Haha! I did it! Despite having to work ten hours that same day, I
made it up to the Trinity: Battleground demo. Whew! Excuse that silly
opening, I'm just riding the rush of attending my first demo. As full
a report as I can manage follows, but first, more of the same from
uncle Surly...
I want to scream: "Sell-out!" when I think of ORCS AT THE GATES
(http://jollyrogergames.hypermart.net/JOL777/JOL777.htm), the new game
based on the KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE comic book
(http://members.aol.com/relkin/kodt.html). But I hesitate to do so. I
hesitate, probably because I love everything about the KNIGHTS OF THE
DINNER TABLE comic. It's all so funny! Well, not finding back
issues...that's a pain. Speaking of pain, having to peel and stick
zillions of little stickers? That's a lot of work for what they call a
"Beer and Pretzels" type of game. Come to think of it, maybe the folks
who made this game consumed too much beer and Pretzels before sending
the rules to the printers. There's already a mile-long sheet of rules
corrections; not a good thing for a beer and Pretzels game. Cheapass
has really raised the bar for B&P games; so if you aren't going to
take your game very seriously, you need to make certain it costs less
than $30.
Come to think of it, why make this game at all? KNIGHTS OF THE
DINNER TABLE has a circulation of about 3,000. Is 3,000 potential
sales enough to warrant a board game? A reprint collection would
probably generate more sales. Or, could ORCS AT THE GATE be intended
to bring gaming people into the world of KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE?
Not for 30 bucks it isn't.
The worst idea ever in the short history of Collectable Card Games
(not including accidents and the idea of Collectable Card Games
themselves...the thought of designing a game in which collecting is
more important than playing makes me ill) is struggling to climb out
of the bottom spot (it's a short climb to Star Trek's Fajo Collection:
18 cards for 80 bucks). Yes, the Babylon 5 Masterpiece Collection (12
cards and an action figure for $80...first mentioned back in Uncle
Surly's first column
(../CTO_1298/Surly.html) )
is now scheduled to include a script from a B5 episode! It could be
from a stinker like Knives or Grail, but if it is the pilot episode,
or one of the Peter David scripts, I'll seriously consider buying it
for CLOSE TO $80. If it ever comes out, that is. It has been pushed
back a few months again, because we all know how hard it is to put 12
cards in a binder.
I was fooling around at work (which is really difficult at Target),
and I happened across some cute little plastic Pokemon, packaged in
pairs. Taking a pack back to my haunt (Domestics/Housewares, sadly), I
discovered the true nature of the little Pokemon. It's a game. There's
a coin for each Pokemon, with a different number of stars on either
side; players flip their coins, and whoever gets the higher result
wins. A six dollar coin flipping game! The odd thing is, it says that
the game is for one or more players, yet no solitaire rules are to be
found. I guess all the coin flipping could be done by one person. It'd
be more than a little dull and retarded, though. On the other hand, we
are talking about a $6 coin flipping game...by the way, here's a picture
of them little monsters. They are on the left side of the shelves:
http://www.toymania.com/news/toyfair99/hasbro/pokemon/0212_087.JPG
One final side note (a followup, if you will); I was checking
people last Sunday, when a little boy purchased a package of the
Pokemon coin flipping game. He told his mom that he needed this set,
because he couldn't beat Pikachu with the set he had! The concept of
strategy in a coin-flipping game snapped my brain, and I hurdled over
the counter, stomped the package flat, and breathed fire on it until
it was little more than a pile of ashes. Then they made me get the boy
a new one, and go clean up shoes. That'll teach me to express my
opinions in public.
Okay! Enough of that! Time for the Trinity: Battleground demo
review! We dragged up to Ye Olde Comic Store this past Sunday, to find
one guy and a landscape all set up for us. Sadly, it wasn't a learning
demo, it was a "You have to play" demo. So, I played. This might have
biased the results some. But maybe it allows me to form a more
accurate opinion. Who can say?
Trinity is a space game, pitting humans against mutants on a
distant planet. Of course, weapons haven't developed nearly as much as
space travel, but at least all the plastic men have super-powers. And
there aren't that many plastic men, compared to the only other
strategy game I have played: Risk. More dice get used, though.
It reminds me of 3D Risk in space. Well, there are no territories
to conquer, and I would say that there's less role-playing in
Battleground than in Risk (strange as that may seem), but you push
little men around and roll dice to kill each other, just like Risk.
There's more math than risk. I almost forgot to mention that, because
Demo Guy did a lot of it in his head.
The objective of the game (though I am certain it can vary) was to
kill everyone on the opposing team. Pretty basic. I admit, I caught on
quite fast (and your Uncle Surly is not all that sharp). Having
someone teach you is quite a plus. With just the rulebook (which is
very thin), I suspect a two hour learning curve is appropriate. This
particular game would have taken about two hours, maybe a bit less,
because it was a rout. I killed his leader on turn two, and the rest
fell pretty quickly. One guy was left when we had to go home. I had
lost one of my guys, though (more on that in a second).
Let's see if I can find a list of what is in the set. There's a
rulebook, dice, cardboard buildings, some terrain (which my cohort set
up in a very advantageous pattern), character sheets, and billions of
counters. There's also little plastic men; about 20 of them. I didn't
get to see them unpainted. Will I be able to tell these people apart
if they are all the same color? I suspect that if they are difficult
to distinguish, making a different colored mark on each base will be
enough to help quickly distinguish them. I just don't have the time,
money, or skill to paint little tiny men. Maybe that means wargaming
isn't for me. I hope not. I'm looking forward to owning this one.
Speaking of which, one of the characters in the game was completely
useless! He had no gun, no cool powers, nothing! Undaunted, I used him
as bait (and he was my only guy to die), but WHY would a game include
such a character? Why? Why?
Will I be buying my own set? Well, I might have purchased one on
the spot, if Ye Olde Gaming Store had a copy that I could have
purchased with the money I specifically brought along in case I loved
it like I did. So, we go to plan B: beg my friend to use his magic
credit card to order direct from White Wolf.
Would I recommend it to anyone else? I probably would recommend it
to science fiction type fans, who want to try out the strategy gaming
genre for $30 (beware, that's only enough for about two people, extra
players cost about $20 more each). For everyone else, I recommend
Risk, which is just an awesome game with three or more players.
That's all for this month. Thanks (as always) to Sheryl and company
for giving me a good excuse to avoid studying for my midterms at 2am,
and thanks to the nice guy who's name I forgot, who hauled his
personal copy of Battleground up to Ye Olde Local Comic Store, so I
could try it out.
Next Month: The Surly Gamer thinks there are about five games out
there that YOU should be playing. Yes, he's gonna say nice things for
a whole article! Could this be the end of Uncle Surly? Find out next
month!
