SPECIAL: The Legend of Zelda #2 (Article/Review)

This is a follow-up article to my Legend of Zelda special that I wrote earlier in the year, which specifically looked at Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword, Spirit Tracks and Ocarina of Time 3D. I suggest you read that before returning here, as I'm going to jump right into a couple of other games that I've played since writing that article, and once again tackle them in the order that I played them. I debated whether or not to hold off writing this, as there's a new Zelda game out just before the end of this year; A Link Between Worlds is out during the tail end of November and I've got it pre-ordered to play ASAP. However, while I still have them (relatively) fresh in my mind I thought I'd do another special.

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After the superb Ocarina of Time 3D, I gave the Zelda games a bit of a rest while I played through some other things (which I've reviewed a few of), but eventually returned to play Phantom Hourglass; another DS game like Spirit Tracks, which is actually a prequel to that game and also a direct sequel to Wind Waker. One of the reasons that I had put off playing this title was because of playing them out of order meant Spirit Tracks (allegedly) fixed loads of "problems" with Phantom Hourglass and I didn't want that affecting my judgement of the game - however, I really should have ignored internet hearsay because Phantom Hourglass is a fantastic game and I enjoyed it even more than it's successor is almost every way. This entry, being a direct sequel to Wind Waker, takes place on the great sea - a vast overworld of water with lots of tiny islands popping out all over the place - and is split into four large regions that you explore, and find the usual assortment of temples and dungeons.

To get about in the great sea you hook up with one of the best Zelda characters outside the main cast, Captain Linebeck and his tramp-steamer, which you steer chugging through the vast oceans, shooting baddies and jumping over obstacles. It really is a *LOT* of fun piloting that ship, and while I *loved* the train in Spirit Tracks (I had no problem with trains in a Zelda game unlike most people) the boat is a much better method of transportation in my opinion, mostly because you're not constrained by the rails and can pretty much explore where you want. Once you get the hook arm and cannons sorted it really feels open to exploration in a way that its successor simply wasn't. While we're on the subject of gameplay, it's worth mentioning that this is another overhead-view 3D Zelda, which is again controlled completely with the stylus. I thought that after playing Ocarina of Time with it's full 3D environment and complex controls that jumping back into a stylus-only DS game would feel awkward and basic - not so! The control scheme in Phantom Hourglass is a work of genius, and really shows that with expert game design you don't need a zillion buttons assigned to everything in order to make a great game. The only time this falls a little flat is during some of the tougher boss battles where you need to be switching items and using them rather quickly, but it just about holds up and the rest of the game outside these encounters is perfect.

The story of Phantom Hourglass concerns itself with the hunt for the legendary ghost ship, as Tetra (Zelda) and her loyal pirates, which Link seems to have joined, are hunting for it with the intention of finding and plundering its legendary booty. Of course, this all goes wrong and Tetra ends up trapped aboard the spectral vessel, leaving Link in charge of chasing her down and rescuing her. In order to find the ghost ship, Link calls on the help of the Ocean King, the lord of all waters, however his temple is occupied by an ancient and powerful evil that has sealed away his power - so it's down to the 'Hero of Winds' to once again go chasing through temples, finding different holy items in order to restore the Ocean King to his former glory. This also introduces one of the most divisive aspects of Phantom Hourglass - the temple of the Ocean King himself - a timed temple that you have to revisit in-between each of the other dungeons in the game. Personally, I thought it was great! I love the push-your-luck aspect of the temple, as you see if you can get just a little further and get to a "warp spot" in good time, so that you can skip huge parts of the dungeon on your next visit. Also, the unkillable phantoms that lurk the darkened halls are great for keeping you on your toes and add to the puzzle-based nature of the Ocean King's domain. In fact, Phantom Hourglass has a lot of well-designed temples and it seems like a lot of are and effort has gone into the structure of the game.

