Out of the Park Baseball 13 Review

I've got a guest review at my old haunt--Armchair Empire--for a very good baseball sim, OOTP13.  It is no surprise that the nerdiest of sports videogames are my favorites, but I love a good statistical sim, and OOTP is a very good one.  Check out the review here.  

Zombies at Your Heels Review

Zombies at Your Heels is a new game by Andrew Rowse that puts players in control of a group of “survivors” attempting to escape from a zombie horde. It is fast-playing, tactically rich, more than a little chaotic, and ultimately, very satisfying. I would recommend it in normal publishing circumstances, but given that the designer is donating all proceeds to a worthy charity, Zombies at Your Heels is nearly a must buy.

In Zombies at Your Heels, players are dealt identical teams of survivors. Each survivor has a speed value, a victory point value, and an ability that can be activated on a player's turn. The game begins with each player randomly placing a number of survivors (determined by how many players are in the game) in a line that runs from a zombie horde, on the left, to a escape bunker, on the right. The order of the line is determined by speed stat on the survivor card—fast guys move to the front of the line. So, the idea is the line of survivors is running to the safety of the bunker in I-don't-have-to-be-faster-than-the-zombies-I-just-have-to-be-faster-than-you mode. Experienced gamers will be reminded of Richard Garfield's Guillotine by the basic set up.

During a turn, survivors are played from a hand of three cards. After playing the card, a player has the option of activating that card's power, another card's power, both, or neither. Regardless, the turn ends with either the survivor at the front of the line escaping to the bunker (only if he belongs to the active player) or with the zombies eating the “survivor” in the back of the line. Though each player has an identical personal deck of survivors, the three-card hand means there is limited number of actions available on each turn which must be used to get survivors to the front of the line or out of danger for that turn and hopefully your opponent's turn.

Play continues until players are unable to draw a card and fill their hands at the end of a turn. The points on the survivors in the bunker (and the tragic teens in the graveyard) are scored—the highest score wins. The whole game plays in between fifteen to twenty-five minutes, according to how much analysis the group is prone to.

Being a big fan of Guillotine, I had high-hopes for Zombies at Your Heels when I first saw its page at indigogo. The hope was the theme and tweaks to  Guillotine's basic game play would make for a different, but equally rewarding experience. Now that I had a chance to play the game in a couple of different situations, I'm happy to say Zombies at Your Heels is as good as I'd hoped it would be, even if it won't necessarily work for all groups.

The main appeal of the game is the interesting tactical decisions that face the player each turn. The need to either save one of your team of survivors or doom one of your opponent's survivors coupled with the equally important need to protect your guys for your opponent's turns (meaning—get them grouped toward at least the middle of the line) makes for tense rounds. I really like that the game gives you the option of activating two abilities. If you could only do the ability of the card you placed (making it more like Guillotine's one action-card limitation), the game would be too chaotic and the three-card hand too limiting. As it is, the game features a good balance of chaos and control, though I'm sure many players would say it errs on the side of chaos. If it wasn't such a short, fun time, I might agree. The tableau does change a lot between a player's turns, especially in a four-player game. The two-player game allows for a bit more planning ahead, but a player is still restricted by the cards they have in hand, so this isn't a deep strategy game by any means. It is a chaotic, tactical game that matches its theme perfectly.

As I mentioned in the introduction, Rowse has designed this game as part of a fund-raising effort for SpecialEffect, an organization that develops technologies and techniques that allow those with physical limitations to play and benefit from video games and computers. Follow the links here for both Rowse's Indiegogo page and SpecialEffect. It is a great cause and Rowse has come up with a great way of raising money while giving people a fun game to play. I seriously can't imagine why, if you have the money, you wouldn't go donate right now. The game is fun, the price is right, and profits go to a great cause.  

