Tag: review

Fallout Season 2: “The Strip” Review

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Happy Saturday, Geekly Gang! Kyra Kyle here with a reaction to Fallout Season Two’s Finale, “The Strip.” Before we get into any spoilers, I’ll set the table for this reaction/review. Fallout Season One played out similarly to Star Wars: A New Hope. The creatives behind the show didn’t know they were getting renewed for a second season, so they teased New Vegas as the setting for a potential Fallout Season Two. Conversely, the creatives behind the show knew they had been renewed for a third season before Season Two finished filming. So, Fallout Season Two’s finale plays out similarly to Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. Major plot points get introduced during the episode’s final ten minutes. Heck. There’s a rather large complication teased during Fallout Season Two’s end-credit scene.

Last week, I lauded Fallout season two’s penultimate episode for doing everything the next-to-last episode should do. It answers some questions, but held back elements for the season finale to explore. “The Strip” does a good job of answering some of these questions, but since season three is on the way, it asks almost as many questions as it answers.

I’ve kept this reaction spoiler-free for about as long as I can. We’re about to enter spoiler territory. You’ve been warned.

I’ll begin with Caesar’s Legion because it needs the least amount of explanation and receives the smallest airtime. Macauley Culkin’s character recovers Caesar’s corpse and reads the former leader’s last will. Basically, Caesar named himself his successor. Culkin’s Legate character doesn’t accept this answer and takes the crown for himself. He also eats Caesar’s message. Ew! Dude, that was on someone’s corpse, and it was decaying. Nastiness aside, Culkin’s character becomes the new Caesar and galvanizes the Legion toward the Holy Land, New Vegas, to build a palace. Caesar’s Palace. How many takes do you think it took Culkin to say that line without laughing? Watching the Legion march on New Vegas was a sight. I can’t wait for the impending battle.

Inside the Strip, Maximus fights off the horde of deathclaws. The action sequence ventures into the unrealistic. Deathclaws may be less deadly than radroaches. More on that in a minute. The scenes with Maximus and the deathclaws contain the most fan service. That’s much appreciated. Still no confirmation on what Thadeus is transforming into, but he manages to lead Freeside’s residents into a shop, where they promptly bet on how long Maximus can survive against the deathclaws. This is a nice callback to The Thorn (in Fallout: New Vegas). Combatants battled various wasteland creatures, like deathclaws, and observers would place bets. Nice!

The battle concludes when the New California Republic marches into town and takes over the deathclaw fight. While the moment when the NCR sniper kills a deathclaw brought a smile to my face, it was undercut by Lucy doing something similar a few episodes earlier. Why did Lucy need to mimic the NCR shot from the game? She was on Buffout. That was already cool and hilarious. I would’ve preferred Fallout to reserve that shot for the NCR. That’s a nitpick. The moment still rocked

Accompanied by Mr. House (via a Pip-Boy), The Ghoul searches the Vegas Executive Vault for his family. We receive a lot more of The Ghoul’s backstory, but I was left with even more questions. This is part of what I mean by Fallout Season 2 functioning like The Empire Strikes Back. The Enclave is behind most things, including the bombs falling, but we still don’t know who’s behind the Enclave. Someone’s behind it all, but we’ll get to that more while discussing Steph’s storyarc.
There are a lot of storyarcs during “The Strip.”

Surprise! The Ghoul’s family is not in the Vegas Executive Vault. Their cryogenic chambers are empty, but in Barb’s place was a postcard from Colorado. This is a callback to a Ghoul flashback. It looks like The Ghoul’s family is in Colorado. The Ghoul is at least on his way to Colorado. And this separates The Ghoul and Lucy.

Speaking of Lucy, she destroys the mainframe. Rather, at Diane Welch’s request, Lucy kills Welch’s severed head. Yeesh! I’m with Lucy in this scene. Why does everyone want her to kill them? While she ponders her next move, Lucy discovers her dad, Hank, escaped, and he wants to put a mind control chip on her, forcing her to obey. Dude, Hank just went total supervillain. Hank orders the brainwashed legionnaire to subdue Lucy, but The Ghoul shows up in the nick of time, shooting the legionnaire dead, and Hank in the buttocks. You could almost see the pop-up message, “Lucy Liked That.” Lucy turns the tables, placing a chip on Daddy Dearest. Before she hits the button, she wants answers. Of course, she doesn’t get them because Hank has his own button and resets his brain. This was a stellar moment.

Hank and Lucy’s story goes so hard. Both stay true to each other. We were never going to get a straight answer from Hank, and his action at the end solidified this fact. Loved this. We only have a few more threads to discuss: Steph, Norm, and the impending Enclave.

Surprise again! Steph and Hank are married. What? And the little time we get with Steph, we see her enact Phase Two, whatever that means. Steph contacts the Enclave, who have been listening to all the radio relays up to this point. A computer updates Phase One as completed, but Phase Two’s details are redacted. Because of course they are. My guess, and this is a guess, is that Phase Two has something to do with the Forced Evolutionary Virus. And that gets me back to Thaddeus. He may or may not become a Centaur, but he definitely got some variant of the Forced Evolutionary Virus.

We catch a glimpse of the Enclave, who have a base in the mountains. My guess, again a guess, is that the Enclave are based in Colorado, because that’s where The Ghoul is headed. We know the Super Mutants, who don’t make an appearance in this episode, have a vendetta against the Enclave. See what I mean about Fallout Season Two holding back most of its deck of cards? I have no idea where any of this will lead. “The Strip” gives us enough information to keep the audience engaged but dangles plenty of loose threads.

