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Games I will never own and for good reason
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Arcadian Del Sol
United States
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Random list of games I will never ever own, and for the life of me, cannot imagine why anyone else would ever own them. They range from "I dont have multiple lifetimes in which to play this beast" to "what drugs were they on when they made this?" I've left GO off the list because that game is played by NINJAS, and the last thing I need is to offend GEEK NINJAS. (but yeah GO is like...uhm...a cult or something.)
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Posted Mon Mar 3, 2008 7:59 pm
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1.
Board Game: Dear Abby
[Average Rating:0.00 Unranked]
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Arcadian Del Sol
United States
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This one is filed under "I dont get it."
Dear Abby, for those of you who just spent the last 30 years inside a wine barrel, is a world renown columnist who single-handedly invented the self-help industry. She would be its first 'guru' with her weekly newspaper columns advising people which fork is for lobster and which husband is for leaving.
I cannot even speculate as to how such a game is actually played, but given that I never found these articles (many rumored to be apocryphal fabrications) all that entertaining, I certainly wouldn't want to find myself rolling dice and playing games about them. If for some reason I do, I want to be the top hat. I'm not even sure that makes sense, but anytime I am about to play a game for which I have no idea how its played, I blurt out "I want to be the top hat." on the slim chance that there actually IS a top hat in the game, and there exists a marginal opportunity for me to be it.
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Arcadian Del Sol
United States
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okay so I own Pass the Pigs ($2.25 thrift store find, July 2002 thank you very much) and while it is one of those games I decided I should own as opposed to one of those games I decided I should PLAY, I like it for its simplicity (and for the naughty MAKIN BACON rule that you have to pretend doesnt exist when the pastor and his wife come over for dinner and games). As an aside, if you DO have a pastor and his wife come over for dinner and games, I strongly suggest this one. The whole 'dear god dont let it be MAKIN BACON' thing has a very Russian Roulette vibe to it. Shake the cup roll the pigs *CLICK* whew! next?
Anyway, Deluxe seems to be a Vegas edition with dueling pig dice and a wagering system not unlike the raffle wheels at your local state fair. You drop some chips on whatever combinations you think will hit or something of that nature, bur me its all about aforementioned heart pounding MAKIN BACON roll that you just KNOW the pastor's wife is going to get EACH AND EVERY TIME THE BROAD ROLLS THE PIG-DICE. Its like the whole fishes and loaves miracle only more naughty and anti-semitic.
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Arcadian Del Sol
United States
Unspecified
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Sparing us the whole "Avalon Hill did or didn't make this game' controversy that seems to arise EVERY SINGLE TIME someone attributes ANY SINGLE GAME to Avalon Hill, for the sake of argument I'm going to call this an Avalon Hill game. If that gets your Victory Games dander in a ruffle, then good. Your dander needs ruffling. I grew up in Baltimore. There is only Avalon Hill. NO OTHERS.
Be that as it may, this was one of those early 80s games that made me, even at that youthful age of late-teens, predict the inevitable downfall of AH. It was in the section of their catalog with other blockbusters like Dr Ruth's Game of Good Sex, Drinkers Wild, and a few random 'adult sex games' that made me wonder if Avalon Hill didn't just have some kind of Federal Contract that paid them bonus money anytime they printed something onto cardboard. To think that the same guys that made The Longest Day also made this game - its like learning that Chaucer also wrote the classic 'here i sit...' poem found in every truck stop toilet stall from Missouri to California. Anytime you even dare to read Canterbury Tales, you'll hear that poem in the back of your mind and just wonder what kind of drugs that guy was on at the time.
This game could have been called: "Officially and Completely Out of Ideas" and I at least could have given them proper credit for being honest about it.
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Arcadian Del Sol
United States
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Speaking of...
This is a game I'm supposed to love and this is a game that I'm supposed to sell my kidney in order to buy off E-Bay, but you know what? There are limits to my obsession. If boardgames were not my 'thing' and oh say illegal narcotics were, The Longest Day would be like diving into a swimming pool of straws and cocaine. The results would be instant heart attack.
Sporting more cardboard counters than any SIX Avalon Hill games, this guy is so heavy, if you Ebay for it, the shipping will easily cost twice as much as the actual auction itself. It has seven large boards included and the one and only time I ever saw it set up for play was at a convention in Baltimore and they literally had two ping-pong tables side by side for this guy. There were LADDERS AROUND THE TABLE for gamers to get a better view of it. There were FUNNY STICKS WITH FORKS ON THE END to push markers around like you see in almost every war movie ever filmed. According to veteran players (who really should qualify for the same benefits of ACTUAL VETERANS just for playing this beast), the game itself can take months to play. MONTHS TO PLAY.
I break paragraph to let that sink in. Remember something important: this is an "Ameritrash" game. That means early on in the game, with enough unfortunate rolls of the dice, you can be forced to play out the entire remainder of the game knowing full well that you aren't going to win. Now in a game like Advanced Squad Leader, that means you might spend the remainder of an hour watching the other guy destroy your armies. In this game, you're going to spend the remainder of THE CALENDAR YEAR watching some guy destroy your 800 individual cardboard tiles. How horribly large is this game? Imagine yourself setting it up. It has 1500+ cardboard counters. The rules say things like "place counters 522,928,382,500-720 on hex JJJAX18052" (not really -arc) and you can repeat that oh about six hundred more times.
This isn't a game for the obsessed among us. This is a game for the 'need supervised professional care' among us. If you own this game, STOP MAKING PEOPLE SCARED OF ME!!
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Arcadian Del Sol
United States
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right so I never even heard of Monopoly before I found BGG...
only joking of course. In truth however, of all the hundreds of cloned -opoly titles we are presently awash in here at BGG, this is one I never heard of, and one I probably would never have imagined. Considering that the mission statement for all Protestant flavored faiths being apostolic in nature (that means they're supposed to tell you all about themselves so you join them), I dont understand how this one works.
"Well you can't pay rent at my 5-star synagogue, so you're going to have to foreclose on the mortgage for your homeless shelter and your Youth Group trailer in the parking lot. And Speaking of foreclosing on the mortgage for Youth Group trailers, where do you go to church because ours is great and our Youth Group trailer is already paid off so no chance of that being foreclosed har dee har har but really, where do you go?"
Given the choice. I'd play Pass the Pigs instead. MAKIN BACON, BABY! MAKIN BACON! Although this IS Episcopalian. I wonder if there's a "Pass the Rattlesnakes" version.
(disclaimer: I realize not ALL Episcopalians handle rattlesnakes. Only the ones on or around the Mississippi do. I spelled the name right, so I should be spared any indignant wrath for that feat alone. No offense was intended. You dont have NINJAS do you?)
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Posted Mon Mar 3, 2008 7:26 pm
I was a tad harsh and I indeed do have a wicked humor that gets me in trouble all the time. Arcaiden is probably a great guy as well that I would enjoy gaming with.
