| Confessions of a comic book junkie I can't recall exactly when I fell in love with superhero comics. My most vivid early memories are at seven reading a giant, and I do mean giant, sized Defenders issue where the team was fighting the Zodiac. I must have been either six or seven. Its been a long road since then and, even though there have been periods where I drifted away, I always come back to superhero comics. I do like other comics but is always been superheroes for me. I have no idea why. So, here I'll try, starting tomorrow with the latest releases, to give spoiler free reviews of the best and worst comics on my pull list for that week. I also intend to review whatever rpg or board game I'm currently playing as well. First week up! Game Reviews: About a month ago, I looked at my shelves in the living room. I was struck by how bare they were. I literally had zero boardgames and nothing to play or pull out if a friend came over and wanted to do something. So I resolved to change that. Since then I have added about half a dozen boardgames which I'll review here. I'll also post links where you can purchase these fine products. Boardgames: This past weekend I got to play in demos for two new boardgames from White Wolf Publishing, the creators of Vampire: The Requiem. The first is called Murder City. Murder City is set in a dark future, think Blade Runner, where you play a investigator/lawyer trying to convict murderers. I have an audio of the demo that I'll be posting later today. And here's the link to the audio. I'll say that I greatly enjoyed this game and, if I had've had more funds, I would have bought it. I enjoyed the storytelling aspect to it and how you have to try to convince another player to side with you. And, in case I didn't mention it in the audio, the design is really top notch. The other game is called Monster Mayhem. In it, you play one of filmland's famous monsters: Vampire, Poltergeist, Mummy, Werewolf, or Zombie. Your goal is to hunt down and harvest victims. What you harvest is based on what creature you pick. Each monster has different stats for movement, capturing victims, and fighting other monsters. There are also crave points, the currency of the game. You earn them by harvesting victims. Each monster has 3 preferred victims that give bonus crave points. Crave points increase your initiative and can be used to get more victims on the board as well as add dice for contests. Victims move randomly using a color coded deck, the Escape Deck. A number on the card indicates how far they flee and a color coded wheel on the board shows what color corresponds to what direction. The board itself is largely blank, covered in blank tiles except for the four subway spaces. The rest of the city consists of three location types that are indicated as hex tiles you place to lay out the city before play, so the city can change from game to game. There are 3 kinds of tiles, Hunting grounds, Lairs, and Save Havens. If a victim ends his movement on a safe haven, he might escape the city. If a monster returns to its lair, it recieves a new Event card. More on those in a moment. Each Monster has a power and a weakness. The Power allows them to control a victim's or their own movement in some manner. The weakness, which can be triggered by other players using Event Cards, hampers the character in some way that makes sense for that monster. For Example, the Werewolf will fly into a rage, fighting a victim instead of capturing to harvest. So he'd kill the victim and receive no crave points. Event cards allow the monsters to do many things, from improving their own rolls, to moving victims in special ways, hampering their fellow monsters, and triggering their weaknesses. The design of this game is wonderful. The art for the victims is very stylized and evokes the cheezy monster movies of the seventies. Since there aren't really any gory descriptions, I recommend this game for anyone twelve or older. Its fun and, if you use the little 'clock' up in the corner, is very fast paced. In the demo I played we took barely forty-five minutes. Of course, you can decide to play longer if you wish. Three and a half out of five stars. |
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