Shut Up & Sit Down

Review: Specter Ops

Tiny car, actually doing history, laundry stealth challenge

What’s this, sneaking into Friday’s schedule? Why, it’s a review of Plaid Hat’s hotly anticipated Specter Ops, a hidden movement game from one of the industry’s most renowned publishers.

Paul takes a long, hard look at the game and… well, has anyone taken a long hard look for Paul recently? Actually, it’s probably best not to. He appears to have both gone missing and gone a little… mournfully malfunctional. This is the first time that’s happened since last time. Do let us know if you spot him, or even any part of him. Probably don’t approach him, mind.

Best not dwell on that. Have a lovely weekend!

Miniatures Game Review: Infinity

ramboesque swathes, wandering hearts, nice cakes, cheese cakes

[Introducing another new series of articles! Eric Tonjes is professional Nebraskan and miniatures gamer who’s agreed to review some of 2015’s most popular miniatures games. You guys were so sweet to Hilary yesterday, so please give Eric the same welcome!]

Eric: So you’ve played a lot of games. You’ve gone from the simple family stuff to the weightiest Euro, and it still isn’t satisfying. You’re looking for something more. Lately, maybe you’ve been eyeing those hunched figures in the back of the game shop, pushing around their armies of painted men and orcs and arguing about byzantine rules. You’re looking, and you’re wondering… Has it perhaps come to this? Dare I become a *gulp* miniatures gamer?

Or maybe you’ve just noticed those boxes with gloriously painted figurines on the covers and wondered what they’re all about.

In the coming months I’ll be serving as your guide to the dark world of tabletop miniatures gaming. More than that, I’ll be trying to tell you what makes the very best ones sing – what about each one makes them unique, and why people spend huge amounts of money and even larger amounts of time assembling and painting little soldiers.

Up first, let’s take a gander at Infinity, the phenomenal flagship game of Corvus Belli.

197 Comments

RPG Review: Kaleidoscope

shadow bears, coca-cola metaphors, wheat paste

[SU&SD’s coverage of the growing, amazing story games scene has ranged from sporadic to non-existent. Introducing Hilary McNaughton, a writer and gamer from the land of “Canada” who’ll be helping us out with regular reviews! Please give her a warm welcome.]

Hilary: I don’t watch a ton of movies, so I generally assume if I’ve seen something, everybody’s seen it. But it turns out I’ve watched a higher-than-average number of weird foreign films. I’ve even seen a couple I just did not get. At all.

Maybe you know the kind? Things start out sort of intelligible, then dissolve into weird symbolism and visual effects about halfway through. Or there’s no plot, at least that you can find. Or everything seems normal, except for some reason the director shot the whole thing from a bird’s eye view and you never see anyone’s face.

Sometimes the very best thing about a film like that is picking through it afterwards with your friends. What was with the giant hand in the background of that scene at the park? Why didn’t anyone in the movie comment on the fact the sets were obviously all made of cardboard? Did everyone hate the long shot inside the revolving door, or just me?

Kaleidoscope is a game that brings you all the joy and frustration of discussing an opaque foreign art film, without actually having to sit through one. You and your friends invent the details of a fictitious movie in the same time or less than it would have taken to watch.

But how? you ask. I’ll tell you how!

78 Comments

Games News! 22/06/15

once upon a time there was a word, and the word was news

Paul: Atop a distant hill, reaching up toward the last, fading stars of the velvet night, barely visible in the pre-dawn glow, stands the temple to Games News.

Here, sat amongst the heavy and heady odours of swirling incense, stepping between the gigantic columns erected in times long forgotten, Shut Up & Sit Down’s many devoted acolytes cast bones, call out prayers and perform blood sacrifices in the hope of discovering what cardboard miracles will be delivered unto us in the weeks and months ahead.

Quinns: Join with us now as we row out over a briny waves toward those distant chants, as we step onto that rocky promontory and weave amongst the hairless worshippers as they perform their secret and arcane rites. Tread soft and bring no light, for this is a holy land which we all despoil when our sinful tongues even mention its name.

“Don’t be scared,” you hear me cry, straining over the oars. “It’s been a long journey, but you’ll get your Zombicide news soon enough.”

Review: Forbidden Stars

nubs for the nub throne, all of the guns, oh what a lovely war

Quinns: I don’t really like the Warhammer universes. When I was a kid I couldn’t get enough of them. “In the grim darkness of the future there is only war”? Holy shit!

These days I find them a little tired. Conflict is exciting, but not without peace to contrast it with, and not when you siphon all the humanity out of it. Where’s the ego and romance? Where are the themes and mysteries? And obviously: Where are the women?

