Major Army Update

Have quite a few updates to my army. Been a little too busy painting to be posting:

Quick Update: A Few More Figures

Not a whole lot to talk about today. Just dropping in to add a few more pictures of my army in progress:

Figure Gallery: Getting Started with Warmachine

The last few weeks I've been pretty focused on getting my Warmachine army started. Normally, I'm one to go with the blue colored good guys in any game I play, but for once, the knight in shining armor wears red. Khador has a lot of themes I generally like. They're heavily armored with heavy melee damage and ice based elemental powers. One thing that greatly interested me was that Khador doesn't make any of the game's smaller robots. Every Warjack they make is as big and heavy as they come.

The first thing I picked up was Vlad, the armored knight styled warcaster to serve as my primary avatar in the game. Along with Vlad, I picked up two of Khador's Heavy Jack Kits to build myself my first machines of war. One really cool thing about the plastic jack kits is that they come with a single chassis, but give you all the parts you need to make four different Warjacks. In theory, you could buy one for every figure you wish to build, but luckily I found a great tutorial online that showed me how to magnetize the different arms and weapons to allow you to easily swap your kit into any figure in the set.

This take's a fair amount of work, but the results are well worth it. You'll need a small Dremel tool and a set of 1/8" rare earth magnets. With the Dremel tool, you'll want to drill a small hole in any joint you wish to magnetize and then insert a magnet into the hole with a dab of super glue. The magnets take some practice to get used to. They're quite strong and on more then one occasion I dropped one only to have it yank its brethren from some of my completed pieces. Keeping a good distance between your finished bits is rather important. The other thing to keep in mind is that you need to be very careful to watch your polarities. You don't want to put a magnet in backwards and find your arm repels itself from the socket. I did well for the most part, but unfortunately, the shoulders are reversed on the two figures. Not a major problem, but it means each figure has a set of arms that only works on that figure, rather than arms that can be used interchangeably.

The results of this are really quite exciting. It's sort of like building your own toy. Arms can be adjusted and posed all sorts of ways, letting you tweak your figure however you like. It's a great way to start off in the game, as you'll get a good variety of big figures to try out. I'll also mention, the two Warjacks in the Khador starter set use the same parts as the heavy kit. While you don't get all of the parts for each figure available in the heavy kit, if magnetized, you can buy another heavy kit and have three chassis to swap around.

From there, it's back to my last article to paint up the figures. I didn't actually use the wood stain on this one. Seeing as they're a little nicer figures than I normally use, I decided to try a wash. A wash is pretty easy to use and acts much like the stain. It's very watery (and generally should be watered down further). The nice thing is that you can brush it over the figure and it will run in and darken the crevices, while still being easy to tone down by drying your brush and using it to absorb. I probably went a little overboard on the wash here, but I'm happy with it. Certainly not something I'd do for cheaper board game figures, but for these really detailed guys, it works really well.

In addition, these were the first figures I every made custom bases for. This was pretty simple for the most part. I started by painting the bottom of the base white. For the jacks, I glued a tiny rock to break things up since it was such a large base. Then, I simply poured some good old white Elmer's glue down and used an old brush to spread it around. With snow, it seems to work best if you get a pretty thick layer of glue to start with. From there I got a little tub of snow flock and just poured it over top. After waiting a bit to let it dry, I shook off the extra and that was it.

Anyway, enough rambling. This is really supposed to be a gallery post, so lets dive into the pictures. Enjoy!

Pilotwings Resort - Into the Wild 3D Yonder

Nintendo has built themselves a new bit of 3D tech and in keeping with tradition, that means we get another entry in the Pilotwings franchise to help us test it out. Originally debuting on the SNES, the first Pilotwings was largely a showcase for the system's Mode 7 effects, returning years later as one of the sparse launch titles for the N64 to teach us how to use the analog stick. Nintendo's latest offering in the series, Pilotwings Resort once again gives us a set of airborne ring courses to help us get used to Nintendo's latest innovation; stereoscopic 3D.

