Fun for the whole family!

About the game: Pandemic is from Z-Man games and its considered a Co-Operative game. Everyone works together instead of against one another. It came out in 2008 and there is even an expansion out for the game.

Components: There are quite a few components but they are easily organized

- Giant pieces for each player
- Cards for every city
- Different colored cubed tokens to represent the diseases
- Role Cards
- Cardboard pieces representing each of the diseases.
- Little houses representing Research Stations

Gameplay:
The game is pretty simple. You as a team have to cure the four diseases.

Each player takes a role (one of 5), and a piece to represent their role. After the board is set up with the random diseases on x number of cities. Play begins with the person who was most recently sick (a cute addition).

That player can take up to 4 actions on his turn.

Actions:
Moving - Moving a few spaces or flying to a city.
Treating disease - Removing 1 cube of any color from a city your in
Curing disease  - Discarding 5 cards of the same color
Build a research station - Discard a city card, placing a station on that city
Passing cards to another player - Must be in the same city as is on the card

Once that player has taken his actions, he draws 2 cards from the player cards and turns over a certain number of infected cards. Play continues in this way throughout the game.

This is a co-operative game though so everyone is working together to win. You talk with each other to explain what you think will be your best move and then do it. You cannot show each other your hand (other than in your first game). This makes it more difficult to communicate what you have, but its not a huge hurdle.

The Roles all bend some rule in the game, like the Medic can treat all of one type of disease on a city as one action. The Research can give other people cards without having to be on a specific city.

What makes the game interesting is when an epidemic card is drawn from the player cards. At this point a bunch more diseases are put out and the infected cards are put back at the top of the deck. Also the outbreak counter is moved and the infected counter is moved.

The game ends if any of these 3 things occur:

-There are no more cards to draw from the player pile.
-The outbreak counter reaches the skull
-There are no more cubes of a specific color disease to put on the board.

You only win the game if you as a team discover all 4 cures.
 
My Thoughts: This is the perfect family game as everyone is working together. The game comes with 3 levels of difficulty and having only beaten the first level 2 times, I can say the higher levels will be extremely difficult.

The game does not move super quick but its since everyone is involved on every turn this makes it more involved. Also there is an expansion that adds a bit more to the game including making one of the base roles a bit better.

Cost: It costs about $35.

Verdict: This is one of the most unique and fun games I have played. It is very Playworthy!.

Flight Control

About the game: Flight Control is a semi newly released title for download on the DSi. It was previously on various Apple devices.

The premise of the game is you are an air traffic controller and you have to guide all the air vehicles that appear on the screen to a runway or somewhere to land. If you crash the game is over.

Its a casual game that can be played in 2 min but can go for however long you can last.

Controls: You use the stylus to pick an air vehicle and then draw a line to a runway. Pretty simple and intuitive.

Graphics: Nothing special.

Sound: The sound/music of the game has a light feel to it. Like not too intense but it fits the game well.

Gameplay: The game is pretty simple. There are various levels that you choose from. Once you have chosen that level you keep playing it until you lose.

Each level takes place in some area and you have to guide the aircrafts to a runway. This is very simple and easy to start but when you get 12 aircraft on the screen at once, it can get very hectic.

The aircraft will vary from level to level and thats what makes the game interesting. The more successfull landings you pull off the higher your score. 

The only thing the game is missing is a high score list with online capabilities. It have been nice and easily added it seems. Something pretty sweet that I find nice, is you can speed up the gameplay to make it go quicker when there are only a few aircraft on the screen at once.

The game was 5 bucks which is not exactly cheap but is not too bad for how long you can potentially play the thing.

Verdict: Playworthy  

Is it a Small World after all?

As everyone knows I am a pretty avid Videogame player, as evidence by this blog. To go along with that I also enjoy boardgames quite a bit. Not the casual type of boardgame/cardgame, but the real ones. I am going to change it up a little by reviewing a board game. So bear with me while I review:

About the game: Small World is a reimplementation of an old game called Vinci by the same creator (Philippe Keyaerts). I never did play the game, but I heard it was a bit more complicated that small world but still very fun.

The story behind the game is there is a world that is too small for the vast amount of races. You play as a race that you pick and use troops to conquer the board. Each race comes with a random special power that will help you do a variety of things.



Components: The game comes with a ton of components. Here is just a small list of them

Boards x2

Cardboard cutouts x 40

Troops (what you use to conquer regions) x too many to count

Other pieces
Victory coins that come in denominations of 1,3,5,10 also too many to count

Thankfully the game comes with a nice box to store it all.
Even with that box it is a pain to take out the troops. I have been looking for a good replacement that is not too expensive and have been unsuccessful at this time.