Ray Bradbury (1920-2012)

Ray Bradbury, the voice of America's pastIn one Facebook post concerning Bradbury’s death, someone commented that this event heralded the end of an era.  Others responded, agreeing or disagreeing, depending on how they interpreted the statement.  I didn’t comment one way or the other, but what struck me, however, was the fact that they saw Bradbury as someone BIG, someone defining, not simply a science fiction and fantasy writer.  With that sentiment, I agree wholeheartedly.  The way I see it, when we lost Ray Bradbury, we lost a part of America.

In several works, Bradbury wrote about small town America.  Several academics and book reviewers have written about this extensively, but really, you don’t have to do much more than look at some of his iconic works.  In “Mars is Heaven” (“The Third Expedition” in The Martian Chronicles), earth’s explorers find themselves in a mid-western town rather than the vast red wastes of Mars.  In Fahrenheit 451, he eulogizes what he considered “front porch society,” the meeting place where one would go to relax and chat, not just with your own family, but those next door and across the street.  Yes, this visionary and master of science fiction never let his eye stray too far off of the past.  He definitely kept small town America in the mind of his readers even while they were surrounded by the expanding, ever-quickening pace of the future.

The key element here, of course, is not mere nostalgia.  If you crave nostalgia, you can watch Andy Griffith reruns.  What we are shown through Bradbury’s works is the essential need of communication.  In Fahrenheit 451, people no longer meet to talk to one another; instead, they were immersed in the soap operatic lives presented by the wall screens.  People no longer read.  Books, of course, are a crucial form of communication.  They communicate ideas through the pages, the ideas stir something in us, and ideally, we communicate a response in words or deeds to those around us.  In his short story “The Pedestrian,” we see a similar fate.  The protagonist walks the streets alone.  He is a writer in a world without readers.  People stay home glued to their TVs, gray and ghostlike shadows huddling in the darkness.  Lifeless.  The city has become a graveyard.   In “The Veldt,” children immerse themselves into a virtual world.  As a result, they lose the ability to communicate and interact with their family.  These stories have become eerily real today as teens rather play video games or use some form of social media rather than talk face-to-face with one another.  In a world filled with 3D-CGI, Michael Bay explosions, and Halo, the past, sadly, isn’t so important.  There’s only the Now, only instant, selfish gratification blasting past at near light speeds.  

While the beauty and eloquence of Bradbury’s language echoes the images he created and the ideas he held true, the strength and legacy of Bradbury’s work resides, not in anything profound or visionary, but in all things simple and sincere: a community not afraid to communicate.  His writing gave voice to that part of America.  Now, that voice is silent.

Rest in peace.

Review: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

 I'm always a bit suspicious of any book that becomes a phenomenon, even if the phenomenon is limited to a certain group of readers. In the case of Ready Player One, that group tended to be anyone with an interest in video games and fond memories of growing up in the 80's. Before I got around to reading it, I had the book recommended to me by at least a dozen people, which set off alarms in my naturally contrarian brain. I don't think I've ever been the type of nerd that hates things just because they are popular (at least I haven't been that guy in a long time), but what appeals to a large number of people often doesn't appeal to me. My fear before starting Ready Player One was that all those “cool” 80's references I was hearing about would be too ham-fisted and googly-eyed to compel me to care. I wasn't too far into the book before I realized that those fears were unfounded. The basic conceits of the plot allowed any reference to be assimilated into the text in a way that was purposely showy. So, yes, the movie and video game (and television and toy) references are a bit obvious and on the nose, but it works as a function of the world Cline has created. More importantly, Ready Player One is a wonderful homage to 1^st generation cyberpunk, and I had forgotten how much the tropes and conventions of that sub-genre appealed to me. The nostalgia I had built up for the early works of William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Greg Bear and the rest of those in mirrored shades was much more powerful than my nostalgia for classic video games.