We have a couple more threads, I promise. The Vault-Tec goons unlock the radroaches from their farm. They wreak havoc. Seriously, the radroaches deal more damage than the deathclaws. Norm manages to rescue his would-be girlfriend, Claudia, from the wreckage. Funny how Norm and Claudia are the only ones left alive after the radroaches go ham. I’m not complaining. I don’t mind a Norm/Claudia side story for Fallout Season Three. So, that leaves us with at least four groups we’re following next season: Lucy, Maximus, and Thaddeus; The Ghoul and Dogmeat; Norm and Claudia; Vault 32 and 33. Oh. And the Brotherhood of Steel; they factor into the post-credit scene.

Elder Quintus has left his Unification stage and entered his Destruction stage. I’m unsure how the Brotherhood of Steel has hidden Liberty Prime Alpha, but I’m all for a kaiju battle in Fallout Season Three. There are so many places Fallout Season Three can go, and I’m pumped. Too bad we need to wait another year for the next episode.

So, what do you think? What was your favorite part about Fallout “The Strip?” Let us know in the comments. Thank you for reading, and wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.

Tabletop Game Review: Spring Meadow

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Spring Meadow is the grand finale of Uwe Rosenberg’s puzzle trilogy of games. It follows 2016’ Cottage Garden and 2017’s Indian Summer. The complexity of this game—the most interactive between the players in the trilogy—is set in between those two games. Hey, hey, Geekly Gang! Kyra Kyle here with another tabletop game review. We’ll be placing oddly shaped polyominoes on wintery player boards in today’s game review, Spring Meadow. Uwe Rosenberg’s final game of his puzzle trilogy marks the end of a harsh winter, and the first delicate flowers bloom. Can you have the lushest meadow? We’ll get to Spring Meadow’s review in a bit, but first, let’s talk about the less picturesque elements of the game and discuss Spring Meadow’s credits.

The Fiddly Bits

Designer: Uwe Rosenberg
Publisher: Stronghold Games; Pegasus Spiele; Edition Spielwiese
Date Released: 2018
Number of Players: 1-4
Age Range: 8 and up
Setup Time: 5-10 minutes
Play Time: 15-60 minutes

Game Mechanisms

Grid Coverage
Pattern Building
Tile Placement

Game Setup

We’ll be paraphrasing the Spring Meadow rule book. The setup is succinct and easy enough to follow.

1) Place the double-sided Hiking Map (shared board featuring the offering of polyominoes) that corresponds to the number of players face up in the center of the table.

2) Shuffle all Meadow (polyomino) tiles and randomly place one on each of the 25 spaces of the Hiking Map.

3) Return the remaining Meadow tiles to the box. You will need them later to refill the Hiking Map.

4) Place the Rock tiles, Marmots, Picnics/Hiking Pins, and Compass within reach of the players in a common supply.

5) Place the Signpost next to the player count icon on the Hiking Map.

6) Shuffle the double-sided Mountain boards and give one to each player. Orient the Mountain board with the arrow pointing up.

7) Randomly select a starting player. Each successive player will take a Rock tile, the size of which will depend on the player count and the player order.

Game Flow

On a turn, the active player chooses 1 Meadow tile from the Signpost Path (noted by the Signpost pawn, you’ll either select from a row or column of polyominoes, depending on the Signpost’s orientation during your turn) on the Hiking Map. Place the tile on your Mountain board.

Pay attention to the Holes in the Meadow tiles and the Burrows on your Mountain board. Burrows will challenge your puzzle skills and placing adjacent Holes will allow you to place extra Rock tiles on your Mountain board.

If you wish to cover a Burrow, you must place a Marmot over a Burrow that has already been cleared.

When the Signpost stands next to a Signpost Path (column or row) on the Hiking Map containing zero or one Meadow tile(s), a Scoring phase is triggered.

Starting from the bottom of your Mountain board, count all covered spaces up to and including your first incomplete row to tally your score.

The player with the most points earns a Hiking Pin and must place Marmots over all their cleared Burrows (so they cannot score those Burrows again).

Once scoring is completed, refill the Hiking Map with randomly drawn Meadow tiles afterwards.

The first player to earn their second Hiking Pin wins the game.

Review

It took some time for me to get into Spring Meadow. I appreciated Spring Meadow’s theme. There’s something about the earth waking up from a cold winter. One of my favorite things to do during this time is to stop by the Platte River and hear the ice turn into slush and float on by. Spring Meadow gives me those vibes. And I love polyominoes in general, and Spring Meadow uses them in interesting ways. Kind of like a competitive Tetris, where you want to fill the board with as many blocks as possible. But Spring Meadow has a steep learning curve, and if you play with a new player, that can derail the game.

Sure, at one point, I was that new player. The person who taught me the game had a fun enough time, but he didn’t really find enjoyment in playing Spring Meadow until me and another player from my gaming knew had played a handful of games. He told me as much. And I found the same to be true. Spring Meadow feels unforgiving as the “new player,” but as an “experienced player,” I felt as if I was taking advantage of someone else.

While Spring Meadow’s player (Mountain) boards can be oriented in landscape or portrait, I prefer portrait. There isn’t much difference between the two orientations, but portrait clicks a little better with me. Other players in my gaming group said the opposite, so there’s a chance portrait or landscape orientation could benefit one player over another because of how different brains process information. This doesn’t lower Spring Meadow in my estimation, but I had to mention it.

I’m uncertain if Spring Meadow has a runaway leader problem. Certain plays of Spring Meadow devolve into a runaway leader, especially if you have a veteran player against noobs, but evenly skilled players can keep the game close. Still, I don’t think the Marmots covering cleared Burrows is a big enough penalty or catch-up mechanism. Player boards stay the same in between rounds, so if you’re ahead by fifteen points at the end of one round, all other players need to score fifteen more points than the leader during the second round. Good luck with that.

I could see gamers instituting an extra catch-up mechanism of handing players who are behind by more than five points, a one, two, or three rock tile. But that would be a house rule.

