| Skirmisher Online Gaming Magazine attended the most recent GAMA Trade Show
(GTS), held March 14-17 in Las Vegas, and found a lot to like. More than
200 companies exhibited their newest releases, making this industry event
a great opportunity for Skirmisher to get a hands-on look at the latest
and greatest games and related products. |
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Following are the items with which we were most impressed! Each of these
items is a credit to the companies that have released them, and full reviews
of all of them will follow over the coming weeks, so keep your eye on this
site for more details about these top picks. As "Skirmisher Top Picks"
for a trade show, all of them also automatically become candidates for Skirmisher's
2005 game awards and will be considered in the categories for which they
are most appropriate (e.g, Board Games, Collectible and Non-Collectible
Card Games, Miniatures, Role-Playing Games).
Card games were among the most promising offerings at GTS, and represent
half the items that appear below. One of the things that characterizes all
of the self-standing games that caught our attention, however, was the ease
with which they can be learned; we are big proponents of playing games-as
opposed to spending precious time learning them-and the savvy creators of
many of the best new games being released would seem to agree.
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| The Balrog (Sabertooth Games, www.sabertoothgames.com/lotrtmg)
is the latest edition in the "Premium Line" of the Lord of
the Rings Tradeable Miniatures Game figures, a collection of especially
nice and larger-than-normal models within the series of mostly-28-millimeter
figures. Note that this is a proportionally accurate model of the ancient
demon battled by Gandalf in the Mines of Moria (in both the movies and the
books), and that it is of epic proportions-some 9 ½ inches tall,
making it a scale 45 to 50 feet tall! |
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| Original image courtesy Sabertooth Games. |
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| Read a full review here! |
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| Original image courtesy Gorilla Games. |
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Battlestations (Gorilla Games, www.battlestations.info)
is a science fiction board game in which each player controls one member
of a starship crew-Engineer, Marine, Pilot, or Scientist-and participates
in various aspects of ship-to-ship combat and boarding actions. Not only
is this a good game, it is also very visually impressive, making it almost
as fun to look at as it is to play. Indeed, one of its most appealing features
is its system of modular counters, which can allow some three dozen ship
floorplans to be created. |
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| Kung Fu Fighting (Slugfest Games, www.slugfestgames.com)
is a fast-paced, easy-to-learn card game in which two-to-six players use
martial arts styles, kicks, punches, and weapons like swords and nunchaku
to battle their opponents. Its mechanics are very elegant and straightforward.
This game draws heavily upon the cinematic folklore of the martial arts
genre, and will be especially appreciated by fans of such films. Slugfest
Games is also the publisher of Fishing
for Terrorists, a 21st century variation on the traditional Go
Fish card game. |
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| Original images courtesy Slugfest Games. |
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Read a full review of Kung Fu Fighting here.
Read a full review of Fishing for Terrorists here. |
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| Original image courtesy Palabra Enterprises. |
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Palabra (Palabra Enterprises, www.palabragame.com)
is an exceptionally innovative card game that combines the mechanics of
such diverse games as Poker and Scrabble! Hands can be formed using
any of the various colors, symbols, numbers, or letters that appear on them,
gaining points for straights, flushes, words, builds, or vowels. One of
the things that makes this game especially appealing is that it can be both
fun for seasoned gamers and easily learned and enjoyed by the less hardcore,
making it a good party or family game. |
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| Sandstorm (Wizards of the Coast, www.wizards.com/dnd),
the latest d20/Dungeons & Dragons supplement, is dedicated to
"mastering the perils of fire and sand" and provides not just
a comprehensive thematic sourcebook but also a complete campaign setting.
New races, classes, monsters, spells, equipment and the like tend to be
well-conceived and interesting. One of the most pleasing features, however,
is the chapter on "Touchstone Sites," which includes more than
a half-dozen mapped-and-keyed encounter areas-among them a necropolis and
a Blue Dragon graveyard-and about twice as many customized encounter tables. |
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| Space Station Assault (Your Move Games, www.yourmovegames.com/spacestationassault)
is a card game for two players who control armadas of intergalactic
warships which they pit against each other in pitched combat. Art for the
various scouts, fighters, corvettes, gunships, frigates, destroyers, cruisers,
battleships, dreadnaughts, behemoths, and space stations is visually appealing,
and the game mechanics are unbelievably simple-incredibly, full rules for
this game are included on just one sheet of paper! |
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