Archive for the ‘Jon Craton’ Category
Tuesday, March 15th, 2011
In times past I have heaped praise upon the Warhammer 40,000 world and minis game. The world is just a whole lot of fun to play in and interact with, the models for the game are by and large great little models, and I really enjoy painting them when I’m not playing WoW, or other video games, or other board games, or working. However, I am, at heart, a poor college grad and as such I find myself unable and unwilling to fork over 150-200 dollars for a field able army. I also find myself without the time required to paint the many dozens of models such an army would encompass. To further simplify the issue I have been handed a dictate from one of my many employers to return to the first miniatures game I ever played: Warmachine. So while I don’t plan to give up 40k, my budget and my boss demand that I take my war gaming elsewhere for the time being.
You might have heard of Warmachine, a steam-punk techo-arcana-inspired miniature war game, since some friends of the gaming community have recently gotten into it. Either way, I started dabbling in it a few years after its emergence in 2005. At its core, Warmachine is a very different game from Warhammer, so it is really hard to compare the two. I won’t even attempt any sort of argument as to which one of the two is “better,†but, I will at least give you some idea as to the pros and cons of Warmachine, its system, its models, and its world. So join me as I re-explore my first love, so to speak.
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Tags: 40k, Minatures, Minis, Outside the Box, Warhammer, Warhammer 40000, Warmachine
Posted in Editorial, Hobby Games, Jon Craton | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, March 1st, 2011
I just love it when a plan comes together. That is one reason I really enjoy long non-confrontational euro games so much. So many of them let me set up long term stratagems that take multiple turns to come to fruition. Games like Agricola, one of my favorites of all time, Puerto Rico, and even more random games like Pandemic and Catan all fall into this category. Recently, I was able to sit down with Luna: In the Domain of the Moon Priestess, a game that has all the planing, combo-ing, and chaining my little gamer heart lusts after. Though a little odd in theme and a little wonky in art, it ended up being quite a great play once I understood how the game worked.
Luna is a euro game in the worker placement tradition, like Agricola and countless others, designed by German Stefan Feld, whom you most likely don’t recall as being the creator as Der Speicherstadt. However, Luna takes on a decidedly different theme than Speicherstadt and other German econ games. No, you’re not placing farmers to gather resources. No, you’re not shipping sugar back to Europe. You’re not even building cities and gathering more wood and sheep than you could ever possibly want. No, instead of these things you’re sending out a host of religious acolytes in hopes of gaining enough influence to elect the next Moon Pope Moon Priestess. Yeah…don’t ask me where Mr. Feld got the idea, but regardless I found the mechanics solid, and given good enough mechanics I would play a game where you had to raise penguins and ship oregano.
Luna is a multi-layered game with a few different things all going on all at once, so it can be a little overwhelming the first time to you play it. In Agricola the actions are gated so at the beginning of the game players have fewer options, but Luna just presents itself to new players all at once, so it can be a little intimidating. In addition to this, there are only six rounds to the game and if you don’t know how to properly chain your actions the rounds can just fly by, but once you get into the flow of the game and start putting together four or five step chains the game becomes very enjoyable. So while I really enjoyed Luna, I don’t think it’s for new hobby gaming initiates. It’s more for Agricola veterans than for those who just finished their fifth play-through of Catan.
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Tags: Agricola, Catan, Euro Games, Luna, Outside the Box, Pandemic, Puerto Rico, Stefan Feld, The Speicherstadt, Z-Man Games
Posted in Hobby Games, Jon Craton, Reviews | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 15th, 2011
I know most of you are looking forward to the hotly anticipated L.A. Noir. And I am too, but to me there is more than one noir. I guess there’s that wine…a beer…and the film genre….ok well for me there is at least one MORE noir: Cargo Noir. This is the new board game from good ol’ Days of Wonder. You know, the makers of Small World and Ticket to Ride. I suppose Cargo Noir is their answer to other cargo/shipping games like The Speicherstadt. While I’ve yet to get my hands on a copy I’ve done my homework and I’m quite looking forward to this new cargo management game. Let’s take a look at what it promises to offer and what makes it stand out from the cargo crowd.
The most striking thing about Cargo Noir is the same thing that is always striking when dealing with recent Days of Wonder games: Art. When you look at the other euro econ games out there you tend to notice that most have sub-par themeing and ho-hum to terrible art. Sure, there’s Speicherstadt and Puerto Rico, but they are definitely not the prettiest games out there. Not so with Cargo Noir. The themeing is unique and fun; the players are smuggling dons in a 1950 noir setting, and the art is just fantastic. In fact, its art is by the same artist as Small World, Miguel Coimbra. I don’t know who this dude is or where he came from but I hope he has a long and fruitful relationship with Days of Wonder. I would almost go so far as to credit him with the success of Small World. If it had had typical euro game art I do not believe it would ever have seen the success it currently enjoys. Either way Cargo Noir‘s art really helps sell the theme which in turns sells me on the game. Coimbra’s art oozes sleaze, neon, smoke, and opulence. It’s a style that ultimately makes you proud to be a mafia don.