Let me wrap this up before people start sending me photos of Sisters of Battle, or pointing out that the expanded universe is awesome (I know!). My point is I was a little grouchy when I opened up of Forbidden Stars, Fantasy Flight’s new, striking war game set in the Warhammer 40K universe.

I’m happy to say that Forbidden Stars defrosted my icy heart. This game is sensational.

158 Comments

Review: Machi Koro’s Harbor Expansion

cornettos of the cosmos, cheese puppies, a lack of sleep

Quinns: Today I’m joined by Matt, who’s finally played Machi Koro!

Matt: What does “Machi Koro” mean in English, Quinns?

Quinns: “Give Me a 4 You Useless Sodding Dice or I’m Melting You In the Microwave.” But I don’t just want to talk about Machi Koro today! I want to talk about the new Harbor expansion.

Matt: What does “Harbour” mean in English, Quinns?

Quinns: It doesn’t have a direct translation, but you could say “Den of Lost Souls.” But let’s start with a quick reminder of why the base game is so delightful, and why people should think about buying it if they haven’t already.

162 Comments

Games News: Crowdsourced Edition! 15/06/15

elfs, falcons, deads, time dilation

Quinns: Good news everyone! This morning I wrote 1,000 words of Games News in the SU&SD backend and then accidentally hit Ctrl+F5, erasing it from existence.

Writing it all again would be heartbreaking, so I turn to you guys, the best community in the business. I’m going to link to six stories, and if one of you wants to write it up in an informative yet funny SU&SD style, just do so in a comment and I’ll paste you into the article proper and attribute it with your handle!

Try not to put us to shame, and GOOD LUCK!

61 Comments

Presenting Quinns’ Corner Awards, 2015!

from tron to enron, from love to math, from mysteries to sashimis

Quinns: Hello everybody! Take your seats, the show’s about to begin.

We get sent twice as many games as we review on SU&SD. We cover the good games and set fire to the bad ones, but there’s a sort of purgatory in between of games that don’t get reviewed and pile up in my corner.

Maybe a game’s too interesting for me to burn it. Maybe it’s too similar to something we just reviewed. This is what lead to 2013’s Rapid Review Special Episode– a big, weird release valve of a video that let me reclaim my corner for a hot minute and put a pot plant there.

That time has come again. Today, SU&SD is proud to present no less than seven reviews of the best and weirdest games to be found in my corner.

159 Comments

Spent: The Story of a Poker Tournament

pyroclastic flow, poker plastic flow, danny trejo flow, fencing

Paul: I can’t count the number of chips I have. There are too many.

The croupier has smeared them across the felt toward me and I’m hurriedly scooping up these coloured disks as if they were spilled bonbons. I’m trying to arrange them in piles of five so that I have some idea how much I have, how many I have, except I’ve forgotten to return my cards and now the croupier is reminding me that he needs them before he can deal out the next hand. So I’m now trying to collect my chips, arrange my chips, return my cards and also put in my blind bet. If I was an octopus I could pull this off. Instead, I’m more of a puppy, flailing at my winnings. I must look so clumsy and everybody can see.

The noise was the first thing that got me. Forty-seven people entered this tournament, spread across five tables of ten or nine players. Before the first hand came out there was nothing but the sound of chips clacking. So many chips clacking as dozens of players flipped and fingered and meshed them together like mantis mandibles. I was pretty sure the young man in a black hoodie to my right was good, but I couldn’t quite explain why. Opposite me sat someone who could have just slithered off a Harley Davidson. His face was the greying crags of a cliff. His rings would mangle anybody he swung at. His top was as ragged as his features. His clothes were worn. His cap was worn. His face was worn. His indifference was underlined by a mustache that never, ever moved. He looked like Danny Trejo.

Hello, Danny Trejo, I am English, what what. I weigh less than 130lbs and yesterday I was so tired during my fencing class that I couldn’t hold my sword up.

Games News! 08/06/15

gushin' and a drippin' and a druggin' and a killin'

Paul: So I’ve been looking at the Games News Style Guide don’t like the idea of Games News “coming at you” because that gives me the impression of some sort of oncoming, impending, unstoppable, inevitable, colossus of a thing that rolls through your front door. You know, sort of like…

Quinns: A monster? A disaster?

Paul: Right. And I don’t want people to associate us with disasters.

Quinns: No, I want Games News to be the opposite of a disaster. What’s the opposite of a disaster? A… a balm. I want Games News to be a sort of gentle, soothing, relaxing experience. I want Games News to be something you can rub all over your body to make your day infinitely better. Yeah, that’s right. So, with that in mind, let’s give our readers things they would just love to smear all over themselves. Like these Mage Wars tiles.

41 Comments

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