My Take on “X-Men: The Last Stand”

(Avast, Thar’ be Spoilers Ahead)

OK, right off the bat, “X-Men: The Last Stand” has two strikes against it, just from the title. Film titles that have subtitles are sucky. And a film title’s subtitle that includes the word “Last” in it is “Sucky Plus”.

I was skeptical going into “X-Men 3”, due to a less than stellar director that was attached to the film. Brett Ratner. The name alone makes me want to take a shower. Blech! Thanks to Ratner, I was not interested enough to see this movie in the theatres. I’ve never been a big Ratner fan, and most likely never will be. His weekday, afternoon, soap-opera style of directing has never been a draw for me. Brett Ratner has no sense of artistry or storytelling. He’s the kind of director that laughs at his own jokes and lauds himself when he “makes a clever”.

Another unforgivable gaffe was in the opening sequence. Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan were CGI’d to make them appear twenty years younger. The special effect did not accomplish this. Instead, the computer effect made them look like a cross between alien imposters and burn victims. The effect was highly distracting and served little purpose. We’ve seen Patrick Stewart “younged-up” before in “Star Trek: Insurrection” and the effect was subtle, believable and extremely effective.

OK, now I’m going to geek out for a little bit, so please forgive me. Where the hell were all of their accents?! Most of the X-Men all have very distinct accents. Brian Singer was not an X-Men fan, but he gave the longtime fans many little nods to the comic books. Another no-show was Nightcrawler, which is unfortunate for obvious reasons.

Also, Archangel was a non-entity in the film. He’s there as scenery and not at all relevant to the plot. He should have been more central to the plot as his introductory scenes suggest he should. Instead, he’s limited to a lot of flash scenes, but no thunder.

On the whole, “X-Men 3” felt phoned in. Ratner got tired and started giving the only direction he knew. That being, “I dunno, what do eleven-year olds want to see? Do that.”

OK, so “X-Men 3” wasn’t all that bad.
- We actually get to see Wolverine tear through a grip of mutants; granted they are cheesecloth, Logan-fodder mutants.
- The Phoenix scenes were great and all together creepy. She was freakin’ scary.
- Rebecca Romijn is smokin’ as a brunette!
- We discover that Storm is pretty powerful, here to fore not displayed in the films. Also, Magneto began to display uses of his power that made him more like the Magneto we are familiar with from the comic books.
- The Beast was brilliantly portrayed by Kelsey Grammer. He was just as witty and cheeky as in the books.
- The inclusion of Moira MacTaggert in a role that was similar to her role in the comics was a great addition.
- The head of a sentinel, in the Danger Room. That’s it. This movie goes up a whole point just for this.
- Iceman actually gets “Iceman-ish” for a few seconds.
- Rogue uses her powers like Rogue ought to be using her powers.

In conclusion, “X-Men: The Last Stand”, seemed like a thirteen-year old boy losing his virginity; all action, no finesse, fumbling for meaning, awkward and a somewhat selfish delivery. “X-Men 3” was an exercise in asking the fans what they would like to see, delivering it to them by putting all of the suggestions in a hat, pulling them out one at a time and filming the results in no particular order. As the sequel to “Jurassic Park”, “The Lost World”, proved fans thought they knew what they wanted to see in a film. I, for one, want to see the vision of an expert director/screenwriter. They know best. Usually. I don’t want to see what I think I want to see. I want to see something else. I can imagine a third X-Men film that would be pretty dang cool, but I don’t want to see that. I want to see something else. Something I am incapable of imagining on my own. “X-Men: The Last Stand” was not that film.

Goose-steppin' to the Oldies

I thought I'd hurry and add this before it goes away on the Geek. It's sure to be deleted soon.

Aldie, has assumed personal responsibility for my piecemeal erasure from the Geek. That's cool. Someone who has assumed responsibility in this day is a rarity and should be lauded.

I replied.
"And yet "complaints about other people's posts, spelling, or grammar, nasty sarcasm, or other impolite comments" still abound on the Geek. The difference being the victims aren't "high profile". So they remain.

Everyone else has to go and find an admin to have something done about an abusive user. Whereas, some "celebs" have admins or the site owner clamoring over each other to delete the post for them. Tom didn't seem to have a problem with it and responded in kind.