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Tags: Angry Birds, Cargo Noir, Days of Wonder, Econ Game, Euro Game, L.A. Noir, Miguel Coimbra, Outside the Box, Puerto Rico, Small World, speicherstadt
Posted in Editorial, Hobby Games, Jon Craton | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, February 8th, 2011
It was the worst of times and the slightly better of times. Waking up two weekends ago, I noticed there was something magical in the crisp winter air. It was eerily reminiscent of another early morning weekend last September. Where had I felt this feeling before? It was like manna was about to fall from the heavens above, showering myself, and countless others, with those things which our hearts desired most… Oh yeah, it was waiting in line to get my hands on Scars of Mirrodin. And yet there I was, swallowing my pride, breaking my promises, and my owning up to tsundere feelings, by once again waiting in line to register for another Magic: The Gathering pre-release tournament, this time for Mirrodin Besieged.
“This time it would be different,†I swore to myself as I watched countless fellow Magic players sneaking in rounds of EDH before the tournament officially began. And, oh how right I would be. Already we had selected our various sides and now we were waiting for the glorious “faction†packs.
You see the Mirrodin Besieged pre-release was to work differently than the Scars pre-release event. While still a sealed style tournament, your six boosters were divided between three packs of Scars of Mirrodin and three special themed booster packs of Mirrodin Besieged. Following the storyline of the set, the players in the tournament had to select upon entry to either play for Phyrexia or the Mirran. If you choose Phyrexia the three boosters of Mirrodin Besieged you received contained only cards marked with the Phyrexian water mark. Conversely, if you choose to defend the Mirran your boosters contained only Mirran cards. It was a nifty gimmick indeed, one which many players there enjoyed. Each side proceeded to claim their own unique Promo-card and boosters and the tournament was underway.
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Tags: Magic, Mirran, Mirrodin, Mirrodin Besieged, Outside the Box, Phyrerxia, phyrexian, Scars of Mirrodin, tournament
Posted in Editorial, Hobby Games, Jon Craton | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, February 1st, 2011
Although I am sorely tempted to write once more about my magical exploits at yet another Magic Pre-release event, I have decided to stick to my schedule and leave my stories of abject failure for another day. I had already promised to write ya’ll a review of Days of Wonder’s Small World anyway, so that’s what I’m going to do.
Many of you, I hope, have already listened to the “Sma11†podcast and have mustered at least some semblance of understanding when it comes to Small World. You at very least know it is a territory take-and-hold game like Risk or even Go. However, Small World is less random than Risk and far less hardcore than Go, but you get the idea. Small World is really a Western style war game with a Euro Game twist.
In Small World players take turns conquering territories with horrendously broken fantasy races and scoring points based on racial powers and how many territories they hold. The key mechanism to this process is the fact that players have an extremely limited amount of units with which to take and hold territories. This means that at some point a player’s army will be quite overextended. With too few troops to take another territory and prospects looking dim, the only option open to an over taxed player is to have their once rampaging civilization go “into decline.â€
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Tags: Days of Wonder, Euro Game, Go, Outside the Box, review, Risk, Small World
Posted in Editorial, Hobby Games, Jon Craton, Reviews | No Comments »
Thursday, January 27th, 2011
There are whole worlds in these boxes
Well, it’s been a nice long delay since my New Years Update. I have at least followed up on one of my many goals for the year. We are up on iTunes. yay. To celebrate I actually have a new podcast for you. This week’s podcast is our 11th, and it is also the first ‘cast of ’11, ominous! You’ll note the cleaver pun in the title. See I made the two L’s in “small” 1′s. Spiffy.
Anywho, this podcast is a play-through of Days of Wonder‘s Small World with the usual suspects, Annie and Marc. It’s a great little territory taking game much like Risk. It has fantastic themeing and sense of humor. We do a brief review of the game at the end of the podcast, but look for a full formal written review early next week.
Listen Here! Outside the Box:PC Edition -Eps. 11- Sma11
Oh, here we are on iTunes. Subscribe! review. Make us super popular.
-The J.C.
Tags: Days of Wonder, Outside the Box, Play-Through, podcast, Small World
Posted in Annie Leonard, Hobby Games, Jon Craton, OstB:PC, Podcasts | No Comments »
Thursday, January 6th, 2011
SnOh my goodness.
