January 31, 2006
The popular DVD Trivia franchise "Scene It!" recently released their Music Edition of their game to the feathered-hair masses. The Scene-It line of approachable titles couple DVD Technology! (tm) with the standard Trivia board game, and are great for dinner parties, the lake house, rainy days, etc. This musical flavor is an obvious no-brainer for anyone raised by the surrogate-parent of the 1980s, MTV -- which is just about everyone who popped a zit in that decade.
Here's the company line:
Now Music Scene It? turns a flat board game into a 3-D multimedia match with unforgettable songs, favorites and classics old and new. Features real clips from the best music labels and artists. Includes music game DVD, Flextime game board, one six-sided dice, one eight-sided dice, four metal musical character movers, four category reference cards and 160 trivial cards with three questions each and an additional 30 music buzz cards. For two or more players.
You can order it online at Funagain Games or Amazon.com. Enjoy!
Critical Gamers Staff
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January 27, 2006
January 26, 2006
We just found this one in the MTG Online Forums. If you're hankering for some prerelease Guildpact, and if you don't mind a potentially bug-ridden Magic The Gathering: Online client interface, then you'll definitely want to fill out the MTG:Online Guildpact Beta Forum. There's no word on when the beta will start, but it should to be soon; the Guildpact Ravnica expansion is slated for an online release on February 27th, and that date is coming up quick.
We feel we must warn you that the beta application includes a trixy 10 question quiz. It mentions some older cards, and unless you're Rainman then you'll probably need to consult the card rule text in order to get these questions right. Thankfully all of the cards are easily available through the official Gatherer Online Database of Magic Cards.
Good luck, and we'll see you inside the beta.
Critical Gamers Staff
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January 24, 2006
Some new Official Pictures have surfaced of the latest expansion pack for Carcassonne. "The Tower" includes new pieces that bring the game into the exciting world of 3D (so '80s!). Players continue to build their city outwards with the normal game-tiles, but then also construct towers... which hopefully don't require a balancing act to complete, nor topple with a bump of the table. Speaking of clumsy-assed selves, the game will also ship with a tower-shaped tile holder to get those tile stacks out of the way once and for all.
We'll have more news on this title (including a review) when Carcassonne The Tower ships this February.
Critical Gamers Staff
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January 22, 2006
The last Cheeto will soon hit the floor at the Magic The Gathering Guildpact Prelease events wrapping up across country. If you weren't able to attend then you can still checkout some of the great Guildpact official-content online.
First stop should be the the Guildpact FAQ page, which has links to some great Guildpact card preview articles written by the Ravnica designers. The expansion includes three new Ravnica Guilds: The Gruul (red/green), The Izzet (red/blue), and the Orzhov (white/black). The card-previews are mostly focused on the various guild rare cards, so they're all awesome and very much overpowered. But with that said -- all of these guilds do an incredible job of combining the mindset of the two correspondng colors. Our favorites include Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind which does some amazing things to turn blue decks into red decks (we realize that's the point), and Ghost Council of Orzhova which perfectly combines the controlling and anal white with power-in-death and leaching aspects of black.
Finally, there's a plain-text Guildpact Spoiler Page that lists each of the 165 new Guildpact cards from A to Z. If you don't mind a few more clicks of the mouse, then the official card database 'Gatherer' also contains all of the Guildpact cards in a far friendlier format.
Guildpact will be available in stores in the form of Tournament packs on February 3rd, and it'll release on Magic-Online February 27.
Can't freakin' wait.
Critical Gamers Staff
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January 19, 2006
A druken Intern at Eagle Games must have stumbled into the Puerto Rico Marketing Machine, knocking its lever off 'blitz' and locking it to 'testosterone'. There are ads splattered everywhere on the net, and we've also found two gaming sites showerin' the masses with prizes of boxed PC gaming goodness.
