Monday, February 13, 2017

A few more that didn't make the cut

I reserve the right to change my mind about games. Occasionally, I'll sit down to play a game that I've always enjoyed in the past, but this time I see the game's fatal flaws. Or maybe the novelty of the new just wears off. We have way too many games anyway, so deciding on a few that we don't want to play any more (for whatever reason) won't do us any harm.

Dungeon Quest (3rd Edition) In my original review, I said "a relatively simple game that gives players plenty of decisions to make, but with enough randomness that the game doesn't ever get boring." However, in our most recent play, I found that very randomness to be egregious and irritating. Additionally, the game's card-based combat system always seemed out of place, and while the Revised 3rd Edition attempts to simplify, it's still awkward.
  • Original rating: 4
  • What we'll play instead: I originally bought this game thinking it was an expansion for RuneBound, so why not just play Runebound?

Legendary Encounters: Firefly We got rid of this game so fast, I never even got around to reviewing it. I love Firefly, and I love the other Legendary games, and this one added some interesting game play involving keeping the crew's ship running, which was very much in keeping with the source material. So why did we decide we don't want to own a copy of this game? It may sound shallow, but we just couldn't get past the abysmally poor artwork. Seriously, the card art in this game is so bad it was taking us out of the game and interfering with our enjoyment of it.
  • What we'll play instead: Gale Force Nine's Firefly game is still the gold standard for licensed games. Plus we have several other flavors of Legendary (Aliens, Predator, Marvel (with a ton of expansions), even Big Trouble in Little China), all of which have artwork that, while not always spectacular, at least isn't distractingly bad.

Raptor I liked this game, but my wife did not, and we really have no use for a 2-player game that only one of us likes.
  • Original rating: 4 (wishful thinking?)
  • What we'll play instead: there's no shortage of good two player games in our collection. Additionally, we just got Cretacea, a set of dinosaur-themed miniatures rules.

Star Wars: Empire vs. Rebellion This game is a simple re-skin of Cold War: CIA vs KGB, with some minor changes to the rules. We like Cold War better, and we have enough other Star Wars games.
  • Original rating: 3
  • What we'll play instead: Well, Cold War, obviously, but if we want to visit a galaxy far, far away we have X-Wing, Star Wars Miniatures, Rebellion (review coming soon), and Fantasy Flight's excellent Star Wars Roleplaying Game.

Volt: Robot Battle Arena This is a fun little game, but honestly, we just found ourselves never taking it off the shelf. We're more likely to want to play Robo Rally.
  • Original rating: 3
  • What we'll play instead: Robo Rally is the obvious choice, but our current go-to move-programming game is the excellent (and not nearly as infuriating) Colt Express.