I also prefer Spring Meadow with fewer players. The three and four-player variants have one player selecting on the diagonal (instead of a row or column), but it’s the same player picking on the diagonal each time that happens. While picking the Meadow tile you want from a diagonal line may not add extra strategic value for that one player, it feels bad for the players who don’t get to choose from the diagonal, and choosing a tile from a diagonal line gives the illusion of more choice, because you’re literally picking your tile in a manner no one else can.

Despite any minor gripes I may have, I’ve enjoyed my time with Spring Meadow. It’ll be one of those games you’ll need to play multiple times to grasp the game’s nuanced strategy. Fortunately, games of Spring Meadow don’t take that long. Fifteen minutes per player is short. This is another reason why I like playing Spring Meadow with fewer players. A two-player game takes up to thirty minutes. Nice!

Too Long; Didn’t Read

Spring Meadow may have a runaway leader problem, and veteran players have a decided advantage over noobs. But I love the theme and the game uses polyominoes in intriguing ways. Spring Meadow is one of those games you’ll need to play more than once to grapple with its nuanced strategy. Thankfully, games of Spring Meadow don’t take long: fifteen minutes per player.

Wonder Man Review

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Hey, hey, Geekly Gang! Kyra Kyle here again. I had intended to split my reaction to the MCU’s Wonder Man miniseries into two halves, but it wasn’t a long series, and I got into the series. In short, Wonder Man is one of the best Marvel television shows in years.

First, Wonder Man is only the second Marvel project to receive the Marvel Spotlight moniker; Echo was the first. The idea behind Marvel Spotlight projects is that one doesn’t need to know much about the MCU to understand and enjoy the show. While Wonder Man has some references to the greater MCU (most notably Ben Kingsley’s Trevor Slattery, the fake Mandarin from Iron Man 3), it does a great job of weaving in the information you need to know about the character during the series’ runtime. Second, Wonder Man abandons most superhero tropes. This is a superhero show for people who don’t like or are tired of superhero shows. The show centers around Trevor Slattery and Simon Williams’s (portrayed by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) relationship.

The two of them are theater nerds, trying their best to break it in Hollywood. Their chemistry is electric. I’m struggling not to give away any spoilers. There will be some. You’ve been warned. Captured by the United States Department of Damage Control, Slattery is tasked with fetching enough dirt on Williams to lock him away for dangerous superpowers. But Williams only wants to be an actor. Unfortunately for Williams, there’s a ban on people with superpowers from becoming actors ever since Josh Gad–the actual actor, not a character Gad was portraying–disappeared into Darius “Doorman” Davis. There’s an episode in the middle of Wonder Man that chronicles Doorman’s exploits. It was a standout episode in a series filled with standouts.

Wonder Man manages to maintain tension and intrigue, despite the title character refusing to use his powers through most of the show’s runtime. This is one of the few Marvel shows that avoids an awkward middle. You know what I mean. MCU shows are notorious for losing their way and including filler episodes somewhere around the halfway point. The aforementioned Doorman episode occurs right when most MCU shows would falter. And it’s so good.

While it helped to already enjoy Kingley’s Trevor Slattery, pairing him with Badul-Mateen’s Simon Williams is brilliant. They make an unlikely pair of friends. But that’s skin deep. If you know the two of them, they’re more alike than one might guess. They’re both outsiders. Both have few if any true friends. They need each other, and their personalities play extremely well off each other. Trev is more laid-back, and Simon lives in his head. Heck, Simon overthinks everything. Trev helps Simon to relax; he literally teaches Simon the box breathing exercise. But Simon reminds Trev how rewarding acting can be; with Simon’s help, Trev rediscovers his passion.

The rest of Wonder Man’s cast is fantastic. While the show does include comedic moments (How can you not with Kingsley’s Slattery in the production?), it never loses sight of its emotional center. Wonder Man is one of the rare Marvel shows that avoids undercutting scenes with emotional weight with a bad joke. Kudos! I was not expecting that. Honestly, I thought Trevor Slattery would ham up every scene in which he was involved. I am happy to be wrong Unlike a lot of other Marvel shows, I’m going to return to this one. Wonder Man is worth your time. It reminds us of what the MCU can be. Fingers crossed that we’ll get other great Marvel Spotlight shows in the future.

What did you think of Wonder Man? Let us know in the comments. Thank you for reading, and wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.

Fallout Season 2: “The Handoff” Review

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Happy Saturday, Geekly Gang! Kyra Kyle here. Today will be a busy review Saturday. I’ll share my reaction to Fallout Season 2, Episode 7, “The Handoff” this morning before diving into the first half of the Wonder Man miniseries. Ah! But that’s for later. This post is dedicated to the most recent episode of Fallout. And my, was “The Handoff” a loaded episode. It does a great job accelerating the plot threads and themes Fallout Season 2 has developed. And there’s plenty of fan service.

I’d be tap dancing a lot if I tried to avoid spoilers here, so I may drop the occasional spoiler. I apologize in advance. Consider yourself warned of future spoilers. “The Handoff” begins with pre-war Steph–that’d be the same Steph who serves as Vault 32’s current overseer–escaping a Canadian detention center with her mother. Spoiler: her mom dies, but she tells her to do what she must to survive. Yes. This is another flashback, and I have mentioned this season of Fallout has teetered toward too many flashbacks, but the flashbacks during “The Handoff” felt earned, filled in some details, and played off the current actions. I love this motivation for Steph. She’s been creeptacular since last season. This episode does a great job exploring why.

And I like Fallout’s inclusion of Canada as the “51st State” or “Little America” during the closing credits. Fallout took that straight from the games. I mean, there’s no way a sitting United States President would want to annex Canada in the real world, right? Right? That’s only in fiction. And the fact that Chet uses Steph’s Canadian identity, the vault chases her into the Overseer’s Headquarters, and history appears to repeat itself (the previous Vault 32 Overseer appeared to have suffered a similar fate) is fantastic. Even better, Steph has control of the secret box she knew Hank MacLean had before the bombs dropped. “The Handoff” does a good job of paying off some questions, while posing more. What’s in the box, Steph? What’s in the box?

