This Week In Board Game News -- 12/17

Seize Your Turn's Twitterstream digest dishes up the gaming links for the week that was. It's as thorough a roundup of news and reviews as you'll find anywhere.

Poker Blog

If you read some of my card game coverage, you probably get the idea that I'm not a huge fan of Poker. I appreciate it, I admire the subtle strategies and the psychological game, but it's just not something I return to by choice. When I do play, it's because my son likes the betting and bluffing element. He seems to think his Asperger's gives him a natural advantage in this area, because it's very hard to "read" a person with Asperger's. I could play it socially and enjoy it, but it just doesn't scratch my card-playing itch.

That said, I have to give a shout out to a terrific Poker Blog that I just found while stumbling around on teh interwebz. It's called Online Poker Blog, and it is just crammed full of the kind of stuff I like, including strategies, variants, lore, news, and more. This is just a good example of a single-topic gaming site, and it's worth a stop.

Rabbi Simcha's Dreidel Spinning Tips

Rabbi Simcha spins a mean dreidel, so go and learn from the master.

When I was a kid, I attended a Jewish day camp during the summers, which probably wasn't a common occurrence for Catholic kids growing up Union County New Jersey during the 1970s.

To make matters even more entertaining, it was run by enthusiastic Zionists, so we began each day lined up in front of American and Israeli flags, first saying the Pledge of Allegiance, and then saying something in Hebrew which I always assumed was some kind of Israeli equivalent, but could have been a wicked recipe for kasha for all I knew. (The Jewish kids always complained because they had to attend Hebrew School. I just thought it was cool that they were learning a Secret Language none of us could ever penetrate. That's probably why I teach my kids Latin: it's the Secret Language of Catholics.)

I always wondered how the Jewish kids were consistently able to skool the silly goyim at dreidel spinning. Thirty years on, Rabbi Simacha finally provides the answer.

h/t: Kathy Shaidle.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that Rabbi Simcha wrote a book with one of the greatest titles of all time: Up, Up, and Oy Vey: How Jewish History, Culture, and Values Shaped The Comic Book Superhero.

Black Friday Game Deals

Courtesy of boardgameoutlet.com. They scour the internet looking for deals so you don't have to.

Please remember to use the link to the right if you're shopping at Amazon.

Friday Linkaround

Plants vs. Zynga: The CEO of PopCap, Dave Roberts, recently took some time to smack around Zynga. Activity for the afternoon: compare/contrast the comments of Roberts (a man whose company makes actual games) with those of noted Force For Evil Mark Pincus. Remember to show your work.

It's the Catan App ... But Bigger: Catan HD is in the app store. This version for iPad appears to to spread out the screen a bit and allow users to move information boxes around. I say "appears" because I don't have an iPad, although I am willing to accept donations.

Incoming!: Be not afraid of the catapult in your mailbox. Due to a production error, the coveted catapult token for the Be Not Afraid expansion for Small World was left out of the package. Days of Wonder is fixing the error and adding 5 leader tokens in the leftover space on the punchboards. I'm already playing with this expansion, and I like it a lot.

SimTV?: IGN is reporting on a proposal for a TV show from Will Wright. The working title is The Creation Project, and the documents describe the creation of a TV showed derived from audience suggestions via online and mobile phone messages. Not only does that sound like a spectacularly bad idea for a show, but the participation of Will Wright raises the horrible prospect that Simlish might be involved at some point. Wright is one of the true geniuses of game design, but the entire The Sims line just a canker.

Taliban Removed From Medal of Honor, Military Ban Holds: EA announced that the opposing force in Medal of Honor will be called "Opposing Force," not the Taliban. This is a classy move on their part, but it doesn't change the fact that the game takes place in an current theater of war, which remains a sticking point for the Army & Air Force Exchange Service's commander. For this reason, the ban on on-base sales will remain in place. In any case, the game will probably be very popular among servicemen, many of whom are huge fans of military shooters.

Life Imitates Fallout: Kotaku has discovered that, mere miles from my home in South Jersey, the Army is testing wrist-mounted displays. As they note, these are essentially PIPBoys: "The organic light emitting diode display is mounted on thin, flexible metal foil, which in turn is mounted on a wrist-wrapping housing to create a fully functional display and communication device."

Enough With the Damn Zombies Already!: Now Red Dead Redemption, a truly excellent game, is adding a zombie mode. Look, folks: it's done already. The zombie thing is over. Let them die peacefully, and if they won't, then shoot 'em in the head. That's a sure way to kill 'em. If you don't, get yourself a club or a torch. Beat 'em or burn 'em, they go up pretty easy.

Twitterstream Digest: Board game news, courtesy of Seize Your Turn.

Chess: News from around the world.

