games and can once over some mechanics and get a good idea of whether or not I’m going to like them in a game. I like Tom’s reviews because he shows the mechanics and I can look at them and see if I will like them coupled with his review which will cover the FEEL of the game, including the theme, with some discussion about what he liked and didn’t like about the mechanics. So, for me, he is a good reviewer. Obviously he’s popular, so I’m thinking I’m not alone.
z22
5736
I’ve seen every Tom Vasel video and listened to every one of his podcasts. He’s more than fair when it comes to theme and gameplay. Bottom line, reviews are opinions and we all have them.
Played Eclipse with the Rise of the Ancients expansion yesterday. Besides a couple of players that simply can’t pay attention to who is next, dragging a 2 to 3.5 hour game into the 6-7 hour area, the game is great. This is one expansion that drastically improves the game without changing the core gameplay.
6 hours of reminding a couple of players TO TAKE THEIR TURN EVERY DAMN TIME wore me out though. I just don’t get people who are so easily distracted that they can’t pay attention to a game to know it’s their turn. /rant :p
hepcat
5737
Nope, you’re not alone. He’s only a bad reviewer when he doesn’t like a game someone else does, I’ve found.
I may disagree with some of his reviews, but I’ve always found them fair. I also watch Rodney’s series of Watch it Played videos. They’re less review and more instructional, but sometimes that’s all I want.
In case you were looking for the GMT website recently it was actively taken down by a direct Denial of Service attack where it was apparently the only intended target. It may be awhile before it’s back up, and in any event they have to change ISPs. Nasty blow for them.
— Alan
Tom_Mc
5739
A DoS on GMT? What did they do to piss someone off? The company always seemed pretty decent to me. I think these are the guys that had a free game for unemployed gamers deal. I’ll need to do my homework on that but GMT has always been good with online support, vassal modules, rules, etc. It’s a shame that they would get targeted.
Tom M
Tom_Mc
5740
Found a Forbes article on that games for the unemployed deal.
Tom M
