Checking out The Opinionated Gamers

It can be hard to talk about board games through a blog. It can be hard to convey what exactly a game is like through written word, and there are very few board game blogs out there that reach the caliber of The Opinionated Gamers.

OpinionatedGamers.com is a review blog that looks at new board games, and gives us their unbiased opinions on them. All of their reviews are extremely detailed, and very informative. It’s also pretty interesting that this blog is a collaborative effort between fifteen different gamers! This brings a bunch of different perspectives to each game being reviewed.

I totally suggest checking The Opinionated Gamers out. I have already found a bunch of games to try out from their reviews. As a beginner on blogs, theirs is definitely a great inspiration for the direction I want this blog to get to eventually.

Matt and Friends play Seasons

This time, my friends Austin, Andrew, Scott, and I enter a world of wizards in the game Seasons, created by Regis Bonnessee-Naide.

Seasons is one of those games that has a kind of beauty to it. With a mix of strategy and luck of rolling some dice each round, 2-4 players take turns throwing down spell cards to collect crystals, victory points and outwit their opponents. At the end of a “Three Year,” tournament, the wizard with the most crystals and victory points at the end of the third year wins.

So, obviously the game doesn’t actually take three years to play, (really it takes about an hour to play.) Seasons is separated into three rounds, and each round is separated into four seasons. Each season comes with a set of dice that give you a few different actions to choose from. These actions help you strategize against your opponents. These coincide with the nine cards you all draw at the beginning of the game.

I have to say, as fun as this game is, I am not that great at it. I do have to commend my friend Austin though.He definitely had the long game planned out well, and completely annihilated us in the first game that we played. The second game came down to a complete luck of the draw, and Andrew had us beat with a few lucky draws. It was actually pretty amazing to total up the points of the third game and see that Andrew had only beaten Austin by one point.

Seasons is an excellent mix of a card, dice, strategy game hybrid. It has gotten a ton of great reviews from all sorts of board game critics, including Libellud Asmodee from Boardgaming.com. So if you ever feel like taking a step to the fantasy side of gaming, I totally suggest checking seasons out.

Matt and Friends play The Game

Want a game that you can play with a bunch of friends and is quick and easy to learn? Then you need to play The Game.Yup, that’s the name of this IDW Games very challenging cooperative card game. Let me just say, this is a game that my friends and I just could not win.

The purpose of The Game is to separate a deck of 98 cards in to four smaller decks. Two of the decks can only be put in ascending order from 1-100. The other two decks are descending from 100-1. This sounds pretty easy, but the trick is, you can’t show off what cards you have in your hand with your friends. This element brings about an edge of your seats experience, not knowing what card is going to get placed down next.

My friends and I had a blast playing this game, but the frustration with losing is very real. One minute, we’d be going pretty smoothly. Laying down a few cards with no big upheaval. But then, one of us would be forced to take one of the descending decks down from 50 to 23. These sorts of moves were fairly constant. We were only able to get the deck of 98 cards down to around 10 cards, which is actually pretty impressive.

My buddy Andrew playing down a bad move.

So, if you are planning on having a few friends over, and just want to quickly learn a new game, I highly recommend The Game. Hopefully, you and your friends can fare better at it than mine!

 

You can pick up The Game at any Target or game store. Amazon is also a pretty decent place to pick it up for pretty cheap as well!