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Gotta Sink 'Em All: Looking Back at the Many Incarnations of Battleship

Posted 5/15/12 12:30 pm EST by in Hobby Gaming


In 1967, Milton Bradley published the first retail version of Battleship. Then came Electronic Battleship. Finally, in a masterstroke representing the peak of 1980's technology, Electronic Talking Battleship was bestowed upon the world. Childhood would never be the same again. Go ahead, watch the commercial, you know you want to!

The history of Battleship has many chapters, so just a few days from the premiere of Battleship's feature film, one might wonder how we got from WWII-inspired naval combat to planetary alien defense. There are certainly highs and lows, so lets take a look at the many versions of Battleship that have hit store shelves over the years.

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Hack the Planet! Netrunner CCG Reboot is On the Way

Posted 5/15/12 11:00 am EST by in Announcements, Hobby Gaming


Old card games don't die, they just fade away. Take Netrunner, for example. The other CCG from designer Richard Garfield (famous for creating Magic: The Gathering) hasn't been in print since 1999, yet still retains a strong player base. That loyalty will be rewarded later this year, as Fantasy Flight Games has announced plans to revive Netrunner with a Q3 2012 release.

Originally set in the world of R. Talsorian's Cyberpunk RPG, Netrunner features 2-player asymetric gameplay, where a Runner player faces off against a Corporation player. Thematically, gameplay is centered around hacking, with the Runner trying to prevent the Corp from executing secret world domination plans. However, in Fantasy Flight's upcoming reboot of the game, players will be greeted with an unexpected thematic twist.

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Best-Selling RPG 'Pathfinder' Comes to Comics

Posted 5/14/12 4:00 pm EST by in Comic Books, Dynamite, Hobby Gaming


This August "Skullkickers" writer Jim Zubkavich and artist Andrew Huerta along with Dynamite Entertainment are blazing a path through comics with the best-selling fantasy, tabletop RPG "Pathfinder" as source material. This is the first time the game, from Paizo Publishing, comes to medium.

According to a press release from Dynamite:
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Let Your Gamer Flag Fly With Woot.com's Board Gaming Shirts

Posted 5/11/12 12:00 pm EST by in Hobby Gaming, T-Shirts


"Not a Snowballs Chance..." - Winner of the Shirt.Woot.com board gaming derby. Design by user lucky1988.

Board games are not exactly ripe material for t-shirt design. Aside from bad Catan "wood for sheep" puns and people who turn Twister mats into rain coats, you don't often see people sporting a love of tabletop gaming on their chest. Designing the ultimate board gamer t-shirt requires a special touch: one happily provided by the slightly twisted folk over at Shirt.Woot.com.

As part of the site's 250th Derby competition, the floodgates of board game t-shirts have been opened. An army of designers took a shot at making their best board gaming shirt, and the Woot.com community voted their favorites to the top. Only three of these shirts will make the cut, though, so check back over the next three days to see which new shirt has been put up for sale.

You can view all of the entries here, or if you prefer, skip right to the top vote-getters. Today's reveal was the #1 voted shirt, a Monty Python and the Holy Grail meets Monopoly mashup (pictured above). Other candidates for the weekend include spoofs on Trivial Pursuit, Risk, Life, Pandemic, Catan, and the D20.

Unfortunately "My Bad," a hip-hop parody of Sorry, did not make the cut.

Related Posts:
Exclusive First Look at Ascension's Immortal Heroes Expansion [Card Preview]
Roleplayers Assemble! Marvel Heroic RPG Event Books and Supplements are Coming!

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Roleplayers Assemble! Marvel Heroic RPG Event Books and Supplements are Coming

Posted 5/9/12 1:13 pm EST by in Hobby Gaming, Marvel


Things can't get much better for Marvel fans. The Avengers just smashed box office records, Avengers vs X-Men is topping the comic book charts, and the newly released Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game has been a hit among RPG players. To capitalize on this whirlwind of superhero success, publisher Margaret Weis Productions has prepared a steady stream of Marvel Heroic Roleplaying content, starting with the Civil War story arc.

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Kickstart Your Engines: Plans for New Car Wars Edition Revealed

Posted 5/7/12 9:41 am EST by in Hobby Gaming


Of all the buzz surrounding the record-shattering Kickstarter project for Ogre by Steve Jackson Games, one fan request cuts through the noise. Give us Car Wars! The other classic Steve Jackson franchise, Car Wars hasn't had a new edition in ten years, yet there is the possibility that both it and Ogre will earn publication through an unconventional method: doubling down on the Ogre Kickstarter.

