Hive is an awesome game which I have recently come across.  It is extremely simple, can be played anywhere because it simply has no board, and has a complexity akin to chess. 

In a nutshell, Hive is a 2-player game.  The goal is to surround the opponent’s queen completely - this can be done with pieces of either color.  Do this, and you win.  A game of Hive can last anywhere from 10 mins to the better portion of an hour depending on the skill level of the players.

To begin a game of Hive, one player takes the white pieces, the other takes the black pieces.  One player selects any of their pieces and places it on the table - effectively starting the “hive”.  The other player then selects a piece of their own and connects it to the one in play. 

From here on out - players have 2 options; place or move.   If you choose to place a piece, you may select any of your pieces not yet in play, and connect it to the hive.  You can place it anywhere so long as it touches another piece, and doesn’t touch a piece of the opposite color.  Also, the Queen must be placed into play by turn 4. 

You can only choose to move pieces in play if your queen is connected to the hive.  Each bug has its own way of moving, as follows:  The queen is the weakest piece - it can move one space in any direction.  The spider moves 3 spaces in one direction.  The grasshopper “jumps” over the other pieces, landing on the exact opposite side of the hive.  The beetle moves one space in any direction like the queen, but can “climb” on top of the hive, trapping whatever piece is under it.  Lastly, and potentially the most powerful is the ant, which can travel as many spaces it wishes along the parameter of the hive.

The one restriction that applies to both placing and moving is known as the “One Hive Rule” which states that you cannot make a move that creates a new hive, or breaks the hive into 2 seperate hives.  In other words - you can never do anything that would make a gap in the hive.

And that’s it!  I won’t go into all the strategies here, but trust me, after a few plays your head will be bursting with possible moves and counter-moves.  The game is kindah pricey at roughly 30 bones, but the tiles are nice, made of a sturdy tile-like material with a good amount of heft to them.  If you’d like to give the game a go before buying it, you can play an online version here, but know that playing a computer is nothing like a live opponent.

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DEACON

Filed under: Games - Board Games, Hive by DEACON
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For some reason, I find this Alice remix on YouTube to be simply wonderful.

The artist, Nick Bertke mixes sound clips from the movie into an almost hypnotizing audio loop - check it out!  He also has some other great stuff that’s similar, but none as cool as this one IMO.

Filed under: Web Surfing, YouTube by DEACON
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A few days back I picked up the latest trade paperback set in the Marvel Zombies story arc appropriately titled Marvel Zombies 2. Not to say it is the second book in the Marvel Zombies series…it is actually the fifth, but it continues the story told in Marvel Zombies. Now MZ isn’t that original a concept, if you have a story or world it is pretty easy to ask questions that start with a ‘What if…?’. In this case it is a “What if the Marvel characters were all turned into zombies?”

Lots of hyjinx that is for sure! But, truth be told, I guess I went into the series expecting a bit more. Especially when compared to some of the story arcs coming out of Marvel’s writing team now. Let’s just say that the story took a different path than I thought it would. I was expecting to hear a story that was dark and grim…Kind of like Dawn of the Dead or Night of the Living Dead, but instead I got lot of humor which at time is witty and other times just slapstick…More like Shawn of the Dead or Army of Darkness. My expectations aside I became more and more sold on Robert Kirkman’s world as I read the books, but like many armchair quarterbacks there are some things I would have done differently.

The artwork I felt was average but I don’t consider my eye good enough to critique it in any sort of meaningful way. Overall I felt the shading, coloring and line art all had a feeling of a mediocrity. It wasn’t bad where it detracted from the story. To me it was just kind of there and didn’t draw me further into the story. There are times where I’m thinking “Wow, did that just happen?” and a other times the panels are forgettable. So all in all the package is very hit or miss.

The part that impressed me the most though were the covers. Every individual issue in the MZ series has an homage drawing to classic Marvel covers but of course reimaged with a zombie theme. First issue covers of The Avengers, Silver Surfer, Fantastic Four, Secret Wars, and Wolverine have all been redone as well as other classics like Frank Miller drawing of Elektra holding Daredevil’s mask or the seductive jail-bait version of Mary Jane from issue two of her self titled series. Arthur Suydam customized these comic covers to tell a story from a nest of birds appearing in Captain America’s cranium, a family of mice that has made home in Mary Jane’s decaying body to giving The Hulk an obsession with eating eyeballs. This made Marvel Zombies: The Covers a very entertaining and enlightening read for me.