Mean spirited? My comment was in jest. If anything was mean spirited, it was the way Sam and Tom regarded the official end of your podcast on their show. Rude and immature. Their behavior was neither stupendous nor tremendous."

I hear boots marching...

BoredGameGeek

I've recently been one foot out the door, regarding BGG. Whereas, I once was a huge proponent of BGG and brought several people to the site, including the guy at Dell that just sold the new server to Aldie at a steal, I am now quickly falling out of love with the site.

But not just the site, the industry. The fact that there are boardgaming "celebs" is such an odd concept to me. Lately, I've been more captivated by the meta, rather than the gaming.

I remember when gaming was about getting a bunch of folks together, slagging off responsibility and gaming my whole Saturday away. No reviews, no session reports, no logging the play or rating the game. The size of my collection didn't matter, but the quality of my social experiences were paramount to all. Good friends, good games, good food and good times. Things that can't be quantified or qualified on a web site.

BGG, and media as a whole, gives a voice to the feeble (Yeah, yeah... me too.) and makes the feeble feel empowered.

I can honestly say that I have not been enobled by my time on the 'Geek. I am worse off for my time spent there; and regret having spent as much time there as I have. Here is a list of terms and concepts that I would be better off never having heard them:
-Meeple
-Wood for Sheep (and all such... uh, humor?)
-Board Warping
-Broken
-Analysis Paralysis
-Collection
-Plays Logged
-Rating System
-Game Mechanics

They're games. Have a good time playing them. There's no need to be whiny and nitpicky. Enjoy them!

However, I have a dilemna. I am scheduled to attend BGG.CON. I am itching to sever all ties from BGG. I'm trying to be less of a "burn my bridges" type, but I've had enough. There are a good deal of people that I am excited to meet and game with, but there are a good deal of people that I couldn't care less about.

Protect the Glitterati!

Struck down once again, by the BGG censors. This time by Daniel Karp. He and Octavian guard their snuggle buddy, Tom Vasel, like he's some cheesecloth-skinned kitten. They are no where to be found when the grossest amounts of vitriol are being hurled at others, but Tom must be guarded at all times. Pathetic.

Wanna See a Pic?

Also, I know this is pretty rare. But I've updated my photos page.

http://homepage.mac.com/joebelanger/

My Take on "Mancala"

I hated this game. This game made no sense to me, I could not understand its appeal and how it had survived as a game for 1,400 years. Grrr…Mancala. I was taught Mancala by my little brothers and enjoyed the simplicity of gameplay, but could not understand how this could actually be classified as a game, as it seemed heavily weighed toward who went first… Oh, did I forget to tell you? I did forget? Whoops, I was taught this game wrong; very wrong. Rather than tell you how wrong and it in what ways, let me instead give you this caution… don’t learn Mancala from anyone claiming to be my little brother. There, that’s much easier.

Well, with that out of the way, one day I was on BoardGameGeek, bored and went to Mancala’s entry. Scanning over the description of the game, I saw that there were a few differences of how the game was actually played from how we had been playing the game. I then went to our copy of the game and read the rules. What the …?! They were the same. Having played this game for years, incorrectly, I decided to give this game another chance and play it correctly. One evening, I reeducated my family as to how to correctly play the game. Years earlier, I taught my family the way that my brothers had taught me… ah, the foolish traditions of our fathers and all of that…. My family picked it up quickly and Mancala actually became a game and a good game at that! So much so that Mancala is the game of choice to play between the time I get home from work up until when dinner is ready.

