Reviews 22 - Shut Up & Sit Down

Review: Dixit

Quinns: I’m going to go ahead and stick my fork-like opinion into your ribeye reality, here-

Paul: That’s disgusting.

Quinns: Dixit is a multi-award winning game that everyone should know about. An honest-to-god revelation. That’s because where most board games test your logic, wit, or even dexterity, Dixit tests your ability
to toy with the imagination of your friends.

Imagine you were reading some beautiful, surrealist children’s novel and the rag-tag band of loveable protagonists wander into a smoky tavern for
a drink of… apple ale, or something. Dixit is the card game they would start playing that would get you whispering “Man, why doesn’t that exist in real life.”

But Dixit is as real as it gets, and you should have a good long think about buying it.

Review: Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space

Quinns:We didn’t provide the most glowing of reviews in our recent Halloween Special, which raises a question. What would we actually choose to play on Halloween here at &SD?

Absolute no brainer. Say hello to Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space. Not only is it much smaller and cheaper than Arkham Horror, while Arkham has a grim setting, this game is genuinely horrible.

All you’ll find in the box is a thin handful of cards, a handful of black and white paper maps and a second handful of pencils, but what the game achieves with them… it’s just alchemy.

Quinns: We know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “SU&SD, what I really want is a board game about being an oil prospector, except with all the tension and exclusively brutal interaction of a wrestling match.” Well today’s your lucky day!We’re reviewing Black Gold, a game of racing across Texas in a pick-up truck, trying to build wells before your opponents, as well as fierce, arena-like auctions where everyone bids for the right to sell their oil. There Will Be Blood? Yes. Yes, there will.

Paul: You know what? This is the sort of game I wish Monopoly was. A capitalist, pugilist slugging-it-out where the only thing that matters is money and how much of it you can wrench out of the hands of others. And it doesn’t have disgusting paper notes in, either, so that’s another pro. I’m not really sure there will be blood, but there will be a lot of oil and an awful lot of very cruel business practices…

Quinns: Did you ever play hide and seek as a kid? Do you remember the hysterical thrill of wedging yourself under the bed, trying to control the unbelievable noise of your own lungs? Or being the hunter, creeping through a familiar environment with carbonated anticipation tingling along your veins? Because I’m inclined to call board game Fury of Dracula hide and seek for adults. This is a beautiful, beautiful game, and it deserves a place in houses the world over.

Paul: I didn’t have anywhere exciting to hide as a child or very many people to play with anyway. But we did play a game called Nine Nine In on our school field, which involved-

Quinns: FURY OF DRACULA sees four players each controlling a vampire hunter chasing Dracula across Europe. It’s a glossy update of a classic called Scotland Yard, which was a board game about catching a runaway criminal in London, but here a fifth player gets to control the immortal Count Dracula rather than some greasy burglar, so it’s already the better game.

We’ve reviewed a lot of smart games lately, a lot of intricate and very
cleverly designed ones. Let me tell you, we have some even smarter and
even bigger ones coming too, with all sorts of clever twists, but
sometimes size isn’t everything. Sometimes smarts aren’t everything,
either. It’s not always about brains, you know.

Unless, of course, you’re playing Zombies, in which case it really is
about brains. Brains and bullets and using the bullets to keep your
brains where God intended. Sure, you can try and tell those wandering
cadavers that brains are overrated, that they should consider a
vegetarian option, but it’s really very difficult to engage them in any
kind of extended dialogue. Because they’re dead.

It says right there on the Shut Up & Sit Down About page that we love games that’ll let us do a bit of scowling. Well, packed within Condottiere’s tiny box* are more scowls than in a whole month of Mondays. Feel like buying yourself a cheeky little game this week? This is the one. This game? It’s a gem.

Quinns: We’re positive guys here at SU&SD. If you were to ask us what animal we resemble, it would be a seagull, except a strange, mutant seagull that must tell people about wonderful games. “GAMS,” it would screech as it divebombed children and the elderly alike, its reedy vocal chords inadequate for the task of human pronunciation. “GAMS! GAMS!”

Talking about a game that we don’t like is simply a less useful service than bellowing about one we love. That said, we can, and will, be making exceptions from time to time.

Paul: Wait, wait. What? That we don’t like? I wasn’t told about this.

If you’ve watched Episode 1 you’ll have seen a sneaky cameo of the above beauty. Ghost Stories, by Antoine Bauza. Seeing as we only used it for a quick gag, I appreciate some of you may have been left out in the cold, alone, aroused, and hungry for more.

Both you and this game deserve better. Click through the jump for our review of Ghost Stories.

Quinns: If you’ve watched episode 1 you’ll have seen Paul and myself getting a bit too excited about WW2 strategy game Memoir ‘44. It’s a two player game, but an expansion, Overlord, turns it into a team game where up to eight players can fight a battle that makes the original game look as pathetic as two consenting adults splashing water at one another in a bath.

I appreciate that, for a lot of people, this whole board game thing is still a bit mystifying. When we say we enjoy board gaming that might call to mind Monopoly*, Cluedo or, worse still, kids’ games like Snakes and Ladders. Why on earth would we want to play things like that? Well, we don’t, and for exactly the same reason everyone else doesn’t: They’re boring as hell.

But it’s no good knowing what’s bad. What’s good? Even better, what’s a good place to start? There’s a bewildering array of games out there and some are more accessible than others. A poor choice, especially for a beginner, can put a person off games for life.

If you’ve watched out first episode, you’ll have seen one suggestion. Here’s another. This a particularly good game for converting people to the our gaming cause because the rules are so damn easy that it beggars belief.

Review: Dixit

Review: Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space

Review: Black Gold

Review: Fury of Dracula

Review: Zombies!!!

Review: Condottiere

Review: Stone Age

Review: Ghost Stories

Overlorded

Flipping Great

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