I've been a little surprised with the reviews I've read of this game to be perfectly honest. They largely complain about the game's rather short length and tendency to require you to perform absolutely flawlessly to get a perfect score. In short, they largely describe Pilotwings. It has always been a series that demands a certain amount of perfection, though if all you wish to do is clear every test once, the game is far more lenient. While I have yet to completely finish the game, perhaps the one feature I miss from its predecessor is the human cannonball challenge. Nevertheless, this game is still Pilotwings at its core, with several fun, inventive challenges to help you put your new system through the paces. You'll get a chance to pilot planes, hang gliders, and the every popular rocket pack, though every once in a while they throw you a bit of a curve via a more specialized vehicle.

Unfortunately, as a test of the system's 3D capabilities, I find it rather distracting and discouraging. One of the tricks to the 3DS is that you have to find the sweet spot to properly see the 3D effects. There are several good screens in the game with solid, colorful objects to help you adjust, but the game doesn't allow you to hold this calibration into gameplay. Before starting a challenge, you'll have to select a test from the bottom screen and when you look back up, you'll find an odd, transparent text box that makes it extremely difficult to tell if you're still in the sweet spot. Hopefully as the system matures, developers can find ways to help players find the proper viewing angle, but sadly, I'm finding I'm enjoying the game more with the 3D switched off.

That said, the game is doing a great job letting me toy with the system's analog pad. As a game built upon small, steady movements, it really lets you see how wonderfully the analog works. After years of disappointment with the PSP nub and the attempts at virtual analog on the DS and iPhone, playing a portable with nearly flawless analog controls is simply wonderful. Nintendo has certainly set the bar for portable controls as far as I'm concerned, and Pilotwings Resort is a terrific means of trying them out.

Overall, Pilotwings Resort shares much in common with its fore bearers. It's a bit of a tech demo among a rather anemic launch lineup. It's probably not enough to keep you busy until the next wave of games hits the system, but its a lot of fun while it lasts. Players looking to kick the tires of their new system can certainly do worse than spending a few hours soaring leisurely above Wuhu Island, while those looking for more of a challenge can spend hours going for a perfect run. While it may not be the killer app for the 3DS, it's certainly a solid game, well worth using to break in Nintendo's shiny new handheld.

Nintendo 3DS: First Impressions

Depth perception and I have never been on the best of terms. I can't parallel park to save my life, baseball was always an exercise in blind luck, and to this day, I have yet to see the stupid sailboat in those magic eye paintings. Despite my considerable z-axis shortcomings, I was still pretty excited to try out the new Nintendo 3DS. Regardless of the actual effect, it's still a new Nintendo handheld and that's more than enough for me to rush home today to scoop the package off my doorstep. Unfortunately, I had convinced myself the system was coming out about 2 days later than it actually did, so I neglected to get around to ordering one of those nifty game cartridge things to play in it, so for now, we're just going to take a look at the system itself.

First of all, the thing is about what you'd expect from something with the DS title. It's just a little bit larger than the DSLite, but not as much as you may have heard. It took me a few good stare downs to see the difference, but then again, I'm not a very good judge of distance. The system sports the same clamshell style we've seen since the GBA SP and opens to a nice, widescreen display. Buttons have a nice springy click to them all around, including the shoulder buttons which have always been a bit spongy. The new analog nub feels terrific, though I currently don't have any games to verify this against.

The UI has a nice modern feel, though I find it oddly reliant on the Home button despite having used Apple's iOS for several years now. The system comes with a few games to test out, both of which rely on a terribly low resolution camera for some simple, alternate reality fun. Face Raiders has you taking blurry pictures of your friends to shoot in floating heads that smash through the video for you to swing around and shoot for some mindless, unsettling fun. The other AR Game, succinctly titled AR Games, has you put a card on the table that turns into a box of targets to shoot. I actually found this to be pretty fantastic and would have played it for hours had it not turned out to be a single 60 sec level. In both cases though, I'll be happy to ditch the grainy, Sega CD style background of my home for some nice, colorful polygons.