In the world of Ready Player One, society has nearly collapsed. The air is poisonous, the streets are dangerous, and cities are so overcrowded people have taken to living in trailers stacked one on top of another to dizzying heights. The danger and clutter of the real world have driven nearly everyone on to OASIS, a massively multi-player “game” where nearly any imaginable setting can be found. Users jack into this virtual world wearing eyewear and haptic clothing which enables them to touch and experience the virtual world in a way that evokes reality. The world of OASIS is so addictive, so inviting, that people basically spend every free moment online. Their online selves have become more important to them than their flesh-and-blood selves. As the book begins, the creator of OASIS, James Halliday (think a little bit of Bill Gates mixed with a little bit of Gary Gygax), has died and left behind a video detailing a contest, the winner of which will get his enormous fortune.

Ready Player One's protagonist, Parzival, is a “gunter,” the term eventually assigned to the players searching the virtual world for the ultimate video game Easter egg. Gunters spend their time immersed in 80's lore because that is where they feel they will find the answer to Halliday's riddles. As we are witness to the conversations between Parzival and his loosely connected crew (it is important to the the novel's basic set up that they are not a team, at least early on) we are inundated with references to things nerdy kids who grew up in the 80's would recognize. Really, there is nothing obscure in the references as far as I was concerned. The only place that I didn't immediately have nearly perfect knowledge of references was the Japanese television shows and toys, and, even there, most of the basic references were familiar. Still, it was fun to think back on those things that gave me a lot of joy during my childhood. Even better, when one of the works does become integral to solving Halliday's puzzles, Cline does a great job getting right to the essence of the objects appeal.

As science-fiction, Ready Player One is equally nostalgic. Cyberpunk has kind of faded from mainstream SF, but I can't help but notice that its themes and motifs are becoming more and more prophetic as we move through the 21^st Century. It could be ripe for a comeback, and Ready Player One does its basic themes well enough to be on the vanguard of that movement. I know that when I finished the book, I immediately hit the Web and found a couple of bloggers to recommend recent cyberpunkish books for me to move on to. There is just something that appeals to me in the basic concept of an OASIS or a matrix (Gibson's, not Keanu's) or a Metaverse. I love the contrast of status and the concept of “self” between the meat person and the virtual person, and Ready Player One really does some fun things with it as Parzival and his fellow gunters become famous in the real world for the actions of their avatars.

Maybe Ready Player One isn't great literature. It is really the nerd version of a beach read, but it is a really enjoyable beach read that I can recommend to any science-fiction fan with even a hint of 80's nostalgia in his or her heart.

Sentinels of the Multiverse: Rook City - A Review

Over the past few months, Greater Than Games' superhero card game Sentinels of the Multiverse has seen quite a bit of table time at my place. Its thematic roller-coaster pacing only seems to get better as time goes on. Rook City, the first expansion to the series, ratchets up the fun through the inclusion of new villains, heroes, and environments from the seedy underbelly of the sprawling Rook City. The expansion also subtly adds to the game mechanics a bit, by adding a new scaling mechanism that helps the game maintain balance  with differing player counts, as well as a couple of new attributes that modify how much damage can be dealt during an attack.

Christopher Badell, Greater Than Game's Design Director, was kind enough to speak with us about the Rook City expansion when it was being funded on Kickstarter, so it was a treat to finally bring the game to the table, and see what Greater Than Games had really been plotting in their hidden fortress. Since I have previously reviewed the Sentinels of the Multiverse base game, I am not going to talk about the rules of the core game, but instead focus on the successful tweaks to the formula, as well as the interesting and engaging characters and environments that have been introduced into GTG's Multiverse.

Components:

Like Sentinels of the Multiverse, Rook City maintains the card based nature of the game. Even without a box full of components, Rook City manages to capture the visceral essence of a comic book story. It shares the same expressive, colorful artwork that the original game introduced, through the quality cards and colorful box.