Gameplay: The game is pretty simple to explain, but hard to master and there are complications when it comes to how certain races/powers work together.

Everyone starts with 5 victory coins and there are 5 races/powers sitting on the side of the board. If you pick one at the top of the line then you just take it. If you pick one at the bottom you have to put a victory coin on each of the ones you passed over.

After you have picked your race you get the number of tokens equal to the total written on the race/power pieces.

First Turn:
Your first time conquering something, you have to come in at the edge of the board. You have to pay 2 tokens, plus however many tokens are on the region you wish to conquer.You place the required number of tokens on the region. From there you have to conquer adjacent regions always paying 2 plus the number of tokens on the region.

As your final conquest if you do not have enough tokens you can roll a die that has 3 blank spaces and a 1,2,3. If you roll successfully you take over that region. If not you place your troops in one of your other regions.

At the end of your turn you can spread out your troops into your regions in any way you want. You then take victory coins equal to however many regions you have.

And thats it.

Obviously, this is not taking into account the various powers/races. You can get quite a few more victory coins depending on your combo. Or quite a few less as well.


Subsequent Turns:
On your next turn you have 2 options. You can either conquer more territories or you can go into "decline".
To conquer you take back any excess troops you have on your regions (leaving one on each region you control) and then go about conquering more regions. You can also take back all your troops and start over, but you have to re conquer the regions you abandoned.

Going into decline is what makes the game interesting. By going into decline, you put your power at the bottom of the stack, you turn over your race card, and you flip over 1 token in each of your regions and discard the rest back to the box.

On your next turn you can choose a new race/power combo, and still collect victory coins for as long as your in decline race is on the board.

My Thoughts:
The game is real fun and there is quite a bit of strategy involved. "Do you go into decline?", "Do you conquer more regions?" etc..

The game can take quite a bit if your playing for the first time, but subsequent games can go pretty quick. I also liked that they give you 2 different double sided boards depending on how many players are playing. If your not into the risk type of game, this game is not for you. If you are looking for a good time with lots of thinking involved this is the right game for you.

Cost:  I bought it for about $40, it retails for $50.


Verdict: This is a very unique game and one that will definitely see more playtime. Playworthy!

Grill off with Ultra-Hand

  
Its been awhile since I posted, but since a few of my friends have been creating new blogs, I decided to pick this up.

On a whim, I decided to buy this from Club Nintendo after reading about it on www.kotaku.com. It was only 80 coins which is a pretty small number compared to what most stuff from Club Nintendo cost.

About the game: The game is a pretty basic casual game. You are an Ultra Hand which is an extendable claw type device. Your sitting in front of 3 bbq's and your job is to take the food that is on top of each of the bbq's and plate em. You have to extend the claw, grab the food, retract the claw and drop the food onto a plate.

What makes the game interesting is the "Just Right's".

Controls: The controls are pretty intuitive. You hold the Nunchuk and Wii Remote Vertical and when you bring them far apart the Ultra Hand extends. When you bring them closer together the Ultra Hand retracts.

Holding down the A grabs and holds the food. Letting go of A drops the food. These controls work pretty well and if you get into a rhythm you can go pretty quick.

You can also control the fire with the B button or the Z button.

Graphics: I was not expecting much here, but they are a cutesy type of graphics. There is some detail with the fire and lightning, but nothing too spectacular.

Sound: This makes the game pretty fun. The sound/music has a good beat and gets your heart pumping as you get closer to a big number with the "Just Rights".

Gameplay: The game is pretty simple, but its the "Just Rights" that make it more interesting. The food will sit on top of the bbq and after about 5sec (depending on the food) the food will get bigger. This is the point in time where you want to grab it. The more consecutive "Just Rights" you get in a row the more points you will get and the more hectic the game becomes.

Something that also makes the game interesting is that you can control the strength of the fire on the bbq. You can either leave the fire alone, or you can make it blazing which cooks the food quicker.

The game ends if you leave food on the bbq for too long or if you drop it.There is a High score list, but its only your scores not anything from other people on the Internet.

Verdict: Playworthy  

Ultra Hand is a pretty fun game for so cheap. The only thing I would have loved to see was some sort of online interactivity. Even if the high score list was able to connect to other players, that would have been better than nothing at all. Even without the online connectivity the game is still very addicting and fun.