With four days left and over $600k raised, Steve Jackson Games was surely looking for a way to push across the finish line with a bang. In a project update late last night, plans for a $700k Car Wars stretch goal were announced. Let's be clear about this though, Ogre backers will not be receiving a copy of Car Wars as a pledge reward. Instead, Steve Jackson will simply commit to releasing a new version of the game, a move that has both pleased fans but also stirred a nest of Kickstarter critics.

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Exclusive First Look at Ascension's Immortal Heroes Expansion [Card Preview]

Posted 5/4/12 1:30 pm EST by in Hobby Gaming, Previews


Meet the new heroes, same as the old heroes. Gary Games has shed some new light on the upcoming card game expansion Ascension: Immortal Heroes, where fan-favorite hero cards from earlier sets will get a second shot at play.

Back when Immortal Heroes was first announced in March, Gary Games also revealed their release strategy for the Ascension property. Each year will see the release of one major set that adds a gameplay twist, followed by one smaller set that complements and expands upon those new mechanics . As such, Immortal Heroes is a smaller set that complements this year's Storm of Souls set, while focusing on the Event and Trophy mechanics of that set.

Early previews of Immortal Heroes hinted at an entirely new type of card: "soul gems," representing some new form of weapon that players can wield during the game. What the heck is a soul gem, you might ask? To help explain things, let's take a look at one of the cards and see.

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Upcoming X-Wing Miniatures Game Release Dated, Priced

Posted 5/3/12 10:10 pm EST by in Announcements, Hobby Gaming, Star Wars


Fantasy Flight blew the doors off of Gen Con last year when they announced their acquisition of the Star Wars hobby gaming license, revealing plans for both a living card game and a space combat miniatures game. It's been a patient wait for fans, though, as the games went back behind the curtain and news on their development became scarce. That's all about to change now as the X-Wing Miniatures Game is ready for prime time.

X-Wing will launch this Summer (which is about as specific as most board game release date gets) at a retail price of $39.95. Included in the base set will be one X-Wing model and two TIE Fighter models, as well as all of the cards, counters, and custom 8-sided dice required to play the game.

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Wizards of the Coast to Take D&D Players Back to the Original Dungeon

Posted 5/2/12 10:32 am EST by in Announcements, Hobby Gaming, Wizards of the Coast


Later this year, Dungeons & Dragons board game fans will get a blast from the past: the original Dungeon! game is coming back into print with an all-new version.

The 1975 Dungeon! has already been revised twice before with 1989's The New Dungeon! and 1995's The Classic Dungeon, each of which offered improvements to the original. It's not clear what will make the cut in this new edition, but according to the game's Amazon.com product listing, it " incorporates several revisions made to the game in later editions, giving players the most fun experience possible."

Dungeon! is a quick 30-minute smash-and-grab mission to fill your inventory with treasure and make it to the exit alive. Each player selects a different class, each with its own unique powers and abilities. The dungeon's winding hallways are littered with chambers containing monsters and loot, but each space is clearly marked on a level scale of 1-6. The higher the levels pose greater challenges, but offer more rewarding loot in return.

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The Bloggers of Catan Give a Peek Behind the Game Design Curtain

Posted 5/1/12 11:11 am EST by in Hobby Gaming, Mayfair Games


The Settlers of Catan is synonymous with modern strategy board gaming. The title seems to continuously pop up as an ambassador for the hobby, whether it be for play by the characters of television's Big Bang Theory or for parody in an episode of 30 Rock.

But in the nearly 20 years since Catan hit store shelves, the name has established itself as a brand, encompassing numerous expansions, spin-off games, and even a novelization. None of these other products have received the same attention as regular old Catan, though. With a new series of behind-the-scenes blog entries planned, designer Klaus Teuber is hoping to draw more eyes to The Rivals for Catan [MTV Geek review], a 2-player-only card game take on The Settlers of Catan.

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Ascension Card Game Paves a Road to Gen Con

Posted 4/27/12 3:05 pm EST by in Hobby Gaming


Gen Con may not be happening until August, but Gary Games doesn't plan on waiting. Starting next month, the "Road to Gen Con" series of Ascension: Storm of Souls qualifier tournaments will be coming a fine local game store near you, leading up to a world championship event in Indianapolis.