As you can hopefully see from the screenshots, this is also a really good looking game for the DS; it's the same graphics engine and assets that they used to create its successor and so a lot of it looks very similar (in fact I had a hard time finding screens for this article as lots that came up in Google's image search were from Spirit Tracks). The game also makes really good use of the functions and features of the Nintendo DS, such as using the touchscreen to make notes on maps/sea-charts, blowing or having to talk into the microphone, and sometimes having to "stamp" information from the top screen to the bottom by closing the lid. It's all very clever and really makes the experience feel right at home on the platform. I had a lot of fun with Phantom Hourglass and really enjoyed playing through it, even more than Spirit Tracks, which I also liked a *lot*.

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At this point I had played both it's sequels but never actually played the original Wind Waker game; although I had toyed with the idea of buying the GameCube version to play on my Wii several times, only put off by the astronomical cost on eBay and Amazon. When they announced Wind Waker HD on the Wii U I immediately pre-ordered it (along with the limited Zelda edition console) and was very much looking forward to playing what some people consider to be the best, or at least one of the best, Legend of Zelda games ever released. Extremely divisive at the time of it's release, Wind Waker completely changed the art style of Zelda games into a 'cell-shaded' format meant to imitate anime/cartoons, which was continued on it's DS sequels but dropped on the home consoles in favour of a more realistic (and fan-pleasing) look for Twilight Princess.

Remastered in glorious 1080p 60fps high definition for the Wii U, Wind Waker HD looks absolutely gorgeous, and really shows that the 'cell-shaded' art style was a timeless one, and a great decision from Nintendo at the time. Textures are sharp and the lighting engine has been improved over the original to create hot sunny days, atmospheric storms, and dank gloomy dungeons - the whole thing really does look like it was designed from the start for the Wii U and is one of the best HD remasters I've played. In a similar vein to Ocarina of Time 3D it really demonstrates that Nintendo knows that it's doing when it comes to rereleasing these Zelda games and still making them feel contemporary and fresh. The control scheme also feels like it has been designed from the ground up for the Wii U Gamepad, as switching effortlessly between different gadgets with the touch screen, and being able to flick between maps/sea-charts on the fly is great and also helps to modernise the game more.

Wind Waker not only provided a departure from the standard graphical style at the time of it's release but it also experimented with a brand new structure and setting compared to the Zelda games that had come before it. Set several hundred years after the events of Ocarina of Time the story concerns itself with a great flood, sent by the gods to seal away Ganon's resurrection, which has covered the land of Hyrule and created the Great Sea. The effect this has upon the gameplay is that there is no longer a 'Hyrule field' overworld to traverse by foot or horse, instead there is a vast ocean populated by lots of small (and occasionally large) islands, containing temples, dungeons, side-quests, etc. There is a *LOT* to do in Wind Waker HD and the game often has you sailing back and forth all over the place. Unlike some entries in the series that have you constantly revisiting temples/towns, Wind Waker's concentration on traversal of the Great Sea is a welcome change of pace. However, that didn't stop people from complaining at the time, and so Nintendo have put in more shortcuts this time through - not only can you 'teleport' to certain locations using the Ballad of Gales (played on the eponymous 'Wind Waker' instrument that is key to much of the game) but through a purchase in the auction house you can acquire the 'swift sail', which makes your boat sail twice as fast.

I'd waited a long time to play Wind Waker HD and it did not disappoint. The story is very compelling and I *loved* how it tied together some of the events in Ocarina of Time - specifically, giving Ganon a bit more of a motivation/backstory for this nefarious deeds - there was a moment about midway through the game that really gobsmacked me (which I won't spoil here). The overworld with it's sailing and discovering new islands/secrets was fantastic fun, and despite being largely empty ocean, it really feels like the world in Wind Waker HD is a living breathing place. This also concludes my time spent with 'toon Link and the cell-shaded Zelda games that I've enjoyed both on the Wii U and Nintendo DS, and I'll be sad to see them go. While I understand the desire for an epic looking fully realised Legend of Zelda game, I find the escapism of this art style charming and utterly timeless. Next up in the series is another return to an earlier design - a sequel to A Link to the Past - and it will be interesting to see if a pseudo-2D game can live up to modern gaming standards and rival the magic I felt while playing through Wind Waker HD.