Overall MZ is pure entertainment. Upon reflection I think Kirkman made a wise choice of taking a lighter and comedic tone to the books instead of deep character reflections like I was expecting. There are cliché times and there are times of surprise, but all in all it was an enjoyable read. If it came down to passing, borrowing or buying the books, I’d rate it as a borrow. Once the novelty of the characters being zombies wares off there isn’t enough there to keep me going back to re-read again and again.

But I will leave you with this final thought: “Zombie Howard the Duck”

‘Til Next Time - Happy Reading!
LvT

Filed under: Comics, Marvel Zombies by LordVonTush
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Today I wanted to give some quick props to the folks over at Miniature-Giant.  Recently, I needed a bunch of Reaper miniatures to replace some of the crappy ones in the Descent set.  Course I could go to Reaper themselves, but that would be too dang expensive.  There’s always Ebay, but no one had multiples of the same fig - especially not in the quantities I needed. 

I stumbled across Miniature Giant and was amazed at their selection.  They’ve got pretty much every Reaper Miniature ever made, including OOP and special edition stuff, and lots of them.  What’s awesome is that everything is marked down 26% and shipping is free within the US. 

I got my order 2 days after I placed it, so needless to say, they’re fast.  They take Paypal, which is always nice and safe.  I can’t comment on their customer service department, because I didn’t need it!

Anyways, if you need Reaper figs, check these guys out.

-

DEACON

Filed under: Games - Retailer Reviews, Miniature Giant by DEACON
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What an absolute bust of a game. Pointless, no thought involved and for the most part an absolute waste of time…But before my blood boils too much let me take a step back and tell you why I feel this way. TransAmerica was published in 2001 and designed by someone who put out two of my favorite games: Hellas and Big City (I refuse to type his name here because once this is done I’m going to try to forget that he put this paperweight out). How after designing two wonderful games he let this shit get by is beyond me.

I picked this game up after hearing some good feedback on it and right about the time the Ticket to Ride fad was starting to die down, and during that time I was looking for more trains. Everything about this game is simple, which typically is not a negative trait (for example see my cohort’s review of Thaxx) but here the game is so simple that it ceases to produce any challenges, entice any thought provoking situations or produce any fun. At least with Thaxx you have that brief moment of suspense as you roll the dice…Here there is no suspense.

Players play on a board that shows the US with a bunch of cities called out. Overlaid is a triangular grid showing where rail lines can be placed. To start the game players draw five cities at random (the cities are grouped into regions - five of them - and each player draws one city from each region) and those are the cites you are trying to connect together to end the round and score points. On a player’s turn they can place one or two tracks (with bridges or mountain ranges - called out on the map - costing two to place one track piece). And that is it. That is the game.

Oh wait; I forgot the “twist”. The twist to this game is you can hijack other people’s rail lines. For example if you build into another player’s rail line, then you can use their rail lines to build further and connect to your target cities. So everywhere that they have gone, you’re able to go. Of course on the flip side they are able to use your rails as well. After all five cities are connected then each player that has not connected their cities loses points depending on how many segments they fell short with.

For me, this game will forever sit in my pile of “man I wish I had my money back on this one” pile. I can’t even recommend this game to play with non-gamers (and I’ve tried) because it is just “so damn boring” (my non-gaming buddies quote, not mine). There is no conflict and no tension (because you don’t know what cities your opponent is trying to connect to) so it amounts to placing a bunch little wooden sticks onto a board and the winner for the round, more often than not, is whoever happens to draw cities that have the least amount of track to connect.

Now I know this one is a bit shorter than my typically ramblings/reviews, but that is because there is nothing to this game. There is no tactical thinking, strategy or conflict. Perhaps, just maybe, this would be a good game for a parent looking to entertain some younger kinds for some time. The concept and game play is simple enough, but the theme is just lacking. Outside of the wooden scoring trains there are virtually no other clues to indicate you’re playing a train game. The same game could be played using the interstate, power network, sewage system or any other logistical system and it wouldn’t improve or make worse the game in any case…Well perhaps a wood piece of fecies for a scoring token could add a point in my book, but overall I cannot recommend this game even as a family/children’s type game because the theme and game play is dry and there are other games out there that would serve better than this game.

Rating: 1.25 out of 5

‘Til Next Time – Happy Gaming
LvT

Filed under: Games - Board Games, Transamerica by LordVonTush
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