There are plenty of great game sites out there already, but most people don’t stumble upon them unless they are already looking for them, so if I can use my meager amount of fame to introduce hapless strangers to the wonders of traditional card and board games, then I might as well do so.

Today, I’d like to review Scrumbrawl from Vic-Tim Games (www.scrumbrawl.com).  I met the guys at Vic-Tim at a convention a while back, after I’d already bought and played the game.  I’d promised them a review at one point, and then life got in the way.  But better late than never.

Scrumbrawl’s theme is that of a fantasy sport where various magical characters battle it out in a chaotic arena, trying to score points by getting the ball to the goal and defeating other players on the field.  Chaos is the operative word.  This is a game where everything can change in a moment and often does.  Perhaps one second, your team will get struck down by a lightning bolt or smacked by an angry ghost.  And teams will be cycling through players constantly, so no matter how cool that Chimera or Amazon might seem, don’t bother getting too attached to them because odds are good they won’t be long for the arena.

If you don’t like randomness, stay away from Scrumbrawl.  It is this concept personified.  The game is meant to be sat down and played without concern for long-term strategy.  Instead, it’s a fast and furious battle where players dive right in and start fighting for glory.  This is its biggest strength.  Not since the forgotten classic Battleball have I played a game where I can just jump into the action.  This means that Scrumbrawl is a great game for casual play and for introducing to players who are new to gaming.

In comparison, I really enjoy Privateer Press’s Grind fantasy sport game.  It has more meat to it.  On the other hand, I’ve had trouble teaching people Grind, where Scrumbrawl is as simple as set a few tokens on the board, draw a few cards, and start playing.  The rules can easily be taught as you play, and that’s a great thing.

Scrumbrawl is a terrific casual game.  It’s fast and furious enough that it’s always entertaining, chaotic enough that it discourages players from getting stuck in overthinking things, and easy enough that the rules can be learned without pain.  But this could be said about a lot of games, so what is unique about Scrumbrawl?

It has great presentation.  The cards and figure tokens that represent the various participants are all very colorful and fun.  The art, in particular, takes old standbys of fantasy and makes them pop with life.  Whether its the ectoplasmic vapor of the Ghost or the fearsome terror of the Giant Spider or the strange enchantment of The Stump, this is a game with a lot of personality.

Variety is another strong element.  With dozens of possible characters to be drawn from the deck, it’s unlikely you’ll see the same team combos over and over again.  Add to this the clever game mechanism of different type of balls AKA orbs to compete over.  There’s the standard leather orb, which does nothing special, but there’s also the chaos orb (randomly teleports its carrier), the unstable orb (has a tendency to explode), and the sticky orb (hard to drop, impossible to pass), etc.  There are countless random events to spice up the game.  Lightning storms and sudden multiple orbs as well as earthquakes and windstorms.  Scrumbrawl will never play out quite the same way twice.

This chaotic nature will be the biggest turn off to “hardcore” players who hate having an unlucky die roll undo their plans.  So if you are one of these folks, Scrumbrawl is not for you.  But if you can stomach a healthy dose of random madness to your fantasy sport board game, then you could do a lot worse than Scrumbrawl.  It’s a solid, fun game, and worth your time if want to spend an hour watching a Dragon fight a Leprechaun for the glory of the arena.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

I’ve been playing Mario Strikers Charged on Wii lately.  It’s a great game.  I am not a sports guy in any sense.  I don’t play sports.  I don’t watch sports.  I don’t even play sports video games.  Well, not normally.

Before the Wii, my two favorite sports games were Mutant League Football and Tiny Toon Sports.  Both were for Sega Genesis, so that should give you an indication of how rarely I play sports games, even weird ones.

A big part of the appeal of sports games is the atmosphere.  As a non-sports guy, when I see people in football uniforms or baseball jerseys, it just doesn’t catch my attention.  It just looks generic.  This isn’t a flaw in the game, more of a personal perception.