REVIEW: Eclipse (Board Game)

Along with Cosmic Encounter and Twilight Imperium, Eclipse is yet another game with a space theme, and you'd be forgiven for thinking I was obsessed with the theme or it was one of my favourites; I'm not, in fact these are (besides Space Hulk) the only space themed games that I own. The simple truth is that these are just some of the best games out there, and despite it being a relatively new game for me (and you could argue I'm suffering "the cult of the new" here) Eclipse has just shot straight into my top ten. To glance at the pictures on this review you've also be forgiven for thinking "that just looks the same as Twilight Imperium" as both games share the same hex-board layout, plastic space ship miniatures, and a zillion tons of cardboard components. But they really are different beasts, as Eclipse is much more of an economic eurogame, but disguised behind a solid and different (for a euro) theme. I know some people will be immediately repulsed by the idea of banking in space, and I've jokingly called it "intergalactic recession" since I always seem to be making a loss for most of the game, but it really is fantastic fun. Also, whereas Twilight Imperium is a deeply complex and long game to play, Eclipse is actually (after a difficult explanation of the rules) pretty easy to play and lasts about 3 hours.

As in Twilight Imperium, the aim of Eclipse is to build your intergalactic empire up from humble beginnings into a vast interstellar civilization... and of course accumulate victory points in order to actually win. You gain VPs by exploring and colonising new worlds, by researching new technology for your civilization, by building large monoliths (think '2001: A Space Odyssey') as legacies to your advanced culture, and by assembling an armada and smashing your enemies to smithereens. All of this is done with careful scrutiny of your resources, especially money as it is very easy to bankrupt your empire by expanding too fast and throwing too much money into things that you can't really afford. This is really where Eclipse shines as a good eurogame as the majority of the gameplay comes from balancing how much money you spend to aquire other resources, which in turn aquire technology or are used to build space ships. Before I more on to space ships, and combat, it is worth just mentioning how much fun it is to simply explore the galaxy in Eclipse. You see, in games like Twilight Imperium you already know what the galaxy looks like at the start of the game - you have to really as it's what shapes your strategy, movement of your armadas, etc. In Eclipse though, you have true exploration, which involves turning over tiles as you go and not knowing the layout and structure of surrounding systems until you have explored there.

During this blind exploration you will, at some point, likely run into some hostile ancient aliens - which after the first expansion now come in all sorts of shapes and sizes - from the odd straggler to ancient homeworlds and hives. This is likely where you'll get your first taste of combat, which is great fun in Eclipse and rewarded with VPs, even just for taking part. Shooting aliens, and each other, is a dice chucking affair with a load of different coloured D6s representing different strength weapons, and your rolls are modified by all sorts of technology like targeting computers, shields, armoured hulls, ect. All these juicy components for your space ships can be upgraded on your individual player boards, which also keep track of technology you have researched as well as your available resources. Building your custom space ships is a neat little game in and of itself, as you perform a delicate balancing act of power consumption vs firepower/defense/maneuverability. All-in-all, Eclipse is just a fantastic game, it takes the space empire building concept of larger games and turns it into a streamlined eurogame, playable in a few hours; it won't scratch the exact same itch, but it has its own charms and has quickly become one of my favourite games.