Now that I've wasted a good amount of time talking about all the things no one cares about, lets get to what actually matters. The 3D effect is nice, and while I don't suspect I notice it as well as others I can tell the difference between when its on and when its off. There's clearly an optimal range of where you can really see it that will take a little practice to adjust to naturally. Luckily, being a handheld it's rather easy adjust the screen to the proper angle. It seems though, that the Dual Screen nature of the DS actually hinders this somewhat, as peaking down at the lower screen regularly will throw you off. Overall though, it seems to work and will ultimately be up to the games to determine if its a solid innovation or a gimmick, and whether or not the 3D slider is toggled on or off.

For now though, I'm ready to leave it on and give this whole third dimension a try. In the worst case scenario, it's another solid, Nintendo portable device capable of sporting some notably improved visuals over its predecessor. The potential is there, just waiting for developers to unlock it. Hopefully, like the DS before it, they can once again far surpass our expectations.

Warmachine: Heavy Metal

So... not a lot of games lately, which has given me a critical case of writer's block. Partially that's just the post Christmas doldrums, though I have a few I just haven't yet gotten to. Mainly however, I recently lost all of my time and sanity by deciding to try painting up some really nice figures from one of those finicky hobby games. After perusing Games-Workshop's 40k universe for a bit, I found a set of figures I really liked from Privateer Press, the makers of Monsterpocalypse and decided to start up an army for Warmachine. Unfortunately, there's not really much of a hobby gaming scene in my area, so I'm probably far more interested in displaying figures than playing them, but luckily I have a friend with a few figures from the compatible sister game Hordes to run against occasionally.

I've only played a single game thus far using the proxy, print and play rules found on the Privateer Press Website, but I thought a little introduction to the game was in order before introducing the figures I've been working on. Warmachine takes place in a fantasy universe with a heavy steampunk influence. You control a Warcaster, who's a sort of super powerful battle mage who casts spells and most importantly, can control giant mechanical men known as Warjacks. The Warcaster is really the heart and sole of the game, as they are given a limited number of focus points each turn to cast spells, buff their army, or direct their 'jacks to their maximum potential. The degree in which a warcaster affects gameplay is particularly impressive, and one of the most enticing aspects of the game is the fact that simply switching out this single figure will completely change how the rest of your army plays.

Players take turns moving their figures, using special abilities, and attacking. The game is one of those bizarre, tape measure based games where movement and attacks are all literally handled in inches. Historically, this has been a huge turn off for me, but I found one aspect of it in Warmachine I particularly enjoy. Namely, whenever you wish to attack a figure, you have to declare your target before doing any measurements. This really encourages an aggressive playstyle as trying to stick to the edge of your range can often lead to completely wasted shots. There's a bit of uncertainty and judgement that really couldn't be captured through other means. You have to be absolutely certain before charging into combat or you may find your blades swinging in the air inches away from their targets, who will be all to happy to counterattack the next turn.

The goal of the game is to destroy the opposing Warcaster. No matter how well you're doing, you lose if your opponent captures your "king". Warcasters have a limited range in which they can use focus to boost their troops, however, so having them hang back where its safe generally isn't an option. Each warcaster also has a "Feat" which serves as a once per game super move, capable of deciding the match if timed correctly. Our first game ended with my caster seeing an opening, and rather than support her troops, simply used all of her focus to boost herself and take my friend's warcaster in a single assault.

I don't have nearly the experience with the game to comment on how it plays beyond the small array of figures available in the starter kits, but after a look through the complete rules, it appears to be a well thought out, highly engaging game. The rulebook itself clocks in at a massive 255 pages, though to be fair this mostly consists of backstory, fluff, artwork, and advice for painting the figures. However, the real rules still make up 67 pages, dwarfing my previous complaints about the Monsterpocalypse rules. Some of this appears to be an attempt to make the game nearly impossible to rules lawyer, leading to some long winded explanations of extremely simple concepts. Much like Privateer's other game, most of it plays far better than it reads, and there appear to be few instances where the rules appear disconnected from expectations.