But with Mario Power Tennis or Mario Strikers Charged, I get full fledged characters.  The games are fun to play, no doubt, but there’s also a lot of personality going on.  I love playing Bowser, which really shouldn’t be a surprise with my love of monsters.  He’s the big villain of the Mushroom Kingdom, but that basically makes him a tempermental jerk.  He might kidnap Princess Peach every other weekend, but nobody really seems to hold that against him.  At least, they let him into their tennis tournaments and go kart races.  But maybe that’s just because the people of the Mushroom Kingdom are jovial and forgiving.

Regardless, I love to make up little stories in my head as I play these games.  I spent hours playing doubles tennis, teaming me as Bowser with Mario and thinking how if only these two guys could learn to get along, there’d be no stopping them.  If I’m Princess Daisy and I’m against Princess Peach, I want to win.  No, check that.  I NEED to win.  Because this is my chance to step out of Peach’s shadow and show her who is boss. 

Strangely, when I’m Luigi and I’m up against Mario, I don’t have the same attitude.  Maybe it’s because it seems like Mario and Luigi are really close.  Sure, Mario might be the preeminent hero of the kingdom, but I think he always takes time to acknowledge Luigi’s contributions to his heroics.  Whereas I’m pretty sure Princess Peach thinks of Daisy as someone to pal around with and tell Peach how pretty she is.

But, as I said, I’m mostly a Bowser guy.  And I love playing Bowser because it gives me license to be a jerk.  If I lose a match, I can get pissed because you can bet your ass that Bowser is pissed.  Bowser is not a good loser.  And if I win, I can be obnoxious because you can bet your ass that Bowser is obnoxious.  He’s not a good winner either.

You might think that Bowser would get extra invested in any matches against Mario or Peach, but I think there’s an unspoken respect among these threes.  Perhaps I’m overanalyzing, but you have to assume that if Mario and Peach are inviting Bowser to play with them, they aren’t too annoyed by his antics.  No, I believe the real emotional investment with Bowser is to be found when he faces off against Bowser Jr.

Bowser seems like a decent dad.  He’s not a great role model, but if you’re an ill-tempered turtle in the Mushroom Kingdom, what other job is open for you anyway?  At least he spends time with his kid.  Even gets Junior involved in his hobbies, like kidnapping Princesses.  So I think Bowser is actually pretty proud of his son.

So here’s how it works.  If I’m playing doubles with Bowser and Bowser Jr as my partner, then I sure as hell feel a great deal of pride if we take down our opponents.  And if I lose a match, I think Bowser would be cool with that too.  Because he is nothing if not a supportive parent.

But if Bowser is competing with his son…well, I think the gloves come off.  And they come off big time.  Partly because Bowser doesn’t want to lose to his kid.  And also because Bowser wants his kid to be tough and earn his victories.  I sometimes think Bowser goes easy on Mario because taking over the Mushroom Kingdom isn’t nearly as much fun as TRYING to take over the Mushroom Kingdom.  But when it comes to his own son, no quarter is given or expected.

When I’m playing Mario Strikers Charged and I perform a cheap tackle from behind on Bowser Jr, I get tremendous satistfaction out of it.  It’s just something Bowser would do.  And when Bowser Jr does the same, I’m annoyed by it.  But I’m also just a little bit pleased.  That’s how ya do it, kid! I think.

Maybe I’m putting too much thought into this, but this is why I love playing these Mario sports games.  It’s why I love playing Bowser in particular.

I really could go on.  I haven’t even tackled Donkey Kong, Wario, or even the minor characters like Koopah Troopah or Boo because, yes, I have indeed thought about what might be going through their minds too.  But that would only make the blog entry go on longer, and none of us want that.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to stomp a happy plumber into the ground and win the Crystal Cup tournament.  Maybe then all those dumb people in the kingdom will realize just how cool I am.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Scribblenauts is for Nintendo DS, and it shows that once again, the most innovative gaming system on the market isn’t found in your living room, but in your pocket.  Really, the DS continues to shine.  So much so that I just don’t see the point in buying any other system myself.  The DS proves that it’s not the hardware that makes a great game (although it is a well-designed system), but the software behind it.  And nowhere is that more obvious than in Scribblenauts.