Ah, the winter break is at an end, a new year has started, and it’s back to the old grind. While my friends and cohorts here at GameZombie.tv have whisked themselves away to the Consumer Electronics Show in the warm Las Vegas desert, I have been left cold and alone around the “office.” A lone Board Game Guy has no interest in h, i, or jPads nor in Razer’s new Switchblade, or at least so I am told. Never mind the fact that one can get Days of Wonder’s Small World on iPad…grumble grumble. No matter, I shall suffer on and on and on.
This is not to say that Outside the Box shall languish in the foibles of last year! Oh no. We have a great line-up of new reviews and ventures for 2011. Resolutions even.
In the up coming weeks I should be getting demo/review copies of a number of wonderful games. Games like Z-Man’s new pirate board game Merchants and Marauders as well as their hotly anticipated minis game Earth Reborn. We will be receiving several review copies from sources deep within Days of Wonder as well. So, you know, look forward to that.
Also on the horizon is the release of the next Magic expansion: Mirrodin Besieged. I might relive my experience at the Scars prerelease by going to another official event/tourney. I would like to go to more tournaments this year and report on those too. Perhaps I’ll visit the local Warhammer, Warhammer 40k, and Blood Bowl scenes. Maybe I’ll just finally see what’s up with HeroClix. Either way, be on the look out for more front-line reporting, for what that’s worth.
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Tags: Days of Wonder, Earth Reborn, Magic, Mahjong, Merchants and Marauders, Outside the Box, podcast, Resolutions, Small World, Upcoming, Videos, Z-Man Games
Posted in Behind the Scenes, Editorial, Hobby Games, Jon Craton | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, December 15th, 2010
According to many, this gray snowy period in late December is the most wonderful time of the year. They claim that it is a time for soirees, mobile sing-a-longs, and toasted candy treats. These same folks also assert that this time of the year is also the perfect time for frightening tales featuring ethereal and otherwise super-natural beings. Frankly I find all of the rather absurd, but nevertheless I seek to combine all of the above mentioned winter-time activities. Well…maybe just the soirees and ghostly tales. OK, and if you want to toast marshmallows while doing the other two that’s fine as well. Either way it is quite easy to combine your holiday-related get-togethers with ghost stories thanks to a new edition of Betrayal at House on the Hill.
A few weeks ago I showed you what comes in the Betrayal box, but now that I’ve had a chance to give it a go it’s time for a full review of the game. Most of my friends say that Betrayal at House on the Hill is one of their favorite games, and I agree. Betrayal has a lot going for it. So, why is it awesome? Find out after the break.
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Tags: Betrayal at House on the Hill, Board Games, holiday season, Horror Games, Outside the Box
Posted in Hobby Games, Jon Craton, Reviews | 7 Comments »
Thursday, December 9th, 2010
The Boxes, They are Empty.
Bad news everyone! Well, not that bad. The holidays are upon us and as such things are getting busy and hectic. (Also you know…there is this big game that just came out…that I’m kinda busy playing…) Any-who, we’ll be stopping Outside the Box: PC Edition for the 2010 season. However, we’ll be back with a freak’n vengeance in 2011! There were 10 episodes for 2010, and we’ll be starting 2011 with episode 11. I hope you all tune in come January for more wonderful play-throughs and inane ramblings. I hope to see you there!
-The J.C.
Tags: Outside the Box, podcast
Posted in Hobby Games, Jon Craton, News, OstB:PC, Podcasts | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 7th, 2010
As you may or may not have noticed we are now knee-deep in December. Along with December comes [insert your politically correct wintertime celebration of choice here]! And we all know what that means: Gifts! I have already given about as good of a purchasing guide I can give with our last series, therefore today I have decided to focus on the particular wintertime tradition of stockings, and what to put in them.
Who doesn’t love stockings and all the wonderful little things found within them, but if that’s not your thing that’s ok too. Think, then, of this as a gift guide for small cheap little games, and boy are there plenty of those. This is by no means an extensive list. It is merely a list of the small card and dice games I can think of right off the top of my head, and a few I saw whilst browsing at my local game shop. So, with the dates of various remembrances that coincide with the winter solstice let’s dive into Outside the Box’s stocking stuffer recommendations!
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Tags: Aquarius, Are You the Trader, Christmas, Dice, Farkle, Fluxx, Gift Guide, holiday season, Lumps, Magic, Outside the Box, Small Games, We Didn't Play Test This, wishlist, Zombie Dice
Posted in Editorial, Hobby Games, Jon Craton | 4 Comments »