Earlier this week, Gary Games posted the full list of events and tournament rules on the Ascension website, revealing that this year's tournament will use only the recent Storm of Souls standalone expansion. During the local qualifier events, several four-player Swiss-format rounds will be used to seed the top 8 players. From there, a single-elimination tournament will determine the winner, who will walk away with a free four-day badge to Gen Con, guaranteed admission in the world championship event, and plenty of Ascension swag.

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Steve Jackson's "Ogre" Rumbles Through Kickstarter

Posted 4/26/12 12:26 pm EST by in Hobby Gaming


Some records were made to be broken, and with the raging success of Kickstarter.com, crowdfunding high water marks have become an endangered species. Steve Jackson Games is the latest company to top the charts, and their reprint of the classic 1970's tactical combat game Ogre is the culprit.

Prior to Ogre hitting the crowdfunding scene, the most funded board game project had been D-Day Dice with $171,805 raised. To put Ogre's success into perspective, take a look at the current funding total: $289,144. The $20,000 initial goal was crushed in mere hours, leaving fans to wonder not whether the project would be funded, but just how far it would go.

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Tabletop Gaming Thrives at PAX East 2012

Posted 4/19/12 11:28 am EST by in Hobby Gaming


The Penny Arcade Expo is huge. Over the course of three days, 30,000+ geeks fill a building so large it could double as an aircraft hangar, with one sole pursuit: to enjoy the video game expo hall, concerts, tournaments, panels, lectures, and workshops. Yet even if you tried, you couldn't experience every facet of PAX in one weekend.

What about the tabletop gaming scene, though? Surely, one man could experience all of the board, card, miniatures, and role-playing games that PAX East has to offer. Not so fast. As it turns out, hobby gamers have been thriving in the halls of PAX, and the tabletop presence has expanded beyond previous years' highs.

According to head Tabletop department manager Father Fletch, tabletop represents "a section that offers a lot to do, for a longer period of time, than any other part of the show." Fletch went on to describe the increased scope of PAX Tabletop's play space, stating "we had some 400+ tables (rounds and rectangles) of playable space, some of it offering structured play in the form of game demos, others as tournaments, and yet others as free play areas." Add in a slew of new exhibitors and retailers, and conquering PAX Tabletop becomes a weekend task of its own.

A single photo cannot hope to show all of the space dedicated to tabletop gaming at PAX East, but this does the best job at showing off the freeplay areas.

One man can do it all, but not without some assistance. I enlisted the help of attendees, vendors, and enforces alike to get the answer to a simple question: what were the hot tabletop games of PAX East 2012? I've merged their pool of answers with my own impressions in a patented unscientific manner to present to you, readers, the definitive PAX tabletop experience.

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"Ugg-Tect" From Fantasy Flight Games Lets You Beat the Competition, Quite Literally

Posted 4/13/12 11:54 am EST by in Hobby Gaming


The life of an architect is full of hard work. Being a caveman architect is even harder, but at least when your construction crew messes up, you can beat them over the head with a spiked club.

Let’s not beat around the bush here. Ugg-Tect is a Pictionary-style party game where two teams of up to four cavemen each will have to build structures out of wooden blocks. The twist is that only the team leader (architect) can see the construction plans, and must communicate to the team using only grunts and stomps. Of course, when the team’s building goes astray, they’ll receive a few whacks from the included inflatable club to keep them on course. Read More...

Magic: The Gathering Teases Avacyn Restored Set, Announces iPad App [Exclusive Card Preview]

Posted 4/11/12 12:30 pm EST by in Announcements, Apple, Apps, Hobby Gaming, Magic: The Gathering, Wizards of the Coast


The archangel Avacyn has returned! A bright, fiery dawn banishes Innistrad’s shadows. Humanity takes up arms and drives back the creatures of the night. With flights of angels overhead, the righteous band together and wield holy light and miraculous magic to restore the balance of their world.

Magic: The Gathering fans, prepare for the third an final set of the Innistrad block: Avacyn Restored. In advance of the May 4th release date, Wizards of the Coast has begun providing sneak peeks at some of the new cards included in this set. Read on to take a look at "Harvester of Souls," a fearsome black creature you'll surely want to have stocked in your deck.


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