We get a little bit more time with Norm. He has enough time to use the radio to attempt to contact his father and sister. And we know Hank turned on the radio on his side. How many are connected to this line? And who was Hank trying to contact at the beginning of the season? All great build ups, but I would’ve liked a little more Norm screentime.

At the Vault-Tec facility, Lucy appears to support her father’s method of “peace,” but betrays him and races to sabotage the mind-erasing device. But the mainframe isn’t what she expects. It’s run by the preserved head of Congresswoman Diane Welch. Again, “The Handoff” does a great job weaving so many of the threads together, both present timeline and the past. We caught glimpses of The Ghoul’s past where he thinks he’s delivering Cold Fusion to someone who can help (namely, the same Congresswoman Diane Welch, who protested the billionaires club meeting a couple of episodes prior), only to be two-timed by who knows how many people. We’ll get to pre-Ghoul Cooper soon enough, but these glimpses show that Lucy and The Ghoul are–as The Ghoul once said–the same, only he’s her in the future. Ah! Yet another great payoff.

And I like Lucy’s story beats in “The Handoff.” I questioned if she was turning toward her father’s viewpoint or saw some value in it, and even when she showed disdain for her father’s methods, I still wondered if she would punish him. Or how would she punish him? Or how did she intend to stop him? All great questions that kept me watching. Many of them receive answers, but I’m still unsure if she powered down Welch’s head. Even if she did, what chaos would doing so bring?

And then we return to The Ghoul, Maximus, Thaddeus, and Dogmeat. I can’t overstate how well “The Handoff” calls back imagery from past episodes. Donning power armor reminiscent of the Courier’s armor in Fallout: New Vegas, Maximus strides down Freeside. A young child looks up at him in a similar fashion as Maximus looking up at a Brotherhood of Steel Knight. A quick slow clap for Fallout. Freeside’s residents applauded the New California Republic’s return to New Vegas; I’ll do the same for these references and callbacks. It won’t be long until the quartet rumble with the pack of deathclaws, but before the gang can reach the rickety wall, Thaddeus’s arm falls off. Yeah. That’s not good. Not only was Thaddeus supposed to serve as a sniper, he’s exhibiting signs counter to a ghoul. Earlier in the episode, Thaddeus revealed he has a mouth growing near his clavicle. That, mixed with his fallen arm, makes me believe Thaddeus may be turning into a centaur (from Fallout 3). But he could be some other mutation.

The deathclaw fight scene was relatively short but eventful. I won’t give a blow-by-blow, but it was fun. Maximus does enough to help The Ghoul reach the Lucky 38, and the fight will get even more intense with next week’s finale. I can’t wait. And speaking of that finale, The Ghoul uses cold fusion to power up an old friend: Mr. House. Yes! Like I’ve been saying, we saw plenty of huge reveals during “The Handoff,” while the episode does a stellar job raising the stakes for this season’s climax.

So, what did you think about this week’s episode of Fallout? Let us know in the comments. Thank you for reading, and wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.

Fallout Season 2, “The Other Player” Review

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Happy Saturday, Geekly Gang! Kyra Kyle here. We made it to the weekend. Woo hoo! Today, I’ll share my reaction to the latest Fallout Season Two episode. “The Other Player” confirms who pulled the strings behind the scenes before the bombs fell.

“The Other Player” doesn’t harbor too many spoilers besides our first glimpse at a super mutant, portrayed by none other than Ron Perlman. It’s about time Perlman got screen time in Fallout. He’s been the narrator for most of the Fallout games. Nope. He doesn’t deliver his iconic line of “War, war never changes,” but it was great seeing him as a super mutant, and the small screen time Perlman received carried a ton of world-building.

I wondered why we hadn’t seen a super mutant before the seventh episode of Fallout season two. You can’t sneeze in a Fallout game without encountering at least one super mutant. According to Perlman’s character, humans have hunted them to near extinction. And no, we don’t know who Perlman is supposed to be. Is he The Master from Fallout: New Vegas? Marcus? Or someone else entirely. One thing’s for certain, Perlman’s super mutant isn’t a nightkin.

Too bad. Perlman could pull off Lily Bowen. “Oh, pumpkin, Grandma’s sorry about that. Sometimes she gets mad and listens to Leo when she really shouldn’t.”

We get even more of The Ghoul’s backstory in “The Other Player.” Fallout season two tiptoes toward too many flashbacks, especially in the past two episodes, but I liked Barb’s scenes. And the idea that The Enclave could predate the bombs dropping is a nice touch. The impression I got from the games made it look like The Enclave became active after the bombs dropped. Michael Emerson’s Dr. Wilzig also shares a good scene with Barb. And I like how Season 2 calls back to how Cold Fusion was transported. All of this is good, but a second flashback-heavy episode made “The Other Player” feel like it marked time in moments.

And what was up with The Ghoul waiting until sundown before trying to pull himself off the pole? He may have made it to the top if he didn’t wait for at least four hours. The Ghoul spending time on the pole gave Fallout an excuse for more flashbacks. That’s the only reason he wouldn’t try and free himself.

“The Other Player” made me care about what happens in Vaults 32 and 33. That’s no small feat. Honestly, Norm’s storyline–we need more Norm–set up potential stakes in the Vaults. According to the records we saw last week, Vault-Tec still intends to use the Forced Evolutionary Virus on the Vaults. That’s the same virus that created super mutants. What happens when Vault 33 runs out of water? Will they consume unfiltered water that could transform them? We’ll have to wait and see.

And I’m loving Hank MacLean’s villain arc. His worldview suggests that order without autonomy is preferable to conflict. Interesting. Hank and Lucy’s dynamic is great. I can’t wait to see where Fallout takes their relationship.