Overall, I'm extremely impressed with what Privateer Press has put together; I'm simply disappointed that there isn't the kind of community required for me to get as much out of this game as I'd like. Certainly, its important to remember the "hobby" part of hobby gaming and that much of the draw is bringing color and life to the figures, crafting your own toys, as it were to play. The flip side, of course, is that it requires an intimidating amount of effort to get into. Its a terrible shame the bar for entry to the game is so high, as it would otherwise be an extremely easy recommendation. Heroscape remains one of the best introductions to miniature combat available, but for those willing to give the terrors of painting and rulers a try, I don't think there's a better place to start.

Pardon the Interruption

Sadly, I haven't gotten in a whole lot of gaming in the last week and have fallen a bit behind on my updates. I'll be taking a break this week and get back to my regular schedule on Monday.

Artistic License: Miniature Painting

There are certain aspects of gaming I swore I'd never get into. Miniature games were one line in the sand and upon failing that, I set up my next barricade at painting the little figures myself. Recently, that dam broke as well and surprisingly, I found myself pretty pleased with the results. I am by no means an expert painter with just around 4 months of experience under my belt, but I thought I'd put together a little guide for anyone out there who'd like to give it a try. There are far more talented painters out there and far more advanced techniques, but if you've mostly avoided painting because you don't think you'd be happy with the results (guilty), this is a pretty easy way to get in some practice.

1. Pick your Figures

No one wants to ruin a $50 pewter statue trying to learn to paint. If possible, get started with a game that gives you something safe to practice with. Memoir '44 has some barbed wire and sandbags that are quite safe, though painting the dozens of little soldiers is a daunting task I haven't bothered with myself. Personally, I went with the zombies from Last Night on Earth. You really can't go wrong with zombies. No matter, how mangled, mutilated, or paint splattered they turn out, they still look like zombies.

2. Apply Primer

You may wish to wash off the figures before this step, as it removes gunk that can make it hard for the paint to stick. I try to remember to do this myself, but I've forgotten enough times to know its not the most important step in the process. The main thing is getting a coat of primer down to help your paints stick to the figure. I use the Formula P3 from Privateer Press, as that was what a friend suggested and it hasn't let me down yet. I can't say I've got anything to compare it to. Black is generally the best way to start; it hides mistakes very well, is very easy to see where it's missing when sprayed, and provides some natural shading. Simply put your figures in a box, hold the can about a foot and a half away and spray a nice, thin, even coat across the whole thing. You'll probably have to do this a few times and rotate the figure. Priming can take a while, but its generally very important you get the figure well covered. Let the figure dry overnight and you're ready for the next step.

3. Paint the Figure

Here's the bulk of the work and easily the most satisfying part of the process. Use acrylic paints and paint the figure whatever colors you prefer. They don't have to be particularly fancy paints; mine come from the local Hobby Lobby, but you'll want to get a nice, fine tipped brush and try to keep the tip in good shape. Generally I go over the large areas with a larger brush quickly to make sure I like the color scheme, the return with a much smaller tip and hit the details. The main thing to realize here is that painting figures is more like a coloring book than a canvas. You're filling in existing lines with colors, not drawing from scratch. It's mostly a matter of patience; simply looking things over and applying additional paint where you find a spot you missed. Once you're happy with the figure, give it another night to dry, then its time to cheat.

4. Go for a Dip

I'm sure professional painters and people far more talented than me just cringed at that bullet, but I can't stress how much this helps make your earliest figures look significantly better. Go to your local hardware store and get a can of wood stain. I use MinWax Polyshades Antique Walnut. Dip your figure in this stuff (or apply the stain with a large brush) and then remove any excess stain as best you can. Some people shake them inside a box; personally, I drop the figure into a paper towel and dab around the edges to remove the extras. The purpose of this is twofold. One, the polyurethane creates a protective layer that will keep the paint from rubbing off the figure. Two, the stain will act like an ink or a wash, seeping into the cracks of the figure and creating nice, dark lines to really make the details on the figure stand out. Your figures will be rather sticky after coated with this stain, however and must be left to dry for quite a while. I can take 3-4 days before that feeling goes away, so find a nice spot to let them sit for a while. You won't want to continue until they lose that tacky texture.

