Trashdome - Samurai Swords VS Shogun (2006)

I cannot stand Wallenstein, and I assume Shogun is more of the same. Too much waiting around for people to figure out where to build a church, not enough talking about who needs to get smacked. Yeah, it's group-dependent, but simultaneous programming + all of the feeding/building crap just aggravates it.

I haven't played Samurai Swords, but I love all of the old-school MPCGs (multi-player conquest) DoaM games.

Vote: Samurai Swords

I didn't get Samurai Swords when I played it (being that I was the chosen "let's get rid of him first" player) but I don't see the lure of Shogullenstein.

Vote: Samurai Swords

Aarontu wrote:

OMG it has a _ninja_!

Vote: SAMURAI SWORDS

Samurai Swords


Shogun has a lot of cool shit going on, and I like it a lot, but plastic beats wood, and I freaking LOVE Samurai Swords combat system.

Samurai Swords represents some of the best of the classic Ameritrash!

Only a neophyte would be taken in by the gimmacky gadget that is the Cube tower in Shogun!

I'm really getting tired of the argument about a game that drags on and out staying its welcome. These are the kind of complaints you get from a video gamer who must have his short attention span entertained every second or he will balk! These are the same guys that say baseball is slow. These guys have the attention span of a gnat.

A real Ameritrash boardgamer enjoys the unfolding of a game. Sometimes a slow pace is welcome and allows you to concentrate on strategy.
What really makes Ameritrash great is that you get the best of both types of gaming.

If you want a fast game, then games like "Can't Stop" are hard to beat!

if you want a deeper, longer more strategic game, the Samurai Swords delivers in spades.

VOTE: SAMURAI SWORDS

I've only played Wallenstein, but the difference between that and Shogun are probably not enough to dissuade me from choosing...

Shogun

I haven't played either game, but I have played Wallenstein, which I didn't enjoy. The dice tower is overrated, but without it, you just have another boring Euro. So I'm voting against Shogun, which is apparently little more than Wallenstein in a kimono.

Vote: Samurai Swords.

Vote: Samurai Swords

Mr. Moto- my voting record in Trashdome clearly demonstrates that whether the game I have voted for is a Eurogame or an AT game, that I have always voted for the better game. Regardless of the outcome of Trashdome.

As for all you OMG Plastic Ninjaistas...I'd like to recommend another game that you might find appealing-



Ninjas are up there with zombies, pirates, monkeys, and Cthulhu for the record in terms of longest duration past the sell-by date in nerd culture. Ninjas jumped the shark LONG ago, back before some of you folks were even born. I think it was sometime around AMERICAN NINJA 2.

You forgot robots, Barnes, and hilarious combinations of them all... NINJA ZOMBIE ROBOTS VS. CTHULHU - LOL!!!!

So Shogun vs. Shogun? Well I've played Shogun, but not Shogun. Hmm.

Actually the Ninja in this game is really cool...but not just because it's a ninja.

Michael Barnes wrote:

Ninjas are up there with zombies, pirates, monkeys, and Cthulhu for the record in terms of longest duration past the sell-by date in nerd culture. Ninjas jumped the shark LONG ago, back before some of you folks were even born. I think it was sometime around AMERICAN NINJA 2.

Ha! American Ninja. I almost had forgotten about those. I remember one summer we rented all the American Ninja's; sometimes I wish I could forget that summer.....

Michael Barnes wrote:

Ninjas are up there with zombies, pirates, monkeys, and Cthulhu for the record in terms of longest duration past the sell-by date in nerd culture. Ninjas jumped the shark LONG ago, back before some of you folks were even born. I think it was sometime around AMERICAN NINJA 2.

It's like the Inverse Ninja Law applies to entertainment too. One ninja is cool and badass, but several dozen ninja are just cannon fodder in black pajamas. So ninja used to be mysterious and interesting, but overexposure and bad satire has reduced them to their current lame status in pop culture.

About a decade ago, AEG had a fascinating deconstruction of the ninja in their Rokugan sourcebooks for the L5R rpg. They pointed out that the basic ninja concept is silly. Bad weaponry, silly black pajamas, and ineffective techniques... they concluded that those ninja were simply distractions so that the experienced ninja could get the mission done. and then they took it a couple of steps farther... The true ninja were... So that made for a more disturbing and horrific background for the ninja which justified their mystical reputation.

But yeah, most ninja stuff sucks now. I recently saw a very funny movie called "The Gamers: Dorkness Rising." I was actually prepared to loathe the movie, as I am completely burned out on anything that resembles Dungeons & Dragons. But this movie was a clever and amusing sendup of gaming as a hobby, containing a story within the story of the fantasy adventure they are playing. Lots of in-jokes that any gamer will understand, and also some broader gags for any viewer. However, there was one part that just annoyed and bored me, and that was a throwaway gag about a boardgame involving pirates, ninja and pizza delivery. It was just stupid, as though using ninja and pirate in the same sentence would guarantee laughs. That two-minute scene felt like it was 20 minutes long to me.

Michael Barnes wrote:

Mr. Moto- my voting record in Trashdome clearly demonstrates that whether the game I have voted for is a Eurogame or an AT game, that I have always voted for the better game. Regardless of the outcome of Trashdome.

Perhaps it just seems like you talk elsewhere about a personal goal of calling attention to older AT games and then in Trashdome you choose whatever the newer game is and claim the other is outdated garbage. I'd like to see an article from you sometime on older AT games that you don't think have been made obsolete by newer stuff.

Michael Barnes wrote:

Mr. Moto- my voting record in Trashdome clearly demonstrates that whether the game I have voted for is a Eurogame or an AT game, that I have always voted for the better game. Regardless of the outcome of Trashdome.

Well your recent track record is making me wonder, I hope you'll make it up to all of us soon.

In the next Trashdome: Train Raider vs Ticket to Ride, I'm predicting that you will vote for TTR because of the elegant simplicity that game provides over the sometimes chaotic Train Raider and its old school introduction of luck. Train Raider has dice for heavens sake! That's the devil's tool!