Overall, “The Other Player” is a good episode. It just misses the great label because it spends too much time in the past. Granted, everything we discover in the past intrigues me. But I didn’t care for two consecutive episodes, spending half their runtime in flashbacks. It’s excessive.

What are your thoughts on Fallout “The Other Player?” Let us know in the comments. Thank you for reading, and wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.

Free-to-Play Video Game Review: Clicker Heroes

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Hey, hey, Geekly Gang! I haven’t done a free-to-play video game review in a handful of months and figured I’d give the treatment to a game I played a lot of this past summer, Clicker Heroes. Yes. Clicker Heroes has been out for over a decade, but it’s still available on multiple platforms: PC, mobile, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. Clicker Heroes started as a Flash game, so this free-to-play video game has been around for some time. But just because a game is “free-to-play,” does that mean that it’s free-to-play friendly? Let’s subject Clicker Heroes to our review criteria.

Mechanisms

Mechanisms: 2/10

Clicker Heroes doesn’t cover new ground, so its mechanisms score suffers as a result. Don’t get me wrong, I like idle games. I played the heck out of AdVenture Capitalist. I did the same with Clicker Heroes. I sunk hundreds of hours into this game, but it doesn’t do anything more than click on heroes, like the game’s name suggests, allow you to upgrade the heroes, and then face the next goofy-looking boss monster.

I do like how you can choose to upgrade your heroes by factors of 1, 10, 25, and 100 levels each time. This makes leveling up lesser heroes like Cid, the Helpful Adventurer (your first Hero), a breeze. Goldfish and Bees will flash on the screen with button prompts, but this does little to shake up the stale gameplay.

Gameplay Loop

Above Image from GameDesigning.Org

Gameplay Loop: 2/10

I know I just said I sunk hundreds of hours into Clicker Heroes, but most of that time I spent AFK (away from keyboard), and that’s by design. Clicker Heroes is one of those games you log in once, maybe twice, a day, check on your heroes, and put the game back to sleep.

You’re encouraged to “ascend” your world, which erases much of your progress, and then you must climb back to where you just were. This is what keeps Clicker Heroes’ gameplay loop score from reaching even lower, because Clicker Heroes’ most engaging gameplay is at the beginning. Waiting for your power-ups to recharge or your characters to defeat enough monsters to upgrade your heroes becomes tedious.

After some time, you can use hero souls (from ascending) and purchase Ancients that can help you progress faster in the game, but once you reach Level 300, you’re given the choice to “transcend” your world. This is another layer of ascending that erases your gilded heroes (upgraded heroes through relics) and your Ancients. So, after “ascending,” you go all the way back to the game’s tedious beginnings.

But you do obtain “Outsiders,” which are supposed to be stronger Ancients, but it takes a long time to accrue enough ancient souls, what you get for “transcending,” before you begin to see a tangible difference. Plenty of websites offer ideas on how to speed this process, but I don’t imagine too many players will sink enough time into learning Clicker Heroes’ math to take full advantage. Clicker Heroes becomes a slog.

Respecting Time: 1/10

Clicker Heroes is an idle game, so it’s supposed to be more of a time waster, and it does indeed do that. I can forget Clicker Heroes exists for several days and return to my heroes. But Clicker Heroes makes upgrading your world so difficult that it goads gamers into either spending hours of research to get the perfect set-up or spending money to make the hurting stop. Is the drop of juice you get worth the tens of billions of squeezes? I don’t think so.

True Cost: 3/10

While Clicker Heroes offers skins for auto-clickers (Why would anyone want that?, but okay), it gains most of its money through the purchase of rubies. Fortunately, players can earn rubies by sending mercenaries on missions, opening relics, and clicking on goldfish. But I still struggled with how to grade Clicker Heroes’ “True Cost” or its “free-to-play friendliness,” because I can see players getting caught in a trap. Heck, I got baited into that same trap: reviving mercenaries.

Every once in a while, one of your mercenaries may perish while on a mission. You can spend rubies to revive a mercenary, but there’s some math (I haven’t done the research) where the mercenary’s level and/or the amount of time they have remaining for a mission dictates the number of rubies you’ll need to revive them. In my experience, reviving mercenaries takes a mountain of rubies. Players have little chance of having enough rubies to revive advanced mercenaries, like the “Demigod +13 level” mercenary pictured above with the low, low revival price of almost 5000 rubies. Looks like time to open another credit card and buy 5000 rubies for about $400.

With one exception, outside of reviving mercenaries, I see little use for spending rubies. That one exception is a one-time damage boost for your Heroes. This costs somewhere between 50-100 rubies, and once you buy it, you’ll have it for the duration of the game. 100 rubies or less is a steal.

But the remaining ruby purchases involve buying gilded Heroes, which will reset after you ascend, some version of speeding up Clicker Heroes’ glacial pace, or buying an auto-clicker. Eh. I almost gave Clicker Heroes an average score for “True Cost.” Reviving mercenaries aside, few of the other ruby purchases can be avoided.

User Interface: 2/10

Clicker Heroes doesn’t have that many menus and submenus, but what is there is confusing and difficult to navigate. I’ve played the game for months and still get turned around, not knowing where I can find certain information. I can’t imagine a noob looking at the screen above and being able to tell what does what. And several buttons have multiple functions, so it’s easy to misclick.

Graphics: 3/10

While simplistic, Clicker Heroes’ graphics are pleasant. I’m grading this one on a little bit of a curve, because Clicker Heroes is over ten years old. But the game hasn’t received too many graphic updates through the years, so I can’t get too crazy with this score.

Audio: 6/10

I had to average Clicker Heroes’ audio score. Clicker Heroes has epic music. It often gets stuck in my head. But the sound effects are as annoying and repetitive as clicking a button thirty-five times a second. Ow! My ears. Those moments when I don’t use an ability and listen to Clicker Heroes’ soundtrack make all the difference for this score.