Friday Linkaround--Items of Interest

Go. Now. Watch.: The most amazing ten minutes of game video you will see this year. Period. Subject closed. (M-rated content.)

What Has It Got In Its Pocketses?: Well, a brand new game from Reiner Knizia, that's what. The designer of the co-op Lord of the Rings game is tackling The Hobbit in a new title from Fantasy Flight. A more complete description of the game is found here.

This is Why You Don't Play High-Maintenance Games: I remember thinking what an awful idea Tamagotchi was: when gaming becomes work it ceases to be gaming. Will Farmville gamers learn the same thing from the Great Crop Failure of 2010? Probably not.

This Day in History: Hardcore Nintendo fans probably already know that the company began as a playing card manufacturer in the 19th century, but for those who don't, Wired has a good summary of its origins. This week marks their 121st year in business.

Man, That Guy Must Have Had a Lot of Resource Cards: Catan champs rolled the bones in style at the Worldwide Catan Championship Tournament, which was held this year in Burg Wildenstein Castle, Leibertingen, Germany.

Chess: The week in Chess.

Friday Linkaroud--Items of Interest

(c. Gettyimages)

"Good, Bad: I'm the Guy With the Gun": Ash is coming to the App Store S-Mart in a new Army of Darkness game from Backflip Studios.

Snakes & Lattes: I'm not sure if I wrote about this place already, but even if I did it's worth a second post. Snakes & Lattes is a boardgame cafe in Toronto. No, they don't have free Wi-Fi, but they have about 1,500 boardgames for the use of their customers. Wish I had one around the corner.

Maybe Cliffy B. Lost a Bet?: One of the semi-interesting news items this week was the collapse of the 3-month-old MMO APB (All Points Bulletin), which sucked its development house, Scotland's Realtime Worlds, down with it. APB failed for the most sound of reasons: it wasn't particularly interesting. Now the rumor is that Epic Games is buying the rights to APB. Maybe hugely successful companies need to inject a little FAIL into their corporate bloodstream now and again, just keep them on their toes.

This Was Probably Inevitable: And since I'm smart enough not to open a debate on the Israeli/Palestinian issue on my gaming blog, I'll just post a link and move along. 

"And Then the Captain of the HMS OpenFeint Saw Apple's Game Center Up Ahead and Yelled "ICEBERG!": Alas, too late. In a move that was surprisingly to absolutely no one, the suddenly-redundant OpenFeint has opened shop for Android devices. Apple's new Game Center community features are not yet up to speed with OpenFeint's, but they will be, thus making OpenFeint's future on Apple devices extremely sketchy.

Kegerator Not Included: Although this one looks cheaply made, I have to say the idea of a "Pub in a Box" set of classic English pub games is an idea whose time has come. (What, no dartboard?)

Propaganda!: The artists at Irrational Games have outdone themselves creating imaginary propaganda posters for BioShock Infinite, currently slated for 2012. They did their work well: I had to pause and work through the meaning they were trying to convey, alternately offended and impressed. It's rather nauseating to see symbols like George Washington, lady liberty, the Boy Scouts, and the cross used as grotesque nationalistic/racist propaganda. However, they seem to be a logical aspect of BSI's story, which posits a floating cloud city created by America  in the 19th century, which subsequently devolves into civil war. Irrational is walking a fine line here, but they've shown themselves up to the task of deftly handling complex and controversial ideas in the past.

News From 1910: I'd much rather live in a world where the top 3 news stories were these rather than these. I suspect that Mrs. Joseph Thomas was cut to the quick to read that her dainty Bridge luncheon, served at card tables, was only entertaining "informally." Also, why was the Domino Club meeting "unusually pleasant?" Did the last meeting culminate in a knife fight after Mrs. Daniel played Chickie Twos?

"Look, Larry... Have you ever heard of Vietnam?": Battlefield Bad Company 2: Vietnam is only being released as downloadble content. Hey, it worked for Battlefield: 1943.

Seize Your Tweets: The Twitterstream Digest compiled by Seize Your Turn provides an excellent compilation of the gaming news and blog activity.

Chess News for the week.

Friday Linkaround--Random Items of Interest

Company of Heroes Designer Killed: Brian R. Wood of Relic was killed, and his pregnant wife injured, when a 21-year-old driver under the influence of drugs hit their vehicle. Brian was the lead on Company of Heroes Online, and had worked on the original CoH, Axis and Allies, and Kohan II. He was 33. A trust fund has been established for his wife and child.

The Witness: A preview of the next game from the creator of Braid, which also has a nice development blog.

Oh, That Explains It: Gearbox (the people behind Borderlands, Brothers in Arms, and various Half-Life ports and expansions) actually bought the rights to Duke Nukem from 3D Realms. There had to be some explanation why we're suddenly seeing the most legendary piece of vaporware of all time: someone competent is now involved.

