Spotted at Artscape '08, the city arts festival in Baltimore, Maryland. Sorry for the short video. They didn't stay long, and judging from their position above the i83 on ramp, they could easily have reached 88 miles an hour when I wasn't looking...

Attendance: MechaShiva, Shawn P, Skwabuck, Lady J, and GeeGee

We looked at Rook and Pitch Six as options for game night, but half way through Rook's rule book, we gave up and decided to play something we already knew. And knew we liked.

Hasbro's Guillotine is a classic. It's a simple card game. Each turn you can do three things: you may play an action card, you must collect the score card at the front of the line, and you must draw the top action card on the action card deck. Play continues clockwise around the table until all of the score cards are collected. Now repeat the process three times for a full game.

Action cards are straight forward and include clear example graphics (and great artwork). Some rearrange the order of the score cards in various ways, while others effect the cards in players' hands, swap cards in players' score piles, or play to the table to modify score card point values.

The Score cards are also straight forward. They have great Disney'like art, and clear 'effect text' boxes. They come in 5 colored suits, 1 of which contains negative value cards.



The game is light, but the "collect people's heads" theme goes a long way to making the experience enjoyable. Even still, it can be very frustrating to see the same actions cards determine victory over and over again.

For example: the Double Feature action card allows you to collect two nobles at the front of the line. Since getting this card is random, it can feel cheep when a player keeps getting it, and keeps getting double or triple the average amount of points per turn from it.

There is also a constant threat that other players will simply steal or discard your high value score cards. Since there is no defense against this, and no strategic reason not to collect the highest value score cards, the game can get feel petty after a few plays.

Since scoring is public information, players can compute the value of their actions. So in the end, there is decision making boils down to correct and incorrect card plays.

All in all, it is a fun activity, but don't get too wrapped up in it. You have very little to do with winning or losing the game.

The major action has subsided at this years electronic entertainment expo and Mr Taru is left feeling more poisoned than before. Very little actually happened in this years show -- certainly nothing that has Mr Taru that excited...

Sony

+ downloadable movie service that allows purchases and rentals in SD and HD, which can be shared freely between the PSP and PS3!

+ SOCOM creator Zipper has a new title called MAG which features 256 person multi player matches

+ BioShock getting exclusive DLC

- no exciting titles or tech revealed for 2009


Microsoft

+ Netflix supported 'for no additional cost' on Xbox Live. (For gold / paying subscribers only)

+ Final Fantasy 13 coming to XBox 2 in the USA (Sony fan boys moan)

- Final Fantasy 13 trailer looks pretty ugly (perhaps square will finally focus on good game play?)

- no news from bungie

- Halo Wars trailer


Nintendo

+ Wii Sports Resort repeats Wii Sports success

+ / - Wii Wario best looking up coming title

+/- Wii Music for retards...

- Wii Sports Resort repeats Wii Sports success, features only 3 mini games

- new microphone peripheral, new motion peripheral, etc.


3rd Parties

+ EA's Mirror's Edge looks awesome

+ The Wheelman introduces 'air jacking'. No more getting out of your car to steal some one else's

- Sega still making games

- best part of Prince of Persia trailer is when it's over



first show | last time

Shawn P, Skwabuck, Lisa, MechShiva, and Gavin play Street Illegal by Heinrich Glumper and Z-Man games, which Shawn picked up at Origins this year.

Street Illegal supports 1 to 7 players. You read right: the game fills your empty seats with up to 6 non-player characters. This alone made the game worth its $5.00 price tag.

Despite what its production values would make you think (sweet high gloss cards depicting cars and art that would be at home in the 1990s) the game is actually a light euro game for blind bidding and resource management.

Each player keeps a set of three cards in front of himself. The sum of these cards' speeds equals the player's current speed. If that speed is higher than the current race zone's speed limit, the player must replace one of his cards with a slower one from his hand OR pay chips to reduce his speed OR do a combination of both OR discard a card from his hand and replace his speed cards blindly from the deck.

This decision is important, because the number of cards in your hand dictates the maximum number of chips you may spend during a turn and the chips themselves are the only way you can speed up during the passing phase and subsequently the only way you can reach a higher position in the race.

An additional layer of strategy is added by each race zone's type (left turn, right turn, straight away, up hill, and down hill) which grants you 2 chips per card in front of you that matches the type. All of the zones are visible at the start of the game. So it is important to plan your cards based on speed and icon from the very beginning.

However, there are a number of random factors. The game forces you to discard speed cards at various times and of course you have no control over what cards you draw from the deck. Additionally, NPCs and the oldest player start in the front and the youngest player starts in the back, which makes for an unbalanced game from the outset.


while the rules took a bit to read and were a little confusing AND it took us five out of eight rounds to really figure out how to play the game, we did actually enjoy it. Take that Funny Friends!

The consensus is the game could better balanced and much tighter. However, like Ticket to Ride and it's awesome House Rules, Street Illegal is good enough and comes with enough pieces to work the bugs out on our own. Here are some House Rules we're going to consider:

1. Shorten the race to 3 zones instead of 8. (makes playing multiple races more bearable)

2. Score points for your position at the end of each zone, but award bonus chips to players in lower positions. (since trailing players are already boned)

3. Reduce the hand size to three cards, remove the connection between hand size and the number of chips you can play, and change the rules for emergency breaking to not allowing you to spend ANY chips that turn. (reduce the options and make each choice more meaningful)

4. Escalate points throughout the game. Balance the values so being first for a several zones is better than just being first at the end, but make it tighter. (since players don't change position much in the first few zones and the starting positions are dictated by age / meta rules)

5. The closer to the front a player starts, the fewer chips he starts with. Alternatively, players could bid their chips to determine starting order.

6. Replace tokens with NOS cards, with individual values between 1 and 3. (since keeping your tokens hidden and untrackable during play is impossible, this would make it harder for opponents to know they could pass or block you with total certainty)

Visit the minisite
http://www.renaissanceroad.com/banana/

first show | last time

While the designer may be known for his master-work on Power Grid, Funny Friends is crap. Pure and simple, if you start the game with better, easier objectives, you will defeat your opponents. If you do not, you will lose.

That said, the game is also a pile of crap. The rules repeat and over-explain every detail of the game play. To the point that you never know what the heck they are saying in the first place.

Then again, the game is also crap. After 3 and a half hours, the game ends without warning and a player is left feeling cheated, even though he won. Watch the video for the general feeling.

Avoid this game if you can. Buy and play power grid if you can.

2 our of 5 stars