Aggregated Score: 2.72

Clicker Heroes is an idle game, so don’t expect much. While it has charm, the graphics haven’t been upgraded too much to keep up with modern devices. Clicker Heroes can be a slog if you don’t research how to maximize your Heroes or spend money, and I worry about gamers who fall into the ruby pit of reviving their “good” mercenaries.

Tabletop Game Review: Robin of Locksley

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Hey, hey, Geekly Gang! Kyra Kyle here with another board game review. Full disclosure: Today’s game is one of my go-to 2-player board games, Robin of Locksley by Uwe Rosenberg. I’ll try to stay as neutral as possible, but it’ll be difficult. I love this game that functions as a race between two players. You control two pawns, Robin and a Bard. While Robin steals Loot from the rich, that Loot is used to move the Bard on a Race Track. The first player to finish the race wins. We’ll get to the daring do soon, but first, let’s discuss some of the less swashbuckling aspects of Robin of Locksley.

The Fiddly Bits

Designer: Uwe Rosenberg
Publisher: Funforge, Rio Grande Games, Wyrmgold GmbH
Date Released: 2019
Number of Players: 2
Age Range: 8 and up
Setup Time: 5-10 minutes
Play Time: 20-30 minutes

Game Mechanisms

Modular Board
Set Collection

Game Setup

We’ll use Robin of Locksley’s rulebook for this section. I don’t know if words can express how to set up the game. We’ll include the picture the rulebook provides. I always use it when building the board.

* Shuffle all Loot tiles (gold coin side up) and build a 5×5 grid.

* Choose a player to go first. The first player takes one loot tile from any corner of the board. The second player takes the tile from the opposite corner. Each player flips the tile they chose back over to the side showing the gold coin and forms their personal supply.

* The players put their Robins in the now empty corners.

* Place the remaining loot tiles with the gold coin side up in a draw pile.

* Find the corner pieces labelled “The Beginning” (start) and “Long Live the King” (end). Put them together in one of the corners. Place “The Beginning” piece (as shown above) in the inner corner.

* Shuffle the remaining corner pieces, draw three, and put them in the remaining corners.

* The players put their Bards in their color next to the start tile.

* Shuffle the small fame tiles and put three of them between the corners.

* When complete, the game layout should look similar to the picture above.

Game Flow

Moving Robin

* Players alternate turns. The start player begins the game.
* Players move their Robin in the shape of an “L” composed of three tiles (just like the knight’s move in Chess).

* The player takes the tile they landed on into their personal supply.

* At the end of their turn, the player fills the now empty space (the space their Robin left) with a Loot tile from the general supply. Do not fill the square occupied by a Robin.

The Racing Track

Players win the game by moving their Bard along the Racing track (the one surrounding the loot tiles). There are two ways to move with your Bard.

1) Every Fame tile (the ones that compose the Racing Track) shows one task. If the player is able to fulfill the task indicated on the Fame tile, they may move their Bard 1 tile forward on the Race Track. These tasks range from possessing a specific color of Loot or having your Robin in the corner of the 5×5 Loot tile grid.

2) The player may spend 1 Gold coin (and discard it to the open discard pile with the Loot side up) to move their Bard 1 tile forward (clockwise) on the Race Track. The player may continue to move their Bard forward as long as they can meet the requirement or pay the bribe for each tile they encounter.

Loot Collection

A Loot collection is a set of 1 or more Loot tiles of the same color. Loot collections may never be split into smaller collections.

Selling a Loot Collection

Anytime during their turn, players may sell a Loot collection which consists of 3 or more Loot tiles of the same type.

Discard two of the Loot tiles on the open discard pile and collect the remaining ones as Gold coins by turning them over.

Game End and Winning

There are two ways the game can end, and a player can win.

1) The game ends immediately if one player’s Bard “laps” the other player’s Bard on the race track. To “lap” the other player, one player’s Bard must have made a full extra lap around the track thus passing the other player’s Bard a second time. The player whose Bard has passed the other is the winner. If both Bards are on the same spot on the Race Track, the game does not end.

2) The player who first completes two full laps of the Race Track and fulfils the challenge on the goal tile is the winner.

Review

I love the way the Robins move. Robin of Locksley’s new players will have an easier time picking up the move mechanisms, but the way knights in Chess move isn’t straightforward. The Robins have familiarity, and each move functions as a spatial puzzle. One of the Fame tiles (the spaces on the Race Track) requires a player’s Robin to be one move away from their opponent. I don’t know how many times I’ve spent a Coin to skip this requirement, but I get a rush every time I can meet that requirement naturally. Then, it becomes a race, so my opponent can’t finish that Fame tile during their next turn.

The Fame tiles have varied requirements. Robin of Locksley’s modular board ensures no two games will ever be the same. And planning spaces ahead is fun, making each turn meaningful, even if your move this turn won’t help you progress right away. Robin of Locksley also has that volta, a turn where the game shifts, and it’s usually during the mid-point. Players bide their time, collecting Loot, meeting easier requirements, and accruing enough Coins to skip five or six spaces on the Race Track during a single turn. I love this volta (turn). As soon as this happens, the race is on. The other player will pop off a five or six spaces of their own, and Robin of Locksley begins in earnest. Typically, this momentum continues until the game ends.

And games of Robin of Locksley don’t take too long. BoardGameGeek and the rules list games as lasting up to 40 minutes. This hasn’t been my experience. My first game of Robin of Locksley may have taken close to 40 minutes (with the teach), but as soon as you have two players who know what they’re doing, turns take no time at all. Sometimes, I must call time and raise my hand if I want to move those five or six spaces in a turn, because it’s easy to get into a rhythm. The game’s rhythm getting interrupted raises the stakes during the volta. It’s so good.