OK, sorry, that was a bit long-winded, but I wanted to give you some background. So what’s so special about Mancala:
- It is easy to teach; even correctly. It is also easy to understand. There is a bit of a learning curve as some of the concepts are not all apparent at first.
- Mancala is highly portable. At least my copy is, which folds in half and can be easily thrown in a carry-on bag.
- We have an El-Cheapo copy of Mancala that was bought at Tal-Mart or some such retailer. The version we bought was inexpensive and yet the components are nice. A nice wooden board and half, flattened, glass beads make a nice feel to the game. The production is simple and elegant in that simplicity.
- Mancala has depth. There is conflict. There are moves that come back to bite you later and there are moves you make that are “set-up” moves, offensive moves and defensive moves. There are also a couple of endgame strategies that have you biting your fingernails at times.
- Mancala is a brief game and can be played a handful of times in quick succession.
- I think this is a rumor. I had heard that the origins of this game were that the game was created in the savannahs of Africa. The game was originally played by digging shallow holes in the ground, to form the board, and that hardened dung was used as the pieces. There’s something to be said for a game that used poop as a component. Even, if it’s not true, the game is still good; poop or not.
- This game is engaging for all ages. I play this game with my wife, friends and children. I even play this game with my two-year old. He’s watched us play it enough that he understands how to play the game. He doesn’t understand how to win, but he enjoys picking up the beads and dropping them off in the cups. I think it makes him feel older. Any game that I can play with all of my children is a great game in my book.

Aspects of Mancala that irritate me:
- Little brothers should not teach older brothers how to play this game.
- In our copy of Mancala, the cups are a bit too shallow for the beads at times and they overflow. Mancala manufacturers, please give us deeper cups. Not a big deal, but in case you were wondering; bigger cups.

I love Mancala. Mancala is a great game to take on trips and to fill ten to twenty minutes. Mancala is deep enough and quick enough that if you lose, it is very common to hear, “Let’s play that again. I want a rematch.”, or “Come on, best two out of three.” I’d like to get a nice set of Mancala for the coffee table. I think it would really bring the room together. Mancala is a lot of fun and if you have children, it's a “must have”.

My Take on "Battleball"

At KublaCon 2004, I entered into, my friend, Nate’s Strange Synergy tourney. The con organizers placed this tourney down in the room adjacent to the kid’s room. As the room we were in ran out of space. The event organizers opened up a room partition and we were suddenly sharing a room with the “kids that con attendees forgot”. I was never any good at Strange Synergy, my team of underwear perverts were losing and my attention began to wander. I saw two kids playing a game, on a big board, that looked like some kind of futuristic football. The game had painted minis and I assumed that if young kids were playing it was some mass-market kids game. I watched their game with interest as the last of my superhero team members was eliminated. “Interesting game”, I thought. Fast forward to a year later and me walking through a Kay-Bee toys having a close-out sale. There is Battleball, the game those kids were playing at KublaCon. Price tag, $4. For that price, even if it stunk, I could sleep at night. So I bought it.

Theme
The game is set in the near now and is an altered playing of the game of football (American). The teams are comprised of mutants, near-humans, cyborgs and light-mechs. The playing field is a metallic grid (the board is cardboard) that the teams grind out touchdowns on. The game is so violent that some team members might not make it back into the game before the game is over. Many team members are reduced to carnage (tokens) throughout the game.

Gameplay/Replayability
This game is a light dice-rolling game. It’s a little bit of a dice-fest, but nothing like Risk or Crimson Skies; more along the lines of Settlers of Catan. The gameplay is simple, but deciding upon which of your pieces to move can be complex. This game is a football game, but in no way a simulation. The game can be played quickly and several times in a row. (That’s a good indicator, as I generally do NOT like to play the same game back to back.) This game incorporates injuries, passing, offensive and defensive strategies. My seven year old and I play this often and although there was a bit of a learning curve for him, he caught on to a few of the tactics and often gives me a run for my money. There are only two teams in the game, with a few special abilities. I had heard that this game was meant to have some expansions with more teams. That would’ve been nice, but apparently the game didn’t really take off.

Components/Production Quality
Each piece in this game is painted and nicely designed. There are two teams each with their own look and feel. The board is fairly big and fits the theme well. All of the tokens (Carnage Tokens, that is!) are full color and somewhat unique. There are two sets of dice included with them game and one football shaped dice for when the ball is passed. The ball in the game is metallic and also thematically appropriate. For $4, I got way more than my money’s worth. One issue that I have with the miniatures is that they have stickers on them for detail. These stickers tend to peel and lose their cohesiveness. It would’ve been better to have forgone the stickers and painted something simple and stylistic in their stead.

Luck/Skill
This game is VERY luck based, but it is a manageable luck. Since the game is quick and light, I don’t think the luck is that big of a deterrent. Both players rely on the same luck, meaning that there are no modifiers to the dice rolls, or “take that” mechanics, it is easy to forgive the system for a streak of bad dice rolls.

