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You are here: Home / Archives for Reviews

Review: “13th Age”

September 23, 2013 by Mike Shea

30 Second Summary 13th Age feels like the spiritual successor of 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons mixed with the storytelling mechanics of games like Fate and Fiasco. Rob Heinsoo and Jonathan Tweet give us a fully refined RPG mixed with a pile of house rules we can drop into any d20 game. While it’s great […]

Filed Under: Featured, Newest Critical Hits, Reviews, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 13th Age, 4e, D&D, Dungeons and Dragons, Reviews

First Impressions: “Fate Core” Roleplaying Game

August 22, 2013 by Bartoneus

After roughly a year with extremely limited time for roleplaying games, I was invited by a close friend to play in his newly starting modern day, Cthulhu-esque campaign using the early release Fate Core rules from the Kickstarter from Evil Hat Productions. I had heard quite a bit from Dave and other friends about the Dresden […]

Filed Under: Featured, Reviews, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: cthulhu, dresden files rpg, fate, fate core, first impressions, Reviews, roleplaying game, roleplaying games

[Review] Pacific Rim

July 16, 2013 by Vanir

WARNING: mild spoilers for Pacific Rim are contained within. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNT.   Over the weekend, I saw a quiet little movie called Pacific Rim. Going into the movie, I saw nothing but extremely positive reviews — not a big surprise for a Guillermo Del Toro movie and the crowd I listen to. I was super […]

Filed Under: Dire Flailings, Movies Tagged With: gamelon, gamera, ghidora, godzilla, grendizer, iguana, jaeger, kaiju, king ghidora, matthew broderick, mazinger, mazinger z, mazinkaiser, Mecha, mechaghidora, mechagodzilla, megazord, mothra, pacific rim, power rangers, Reviews, rodan, sentai, voltron

Review: “Cosmic Patrol” RPG

January 17, 2013 by Bartoneus

Cosmic Patrol is a retro-futuristic roleplaying game published by Catalyst Game Labs that focuses on storytelling and building a narrative from various cues provided by each player/character around the table and an overall adventure structure chosen by the players. I’ve had the main rulebook for a long time, but finally had a chance to sit down with some friends and play a session in late 2012. The game has a very evocative setting introduced throughout the rulebook and with short stories that highlights a very pulp, “golden age” style of science fiction space exploration featuring rockets, laser pistols, and asteroids infested with lizard men.

Filed Under: Reviews, Roleplaying Games, Science Fiction & Fantasy Genre Tagged With: catalyst game labs, cosmic patrol, narration, retro futuristic, Reviews, roleplaying games, science fiction, Storytelling

Review: “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”

December 18, 2012 by Vanir

I swear I read The Hobbit as a kid. I remember finishing the last page and excitedly running to talk to my brother about it. I’d even seen the cartoon several times. Despite these memories, I walked into the movie knowing exactly three things: there were younger versions of characters I already knew in it, and also a dragon. (I was also pretty sure Gollum was in it somewhere, but that was just hearsay.) So it was that, yet again, I watch a Tolkien movie and everything is new to me.

Filed Under: Dire Flailings, Featured, Movies, Reviews, Science Fiction & Fantasy Genre Tagged With: an unexpected journey, baggins, Balin, Bifur, bilbo, Bofur, Bombur, Dori, Dwalin, Fili, gandalf, Gloin, gollum, Kili, lord of the rings, mega goblin goiters, movie, Nori, Oin, Ori, Reviews, sting, the hobbit, the one ring, Thorin Oakenshield

Review: “Conquest of Nerath” D&D Boardgame

June 21, 2011 by Bartoneus

Today we see the release of Conquest of Nerath, the newest D&D board game from Wizards of the Coast. Unlike the last two D&D board games from WotC, Castle Ravenloft and Wrath of Ashardalon, which focused on heroes and dungeon crawling this new game is a take on large scale strategy board gaming along the lines of games like Risk or Axis & Allies. At the same time the game includes heroes that can fight alongside your larger armies and delve into dungeons to uncover powerful treasure that will help your armies attain victory over the other factions.

