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× Talk about the latest and greatest AT, and the Classics.

What's the worst AT game in your collection?

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07 Jun 2008 16:57 #7536 by southernman
NeonPeon wrote:

What's the worst AmeriTrash game in your collection?
Probably Dark World, though to me it seems more like a Milton Bradley game in AT clothing.

What makes it so bad?
Identical characters, identical monsters except for their life points, boring combat, fantasy dungeon crawl without spells (wtf?), (dare I say it) not much interesting decision-making, no interesting narrative unfolding before you.

Could it be fixed with some rules patches or some kind of overhaul?
Yup - I added tons of shit that made it feel like more like a crazy game of Nethack. Spell deck with all kinds of effects, random scroll and potion effects, special abilities per character or monster, weapon specialties...I don't remember much of the special abilities I cooked up, except one guy was better with spells and mummies could disease the heroes...When a hero died, he came back as a zombie controlled by the Korak (bad guy) player. It still wasn't so great. :)

Why do you still own it?
I'm kind of a pack rat.

A bit tough on it - it is for kids/young teens after all :-). My 9yr old still plays it a bit, and I think the two expansions were slightly more complex ... but I sold them instead.

Can't join in on the topic yet as I don't really have one I dislike that much - I have a couple of the ones mentioned already and either haven't played it or don't mind it. Got a lot of crap euros though ... and some mediocre old school games.

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08 Jun 2008 13:20 #7544 by NeonPeon

A bit tough on it - it is for kids/young teens after all :-). My 9yr old still plays it a bit, and I think the two expansions were slightly more complex ... but I sold them instead.

Can't join in on the topic yet as I don't really have one I dislike that much - I have a couple of the ones mentioned already and either haven't played it or don't mind it. Got a lot of crap euros though ... and some mediocre old school games.

My opinion was formed as an early teen. ;) I much preferred Talisman, Cosmic Encounter, Battle Masters (I got this game around the same time as Dark World - mini overload!!) and the occasional Advanced Heroquest. I never tried the expansions...Guess I was a hardcore gamer since a young age, so Dark World just wasn't fun, beyond the cool parts.

I have a son coming into this world in a few weeks - maybe he'll enjoy the game - he might prefer playing with his rattle for a while though. :cheer:

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08 Jun 2008 14:28 #7545 by southernman
NeonPeon wrote:

I have a son coming into this world in a few weeks - maybe he'll enjoy the game - he might prefer playing with his rattle for a while though. :cheer:


He can use the rattle that comes with the game (the Turn Order Selector) ... you might end up having the youngest Trashie !

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08 Jun 2008 16:57 #7546 by Matt Thrower
drmabuse00 wrote:

There is no way that you can play this game unless you cheat.


Actually, this is beatable, and beatable in a reasonably high minority of cases as well, once you know the secret.

The secret is very simple, and involves repeatedly drawing from one of the equipment stacks until you get a certain item. With that item the game is playable - without, it's an exercise in suicide. It's not the easiest secret to spot either - I never knew about it until I stumbled across it on a web page.

Thankfully I've never owned this. I played a borrowed copy a few times when it first came out and had a brief flare of re-interest with a flash based computer version. But in my opinion the fact that the game has a single item based win-it-or-loose it approach makes it worse than if it were just a player massacre. At least while it was the latter I could admire it for having balls.

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08 Jun 2008 19:24 #7548 by Gary Sax
Care to share what the weapon is? You could rot13 it or something if you want to avoid spoilArs.

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08 Jun 2008 22:24 - 06 Feb 2009 14:54 #7549 by Dr. Mabuse
MattDP wrote:

drmabuse00 wrote:

There is no way that you can play this game unless you cheat.

But in my opinion the fact that the game has a single item based win-it-or-loose it approach makes it worse than if it were just a player massacre.


Exactly! That's what kills this game for me. It's 100% random unless you (randomly) find the flare gun, which reduces your chance of losing to 99.999%

Fuck that, I might as well play snakes and ladders.
Last edit: 06 Feb 2009 14:54 by Dr. Mabuse.

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09 Jun 2008 10:45 - 09 Jun 2008 10:48 #7560 by Aarontu
What's the worst AmeriTrash game in your collection?
Risk-Lord of the Rings (Trilogy ed). No contest.

