Week in Review August 4-10: ‘Twas the Week Before Gen Con

 

You Won’t Need a Bigger Table to Enjoy Star Wars

We all knew that this was coming. When Fantasy Flight Games started releasing the gigantic ships like the Tantive IV and the Rebel Transport for the Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures game, we knew the Empire was going to bring in even bigger ships. Think about it. Darth Vader never lets the Rebellion Alliance have nice things. The Rebellion finds its only hope of survival, Luke Skywalker, and Vader does nothing but try to bring Luke to the dark side. When he didn’t get his way, he had a temper tantrum and cut off Luke’s hand. There’s no way Vader would let the Alliance be the only faction with over-sized ships. The Tantative IV took up a lot of space (hah!) on the table, so of course there were questions about how massive ships like the Star Destroyer would be handled. We found out this week that the Star Destroyer would not be coming to the X-Wing Miniatures Game, but instead would be featured in the new Star Wars: Amanda. Although we don’t know much about the new game, we know it is a miniatures game much like X-Wing, but with miniatures on a much smaller scale. More details about the game will most likely be released during the next big gaming convention. Whenever that may be.

Power, Wisdom, Courage, Real Estate

Nintendo has been known for making some of the greatest games of all time. Just think about all of the classic characters they have. They’ve created Mario, Luigi, Link, Zelda, Star Fox, Samus, Donkey Kong, and Poo. Everybody loves Poo. It was announced this week that Nintendo’s next big hit will be Monopoly: The Legend of Zelda! Of course, there are always those Nintendo naysayers who say the Legend of Zelda is a children’s game. Have there been any new games announced for the mature video game fans? As a matter of fact, there was one more exciting video game board game announcement this week. The predecessor to Assassin’s Creed Arena is coming soon. The game's title has been revealed; it will be called Monopoly: Assassin’s Creed. Preorders will be going out soon, but the game will only be coming to Europe. So get your Abstergo Credits ready, imported games can be expensive. Oh, and if you aren’t in the mood for Monopoly, Fantasy Flight Games announced XCom: The Board Game developed by Eric Lang (Star Wars: The Card Game, Kaosball, co-designer of Marvel Dice Masters). Fans of the video game series can take comfort in the fact that Fantasy Flight is pretty good about making games that feature aliens. Not much is known about the game, other than the fact that it is a 1 to 4 player cooperative game that utilizes an app. We don’t even know if Fantasy Flight artist Henning Ludvigsen is going to make the Chryssalids even more terrifying than they already are. More information may be coming in the near future. Call it a hunch.

What’s New with the Dice Tower?

Was it mentioned that one of the biggest gaming conventions is taking place this week? You can expect nonstop updates from Tom Vasel, Eric Summerer, Ryan Metzler, and the rest of the team about all of the new games being released and demoed at the convention. Tom and Zee Garcia recorded a run of five videos detailing what to expect from each individual company attending the convention. Rob Searing of the Dice Tower News will be delivering written updates throughout the week. And don’t forget to tune in to the Dice Tower's YouTube page to check out the long awaited review of Richard Garfield’s King of New York.