Shut Up & Sit Down

Your Guide to Space Cadets

board games, teabags, i'm driving, oh god i don't want to drive anymore

Quinns: You know when you buy a game, and you know it’s going to be good… and it is?

Space Cadets is a game where 3-6 players fly a Star Trek-like space ship together in real time. That makes it a lot like SU&SD favourite Space Alert, but where that game compresses your flight (and the game’s jewel-like puzzle) into a brown-trousered 10 minutes, Space Cadets’ flight fills a whole evening.

It also has everyone manning different stations. We’ll be doing a full
review when we’re a more competent crew, but for now, let me just walk you through each station. I can’t think of a better way to persuade you why you need this box in your life.

Review: King of Tokyo

March 5, 2013 Reviews King of Tokyo The newest recruit to team Shut Up & Sit Down takes a look at King of Tokyo. A game of throwing handfuls of heavy dice at your friends, as hard as you can. I might have got that wrong. Is that wrong, Matt?

Review: Robinson Crusoe – Adventure on the Cursed Island

no-oo, board games, review, Poor Barry

You know when you buy a game, and you know it’s going to be good?

“This will be a great time,” you announce to your cactus or spouse. “I have been convinced by this game’s art and premise that I will enjoy myself.”

Your coat’s still on. You pick up the phone. “Barry?” You say. “It’s me. Would you like to come over and have a great time?”

I was convinced Robinson Crusoe was the game for me. Guess what!

22 Comments

Review: Fortress America

board games, review, Sgt. Pork Starve, Plastic Souls, laser laser laser

Quinns: Think to get flickering lasers and evil Empires you’d have to play the X-Wing Miniatures Game? Think again, mister! Or miss. Sorry miss.

Paul: No, it’s me, I am a mist-

Quinns: Say hello to Fortress: America (and imagine it responding to your greeting with an excitable 21 gun salute).The ENTIRE WORLD (made up of three players) is invading near-future America (controlled by one player). I’m talking bombers over Boston. Hovertanks in Houston. APCs in… in, uh…

Paul: In Annapolis! This may well be the ultimate in what we call Ameritrash, big flashy board games with lots of components.

9 Comments

Impressions: Neuroshima Hex!

board games, review, kissing spiders, go away stupid ipad, laser laser

Quinns: I’m meeting a lot of board gamers here in New York. It’s like Christmas, and I’m Santa, except they gift me with a game and only rarely sit on my lap and you know what this analogy doesn’t work at all

Today I was walked through WONDERFUL post-apocalyptic tactics game Neuroshima Hex!, released in 2006 and since expanded by a untidy bag of army packs. My friend took out this game, taught it to me, and promptly put it away again.

“We’ll play on the iPad,” he said. “It’s better on the iPad.”

My face promptly crumpled up like a plastic bag in a strong breeze. Worst part of it is, he was right.

7 Comments

Review: Innovation

board games, review, soviet suppositories, mystic beans

Quinns: The first edition of Innovation, a card game ranked in Board Game Geek’s top 150 games of ALL TIME, looks – as you can see – supernaturally boring.

The tiny box looks like it should contain soviet suppositories, and inside it you’ll find 110 cards in the same hospitalised colour (Lung? Nicotine?). The deathly manual informs you that every one of these cards is an “innovation”, from archery to automobiles, and 2-4 players will use them to race from one end of history to the other.

Let’s say you agree to play Innovation, even though it’s clearly not your thing. That experience can be compared to going to drink a tall glass of dirty water, and discovering it’s neat whisky.

7 Comments

Review: Shadows over Camelot

board games, review, poultry bones, lancelot goo

Quinns: Oh god. OK.

Because board games age so goddamn well, running a board game site can be a bit like running a daycare centre. Those guys can’t rest because it might mean a kid getting stuck behind a radiator or someone eating a rock. We can’t rest because even if we stay on top of new games, we’re writing under the weight of every awesome game we’ve never played.

Shadows over Camelot is one such older game we need to tell you about. One of HUNDREDS. It never ends, but all the same we’re going to talk about it with the good humour of men throwing a shiny penny into a wishing well.

12 Comments

Retrospective: Ambush!

Ambush!, Retrospective, shit going down

Paul: Right then, shall we look inside a box that hasn’t been opened in at least sixteen years?

Review: Mission- Red Planet

board games, moist carnival rides, crap NASA, the other thing

Quinns: What are you doing RIGHT NOW? Swallow that food! Drop that baby! We’ve found a board game you should buy. It’s kind of what we do around here.

Mission: Red Planet is a game of racing to colonise Mars in a congenial, steampunk fashion.
3-5 players jostle to load their tiny astronauts into ships on the launchpad board, these land them on the planet board, and you all try and dominate regions and fulfill secret objectives in a game of area
control.

8 Comments

Review: City of Horror

City of Horror, Conniving, Zombies, mashed bananas, SCUMBAGS

Paul: It’s Hallowe’en! Well, it was Hallowe’en last night. Do you go in for Hallowe’en? I don’t, really. I don’t know if that’s because I’m from Hampshire or not. It’s just, you know, a time associated with throwaway seasonal tat and twenty drunk people all dressed as the same Heath Ledger Joker being sick on public transport—

Quinns: PAUL. THE GAME.

Paul: Right! As is proper, we played a board game for Hallowe’en. Something a bit different. A game that’s both a trick and a treat.

Quinns: A shiny new game called City of Horror. This game made our Hallowe’en. And it’s going to make every Hallowe’en after that.

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