REVIEW: King of Tokyo (Board Game)

One of the best games released over the last few years is a "simple dice game" called King of Tokyo. Now, I've already mentioned in the War of the Ring review how I'm a sucker for theme, and 'kaiju-eiga' (Japanese monster movies) is one that immediately appeals to me, although in the past there haven't been that many decent games that used it. This has all changed now, and King of Tokyo has proven so popular that giant monster games seem to be popping up all over the place, which can only be a good thing.In this game you play as a huge mutated lizard ( ala Godzilla), gorilla (ala King Kong), octopus (ala Cthulhu), robot-lizard (ala Mechagodzilla), alien robot (often in cheezy 60s/70s kaiju-eiga) and a rabbit piloting a huge robo-bunny (!?!?) with the intention to smash Tokyo to tiny bits or become the last monster standing. Basically you win either by accumulating enough victory points through taking and holding Tokyo and rolling VPs on your dice, more on that later, or you concentrate on dealing out damage to other monsters with the express wish to kill them off. Either way, it's a lot of fun!

The core gameplay of King of Tokyo is a yahtzee-esque  dice game, where you roll a number of unique specially designed (and chunky!) dice. After a couple of allowed re-rolls, you should hopefully have a few different actions available to you depending on what you got. The most basic dice result is simply to accumulate victory points, either in groups of 1, 2, or 3 and you need to reach 20 to win, so often it makes sense to simply try and take as many as you can in a turn. Another basic result is the attack symbol, and for each of these you damage either the monster currently occupying Tokyo, or if you're the monster in Tokyo then you damage every other player in the game!! After being smacked about a bit, the monster inside Tokyo can choose to retreat and let you occupy it, for which you get victory points, and this is how the flow the game goes - with monsters battering each other out of Tokyo turn after turn. Other things that you can do with your dice are heal damage (as long as you're outside Tokyo) and accumulate power cubes.

Power cubes let you purchase special cards each turn and these are what really spice up the game, as each one is either a one-off thematic event, such as eating a building full of people for victory points, or a permanent mutation to your giant monster. There is also an expansion for King of Tokyo called Power Up, which has another unique deck of cards for each monster (an well as another monster to play as - a giant kung-fu panda!?) which is accessed through rolling multiple heal results on the dice. While the expansion is not essential, the base game is great fun on it's own, the increased theme and differentiation between each kaiju really adds to the theme of the game. King of Tokyo is very quick to pick-up, teach to other players, and quick to play - usually leading to multiple games each session as people have so much fun they want to play again. and again. and again. The production value of the game is also fantastic, with bright vibrant artwork, high quality cardboard components and fantastic chunky custom dice. While the complete opposite in terms of game length and complexity to other games thus far reviewed, this game is near flawless and one of the best around.

REVIEW: Twilight Imperium: Third Edition (Board Game)

Twilight Imperium: Third Edition, or TI3 for short, defines the term "epic" when referencing a board game. It is a game that is infamous for being expensive, large to store (it comes in a gigantic 'coffin' box - by far the largest on my shelves), complex to learn, and takes an age to play. The rough estimate for a game is around the 8-hour mark, and this is actually pretty accurate for larger (6-8 people) games and for new players learning the system. So, the question that people always want to know is "is it all worth it?" YES. Yes it is. TI3 is an experience like no other, while it should seem like an absolute slog, you will be fully engaged and enthralled by this game from start to finish and the feel of actually playing it makes the time go very quickly indeed. This is not some sort of abstract board game, or a mechanical streamlined eurogame, this is a deep thick "ameritrash" experience, dripping in theme and richly rewarding - in short, it accurately recreates taking a space faring alien race and expanding your civilization out into the galaxy with the goal of reclaiming the lost throne at the centre of a vast intergalactic empire.

The aim of the game is to be the first to reach 10 victory points, which you do through fulfilling objectives both public and secret, and this represents your alien race becoming powerful enough to claim the right to Metacol Rex (the seat of power). Some of these objectives revolve around military conquest, often of Metacol Rex itself,  some concentrate on establishing trading routes, some on gaining more influence in the galactic council, etc. The objectives are varied enough to keep other players guessing and open the game up tactically so that you're not funneled down one path to victory. You achieve all this by carefully managing your civilization's resources, allocating strategic counters to different systems, or expanding your fleet size, or jumping in on different group actions as they become available. This is the genius part of TI3 for me, the fact that you almost have zero downtime between your own turns; you are constantly keeping an eye on what other players are doing and spending resources in their turns to take actions, trade, vote on laws, etc. It really is extremely engaging all the time and ensures that you're never bored or feel like you're waiting for other people.