Rules
The rules for this game are very concise and once you’ve played a couple of games, they become wholly unnecessary. There are no errata that I am aware of and the rules aren’t contradictory or difficult to understand. The rules are a plus in my book, full color, easy to understand and brief.

Miscellany Pro/Cons
If I have to list cons for this game, the few that I have are:
- The box is almost not big enough to contain all of the pieces, unless you take special care to place them all in the box, just so.
- No expansions. I want more teams!

The pros to Battleball are:
- Battleball is light, quick and thematic. It plays well with children and adults.
- Production quality on this game is high and well worth the price it is usually found for these days.

I’m really glad that I picked up Battleball. It really is a fun game. I’m not a huge sports fan, so my kids aren’t heavily exposed to sporting. My son expressed interest in playing a sport this year so we signed him up for football. When we told him that we signed him up, he looked terrified. I asked him why he seemed concerned. He confessed that he didn’t want to end up as carnage. We told him that we had signed him up for flag football, explained the difference between “flag” and “tackle” and he regained some of the color in his face.

If you see Battleball for $4, pick it up. You won’t regret it.

My take on "Samurai Swords".

Back when I was eleven or twelve, I used to baby-sit for this family. The dad had this closet filled from top to bottom with games. Most prominent in this closet was his collection of the Milton Bradley big box Gamemaster games series, all of them. I coveted these games. Skip to about eight years ago, my local hobby shop puts a copy of Samurai Swords on its shelves for sale. Having lived in Japan for two years, my lifelong obsession with board games and my covetousness of the Gamemaster series, I bought it immediately.

Samurai Swords has been described as Risk Plus. That may be true for the mechanics of combat, but there is so much more to a game of Samurai Swords that I feel this description does the game a great disservice. First and foremost, the Risk board has a couple of corners that you can back yourself into and hole up, if things start going south for you. The board in Samurai Swords does not allow one to hole up. There are very few corners and they’re not as defensible as the corners in Risk. In Risk, a few well-timed, temporary alliances are a good idea to get ahead. In Samurai Swords, negotiation is necessary and a big part of the game. There is a really sense of tension in Samurai Swords that the provinces that you are holding can very easily be taken from you, if you are not paying attention. Unlike Risk, the total obliteration of your opponent’s armies is not necessary. One player will win, if he controls 35 of the provinces on the board.

Things that make Samurai Swords great are:
- The production of this game is fantastic. Every player gets a set of well-sculpted minis to represent their armies. A very sturdy and nice-on-the-eyes screen to shield their planning from the other players. This screen also has player reference information on one side. Tigris and Euphrates player screens ought to commit seppuku in shame to Samurai Swords’ player screens. Also, there are castles and fortification pieces in this game. These are also beautifully sculpted and add to the overall look and feel of the game.
- The negotiation in this game really gives a player the feel that they are a feudal lord during the Edo Jidai, carving out a legacy on their way to creating their shogunate. Some games are a straight out fight, but in Samurai Swords there is a lot of trust, treachery, promises kept and backstabbing going on. I love playing this game and looking into another player’s eyes, as he is telling me that we have a non-aggression pact for a turn. You really have to judge the character of your allies in this game.
- The ninja. This game has a ninja that is for hire. There’s really nothing more to say on that.
- The spending of your money (The money in this game is called koku.) Players spend their koku simultaneously behind their player screens. Koku can be spent on choosing which order you will play in, building castles, levying units, hiring ronin and hiring the ninja. You have to be careful when spending your money. If you bid the same amount as other people for certain things, you both lose your koku. If you don’t bid enough for those services, you’ll lose your koku. So you really have to weigh your chances of getting certain things and either give them up entirely that round or go for the gusto.
- Hiring ronin. When hiring the ronin, you place them on top of an upside down province card (or cards). This is a great tactic. Only you know where those ronin are, but all of the other players don’t know. They can try and deduce where you would have put them, but they aren’t revealed unless attacked or if you are making an attack with them. Ominously, Ronin initially sit on the side of the board either keeping players from attacking you or if used against you, vice versa. Do you take that risk attacking a player with hired ronin? Are the ronin in the province that you have your eye on? Tense.
- Daimyo experience. As your generals (or daimyo, pronounced die-myo [sorry, pet peeve]) see more success in battle, they gain experience. This allows them to make more attacks per turn and move through more provinces per turn. As your daimyo become more experienced, beware. The other players will hire the ninja, just to take that uber-daimyo out. Then you are left (hopefully) with a green replacement daimyo.

