Trashdome - Merchants Of Venus VS Risk 2210 AD

"But I see where this is going and I therefore suggest we rename the site to GroceryStore: ameri'Iwillthwartyourplansbyselectingthebuilderrolemuahaha'"

Yeah you know Richard Hamblen, always making those role-selection Euro games like Magic Realm and Gunslinger.

???

Merchant of Venus

mads b. wrote:

Moofrank wrote:

The only people voting for Risk are the ones who haven't played Mov.

I guess MoV is probably the better game. And I'm sure it has an elegant demand-supply mechanism that you can admire while fondling your fanny pack. But this is TRASHdome and it doesn't get that much more trashy than 2210. You throw lots and lots of dice, you will agonize as your nuclear commander is once again worthless (or laugh in the face of your opponents as he annihilates them), you can launch an attack from the moon, and much more. Hell, 2210 has even got an auction mechanism.

But I see where this is going and I therefore suggest we rename the site to GroceryStore: ameri"Iwillthwartyourplansbyselectingthebuilderrolemuahaha"

Edit: spelling

mads is right.

*chooses the RISK 2210 Role*

bwahahaha!

Michael Barnes wrote:

RISK 2210 is garbage. It's easily one of the most overrated AT games ever published. The thing is, the positive comments are almost always defensive- "but...but...it has nukes!", "but...but...you can fight on the moon!". The game is cluttered, sloppy, and out of all the RISK updates over the past 10 years, it's the most tentative. If you want jumped-up RISK, go for the ORIGINAL TRILOGY edition or RISK 2008. All of them are better than 2210. You can see how 2210 was really just a warm-up for the better RISKs to come as a lot of the elements in those are there...just junked up with a bunch of needless bulk.

It may not be on par with Star Wars Original Trilogy RISK, but it's miles better than the piece of crap that is Lord of the Rings RISK.

Also, 2210 is cool because it has everything you need to play Vanilla RISK with a sci-fi flavor if you don't feel like playing 2210 (you'd have to ignore all the water territories, though).

Overall, I like Risk 2210, but it ranks below some other DOAM games for me, so I don't think I can vote with confidence in this one, not having played MOV.

Why is that? Why don't any other space trading games compare?

Well, see Maka and Barnes' posts above, but also because of this:



This game takes a lot of shit for this box cover, but I love it. Just look at it, man. There's some obviously sketchy dude and his diminutive alien assistant showing off his wares to this crazy eyeball head thing. If I'm going to play a pick-pick-up-and-deliver game, crazy eyeball head is going to win every time. I'm not bein facetious, either. I really do enjoy the old time-y board game aesthetic. MoV may not be filled to the brim with what we're now calling executive theme, but it does create a pretty damn cool game world, and one where I'm perfectly happy just running around selling things.

2210, on the other hand, is a prime example of the executive-heavy game which completely fails to make much of its theme despite the nukes, moon fighting, and the super sparkle patrol (or whatever the hell those leaders were called). It could have been anything, hell it already HAS been made into just about everything anyway. Now, that's not normally a deal-breaker for me, but I just don't see the point in Risk on the moon with special cards and special abilities. Why am I not playing Starcraft at this point?

I gotta admit the box cover works for me too. It's straight off of the cover of one of those "golden age of SF" bug-eyed monster pulp novels. This isn't a cover that was designed to look cool and hasn't aged well -- it was released in 1988. From the get-go that cover was supposed to be kitschy and old-fashioned and it nails it. All it's missing is a damsel in distress.

I got the chance to play Original Trilogy Risk last year at my kid's school. A much better game than I expected. You stumble across the damnedest things if you keep an open mind.

Sag.

Damn, that's a cool box cover. But my vote still stands.

And I might add that for me the moon, nukes and stuff-argument is not a "but it's got nukes". It's an "and it's got nukes."

That being said - and to hold the trash talk for a short while - I can totally see that 2210 is cluttered and maybe even a bit bloated. And some of it is just plain stupid - like the auction for turn order which on turn 1 will almost always be decided by a die roll, or the overly random nature of especially the nuke cards. But the game looks cool, and the new territories, the nuclear wastelands, and the command cards make it feel like a world of it's own. And combined with the classic and very well known Risk rules it's a perfect fit if you want to play some trashy game with newbie gamers who aren't ready to learn all the rules of StarCraft.

I just love that cover, my favorite AH cover by far

I haven't played either of these games but one look at the titles involved and my first thought was "Mad Dog must be in the mood for a beatdown"

This will probably go down as one of the most lopsided trashdomes ever... especially considering the only people throwing in for Risk haven't played MoV

Overall, I like Risk 2210, but it ranks below some other DOAM games for me, so I don't think I can vote with confidence in this one, not having played MOV.

Two games enter, one game leaves. Cast your vote, Aaron.

I never understood the negative comments about MoV's box. It's awesome. I love the ludicrousness of it, space merchant trying to sell junk to a goofy alien. Any reprint/remake/fan printed copy that doesn't have lighthearted artwork is misguided. I mean, the only thing that humanity makes that's worth anything to the universe is music videos. That should tell you right away that this is not a serious game.

2210...eh...more faux HALO crap. NO MORE POWER ARMOR for the love of god, art designers!

I don't enough about either game to make a choice. I like some DOAM games, but not Risk, and I generally dislike pickup-and-deliver games, though I've heard that Merchants of Venus is one of the best.

Regarding the cover artwork of Merchants of Venus... at the time it came out, I didn't get where the artwork was coming from, and I hated it. So I didn't buy Merchants of Venus and never even thought about it again until recent discussions here at F:AT. These days, I do get where the cover is coming from, it's referencing the style of cover art from classic science-fiction of several decades ago. So I do appreciate the cover more now, but not enough to really like it.

hancock.tom wrote:

I haven't played either of these games but one look at the titles involved and my first thought was "Mad Dog must be in the mood for a beatdown"

I was very sick with the flu yesterday and only vaguely remember starting this thread. So I think it was more that I was in the mood to go back to bed and picked two games at random. Usually I get ideas from bookmarking threads where people list their favorites.

Next week: Ken B's two favorite games. Oops..I already did that one.

Mad Dog wrote:

hancock.tom wrote:

I haven't played either of these games but one look at the titles involved and my first thought was "Mad Dog must be in the mood for a beatdown"

I was very sick with the flu yesterday and only vaguely remember starting this thread. So I think it was more that I was in the mood to go back to bed and picked two games at random. Usually I get ideas from bookmarking threads where people list their favorites.

Next week: Ken B's two favorite games. Oops..I already did that one.

You bastard! You forced me to choose between games that were like CHILDREN to me! CHILDREN!

Ken, please vote 2210. It's imperative that MoV wins this one.

Since Risk 2210 is a seriously bad game as far as I'm concerned... MoV. even if I've never played it.

I gotta admit the box cover works for me too. It's straight off of the cover of one of those "golden age of SF" bug-eyed monster pulp novels.

2210...eh...more faux HALO crap. NO MORE POWER ARMOR for the love of god, art designers!

Somewhere between these two comments is an entire discussion about the fact that games used to take their cues from literature, and now they take them from movies and video games.