Okay, okay.  “Get on with it,” you’re probably saying.  What is it about Scribblenauts that makes it so cool?  And that’s where it gets tricky because Scribblenauts is not a game easily categorized because it is its own category.

The basic premise of the game is that you’re collecting special starites.  You do this by solving puzzles or navigating simple levels.  This isn’t what makes the game cool.  What makes it cool is that you achieve this goal by creating a variety of objects on the fly.  “What kind of objects?” you ask.

Pretty much anything you can imagine.  All you have to do is write down a word, and POOF it appears.  The vocabulary of the game is absolutely immense.  If you can think of it, the odds are that it is in the game.  Using this nearly unlimited tool of your imagination, you can achieve your goal in almost any way.

An example might be clearer.  In one level, a cat is atop a house.  Your goal is to get the cat down to the waiting girl.  Here are just some of the solutions I’ve employed.

1) Write LADDER.  Use it to climb up and pick up the cat.
2) Write FISH.  Give the fish to the girl.  Cat jumps down.
3) Write MOUSE.  Put the mouse on the ground.  Cat jumps down.
4) Write FIRE.  Set house ablaze.  Cat jumps down.
5) Write BAZOOKA.  Blow up house.  Cat jumps down.
6) Write TRAMPOLINE.  Jump up and pick up cat.
7) Write PEGASUS.  Ride winged horse up to pick up cat.

…and these are just a few of the solutions possible.  I’m sure there are many more.  The only way to “master” a level on advanced mode is to complete it 3 different ways, using different objects every time.

Lest you think all the solutions are this easy, I’m still working on figuring out many of the levels.  Although a game like this isn’t about difficulty, but imagination and novelty.  The title screen acts as a sandbox-style default where you can just throw all sorts of ideas together.  The fun at first is seeing if you can outsmart the game by thinking of something it isn’t ready for.  While it’s possible to end up with something a little different than you expected, it is really unusual to draw a complete blank.  And often, the game will surprise you with its attention to detail.  This is a game that knows there’s a difference between a T-rex and an allosaurus.  And if you’re wondering if there’s a big difference between a regular devil and the fabled Jersey Devil, this game will assure you that indeed there is.

Chupacabra, Cthulhu, Tank, Flamethrower, Forest, Machinegun, Yeti, Bigfoot, Ghost, Wraith, Zombie, Ghoul, Sword, Castle, Apartments, Mall, Skyscraper, Kracken, Skateboard, Butler, Fairy.  This is just a small sampling of random words that I’ve created either to solve a level or just for fun.  And here’s where I draw the strangest comparison in any game I’ve ever played.

Scribblenauts reminds me of Colorforms.  Am I the only one who remembers these things?  You get a simple background and apply reusable sticky images to create scenes.  I had a big Smurf Coloforms set when I was a kid, and I loved it.  I even did my own Do-It-Yourself Colorform with paper, scissors, dinosaurs, and double-sided tape.  And now, my Colorform joy is back in this handy little game.

Maybe I’ll craft my own little city.  Or I’ll design my own dinosaur park.  Or maybe I’ll just pit Cthulhu against wave after wave of werewolves.  Whatever strikes my fancy.  This alone would probably make the game worthwhile, but there is actually a challenging game here as well.

Will you love Scribblenauts?  I can’t guarantee that.  It’s too bizarre, too unusual for easy comparisons.  But this is a game that almost deserves to be bought just because it is so fascinating and unique.  Or not.  Ultimately, if the idea sounds interesting to you, then it’s probably worth checking out.