5. Seal the Figure

We're almost done now. Just one final step. Find a clear coat spray and apply it to the figure in a very similar fashion as the primer. For things I'd like a little duller like ruins or zombies I use a matte spray. For things I'd like to keep a bit of a shine like heroes or machines, I use a simply clear coat spray. As I said, this is similar to the primer step. Place the figure in a box and coat it a couple times with a nice, thin, even spray. I tend to be a little more cautious here, as the stain will also provide a bit of protection. Give this last coat time to dry and its time for the single most important step.

6. Time to Play!

That's it! Now you're free to throw these guys on the table and play. Plastic minis are generally quite resistant to chipping and damage, so there's no need to treat them as display only pieces. Even a bit of work goes a long way to bringing character and life to game and helping it pop on the table. Hopefully, if you've never thought you could paint figures before, this little guide will help you get started. Feel free to shoot me a message if you have any questions. To all the enormously talented folk out there, I welcome critiques and advice. I'll be posting more of my work in the future as well. Thanks for reading!

Super Meat Boy: A Choice Cut

Super Meat Boy is the kind of game that hides nothing up its sleeves. Within minutes of pressing start, the game hurls itself at you with its 8-bit tale of a beefy young hero out to save his bandaged princess from the terrible Dr. Fetus. Within a few levels, the game will splatter your raw platforming skills against all manner of whirling blades and pounding mallets, never once relenting, simply demanding you try again and again until you get things right. At this point you know whether or not this is the game for you; whether to dive in for more punishment or pack up for safer passage.

Team Meat has put together a platformer that hearkens back to the days of Nintendo hard, regularly injecting cutscenes with bits of NES nostalgia, while still bringing a good amount of modern conveniences to the table. The first thing to know, is that you will die. Super Meat Boy will throw a kitchen full of sharp objects your way every level and you can expect to fail dozens of times before reaching the end of any particular challenge. Luckily, the game doesn't give you time to dwell upon your defeat, respawning your little ground giblet back at the start for you to instantly give it another go. If you're the kind of gamer who demands retribution when struck down, Super Meat Boy is all too eager to throw you back into the grinder.

Unfortunately, while the controls are pixel perfect, there are still moments where the mooshy D-pad of the 360 get in the way. I'm a huge fan of Microsoft's successor to the coconut cracker, but 2D gaming requires a level of precision it just can't provide. Fortunately, the game has plenty of methods to kill you on its own, so the ratio of controller related deaths doesn't weigh too heavily over the game's own love of player punishment. If I have any complaints over the game itself, its that many of its more advanced features like the Dark World are all thrown at the player in the first few levels while the player is still trying to get a feel for the game. The feeling that you must play through these alternate challenges to advance can really drag the initial pacing down, where had they been saved for after the credits, they would have provided more incentive to hunt down every last secret.

Overall, Super Meat Boy is an uncompromising love letter to another era of platformers. It's the kind of game that throws you to the ground over and over, taunting you to face it once more. If you long for the days when a cackling villain would dare you to continue, then Super Meat Boy is probably just the kind of game you're looking for.

Small World: Please, No Singing

It's always nice to have options in a board game collection. Big, meaty games can be a lot of fun and extremely satisfying, but just as often you're not quite hungry enough to finish the whole thing, and trying to reheat the leftovers later is never quite as good. I start with the food analogy because if asked how I'd describe Small World by Days of Wonder, I'd have to say its about the perfect gaming salad. It's light, accessible, and made of little bits of wonderful things from other games. It's also the kind of game best brought to a party when you just don't know what kind of games people like. More often than not, there's something in there they'll enjoy.