Team Fortress 2

Now this is what a multi-player first person shooter should be like. When I first saw pictures of what Team Fortress 2 would look like, I thought it was a joke. Little did I know that Valve had a huge winner in the works. I never played the first team fortress, but I do have my share of experience in this type of game. I have played the various Unreal Tournaments, Quakes and Dooms. The last real good online FPS I played was Unreal Tournament 2004 and it was unique because Epic had added vehicles into the game. Suffice it to say, I was hooked for many a month.

After seeing all the good reviews that TF2 had gotten, and that the price of the Orange Box would be lower I decided to take the plunge. I was a bit apprehensive also for the fact that I would be using this Steam system that valve has come up with. I had heard all these bad things about it and did not want to have to go through the hassle. Well I can say wholeheartedly that the game is pure fun. There is nothing that I have seen that is like it, that is out there. It is a team based FPS and extremely fun.

Graphics:

The graphics in the game are very unique and really give it a real good feel. I saw pictures of what the original team fortress looked like and I am glad Valve decided to change it around. It has a very cartoony feel and that really surprisingly enough makes it all that more fun. The characters are meant to look exactly like their class. The Heavy, is a giant of a man and move slowly with a minigun. The soldier has the typical army helmet and rocket launcher. These are just a few of the 9 classes in the game.

Sound:

The sound in the game is also very unique. Each of the characters has a unique voice and speak in that voice when various things in the game are occurring. The voices of the characters reminded me of worms. Where they have a witty humor to them and it really adds a lot to the game. The background music in the game is also very catchy and makes the game more enjoyable.

Gameplay:

This is the bread and butter of the game. I have not played the game in like a month, but once the next big patch hits I will go back to it. This game is very unique in what it offers. Instead of the usual FPS where you go around killing people and every person is the same, TF2 gives us a class system. You have a choice between 9 different classes and each of them is very unique in their own way. I will go through a few that I have played with quite a bit.

Firstly, I want to talk a little about the different types of maps. There is no normal deathmatch map. There are basically capture the flag maps and capture an area maps. The capture the flag maps can be very small or can be extremely large. The capture the area map basicially comes down to one side has to defend the area and the other side attacks it. If you defend the area long enough you will move on to the next area and do the same thing. If you are attacking and take control of the various spawn points then you keep moving on till you control the whole area. Another thing that is cool is there is a point system and you get points for killing people. Something that is cool is if someone has killed you many times you can get revenge on them and get more than the normal amount of points. Now to talk about a couple classes.

Each classes comes with 3 weapons, usually 1 main weapon a secondary weapon and then a melee type weapon. The melee type weapon is very strong, but you obviously have to be up close to actually be effective with it. The scout is the fastest character in the game and is meant for exactly what the character is called. This is the character that can out run those slow moving heavies and mostly avoid enemy fire. The class is meant to run to the other base and either capture a control point or an enemy intelligence. They also have an advantage that they will capture the control point quicker than other classes and can double jump. You die a ton with this class, but if your good you can be extremely hard to kill.

The soldier is a cool character and one I spend quite a bit of time playing. His main weapon is a rocket launcher and it packs quite a punch. He also can use the launcher to launch himself to great heights. I never truly got the hang of it, but I can see it being very useful when trying to get at a sniper hiding in a corner. I really enjoyed the class because of how strong you could be with the rocket launcher. I also saw vast improvement as I got better with the class. I started out firing at the enemy instead of at the ground around the enemy.

I played with a few other classes and all of them are pretty fun in their own way. I really have to recommend this game to anyone who is looking for a very addictive and fun fps, but not in the normal sense.

My Verdict: Playworthy!

Hellgate London

Talk about a fun game Hellgate London does it all and more for the die hard Diablo fans. Being a hardcore Diablo and Diablo 2 player I was looking forward to Hellgate London for a very long time. I was worried it would not run on my computer, but after testing out the game in beta, it seemed to run fine. In the end I was able to get a new computer so running the game would not be a problem. This turned into a problem as Directx10 was not quite 100% compatible with the game, so in the end I had to run the game in DX9.

The game is basically a first person shooter but with elements of an role-playing game like Diablo. The game is in full 3d and runs beautifully even at the highest settings. There is a single player and multi-player aspect to the game and I mainly focused on the multi-player aspect. You obviously need an internet connection to run the multi-player aspect. The game also tries to mimic the mmo type genre by adding in a pay per month feature, where you pay 10 dollars a month and get extra features.

Graphics:
The graphics in the game look incredible. Each creature has very unique features and really look like something that came out of hell. The details in each of the levels is also pretty incredible. This is supposed to be very post apocalyptic and it really looks it. You have the burned out buildings, the cars that have been burned to a crisp and even the weather effects give it the whole end of the world feeling. I am not going to say these are the best graphics out there, but they certainly are impressive for this type of game.