Descendancy: Nigel Buckle's alien combat & trading board game, Ascendancy, is no longer being published by JKLM/Prime Games, and is in search of a new home.

Flashing Scrabble: I'm always a little cautious about reinventions of classic games, particularly when they put electronics in my board games, but Scrabble Flash looks interesting. It's Scrabble played with "smart" tiles that change letters and "know" when allowable words are formed. Hasbro is sending one along, so I should I have a review up next week.

You Never Want to See the Words "Laceration Hazard" and "Toys" in the Same Story: A fact that Land of Nod is now discovering. Then again, somehow my generation survived Lawn Darts with most of our eyes intact. Bonus points for including the sentence "Consumers should immediately take the toy asparagus from children and return the product to the company for a free replacement asparagus."

Nostalgia For the 1980s Will Be Dealt With Most Severely:  Look, the 1980s spanned my youth from age 12 to 22. I won't say it was a complete wash: we had Ozzy going solo, video arcades, D&D, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. We also had Men Without Hats, Diff'rent Strokes, Temple of Doom, shoulder pads, mullets, leg warmers, and stuff like this. Yes, it's televised British Dungeons & Dragons gaming. It's as wonderfully horrible as it sounds. And it's still better than the Super Mario Bros. Super Show, which was just all kinds of wrong.

Chess: The week in Chess.

Friday Linkaround

I'll Believe It When I Play It: I thought Duke Nukem Forever was a description of the development cycle, but it may actually release 13 years after I first wrote about it. Does anyone care anymore?

But Will Totoro Be In It?: Studio Ghibli (the animation studio responsible for the films of Hayao Miyazaki, among others) is collaborating on a game.

Sorry We Failed: Stardock apologizes for the horrible launch of their game, Elemental.

Carmack Does iOS4...: John Carmack's demo of RAGE ... on an iPhone. (YouTube video.) Great googly moogly.

...And Epic Responds: A look at Epic Games' Citadel tech demo, which you can download from the App Store right now.

Speaking of iOS4: Version 4.1 should be out next week, complete with new game features.

Dealing Death: Space Hulk: Death Angel is turning the classic over-priced alien-shredding space-marine battle game into a co-op card game. At least it will be easier to find than Space Hulk 3rd Edition.

Small World Gets a Little More Crowded: Some new races are coming to Small World.

No Medal of Honor in Military Shops: EA's controversial shooter gets a PX ban.

Footballville: Madden NFL Superstars finally launches on Facebook. This social networking game allows you collect cards to form a team and then simulate seasons. Money for the best cards can be earned from playing and winning or, of course, by giving them a handy credit card number. Great, now I'll get messages asking me to join someone's team along with to farm and mafia requests.Kill me now.

Gamebusters: Will MythBusters do a videogame episode? Looks like it! (Go to the 1:44 minute mark.)

Best Game Evah?: Mario Bros. is the greatest game ever, according to some dudes.

Chess: This week in Chess.

Giveaways: Don't forget to let me know if you've followed us or shared a link, so I can enter your name in the drawing for the Bicycle card prizes.

Friday Linkaround--Random items of interest

New Content for Snoopy: Joystiq is almost correct: Snoopy Flying Ace is the best flight game of the past several years, and now it has new downloadable content, called Suppertime of Destruction. Must ... have... kamikaze .... woodstocks ...

Angry Birds: The Movie?: Are we witnessing the birth of a franchise with the Angry Birds app? Is this a good thing, or a bad thing?: discuss.

Through The Ages App: It's one thing to shrink Roll Through the Ages down to App size, but the original, very large and complex Through the Ages game? Apparently someone is trying.

Batman Redux: We're going to have to a wait a full year for the sequel to last year's Game of the Year.

The Making of Tichu: I'll be reviewing the new Tichu app soon. In the meantime, programmer Steve Blanding explains how he did it in this detailed, geektastic developer diary at BGN.

Little Plastic Dudes Fight Evil: Axis & Allies: Europe 1940 is finally out.

Move Along, Nothing to See Here: Sony is already trying to talk down expectations for the Move. I guess the "It's an expensive peripheral that does kind of what the Wii always did" narrative is not working.

5 for 5: 5 boardgames that are good for 5 players, at funboardgames.org

What the World Needs is Another Videogame Movie: Will Brad Pitt star in Red Dead Redemption: The Movie? (Red Dead Redemption is one of the finalists for the Games Magazine Game of the Year.)

Speaking of Videogames Movies: Halo: Reach semi-live-action trailer. (No real word yet on when we can expect a live action Halo movie.)

Bring Out Your Dead: Target joins Best Buy in offering a hardware trade-in program.

News From the Chess World: Chess links for the week.