What makes it so bad?
The theme exists in the looks, only, and even then, it isn't very good. clones of Gwaihir the eagle and Elven archers aparently make up the majority of Middle Earth's armies. The board is simply the second WORST depiction of Middle Earth I've ever seen in a game (The Confrontation is the worst). All the ring does is randomly determine the winner of the game. The starting territories are unbalanced in favor of the evil side, which normally could be called "thematic", but in this game it's just annoyingly unfair because the theme is pretty non-existant. There is no other difference between good guys and bad guys; it would be like having one character start 10 spaces ahead of another in Candyland: LotR because it's "thematic". The cards are retarded and I don't think the South part of the board (added in the trilogy edition) was playtested very much at all. It has all these weird dead-ends that suck the fun out of Risk games by preventing players from conquering much territory with a single group of armies.

Could it be fixed with some rules patches or some kind of overhaul?
Play it with normal Risk rules, with the escelating trade-in values and secret objectives and it would be much better.

Or just play War of the Ring, a vastly superior game.

Why do you still own it?
It's still in my "crap to put up on eBay someday" pile.
Last edit: 09 Jun 2008 10:48 by Aarontu.

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16 Jun 2008 10:45 #7668 by Space Ghost
I am sad to hear about your poor Dragonlance experience, Uba. To be fair, it is a pain in the ass to manage everything.

The conceptual underpinning of the game is quite nice, especially if you are a fan of the books. To get full enjoyment one has to play under the Advanced Rule system. We use the Heroclix base systems to represent altitude so we don't have to fiddle around with the stacks (or you can superglue some different sets of 2, 3, and 4) together.

My worst AT game is likely Dark World also...it just couldn't keep up with the others that came out at the same time (Battle Masters, Dragon Strike, HeroQuest).

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20 Jun 2008 04:07 #7799 by Dogmatix
Ken B. wrote:

The worst is probably Lord of the Rings: Risk. It's tedious, long, jarringly anti-thematic, and has a vastly superior replacement in War of the Ring.

I still own it because honestly no one would give up enough for it to be worth shipping. And the pieces are pretty (even if the map is like a narrow, fun-house version of Middle-Earth.)


Ken...

If that's the LOTR Risk (Trilogy Edition) you're talking about, I've sold 2 copies so far this year for ~$50 per [and has gone for upwards of $100 in-shrink and around Xmas]. If it's complete with the ring and in decent shape, it sells quite well. It isn't worth a damn to play, but it sells like a mutherfucker...

Now, the non-Trilogy edition of LOTR Risk on the other hand isn't worth its weight in recycled cardboard and plastic.

Worst in my collection? Hrm. I own both Rogue Trooper [thrift store find] and Chainsaw Warrior . I think Rogue Trooper is probably the worst game but it's a great *looking* 2000AD product, which is a redeeming quality. So is the $1.50 I paid for it. But, yea, RT isn't much of a game....

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20 Jun 2008 08:46 - 20 Jun 2008 08:47 #7801 by Aarontu
Dogmatix wrote:

Ken B. wrote:

The worst is probably Lord of the Rings: Risk. It's tedious, long, jarringly anti-thematic, and has a vastly superior replacement in War of the Ring.

I still own it because honestly no one would give up enough for it to be worth shipping. And the pieces are pretty (even if the map is like a narrow, fun-house version of Middle-Earth.)


Ken...

If that's the LOTR Risk (Trilogy Edition) you're talking about, I've sold 2 copies so far this year for ~$50 per [and has gone for upwards of $100 in-shrink and around Xmas]. If it's complete with the ring and in decent shape, it sells quite well. It isn't worth a damn to play, but it sells like a mutherfucker...

Now, the non-Trilogy edition of LOTR Risk on the other hand isn't worth its weight in recycled cardboard and plastic.

Really!? That's encouraging, and good to know. :)

Even sadder than the fact that I own Risk: LotR trilogy ed, is the fact that I used to own the original non-trilogy edition, too, but I sold that one on eBay for about $15.

I didn't buy LotR trilogy Risk, though. Someone gave it to me, honest.
Last edit: 20 Jun 2008 08:47 by Aarontu.

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20 Jun 2008 09:14 #7802 by Ken B.
Hrm...now I have to look into that. Mine is Trilogy, complete with Ring, played one time. My brother and I played it, three hours later we're looking at each other like "ZOMG, that just took three hours to play. Three hours of TEDIUM."