Things that bug about this game:
- Like Axis and Allies, you will occasionally get the player who likes to move all of his pieces on the board, then say “Whoops, let me do that over.”, and then move all of his pieces back to their “supposed” starting positions, before moving them once again. Everyone else just looks at each other sideways and gives that knowing look of “I don’t know how I’ve just been cheated, I just know I have been cheated.” Samurai Swords, with all of its many pieces, allows the “Three-Card Monty” player a big playground to play in. At one convention, it was suggested that as you move your pieces you lay them down on their sides. Some of the provinces on the board are small and fill up fast with pieces laying down, but this is the best solution to this problem as of yet.
- This game can go long. If no one runs away with a victory early on, then this game can go on for a while. I’ve played a couple of seven-hour games of Samurai Swords, which subsequently convinced me to sell it. Luckily, no one bought it from me though; I would’ve regretted that.
- Player elimination. Often the game ends shortly after someone has been completely wiped out. That is tolerable. But if the game goes on for a while after that, then that (as with any player elimination game) can really stink.

Samurai Swords is a lot of fun to play, especially at a games day. I suggest playing this game early in the day, as it can go long occasionally. The game is involved, deep and my favorite dice-fest. There is lot of more going on in this game that what is laid out on the board. I prefer playing this game with an odd-number of players, as it discourages even-numbered, long-term alliances. Samurai Swords is not for all people. If you are not a fan of direct conflict, dice-fest, negotiation or long-games than Samurai Swords is not for you. If you need to scratch your “direct conflict, dice-fest, negotiation, long-game” itch every now and then, then Samurai Swords is the perfect choice.

This has to be one of the coolest things I've seen since 2:30 p.m. yesterday.

My Take on "Betrayal at House on the Hill"

I kept seeing this game at the cons I had been attending a couple of years ago. Betrayal at House on the Hill. My attention was always drawn to it, because 1.) I love horror films, books, shows and anything to do with the genre. 2.) The game appeared to be a dungeon crawl, I totally dig that. I was a big time RPG’er. -and- 3.) The quality of the game that I saw being played looked great.

Yet, I passed this game by several times.

Some of the reasons that I kept buying other games before buying Betrayal at House on the Hill were:
- On further inspection of the components, I saw that the character cards had slider bars to manage your character’s statistics. I’m not a big fan of slider bars. They eventually get loose and it is difficult to keep your stats straight if you mishandle your character card.
- Holy freaking cardboard chit-fest! Not a huge problem, but the box storage looked, well, er…non-existent. The box has a six-compartment divider in it that does anything but divide those chits. Nothing a Plano tackle box or plastic baggies couldn’t solve.
- My wife hates horror. As my chief game-playing partner, I would have to look elsewhere to get playtime in on this game.
- Shouldn’t the title of the game read, "Betrayal at THE House on the Hill" or "Betrayal at A House on the Hill" or "Betrayal at SOME House on the Hill", etc.? I just thought that the title was missing something.

OK, so I obviously bought the game. What did it? Ted Cheatham. That man could sell underwear to Scotsmen. I heard an audio review, by Ted, for Betrayal at House on the Hill. Ted has such energy and enthusiasm for whatever he’s presenting, that it made me forget all of the reasons that I wasn’t impressed enough to go out and buy it forthwith.

I bought it, read the rules and cajoled my wife into playing it with my son and I. It took a lot of dishwashing and dusting to get her to play this with me, so keep that in perspective. I have no shame. I will bust my hump to get my wife to play games that she’s not too keen on playing.