Small World is an area control game that tracks the rise and fall of kingdoms composed of a myriad of creatures from European folklore. At the start of the game 6 races will be dealt out and randomly paired with a special power to creature a civilization with a unique set of mechanics. Often times you'll find bizarre and hilarious combinations like Peace Loving Orcs or the mule crushing Mounted Giants. Each player takes a turn picking a race and using tokens to take over as much land as possible, with multiple game boards assuring that no matter how many players you have, the world will be a little too small for everyone. As one race gains dominance over the board, others will go into decline, allowing players to take a fresh race to try and take control. At the end of your turn, you receive coins for each land you control, and after a set number of turns, the player with the most coins wins.

Where Small World really excels is in providing a quick, light hearted game that can appeal to quite a few different types of gamers. It's a game of varied powers and combat, but with mechanics that can be carefully weighed and calculated. You can crunch numbers and look for optimal moves all game, or you can simply pick a spot on the board and expand down the path of least resistance. Out of the box, the game provides a good amount of variety to remain fresh, but over the long term, its a game that really needs its expansions to shine. The expansion races and powers bump up the number of races you won't see each game considerably and generally encourage a lot more conflict, making the game significantly less predictable. Without the expansions, a 5 player game can often see every race, every game, which leads to very little variety once you've got the hang of it.

Small World does a lot of things well. It's bright and colorful with some really charming art design and entertaining mechanics; it provides a quick, 45 minute game of conquest that scales well across a number of different players; and it manages to create a game with just a little bit of something everyone can enjoy. If you're looking to introduce new players to modern games or just need something for when no one can quite agree on what to play, look no further. Small World proves to be exactly what it claims. A tiny version of the world of modern board games, simplified and mixed into its own blend of flavors. It might not be quite as satisfying as a dedicated offering, but its perfect when all you need is a little taste.

Fable III: Heavy is the Crown

Back when Microsoft was still the new kid in console gaming, trying to muscle their way in with a controller large enough to crack coconuts, they tasked Peter Molyneux and Lionhead studios with making an exclusive game that would bring players running to their new system. While far from a terrible game, the first Fable is undoubtedly most remembered for the endless string of promises from its designer and its failure to live up to them. Perhaps then, it's quite fitting that Fable III, more than anything else, is a game about promising more than you can handle, and trying to put your money where your mouth is once your allies come to collect.

The latest sequel puts you in the role of the son or daughter of your character from the second game (assuming your character in the first game was male, good, and bought every bit of real estate in the game to become king). After a demonstration against the monarchy goes horribly awry, you're forced to recognize that your elder brother has become a tyrannical king, and set out to lead a revolution against him. I won't say more to the matter, as there are some solid plot twists in the game and sadly, there are more than enough spoilers for the game in the reviews already out there.

The original game used the tag line "with every choice, a consequence" and while moral alignment systems are hardly the novelty they were back then, its still something of an experimental mechanic. Where Fable III gets it right, is in the consequence. Your choices have a considerable effect on the world, its people, yourself, reactions, though probably not as much to the story as it should. The choice aspect, on the other hand, still needs some work. Perhaps most interesting, Fable III presents you with one of the most morally grey conundrums gaming has seen in a while, but sadly, its made far less interesting as the game still clings to black and white options, labeling to an almost absurd, "angel on one shoulder, devil on the other" level.

Much of the problem is that the game in many ways, wants to be a playground where you're free to do whatever you like at your leisure, but that freedom keeps the choices in the game from being as difficult as they need to be. Often, the difficult choices are a matter of resources, which are made irrelevant by the ability to take all the time you want to gather more. Sure the game tells me we have only days to accomplish something or take the "evil" shortcut, but the game world exists outside the timeline of the story. In a single "day" of the story, I was able to get my wife pregnant, have a daughter, and see her learn to walk, talk, and demand presents. Still, the game does put solid pressure on the player regardless and being "good" is actually about more than being a smiling bobblehead.

The playground itself suffers from much of the same problems that have dogged the series since the original. There's a ton of things you can do, but there's little motivation to do so. The citizens, while entertaining (the beggers have terrific dialog), are all sort of a single, generic mass, and there's little to make want to get to know them better. It's a shame too, as several points in the game require you get followers, but you do so mostly by helping 1 or 2 people with sidequests. The sidequests themselves are interesting and rewarding enough on their own, so these bits would have been the perfect opportunity to encourage social behavior. What better way to start a revolution than by riling up a drunken mob at the local tavern?