Looking up a Fame tile’s requirement is one of the few ways a game of Robin of Locksley slows. None of the Fame tiles has any text; they’re all conveyed through icons. The Robin of Locksley rulebook contains a glossary of what each icon means, but it will slow down the game to look up that information during your first lap around the Race Track. Despite this occasional slowdown, I like how both game elements work with each other in Robin of Locksley. It’s a healthy balance of figuring out how best to maximize your Loot with your Robin piece and looking ahead on the Race Track to see what you may need.

Robin of Locksley is my go-to 2-player only game. My spouse and I have played a ton of 2-player games lately, but Robin of Locksley is one of the few competitive 2-player-only games that consistently make our rotation.

Too Long; Didn’t Read

Robin of Locksley has short, punchy turns that lead to a satisfying race to meet Loot (or spatial) requirements. With its modular board, each game is unique, but one thing stays constant: the volta (turn). Each game will have an exciting turn where one player moves multiple spaces, and then the race is on.

Gacha Game Review: Persona 5: The Phantom X

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Hi, Geekly Gang! Season here. I mentioned in a previous “Whatcha” that I’d started playing Persona 5: The Phantom X. I’ve gotten a good feel for the game and have decided to pit it against our Gacha game review system. Let’s see how Persona 5: The Phantom X scores.

Before we begin, it’s impossible not to compare Persona 5: The Phantom X with Persona 5 and Persona 5: Royal.

Mechanisms

Mechanisms: 6/10

Maybe I should have rated this lower since the mechanisms are similar to Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal. Since the mechanisms in Persona 5: The Phantom X stay true to the original Persona 5, they’re baseline good. Enemies maintain their weaknesses, and the game is more upfront about what enemies are weak to, instead of players having to guess. The main character (Wonder) can alternate between up to three different personas for different enemies. This cuts the score a bit since the main character from Persona 5 (Joker) can alternate between up to ten different personas.

The baton pass in Persona 5: The Phantom X is a step up from Persona 5. When prompted to perform a baton pass (baton touch in this case), any character who has an element that any of the enemies they’re facing is weak to will have “Weak!” pop up next to their picture. The downside is that players still have to remember which enemies are weak to which elements, because a character possessing an enemy weakness may target one that’s already been incapacitated.

Gameplay Loop

Gameplay Loop: 5/10

I’ll start with the positives. Players can go back to cleared Palaces. Unlike the original Persona 5, there’s no pressure to collect everything before the Palace collapses. Due to small map sections, the overworld is easy to navigate. Event-wise, story-related events (the Palaces from Persona 5) remain as permanent events. Smaller events with limited rewards get phased out after a certain period of time. This makes events easier to navigate for new players, and for players who’ve never played Persona 5.

Mementos differs slightly between Persona 5: The Phantom X and Persona 5 Royal (Persona 5 doesn’t include this). In Persona 5 Royal players collect stamps and flowers in Mementos to collect rewards. In Persona 5: The Phantom X, players collect train tickets to exchange for items and unlock different areas of Mementos.

I’m going to level with you, Geekly Gang. This is my biggest gripe with Persona 5: The Phantom X’s gameplay loop, and it’s not something I’ve ever complained about in a game this much. Persona 5: The Phantom X has fifteen different currencies. Fifteen. Why? I don’t even pay attention to most of them because many of them are zone-specific. The two important currencies are the Yen and Meta Jewels. Yen allows you to purchase anything in the overworld, and Meta Jewels lets you pull for characters and weapons. If you’re short on anything required for a specific task/character level, the game will prompt you to go collect it.

Respectful of a Player's Time

Respecting Time: 8/10

Persona 5: The Phantom X allows me to complete my dailies in under ten minutes. There’s no auto-clear for farming, but after a player completes a farming-related battle, they can spin a dodecahedron (a 12-sided die) up to six times and gain that much in resources. Seriously. I can complete my farming after two auto-battles.

Battle Pass: 4/10

The battle pass is nothing special. It’s similar to Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, and Wuthering Waves, but with an extra ten levels tacked onto it. I’m not sure why, since these ten levels offer the same rewards with every level.

Video Game's True Cost

True Cost: 7/10

Unfortunately, Persona 5: The Phantom X falls into the same weapon banner pattern as Genshin Impact. Players select two five star weapons they want to include on the banner in addition to the featured one, and there’s a 1/3 chance they’ll get that weapon after eighty pulls. However, pulling (opening packs to gain new units or weapons) is cheaper in Persona 5: The Phantom X than the other gachas we’ve covered. Weapons cost one-hundred Meta Jewels per pull, and characters cost 150 per pull.

Story or Narrative

Narrative: 2/10

The only upside to Persona 5: The Phantom X’s narrative is it’s easy-to-follow—especially if you’ve played Persona 5. It doesn’t build on Persona 5 or Persona 5 Royal, but reskins it with characters and Palaces that mirror the original. The group of teenagers fights to get their desire back, which doesn’t make much sense for rag-tag teenagers. They haven’t survived high school and have minimal life experience. This would hit harder if the characters were much older, by, like, thirty years.

The “time” in the game doesn’t flow well, either. In Persona 5, there were days of the week, holidays, and deadlines. Players had to plan their time well to get the most out of their time. In Persona 5: The Phantom X, “time” is only relevant for overworld tasks and when confidants are available to hang out. Instead of using specific dates, day progression is denoted by today, tomorrow, and yesterday.

Storytelling

Storytelling: 3/10

Since the story flows in Persona 5: The Phantom X, it gets a slightly higher rating than the narrative. However, it still gets a lower score than other gachas because it’s mimicking Persona 5 in every way. Come on, guys.

Also, how long are Wonder’s parents going to be on vacation? They’ve been on vacation since the game began. I think they went out to buy milk and cigarettes.

Credit: GameRant

Presentation; User Interface: 5/10

The UI has a similar setup to Honkai: Star Rail, which isn’t too difficult to navigate. There are too many subcategories. Why are there two different categories for shopping? Combining them would eliminate one of the subcategories.