What this game is lacking:
- For a horror game Betrayal is pretty dull. The game play is less than Carcassonne. LESS than Carcassonne. As if you thought that was even possible?! It is. Betrayal is a bit dry. Move, lay a tile, read an encounter. Wash, rinse, repeat until the Haunt begins. Yawn. Action and thrills are few and far between.
- There are a lot of errors, misprints and vagaries in this game and its rulebooks. More fun than the game is the interpretations of the Haunt parameters as read by the players. It’s like solving a Holmsian mystery.
- Mentioned above, the box storage and the character cards are a bit…myeh. Another problem with the components are the chits. There is a boatload of them. Sifting through them to find the specific ones can be a bit anticlimactic. Like getting your zipper stuck shut on your wedding night.
- There are big tokens included within the game that represent big monsters, main bad guys or bosses (whichever term you prefer.) Tokens? Come on, Avalon Hill, you couldn’t have sprung for a couple more minis?!
- Underground Lake.

OK, I still enjoy this game occasionally. Yes, despite all of the gripes listed above, I like this game. Why?
- The theme of this game is incredible! This game stays true to all of the ghost stories, spooky tales and monster movies that I grew up on. Betrayal doesn’t candy coat it either. There is blood, disturbing descriptive imagery and edgy realism. Some kids tender sensitivities may not be suited for Betrayal. Play with caution. We play with our son, but that’s only because he’s already scarred for life because he has us for parents.
- Some of the components leave a lot to be desired, but they are in full color and printed on sturdy stock.
- This is a tile-laying dungeon crawl; therefore there are infinite possibilities. The replayability of this game is high. But only based on the number of Haunt scenarios and tile layout. The replayability is also low, due to the dryness of the game play.
- The Haunt. This is the real game behind Betrayal at House on the Hill. At some point in the game a traitor is revealed, without any prior knowledge of the traitor having been the traitor. All of a sudden, one of your friends goes bad. Then the traitor reads some objectives and the remaining players read their objectives and either the traitor wins the game or the remaining players win by completing their objectives, respectively. This is where the action begins. Sometimes The Haunt can be over pretty fast (see the above reference to one’s wedding night) and that too can be pretty anticlimactic. Other times the Haunt can go on for a bit and that’s where the satisfaction lies. Another aspect of The Haunt, that I like, is the fact that players (non-traitors and the traitor, that is) in this game have opposing or differing winning conditions. This is a nice change. There are times when all of the games that have like winning conditions get a bit dull and I need to play a game that has players going for different goals. Betrayal scratches this itch.
- The player’s pawns. I really like the pawns in this game. There are an equal number of male and female pawns. Wow! Is chauvinism in gaming dead? The miniatures are fully painted and well sculpted.

Betrayal at House on the Hill is an OK game. Speaking to the general public, it’s worth a play or two. I would definitely try this game before you buy it. Personally, I like to break it out in October or on a stormy night. Other than those times, the game stays on my shelf. I’d like to play this game more, but more than that I’d like this game to be more than it is.

Recently on BoardGameGeek, a cartoon lampooning Tom Vasel's work ethic was posted. In the ensuing posts, a comment came up referring to an episode of Tom's podcast, The Dice Tower. The episode in question had his wife as the co-host. While listening to this episode, their interaction stood out to me as peculiar. I can't remember for the life of me what the content of their dialogue was, due to the way Tom handled his wife. It was so jarring, I was more drawn in by their curious interaction, more than the topic at hand.

Well, obviously, I wasn't the only one. This post's conversation soon turned to how many other people noticed this too.

Then, it was gone.

Censored.

Matthew M. Monin (Octavian) felt that the thread violated the site's posting policies and killed it. Matthew then went on to kill every post that mentioned the incident. According to him, mention of a deleted thread violated the site's posting policies. He then threatened me with a revoking of my ability to post, if I brought up the incident again. Matthew was determined to sweep this under the rug. To quote him, "No...and please be advised that despite this misunderstanding future behavior of this sort that is in blatant disregard of the posting guidelines may be met with restrictions placed on your posting privileges."

It appears that if you become a big enough celebrity in the boardgaming microcosm, people will leap at the chance to cover up your indiscretions and further enable your behavior.

Matthew M. Monin, connoisseur of Black Markers, Thought Cop and Serial Thread Killer. And in my book, one of many thin-skinned cowards who would rather shape their world by chopping off the unseemly parts, rather than accept criticism.