Sound:
The sound in the game is not one of the features that jump out at you at being the best, but for what is in the game the sound is decent. Its the voice acting by some of the NPC's in the game that really do give it that real life feeling. The sound from most of the creatures are unique, but it did not seem like anything that would really make you remember it.

Gameplay:
This is the meat and potatoes of the game. This is really where the game shines. You start out in a starting area and soon find your way to the first "town". This is where you will get quests and start on the main storyline. This is also where you can meet other people. The actual action is in a "instance" type area. Where it is unique to you and you wont see other players there unless you are grouped with them.

I played mainly as a summoner and it was the most fun I have had since a Necromancer in Diablo 2 You basically summon various types of elementals and have them do most of the killing for you. Something that I found annoying though you get used to it quickly is that you cannot use the mouse to click on your various skills. You have to use the numbers to use a variety of skills.

The basic idea of the game is you find various items and either wear em, sell em, trade em or disassemble them. The game can move pretty quickly even as you are soloing most of the content, but it can stop suddenly if you get to a particularly hard quest or area that you must get passed. The game also has some unique quests that have you doing things outside the traditional. As an example, late in the game you have a quest that has you taking control of a squad of men and completing a mission with them. The game basically transforms into an real-time strategy game.

With all these good things there are some drawbacks to the game. For example your normal inventory is way too small and you will be emptying it out quite often. Also the variety of levels that you go through gets old pretty quick and it ends up being the same old same old. Some of the characters I found to be way too weak and getting passed certain quests, became more annoying than fun.

I recommend this game to any true Diablo fan and even to those people that want a good new online game that is not World of Warcraft.

My Verdict: Playworthy!

The Phantom Hourglass

This first game I have decided to review is The Phantom Hourglass for the DS.

This is a great game for any true Zelda fan. I disliked Windwaker with a passion for its endless oceans and its non existent dungeons, but I decided to give this first Zelda to the DS a chance. I am glad I did. Not only is the game extremely fun to play, but most of what made Windwaker boring or annoying is non existent in this game.

Firstly, the graphics which is what most people talk about when they first open any game are really impressive for a handheld Zelda game. The cut scenes are well done and the isometric view of Link is the best I have seen for a handheld Zelda game. When Sailing the ocean the way the islands just jump out you when you get close makes you really say "WoW". I was really impressed by the graphics and hope future Zelda games look as good as The Phantom Hourglass looks on the DS.

Secondly, comes the sound which like any Zelda game has some of the best music. Now I wish there was more of the classic music, but for what is in the game it is real good. Now the only fault I could find with the audio (and this just might be my DS) is that sometimes the sound would be real loud and I would have to lower it or it would be real low and I would have to raise it. This kind of got annoying as I was traversing the open seas, but I got used to it and kept the volume below max.

Lastly, and most importantly is the gameplay The Phantom Hourglass provides some of the most fun gameplay I have had since Twilight Princess. The whole touch screen makes for a real interactive experience. This Zelda just like previous Zeldas has same type of gameplay, where you go to a dungeon find an upgrade and use that upgrade on a boss. I found it easy to control link with the stylus and making him attack by just clicking on an enemy was even easier. The boss fights were probably the most fun because its the one part of the game where they took real advantage of both screens. One more real nice thing is that sailing is no longer the 10 minute boring experience it used to be. Though there is a lot of ocean, with Hourglass you just draw your route and it will take you there. Though you might encounter enemies along the way, your trusty cannon will make short work of any of them. I found this to be much better than the way they handled sailing in Windwaker.

Though the game was extremely fun, I did find some drawbacks in my Hourglass experience. One thing was the dungeons were more linear than ever. There is no longer a map or compass for dungeons, just keys to open doors. Most of the time you are just defeating enemies to open the next door in the area. Secondly when drawing with the stylus you have to be extra careful not to mess up. There are certain points in the game where you draw various signs on the touch screen, and if you get a minor thing wrong it screws it up. The last thing that I found to be a bit annoying even though it was not the worst thing in the world. When you open a new door you have to keep going through the cut scenes of the door opening, which gets annoying after the 5th time. Now I understand that this "cut scene" was probably put in for the beginner who might not know where to go or what to do. Still if there was some way to turn the shorter cut scenes off, it would have made my experience more enjoyable.

Its an extremely fun game and I recommend it to any DS owner or Zelda fan.