Like Cosmic Encounter, this is another Fantasy Flight Games production, meaning that the components are gorgeous! This third edition is also heavily overproduced, by which I mean there are oversized hexes that make up the galaxy (taking up a massive amount of table space), an absolute ton of plastic space ship miniatures for each player, and lots and lots of cards and tokens. It may be quite expensive but you get a lot for your money. There's far too much to talk about regarding this game, and I'm not aiming to give a thorough in depth account of all the mechanics of these games, just hyperbole and gushing about how much I love them. One thing worth mentioning though is that the base game of TI3 is allegedly flawed in one key area and needs the Shattered Empires expansion to fix. Now, I've never played just the base game because I purchased the expansion at the same time as TI3 and mixed it all up straight away - so this review is really for the base game plus expansion - inflating the price even more. However, the expansion completes the game in my opinion, for instance I don't think I would ever play without pre-set maps and you need the expansion for that. If the idea of  a huge space empire building game appeals to you, then ignore the naysayers and their complaints of size and length, this game is the most epic board game you will ever play and an experience really unmatched by anything else.

REVIEW: War of the Ring (Board Game)

One thing that I always look for in a good board game is a solid theme. For instance, my "gateway game" (the board game that really got me into the hobby in a serious way) was Arkham Horror, which is really not very easy to pick up and play; but the theme is what sucked me in. War of the Ring is the most sophisticated marriage of theme and gameplay mechanics that I have ever seen in a board game, and a major part of why it is one of my highest rated games of all time. Basically, War of the Ring is 'The Lord of the Rings' in a box, and plays out in about 3-5 hours. It is a two-player game (the rules say 2-4 but *pfft*!) with one person taking on the role of 'the shadow' as they try and crush Middle-Earth, enslave everyone, and hopefully recover the One Ring. The other player is the 'free people' and they must try to politically activate nations to war, fend off the tide of Orcs, Uruk-hai and Haradrim, while also sneaking the fellowship into Mordor and cast the ring into Mount Doom.

All this is done over an absolutely gorgeous and mahoosive game board, on which you position and move the different armies, leaders and characters throughout the game. It looks very much like a "risk-type-game" and in some ways it is a long, complex, wargame, but it' also got a lot more going on. For starters you can't just start building units and stomping over each other, chucking dice willy-nilly; you have to first push your chosen nations to war along a political track. For the 'free people' player this usually involves breaking characters off from the fellowship and actively trying to coax sleepy nations to muster troops, or to at least defend themselves. Aside from the political maneuvering there is also the hunt for the ring, as each turn the fellowship is going to be moving in secret across the board towards Mordor and the 'shadow' player is going to be rolling dice, allocating resources and playing cards in order to corrupt and destroy the merry band. Once all the pieces start moving, it becomes a race against time for both sides to achieve victory one way or another (either through military conquest or by destroying/reclaiming the One Ring) and is a very exciting strategic brain burner.

You see, all these actions are governed by special unique dice, which are rolled (sometimes re-rolled) and these dictate the kind of actions that you can take on that turn. Each face on the dice have several different applications, so you never feel like the game is random or out of your control, but it does work as an excellent mechanism to ensure you can never do everything you want in one turn - requiring you to plan ahead and carefully manage your resources. There are also the different leaders and characters from the 'Lord of the Rings' that can be brought into play, each with their own unique effect upon the game and your strategies. Not to mention that there are also several decks of cards and various other bits and bobs that all contribute to the thematic flavour of the game as well a the tactics available to both sides. War of the Ring is an utterly fantastic game, one that takes a long time to play and really tests your strategic brain, but one that everyone should experience at least once if they enjoy JRR Tolkien's fantasy masterpiece.