Complaints about the morality system aside, Fable III is still a fun, unique game that does quite a bit well. Combat continues to let you develop your own playstyle with a mix of sword, guns, and magic with enemies that do a pretty good job of reacting to a particular tactic. It's never particularly hard, but the AI is quick to block sword strikes and will retreat out of harms way when charging up an unblockable flourish. Enemies are perhaps a little too weak to magic, particularly when it comes to the Vortex spell, which can incapacitate large crowds with relative ease. Overall though, its a simple, fun system that remains enjoyable throughout the adventure.

If you enjoyed Fable II, its sequel proves to be a similar experience with far more interesting choices and consequences. If you're new to the series though, I would say Fable II is probably the more approachable, universal game in the franchise. Fable III remains solid, engaging hack and slash adventure, whose most glaring fault is giving you a glimpse of a morality game that really challenges your convictions, but lacks the conviction of its own to really put you to the test. Even with its faults, I thoroughly enjoyed my return to the Kingdom Albion and look forward to what else Lionhead has in store.

Yomi: Did You See It Coming?

In case it wasn't clear, once upon a time, I was a bit of a fighting game fanatic. I can't say I ever was so competitive as to learn extensive combo chains or master frame timings, but I managed to do well enough against my friends and cost people my share of quarters at the local arcade. As thrilled as I am with the genre's revival, I can't say I've got the dedication anymore to really master a game to the level it takes to be truly competitive, and frankly, fighting faceless strangers over the internet has never been my thing.

Cue Yomi, a card game by David Sirlin that attempts to distill the essence of a fighter into the basic dance of knowing when to attack, when to defend, and when to grab a turtle and throw him to the ground. At its core, Yomi is a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Attacks can be Blocked or Dodged, but you can Throw a blocking opponent and an opponent trying to grab you can be stopped with a quick punch to the face. Players each pick a card from their hand and place it face down, revealing simultaneously to determine the winner, with ties going to the attack with the lowest speed stat. More even than the games it mimics, Yomi revels in its namesake; the Japanese word for "reading" an opponent and guessing his intentions.

Luckily, the key to victor is more than just playing the correct counter and trading hits until someone wins. Often, the key to the game is how well you manage your hand, so that when you do manage to land a hit, you can capitalize on the opening to do some major damage. Each character in Yomi has their own, specially designed deck of cards that work as a standard Poker deck (52 suit cards, 2 Jokers). Cards that increase numerically (2, 3, 4 for example) can be chained into one another to do a string of damage while other cards can be used to link broken chains or end the combo after dealing some significant damage. Some characters play defensively, waiting for the perfect card to score a massive hit, while others may simply build a big hand of attacks to try and chain into a string of heavy damage.

Being a card game, there are some oddities as far as fighting games go. Sometimes, you just don't have any good cards for the the situation, though each card does let you choose its facing to be one of two different actions. While this does a great job of mitigating the quality of the draw, its still possible to have a hand of blocks and slow throws against a grappler that can be hard to respond to. Also, it can be a little odd for fans of the genre to be limited to their move selection. You may be forced to change your attack pattern, even if your opponent keeps falling for the same trick over and over. Nobody is going to force you to learn to counter Ken Shoryuken spam here.

Overall though, Yomi definitely succeeds in bringing the essence of the fighting genre to the table without demanding hours of dedicated practice and memorization. It certainly doesn't replace the visual brilliance of the ballet between two expert tournament players, but it will provide you with a solid, tense battle that seems like the kind of game that will only get better the more you play it with the same group of people and learn their playstyle and leanings. Even a game of two out of three will give you the opportunity to play tricks and surprise your opponent with the timing of your choices. While there's no shortage of 2 player, card based combat games out there, Yomi definitely stands out as a worthy New Challenger.