Archive for the ‘Board Games’ Category

Ticket to Addiction

Saturday, February 20th, 2010

I have recently been exposed to the most addicting activity that has yet to be unleashed upon the world. That’s right. The horror that is online Ticket to Ride.

This classic and popular board game is harmless enough when played at your friend’s house on an actual board. You can’t keep playing too many times because your friends will only play for so long. Eventually they all have to go home.

Not so with online play. Even if there is no one online to play with because every other person in the world has finally gone to bed, you can always play against the AI.

I need help. Seriously.

Expansions

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

The world makes its money with expansions. Buy a car, fine. You can get out the door without it hurting too much if you know how much you should really be paying. But they get you with the expansions. All the little features that add on to the bill. Video game systems have come down in price recently, but you don’t get the full set that you used to. Used to be that the Nintendo came with 2 controllers, a gun, 2 games, and everything else that you needed. Now the systems only come with 1 of the 4 controllers that you need, no gun, and usually, no game. Even board games are released with only a portion of the game before the expansion gives you full access to the entire board game. And what are movie sequels, prequels, reboots, etc., but expansions.

Expansions, they’ll get ya. That’s right Blondie. Get ya, get ya, get ya. One way or another.

Board Game Reviews and Overviews – Star Wars: The Queen’s Gambit

Sunday, November 1st, 2009

Avalon Hill’s board game, Star Wars: The Queen’s Gambit may be out of print but is still fairly popular on ebay even a decade after it was released. The visually impressive setup of the boards and pieces would dominate any game table, but unfortunately, the strategy and mechanics do not live up to the look of the game. It is somewhat one-sided with the droid armies usually winning, but fun for an occasional replaying of the final events of Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

More Inspiration Alignments

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

We here at ovrnite.com have compiled a new television-related and themed version of alignments. You, of course, are familiar with the nine classic Dungeons & Dragons alignments. From Lawful Good through Neutral to Chaotic Evil, we apply these personality types to TV characters.

LG – Picard
NG – MacGyver
CG – House
LN – The Ancients
NN – Bender
CN – Bugs Bunny
LE – Dexter
NE – Benjamin Linus
CE – Sylar

Lawful Good – Picard
Neutral Good – Bones
Chaotic Good – House
Lawful Neutral – The Ancients
True Neutral – Bender
Chaotic Neutral – Bugs Bunny
Lawful Evil – Dexter
Neutral Evil – Benjamin Linus
Chaotic Evil – Sylar

Again, if you can easily identify all of the above references and give good reasons why they are appropriate, you may be watching too much TV. If you can think of even better examples of each alignment type, then you’re definitely watching too much TV.

Lawful Good

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

After a little break, we return with even more characters from the classic Dungeon & Dragon alignment set. The lawful good character is the typical hero character that stands for truth, justice, and the Krynn way. There are still many variations that can occur within the confines of these goody-two-shoes characters.

Superman – His power resides in that one curl of hair
Batman – But only the TV show version (BAM!!)
Mufasa – Oooohh! Say it again!
Atticus Finch – Doesn’t get any more lawful or good than this
Optimus Prime – Autobots, roll out!
God – Kind of the definition

True Neutral

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

In my latest and most recent entry into examples of the classic Dungeons and Dragons alignments, I bring you true neutral.

These are the types of characters that will give you a definite maybe. Although some may adopt a “I’ll leave you alone if you leave me alone” attitude, others are just above the arguments of lesser beings. See you next, maybe.

Switzerland – If you won’t fight against Nazis, you won’t fight against anybody.
Doctor Manhattan – Truly does not care, not even about wearing clothes.
Kaminoans – Cloning is cool; everything else, meh.
Treebeard – “I am not altogether on anybody’s side.”
Rick Blaine – “I stick out my neck for nobody.”
Jet – “I don’t know, and I have no opinion.”
Neutral President – “If I don’t make it, tell my wife ‘Hello’.”

Chaotic Good

Sunday, July 19th, 2009

Continuing on with the previous theme of examples of the classic D&D alignments brings us to today’s topic of Chaotic Good. This has to be one of the strangest alignments that the game has to offer. I would always imagine someone randomly roaming the countryside performing random acts of kindness. My previous example of the Chaotic Good alignment was Minsc. This may be too obscure for the masses. He was a character in the Baldur’s Gate video game series who was hit over the head too often, carried a miniature giant space hamster, and like to yell, “Butt kicking for goodness.”

Here are some more examples:

V for Vendetta – “Governments should be afraid of their people”

The Mythbusters – “Seeking the truth AND blowing stuff up”

House – “It’s not lupus”

Wolverine – “Do the right thing, even if you have to kill EVERYONE”

Bilbo Baggins – “I may be a burglar, but I am an honest one, I hope, more or less.”

The Incredible Hulk – “Hulk SMASH!!!”

Mary Poppins – “Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every way”

The A-Team – “Pitying fools since 1983″

Chaotic Evil

Sunday, July 19th, 2009

With even more popularity for the inspirational posters or motivational posters with funny captions, we will be reviewing some other options for chaotic evil characters. The type of characters that do bad stuff without warning. Being mean and destroying stuff just for the heck of it.

Alex from A Clockwork Orange – “Real horrorshow”

Hannibal the Cannibal – “I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti”

The Joker – “Why so serious?”

Norman Bates – “A boy’s best friend is his mother”

Caligula – “Let them hate us so long as they fear us”

The Crimson King – “Ya ken?”

ce

DM of the Ring

Thursday, December 11th, 2008

Now that I’ve spent the better part of the last two hours reading through a thoroughly funny comic strip about trying to DM the classic Lord of the Rings, I think that I’ve come across one of the funniest pages in the extremely long series.

I recommend starting at the beginning.

But this one is really funny.

True, so very true.

Monty Python reference (one of many).

Mario reference.

Betrayal at House on the Hill review

Sunday, October 26th, 2008

With Halloween approaching the perfect board game to go along with the spooky but cliched movies on cable TV is “Betrayal at House on the Hill.” If you have a copy, break it out and give it a play. If you don’t, then hope that Avalon Hill re-releases the title sometime in the near future. It’s currently out of print.

The game centers on you and your fellow players slowly splitting up (of course) and exploring a very large and strange house. You may find weapons or people or supernatural strangeness, but eventually the ‘haunt’ will start. This is when one of the players is assigned to be the traitor and the rest of the players work to stop his evil plan.

The atmosphere of the game is pretty good and the stories recreate cheesy cable horror movies very well. There are fifty scenarios that randomly get played, each with its own story and goals. This ends up being the main problem with the game. There are so many scenarios with different rules and special circumstances that it seems that many of them were not play tested enough. We were constantly trying to figure out how to make the rules work for certain scenarios. Also, some scenarios are weighted to one side or the other. Some make the job of the heroes very difficult while others make the traitor’s goal almost impossible.

Still it’s a fun game for a medium size group that only takes 30-60 minutes to play each game.