There is no reason whatsoever to play LOTR Risk. If you want a great Rings game, play War of the Ring. If you want a great themed Risk, play Clone Wars or Original Trilogy Star Wars Risk, both play in 90 minutes. If you want the New Age Risk experience, play Nexus Ops. If you want hardcore tactical Risk with all the trimmings, play 2210. LOTR Risk just...exists, filling no real niche, taking forever to play...the theme is as badly realized as Lord of the Rings Monopoly ("Gee, Sam, why did it take so long to reach Mordor? We could have just started out the other direction and got there instantly.")

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20 Jun 2008 13:01 - 20 Jun 2008 16:50 #7812 by Dogmatix
Prices on everything are a bit depressed right now on ebay [boardgames on that site have really become a pretty good signal of the state of the economy--people just aren't spending like they used to.]

Some recent closes are here--now fixed so that the url doesn't break the forums

You're looking at around $30-$45. You'll get top dollar if you don't *require* a paypal account and allow international shipping. Lots of overseas buyers are dumping money into ebay right now because the dollar isn't worth a damn. I've sent more specialized copies (themed, electronic, whatever) of Risk and Stratego to Australia than I care to count.

If you have the time to be patient, you'll probably get top dollar between mid-November and late December as people panic-shop via auction. At that point, in really good condition, $50+ is a reasonable expectation. And, like I said, in-shrink copies were pulling well over $100 last year. I don't know if it will still have those kinds of legs the further away from the movies we get, but LOTR fans certainly have a fervent collectors streak running through 'em.
Last edit: 20 Jun 2008 16:50 by Dogmatix.

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18 Jul 2008 20:13 #8819 by a strange aeon
Sadly I'd have to say my worst AT game is Gammarauders, which, despite the amazing theme, awesome character names, sweet box cover, flat out ridiculous premise, and a pre-Settlers 2d6 resource gathering mechanic, sucks.

It is way too long, requires inhuman precision in keeping the army (or 'popcorn' chits) right side up, as they are not double-sided and an accidental bump could turn your hovertanks into infantry or gamma-jets. I guess they did this to impose a strict limit on total amounts of unit types, but cutting costs by having them be double-sided, but with a different unit on each side was a bad idea.

To be fair, I've never played this game with more than 3, and doing so might make it more fun. But even with three, the games took several hours, and for what should be a fairly straightforward monster bash, there was far too much calculation and use of the Factoid cards.

That and the initiative seems universally to favor going last, because it gives you immense control over the turn, given how the phases of combat, etc. are divided.

Anyway, its redeeming factors are the amazing cover and one of the best concepts in the universe: Blip the Teleporturtle.

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19 Jul 2008 00:07 #8823 by Stephen Avery
Cmon now..show some love for giant cyborg monsters...

I've got Gammarauders and its expansion "Revenge of the Factoids" and have played it quite a few times. If you just go at it as a monster bash it can be horribly long, but if you play multiplayer with a lot of diplomacy it can be really fun. There is enough chaos to make nothing garrenteed and sometimes you can get pretty tricky with the cardplay/diplomacy. The expansion adds a bunch on neat stuff.. mines, personel carriers, Range 2 tanks, new radioactive mutating zones, new monsters, ect.

Couple of house rules though...no cards awarded for destroying(just) popcorn. Otherwise people just turtle up and are afriad to send out troops.

Super Army/infantry/jets cards are one shot. Otherwise they are overpowered.

Unarmed combat rule (Dam = number of slots and on a loss the monster is out for the next round)

Also my favorite variation comes from the expansion. Diminishing earth. Each turn one tile collapses and is destroyed. Fortresses are mobile in that variation and you have until the end of the turn to clear out or you're out of the game. No turtling up in that one- just a mad scramble for survival.


I have started collecting plastic figures to pimp out this game and rest assured they'll be bristling with (newly aquired) mechwarrior weaponry. I also have a my own cardset that I made a long long time ago (and badly needs revamping.) Gammarauders doesn't have the sophistication of current games but its got heart, theme and an whole lot of PWND!

Steve"Packratula"Avery

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19 Jul 2008 21:14 #8830 by jdezom
Shellhead wrote:

What's the worst AmeriTrash game in your collection?

Monsters Menace America

What makes it so bad?

The end game monster show down.

Could it be fixed with some rules patches or some kind of overhaul?

An overhaul that removes the final showdown and features a different way of winning could help.

Why do you still own it?

I like the bits and artwork.

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