REVIEW: Cosmic Encounter (Board Game)

Cosmic Encounter is a bluffing/negotiation game for 3-8 players depending on whether you're just playing the basic game or with expansions mixed in - to be honest, I think the more the merrier as long as you're prepared for a bit of chaos with 6+ people. It's a Fantasy Flight game, which means it is extremely well produced, with excellent component quality including lots of awesome plastic flying saucers and large planet tokens. You see, in Cosmic Encounter you are an alien race trying to spread yourself across the galaxy and colonise as many worlds as possible in order to win the game, and you can do this either through conquest or through peaceful negotiation (or through ball-faced lying as is usually the case).

Now, this game is one of my absolute favourites, and is often voted as the "best game of all time" in many polls and top ten lists. The reason for this is that Cosmic Encounter, more than any other board game in existence, has near-unlimited replay value. In just the basic game itself you get loads and loads of aliens to play as (randomly determined at the start of the game), each with their own special powers which break the rules of the game in some way and sometimes with alternate victory conditions. Once you mix in the expansions, not only do you get more player pieces, but also more and more aliens to choose from - now numbering the hundreds! This effectively means that every time you play Cosmic Encounter, you will be playing a different game, with a different mix of player powers and sometimes lots of different victory conditions to keep track of.

At this stage it's worth mentioning that the aliens powers are not balanced, not equal, and this is also part of the Cosmic Encounter game design. If you are someone who likes dry eurogames with little or no player interaction, and where all participants have an equal chance to win on their own, you won't like Cosmic Encounter. In this game you have to ally with other players in order to keep more powerful aliens in check, and you have to lie and cheat your way to the top if you are weaker, or aren't dealt the stronger cards. It is an experience as much about the metagame as it is about the rules around the table and I *love love love* this sort of thing. Cosmic Encounter is right up my street and really exemplifies why I enjoy playing board games (often more than video games) - lots of player interaction, lots of fun, great theme and really taxing to play and win, especially trying for that solo-win and not just relying on your allies.

NEW: Board Game Reviews

It's been a while since I've written on my blog, and mostly that's been due to my laptop dying on me; I had unfinished reviews of Virtue's Last Reward (*amazing* game!!) and other games, which are now in limbo. Well, now I'm back, and have a new laptop and lots of new video games to blog about. I'm currently playing Legend of Zelda: Windwaker HD on my shiny new limited edition Wii U, and will no doubt write up another Zelda special at some point with a review of that along with Phantom Hourglass and maybe even the new 3DS Zelda out next month. *drool*

In the meantime I've decided to extend the focus of my blog to other games that I enjoy, specifically tabletop games, such as board games, card games and miniatures games. Lately I've been on somewhat of a binge, buying and playing lots of new board games, and thought I would join other bloggers of the internet by writing up a top ten list of my favourites. So following this post should be a sequence, in no particular order, of (in my opinion) the absolute best board games. In the future I'll try to occasionally include board game reviews spread amongst the usual video game reviews and specials.

EDIT: To clarify a bit, the following games will all be board games that I have awarded 9.5/10 to on Board Game Geek, which at the moment is Cosmic Encounter, War of the Ring, Twilight Imperium, King of Tokyo, Eclipse, and Chaos in the Old World. If I have time I will also try and follow this with brief reviews of games that I have voted 9/10, because to be honest the difference between 9.5 and 9 is so slight that I'm going to missing out on a ton of great games that I consider to be some of my favourites, such as Cuba, Lords of Vegas, A Game of Thrones, Power Grid, etc. Also I just want to stress that I'm not going to be writing in-depth reviews of the mechanics of these board games, or even discuss what the rules are most of the time; for that may I suggest you check out 'The Dice Tower' on YouTube. I'm just going to (briefly) explain why I like these games so much and why you should check them out.