The biggest visible difference with Rook City is its box. Not only does it have a higher quality linen finish, but it contains a custom insert that holds the cards perfectly, and removes the need to separately bag cards. The custom insert is a step in the right direction, but there are still some issues with the new box as a storage solution. First of all, it isn't really built to hold all of the cards in the game - the cards from the base game, and the Rook City cards will have to stay quarantined in their own respective boxes. Second, there is no easy way to separate the cards. The way the cards are stored in the new box doesn't really allow for baggies or tabbed separators. (However, Greater than Games is addressing this issue in tandem with the second expansion, by releasing a new box that will hold all of the cards for the base game and expansions.) When push comes to shove, though, the amount of space that Sentinels and Rook City take up on a shelf is still much less than most deck builders.

New Mechanics:

Rook City introduces some new mechanics to the game. Unlike expansions in many other games, these rules are all self contained. The basic game rules remain untouched, and new mechanisms are introduced only in the card text of the Heroes, Villains and Environments in Rook City. Since cards from different games are never shuffled together into a single deck, it allows GTG to craft new play experiences in Rook City, without affecting the play experience in the base game.

The first, and most important change is the addition of a new symbol to Rook City cards. This symbol looks like an H with a circle around it, and is always interpreted as the number of heroes in the current game. One of my concerns with the base game, was that it did not scale well. The villains and environments had a fixed difficulty regardless of the number of players. This made a 3 player game much harder than a 4 player game. With this new scaling mechanic, however, the Rook City villains and environments can now scale in difficulty based on the player counts.  It's always a bit scary when game designers start tinkering with a system that already works, but I am happy to say that Rook City maintains the dynamic, tense flavor of Sentinels, only now it allows for a much more flexibility in player count.

The other two changes to the game's mechanics are more minor, although fairly pervasive throughout the new decks. One identifies a target as invulnerable, while the other ensures that damage done cannot be reduced in potency. These effects could have been written into the descriptions on the appropriate cards, but by introducing them as keywords, a lexicon is being created for the game that can be built upon in later expansions. Although these new mechanisms may seem minor, the cards that utilize the new keywords can really add a feeling of both power and dread to the game, further supporting the cinematic feel of the game.

Cast of Characters:

When it comes down to it, the success and charm of both Sentinels of the Multiverse and Rook City are delivered though the individual characters in the game: the villains, heroes, and environments. Yes, I realize that I just called the environment a character in the game, but I still believe that the environments have so much character, they become anthropomorphic in their own right. Since the characters are the heart and soul of the expansion, I would like to talk about each of these 8 personalities separately.

Villains

The Organization - The Organization is a corporate juggernaut that secretly controls Rook City in it's shadowy back rooms. Led by a man called only "The Chairman", and kept in line by a formidable woman known as "The Operative", The Organization is a doubly tough nut to crack.

Where most villains have a single leader that needs to be defeated, The Organization starts with two villains on the table. In line with the typical hierarchy of a corporation, players will have to fight tooth and nail through a bureaucracy before finally defeating The Chairman. The way The Organization deck is structured, there are various underbosses who continue to bring thugs into play; and The Operative, who brings the various Underbosses into play. Not only are waves upon waves of minions delivered to the players during the battle, but the Chairman is completely untouchable until The Operative has been dispatched.

The thought that was put into this villain deck to create mechanisms that reinforce the feeling of a corporate hierarchy are incredibly inspired. This is the sort of attention to detail that gives Sentinels it's uniquely effective theme without having to punt on the gameplay. This villain deck reminds me of a Saturday Morning Cartoon, or an 8 bit beat 'em up video game; the players have to battle through what seems like an unending wave of thugs in order to defeat the mini-bosses, and the end culminates in a two part boss battle where the boss's defenses have to be penetrated before he can be ultimately defeated. This is a narrative arc that has been found in movies, books, and video games for years, because it works so well at an instinctual level. It's no surprise that it works in Rook City as well, as this is a very dynamic and tense battle.