BoardGameGeek.com is running a Puerto Rico PC Game giveaway contest. Registered members of the site can answer 10 Trivia questions about Puerto Rico's history (Wikipedia.org will help you out big-time here.) Each correct answer lands an entry into the 20-game raffle on the eve of the game's launch, January 30th.
The online store Funagain Games has contest cogs churning-out sweet deals of their own. Preoders of the PC Game are discounted 10 bucks off the regular price (now $29). This is an obvious no-brainer for loyalists who'd rather forgo the contest bureaucracy for the assurance that they'll receive a copy as close to the game's launch as possible. Also, a preorder at Funagain automatically enters the purchaser into a raffle for one of 10 free copies of the game.
We'll keep you posted wiith any other deals we come across in the upcoming week.
Critical Gamers Staff
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January 16, 2006
Battlestar Galactica has reinvigorated our thirst for high quality SciFi Television. The show rocks (hands down) with complicated plot lines, deep characters, internal conflicts, and - oh yeah - there's an evil race of immortal robots who've set-out on a pilgrimage to wipe-out the entire human race in hopes of getting closer to God. Mommy.
Today Wizkids (Crimson Skies, Pirates) sent out press details of their Battlestar Galactica Collectible Card Game. The game will ship in May with two starter packs heavily themed with the story of the first two seasons of the show. One collection of cards is led by the militaristic Commander (Admiral?) Adama, while President Roslin heads-up the other, more politically themed deck. Both packs will contain 61 cards, and retail for around 11 bucks. Fifteen-card booster packs (4 dollars US) will also be available, and will contain the standard card-distribution of commons, four uncommons, and one rare in each. The game's first series has 144 cards in total.
Stay tuned - we'll let you know more about the game as soon as we get our hands on it. Until then, check out the official BS:G CCG website for more details.
Critical Gamers Staff
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January 14, 2006
O.K., Risk has always been fun, but with so many complex wargames out there these days we find it near impossible to revist our childhood favorite . And let's face it -- it'd seem a bit anticlimactic to toss out the ole Risk board when gaming night rolls around. Everyone craves something new, and Risk is a bit of an old dog.
But that doesn't mean the game isn't fun anymore. In fact, after playing a few online sessions we're amazed at how well the game holds up. It's simple, pure aggression (no wonder we enojoyed this as adolescents). There aren't any complex combat phases which would require a defender react (like say, removing destroyed pieces in Axis and Allies combat), so there's absolutely nothing lost in the asynchronous play of this online version.
Continue reading: "GamesByEmail.com Makes Risk Fun Again"
Critical Gamers Staff
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January 10, 2006
Early-on kids learn the delicious jive of smacktalk from their peers , but before that there's a small window when their only opponent is a parent. As an adult, you're (usually) a better gamer than your child, so you have control over the ultimate outcome of the game. Do you fold your cards when you're ahead so your child doesn't develop self-esteem issues, or do you win hoping that your child learns the art of a graceful loss?
Tough question. We're no Doctor Spock, so we don't have the answers, but there's a great article and discussion on this very topic over at BloggingBaby.com.
Critical Gamers Staff
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January 6, 2006
LOTR: The Confrontation distills the epic struggle for Middle Earth into a thirty minute game of deception and wits. Best described as a flavored variant of Stratego, the game is celebrated in many circles and has one of the largest franchises in human history driving it forward, but how well does it hold-up to the scrutiny of Critical Gamers' all seeing eye?
Continue reading: "Review: "Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation""
Critical Gamers Staff
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January 5, 2006
Philips just announced their 'Entertaible' at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas. Lay this 30" LCD screen down on a table and it becomes a digital game-board with "touch screen-based multi-object position detection, and all supporting control electronics." That's MIT-smart talk for playing games by pushin' cubes across a touch-screen.
Continue reading: "Philips 'Entertaible' Blows Our Minds"
Critical Gamers Staff
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Take Me On in "Scene It: Music Edition"
What a week! Things are getting busier and busier around the 
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Review: Politics - Unpretenious Package But Packs Plenty of Punch
