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Cardboard Children - Boardgame News

there are laser turrets

Hello youse!

We're off the back of a string of five reviews, so it's time for a NEWS UPDATE. Let's call this the NEWS UPDATE OF MAY, or the MAY NEWS UPDATE. Of board games, obviously. And you might be thinking - “Well, Rab, you just did a news update last month, called the April News Update or something. Is there even more news about daft board games already?” And I'm all like that - “Well, yes.”

MAY BOARD GAME NEWS

WWE SUPERSTAR SHOWDOWN

This is easily the most exciting news of the month, for obvious reasons. First of all – we all love wrestling, because it's the best thing ever. I love wrestling so much my heart actually aches when I think about it. And I also love the games that Gale Force Nine has been pushing out. Their wonderful game Spartacus came in at NUMBER 1 on my favourite games of all time list, just under the GOAT Cosmic Encounter. And their Sons of Anarchy is really good too. I've heard Firefly is pretty fly, and they did Homeland too, which is rated by many. And now they do WRASSLIN? This is going to be GREAT. It's a team-based thing. Two teams, taking control of superstars, slugging it out in the squared circle. There are little miniatures and cards and a ring in the middle and – oh, I don't know how it works, but you just know it's going to be great. Gale Force Nine are masters of theme, and I think they'll be able to really nail this. It's shot to the top of my want list, and I hope they expand it like crazy. I want EVERYBODY. I want Legends in the mix too.

This is exciting, right?

IMPERIAL SETTLERS: ATLANTEANS

Imperial Settlers is a really nice game, where players use cards to build a little empire and collect resources and activate abilities. It's one of those solid, efficient designs that makes you sit up and go “Oh!” right out loud.

Like this - “Oh!”

Well, it was only a matter of time before an expansion arrived – and this one lets a fifth player play the game. But hey, listen, this new faction – The Atlanteans – sounds really interesting. They play very differently from the other factions, using technology that the other factions can't use. And this is cool – at the end of the game all their buildings sink and don't score points. So I'm guessing that they need to stack all those points up before the game ends. Grow that empire before the inevitable collapse! How tragic! Any expansion that adds more players and shakes the game up a fair bit is one worth looking out for.

SURVIVE: SPACE ATTACK!

Now, Survive: Escape from Atlantis is one of my favourite board games.

It's one of those games that I recommend to people all the time. It's just that perfect little family game with just enough going on, and it has some seriously fierce teeth. So I'm intrigued by this new version of the game, setting the survival action in space. Initially I thought it was just a re-theme that would bring the game in line with all this SPACE SPACE SPACE stuff we're seeing these days. But no – looks like there's a bit of a re-design in the mix here. And that makes me a little bit nervous. There are fighter ships that seem to give the players more to do – you can capture and re-deploy aliens. Or is that just like when you can move the sharks and stuff in the original game? There are laser turrets to “defend the space station”, whatever that means. And alien creatures can evolve and get more powerful. Which is odd. Or just different.

Yeah, it's a different game, right? Relax. I'm interested. Are you? I'm scared. Are you?

ARCADE

Arcade looks amazing. First of all – it comes in a VHS case. That's already cool as anything. Then you see the components, and it looks like TRON. It's a 2-player skirmish game, with those TRON-style units made from acrylic, all see-through and lovely, hammering into each other across these terrain boards. And I don't know how the game plays – I'm not sure I even care. That thing is going to look beautiful on the table. It looks like a simple game – destroy your opponent's tanks. Hopefully it has a nice clean ruleset to go with it. I'm going to try to pick this one up so we can all have a look at it. It seems like the kind of game we – by which I mean me and you, constant reader – will really dig.

CRYSIS: ANALOGUE EDITION

Now we're talking about something that PC gamers will be interested in! I know how much all you lot love a game with the word “Cry” in the title. Like FarCry and Crysis and FarCry 2 and Crysis 2 and FarCry 3 and I don't know if there's a Crysis 3, but probably. And this is a board game of those games, with two player teams – one representing CELL (no idea) and the other representing the US Forces (I know who they are) – going head-to-head in a bunch of scenarios that probably involve shooting. There are little plastic soldiers and terrain and stuff. It's on Kickstarter, so you can take a look if you want to find out more.

But it's an odd PC game to make a board game out of though, eh? Is there a lot of flavour in those games? Aren't they kinda “man in generic robot suit”? Maybe I'm wrong. Put it this way – I don't like the Gears of War console game at all, but the board game is fantastic.

Oh look! There's a video! It actually looks pretty sweet!

Cover image for YouTube video

NEXT TIME

Another NEW board game recommendation. More new, good board games just keep coming. It is deliciously, frighteningly endless!

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Crysis

PS3, Xbox 360, PC

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About the Author

Robert Florence

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