Spite - Spite's story taps into the idea of the government meddling in the affairs of men and creating damage that it cannot control. Similar to the theme in classics like "A Clockwork Orange", where the government uses prisoners as test subjects for questionable experiments, Spite's story is one of a serial killer who is given an opportunity to commute his death sentence by being a lab rat. Unfortunately, the experiments that were performed turned Spite into a monster of unimaginable violence and power. He easily escaped his confines, and now roams the city feeding his unquenchable thirst for murder and pumping his twisted body full of chemicals that give him superhuman strength.

Spite's deck is very unique, and has two main themes that run through it. The first is his insatiable need to kill innocent people. Throughout the deck are victim cards that represent innocents which the heroes can save by completing tasks on the card's text. If the heroes chose not to save the victims, they are quickly dispatched by cards brought into play from the villain deck, causing damage to the heroes, or greater strength to Spite. This is another clever mechanic that forces players to act like heroes. In most of the other villain decks, the heroes are put into a position where fighting is the only purpose, however Spite's deck introduces heroic sacrifices that the players must perform in order to save innocent victims. This changes the mood of the game and the motivation of the players, and surprisingly ratchets up the SuperHERO nature of the game.

The second theme in the Spite deck is chemical mutation. Along with the victim cards in the deck are a collection of chemicals and mutagens that strengthen and change Spite's behavior, forcing players to balance their attacks on Spite with the attempts to save the innocents, and causing the flow of the game to swing between the two objectives. 

I find it very refreshing that the Villains themselves really dictate the theme of the play experience, and each one can be drastically different. This modular nature makes me excited for the future of Sentinels, and the ability for the game to persist and continue to deliver new and unique play experiences without the need to rework the core mechanics.

The Matriarch - The Matriarch takes a page out of Alfred Hitchcock's playbook by making birds terrifying again. The Matriarch's power is granted by a magical mask that allows her to commune with the flocks of avian minions.

The key theme in The Matriarch's deck is swarming. As long as her mask is in play, the villain deck is cycled, bringing continued destruction to the table until more birds appear. This causes the play area to fill up with more birds every turn, turning the play area into a seemingly unending cloud of wings and beaks. 

Like the previous villains, The Matriarch's deck is very thematic in its execution. The mechanics that bring about this feeling don't seem as creative as the other villains, though. The Matriarch has less of a roller coaster pacing to her cards, and instead feels a bit more like a hopeless grind to the finish. That's not to say that she isn't a compelling villain, just that the others produce a more interesting play experience.

Plague Rat - Plague Rat is a mutant half-man half-rat produced from the mixture of drugs and toxic waste spewed from the poorly regulated factories and industrial plants in Rook City. While years of criminal control has transformed Rook City into a toxic hive of villainy, the corrupted sewers have turned this former drug dealer into a noxious villain.

Like Teenage Mutant Turtles gone horribly wrong, Plague Rat could be likened to an evil alter ego of the good and protective Splinter. With veins filled with pestilence and toxins, Plague Rat's bite has lasting effects, theming his villain deck with poison and infection. Where other villains bring minions to the table that protect and divert attention, this rat-man wages a one-on-one battle with the heroes using only his debilitating bite which can turn the heroes against each other and themselves. Once all of the heroes are infected, their only remedy against the poison is to do damage to friendly targets.

I really enjoy the way that Plague Rat mixes up the Sentinels formula. By forcing the players to attack each other, it creates the feeling that the heroes are afflicted by a mind altering pathogen that turns the conflict against Plague Rat into a conflict of self as well. When you think about it, that is a pretty deep theme for a simple card game.

Heroes -

Expatriette - The first of the two heroes included in the Rook City expansion would give John Rambo a run for his money. Daughter of the villain "Citizen Dawn" in the main Sentinels game, Expatriette is a master of firearms with her sights on bringing justice to the world one bullet at a time.