Credit: Game8

Presentation; Graphics and Audio: 4/10

The audio quality is fine. It’s average. The graphics, on the other hand, are slightly better than the original Persona 5, which is almost a decade old at the time of writing. There shouldn’t be minuscule graphics differences between two games that are ten years apart.

Aggregated Score: 4.89

I tried to raise the score for Persona 5: The Phantom X as much as I could, but this is the best score I could give it. There are definitely some sections that could’ve earned harsher scores. If you’re looking for Persona 5, Persona 5: The Phantom X has that to a degree. I recommend playing Persona 5 (or any other Persona game, for that matter) over Persona 5: The Phantom X. Since it’s around the holidays at the time of writing, Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal are likely on sale somewhere. If not, they’ll probably be on sale at the end of the year. Steam normally has a huge end-of-year sale. I’ve also seen PlayStation have sales on Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal in the past.

What do you think, Geekly Gang? Was our final score too low, too high, or just right? Let us know in the comments. Thank you for reading and have an amazing rest of your day.

Classic Companions: Playskool Glo Worm (1996)

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Happy Holidays, Geekly Gang! Season here. This month’s plushie review is special to me. I got a Playskool Glo Worm (1996) as a present on my first Christmas, and I still have it. My Glo Worm’s name is “Baga,” so I’ll be using that title throughout this review.

Before we begin, let’s review the categories. I’ll be looking at size, softness, kid-friendliness, and cuddliness. There won’t be an aggregated score.

Size

Baga is on the smaller side and fits perfectly in your lap if you’re sitting cross-legged as an adult. Baga rivals newborns in size.

Softness Versus Firmness

Baga has— or, in my case, had — a music box inside that plays “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” and when activated, his face lights up. This, plus his hard head, puts him toward the middle of the soft versus firm scale. In my biased opinion, he’s super soft, but I’ve worn him down over the years.

Kid Friendly Versus Adult Only

Since he’s designed for infants, Baga is kid-friendly. He gets docked a few points for small pieces like the zipper on his back, which could be ripped off by a rambunctious child. I used him to fight my other toys when I was two. It was war, I tell you.

Cuddle Buddy Versus Desk Buddy

Baga is definitely a cuddle buddy. That’s part of his design. Since Playskool doesn’t make him anymore, I could see him as a collector’s item. Playskool intended for Baga to be a cuddle buddy, so he’s a cuddle buddy.

Final Thoughts

I tried to be as unbiased. Let me know your opinions of Playskool’s Glo Worm in the comments. I have a baby picture of me with Baga when I got him. Would you like to see that picture, Geekly Gang? Let me know. Thank you for reading, and have an amazing holiday season.

Tabletop Game Review: Little Devils

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Hey, hey, Geekly Gang! Kyra Kyle here with another board game review. Today’s game is Michael Feldkötter’s Little Devils, a quick trick-taking game with a twist. Little Devils has no suits. Instead, players must follow the first card (in a series of 54 numbered cards) that’s played per round. The second card dictates which direction every other player must follow (up or down from the original number). The player who either plays in the wrong direction (up instead of down) or plays the furthest number from the original card wins the trick; you’re trying to win as few tricks as possible. Little Devils takes a simple concept and bakes in some interesting choices.

Before we get any further, we’ll get devilish with Little Devils’ details.

The Fiddly Bits

Designer: Michael Feldkötter
Publisher: Arclight Games, Stronghold Games, White Goblin Games
Date Released: 2012
Number of Players: 3-6
Age Range: 8 and up
Setup Time: Less than a minute
Play Time: About 15 minutes

Game Mechanisms

Card Game
Trick-Taking

Game Setup

Little Devils consists of a 54-card deck. Depending on the number of players, remove a number of cards numbered between 28-54 from the game. The rulebook will state which specific cards need to be removed at each player count. Ultimately, players will be dealt 9 cards each, which should be the entire deck.

After you’ve prepared the deck, deal out all the cards.

Game Flow

For the first round, the player to the left of the dealer begins the trick; for every round after the first, whoever “won” the previous trick, begins the next trick. The first player starts the trick by playing any card from their hand that doesn’t have five little devils beneath the number. Quick note: most cards in Little Devils will have at least one little devil underneath its number. Players cannot lead a trick with a card with five little devils, unless they have no other card in their hand.

The player to the left of the starting player will play a card from their hand. If the second player plays a higher card, all other players must play cards valued higher than the first card if possible. Whoever played the highest card gets the trick, unless a player is unable to play a higher card. This player will get the trick unless more players are unable to play higher cards. If a player (or players) plays a card in the opposite direction of the second player, the player with the furthest valued card from the original card wins the trick.

After all cards have been played, a round ends. Players score the number of little devils from their tricks. As soon as someone scores 200 points, play ends, and whoever has the fewest points wins.

Review

Little Devils has a built-in catch-up mechanism: the player who wins a trick can’t possibly win the next one; they begin the next trick. I love that. It’s simple and offers plenty of strategic choices. I could play a card closer to the low or high end, thinking the players in front of me (on the scoreboard) might get stuck with a trick or two. There are even cards that have no little devils on them. Often, when I know I’m going to get stuck with a trick, I’ll play one of the one devil or no devils cards to net the fewest little devils I can.

While you could card count during Little Devils, it doesn’t matter that much. Little Devils plays quickly. It’s more fun to play a second game. Even when I’ve finished last (triggered the end game), I feel like I did something if I stiffed someone else with a bunch of points during one round. Little Devils is a great filler game. It may get overshadowed by Cat in the Box (we still need to review that game), but it requires less setup, is an easier teach, and I’ve found more gamers catch on to Little Devils a lot faster.

Too Long; Didn’t Read

Quick to pick up and easy to teach, Little Devils is an excellent trick-taking game that offers plenty of strategic choices, a brilliant built-in catch-up mechanism, and fun gotcha moments.