Filed Under: Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Featured, Reviews Tagged With: Axis & Allies, board game, boardgame, boardgames, castle ravenloft, conquest of nerath, D&D, dnd, Dungeons and Dragons, preview, Reviews, risk, roleplaying games, strategy, wrath of ashardalon

Review: Battle Tag (by Ubisoft)

June 1, 2011 by Bartoneus

The odds are that you haven’t heard of the game Battle Tag that was released by Ubisoft in November of last year. How do I know that? Because so far it has only had what must be called a “soft release” and is only available through Ubisoft’s online store or in stores in Canada and Texas. Aside from some attention garnered at E3 2010, there’s not many ways you would have heard about this game. What’s surprising about this is that Battle Tag is far and away the best laser tag game I’ve ever played and may even be one of the best back yard experiences I’ve had in my entire life.

Filed Under: Featured, Reviews, Video Games Tagged With: back yard, battle tag, battletag, game, laser tag, lasertag, lazer tag, lazertag, new, Reviews, ubisoft

Unboxing – The Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond Boxed Set

April 25, 2011 by Bartoneus

We were extremely fortunate to get an early copy of the upcoming D&D boxed set called The Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond to unbox and show you all today. It comes packaged in a thin box the same size as the Red Box starter set and comes with a very sturdy 127 page paperback Campaign Guide, a 31 page Encounter Book, two sheets of cardboard tokens, one poster with a map of gloomwrought on one side and an encounter map on the other, and a Despair deck of 30 cards.

Filed Under: Featured, Reviews, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, 4th Edition, box set, boxed set, D&D, dnd, Dungeons and Dragons, game, gloomwrought and beyond, new, preview, Reviews, roleplaying, Shadowfell, the shadowfell, the shadowfell gloomwrought and beyond, unboxing

Review: Nightfall (Card Game)

April 21, 2011 by Bartoneus

Nightfall is a new deck-building card game from Alderac Entertainment Group that is set in a dark world of vampires and werewolves. The game supports between 2 and 5 players and takes roughly 45 minutes to an hour to play. The basic set for the game comes with over 300 cards that include minions you can recruit into your deck, actions that you can play during your turn and other player’s turn, several types of wound cards representing different types of damage taken (bite, burn, and bleed), and draft cards that are used during the game’s set up.

Filed Under: Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Featured, Reviews Tagged With: action, alderac entertainment group, card game, deck building, gothic, horror, modern, nightfall, preview, Reviews, vampires, werewolf, werewolves

Review: Heroes of Shadow

April 6, 2011 by Bartoneus

The book Player’s Option: Heroes of Shadow is the first real print product we have seen for 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons since the Essentials line and also marks what I hope is the end in what I perceived as a lag in print products for the game. Heroes of Shadow was delayed from March until April so that it could be printed as a hard cover book instead of a smaller format paperback, and I am very pleased with having a larger sized hardcover in my hands with 4E content in it after months without one. What this book contains is exactly what you would expect from a book focusing on player characters that tap into the shadow power source and draw their inspiration from the darker corners of your D&D universes. Its contents range from entirely new classes to new builds for existing classes to new races and more than a handful of new options for characters of all types that want to have a bit darker tilt to their abilities.

Filed Under: Featured, Reviews, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, 4th Edition, assassin, black guard, D&D, dnd, Dungeons and Dragons, essentials, heroes of shadow, opinion, player's option, preview, revenant, Reviews, Roleplaying Games, roleplaying games, shade, Vampire, vryloka

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About the Author

  • Mike Shea

    Mike Shea is a writer, dungeon master, video gamer, husband, and son of Robert J. Shea. Mike runs the D&D website Sly Flourish, and wrote the books Dungeon Master Tips, The Lazy Dungeon Master, and Running Epic Tier D&D Games. You can email Mike at mike@mikeshea.net.

    Email: mike@mikeshea.netWeb: http://slyflourish.com

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