Expatriette's deck is filled with firearms and ammunition, and her gameplay is all about swapping weapons and keeping them loaded with a variety of different types of rounds. Playing this harbinger of pure firepower is like standing next to a hailstorm of bullets. It's easy to imagine the game shifting into slow motion as the smoke swirls around her and the bullet casings spill to the ground, clinking against the pavement like steel rain. She may be straightforward to play, but the feeling of pure unadulterated firepower she presents is a lot of fun.

Mr Fixer - If Mr. Miyagi from the Karate Kid dropped the home maintenance angle and decided to start breaking evil's kneecaps, the result would be Rook City's Mr. Fixer - an ex martial arts instructor, who has turned his life to the pursuit of extracting justice for the brutal slaying of his students.

With an arsenal of car repair tools and knowledge in a myriad of martial arts styles, he is a force to be reckoned with; changing up his nature like others change clothes, and keeping his enemies guessing. Through the use of the different cards in his deck that represent tools and fighting styles, Mr. Fixer plays like a bunch of different characters in one. Choosing what style to use at any given moment can be very strategic, and empowers the player to feel like he is defeating his enemies not only with superhero skills, but with a calculating mind as well. While more subtle than Expatriette, he is just as fun to play.

Environments -

Rook City - Rook City is dangerous in many ways. Its sewers run green with toxic sludge, its crumbling buildings threaten to crush the unaware, and dangerous criminals roam it's darkened alleys. The villains that the heroes must confront are tough, but the city itself may be their toughest obstacle. That's not to say that Rook City doesn't have it's share of citizens working for the greater good. Even in an unlikely place like this, heroes may find some allies... or at least distractions for the enemy.

The Rook City deck may represent the most common type of environment found in comic books - the crime infested city. This common theme isn't a bad thing though, as it fills a thematic hole in the base game. The heroes of Sentinels needed a city to clean up, and it has been graciously delivered to them by Greater Than Games in the form of Rook City.

Industrial Complex - Lots of crazy things can happen in an Industrial Complex when there is little to no regulation. Filled with science experiments gone bad, the complex in Rook City has wonders that can both help and hinder hero and villain alike. But some of the technology found here isn't fully baked, and can combust in a shower of green goo and pain. Oh.. and watch out for the vermin that roam the dingy hallways - this Industrial Complex prefers to spend it's money on research over sanitation.

Unlike the Rook City deck that seems tipped in the villains' favor, the Industrial Complex is fairly neutral. The different vat cards stay in play and have effects on both villains and heroes alike. Sprinkled through the environment deck, however, are chemical explosions which cause the vats to blow up, and cause damage to all targets in play. The rat cards in the deck can be a hindrance, but if the experimental mutagen card comes into play, all of the rats will come out of the discard pile, and they will be much tougher to defeat.

Out of the two environments, I think that the Industrial Complex is my favorite. The cards within the deck seem to have more interplay with each other, and there is a lot more potential for catastrophic damage, both to the heroes and the villains.

Conclusion:

All in all, I was extremely impressed with Rook City. Not only did it rectify some of the scaling issues from the base game, but the heroes, villains, and environments were all a blast to play. The components themselves were also upgraded with higher quality cards and a box that allowed for better organization.

The only complaints that I have about the expansion are minor. While the box is better than the one in the first game, it still doesn't really address the storage problem with the game. Greater Than Games has plans to address this in upcoming releases, but until it is in my hot little hands, I'll have to make due. 

I suppose that it is also bit disappointing that the scaling mechanic only works for the Rook City cards. It would be nice to have the effects retroactive into the base game. This too is being addressed in a re-release of the base game, though, so players will soon have the opportunity to play with the best of both worlds.

It's rare that I have practically nothing negative to say about a game, and wax lyrical about it instead, but I find myself in that position with Sentinels of the Multiverse: Rook City. The additions in the expansion only work to enhance the game experience, and every one of them is welcome and well conceived. If you own Sentinels of the Multiverse already, Rook City is a must buy. If you don't own Sentinels of the Multiverse, wait for the second edition of Sentinels to be released, and then buy it - along with Rook City!