Feature - Eldritch Horror Review

As a minor departure from our usual filmic goods, I've decided to review a board game that I'm playing at the minute, a board game that has me completely addicted: Eldritch Horror.

Eldritch Horror is a streamlined version of an older game, Arkham Horror but is sufficiently different to make owning both desirable. Both games are about a group of investigators who come together to defeat one of H.P. Lovecraft's Ancient Ones. Along the way they have to find clues, solve mysteries, shut gates to other worlds and kill nasty monstery type things. The main difference between the two games is that Arkham Horror is set in Arkham, (obviously) whereas the events in Eldritch Horror span the entire world.

The main game mechanic in Eldritch Horror is simple to pick up: work out how many dice you need to throw, depending on what you're trying to do, throw the dice and then count the number of successes rolled. For the most part, rolling a 5 or a 6 counts as a success. Cards that can be gained by the investigators give them weapons or spells, along with other items. Many allow the player to roll more dice or re-roll dice where necessary. Conditions can also be given to investigators such as leg injuries or hallucinations that are generally bad. In fact the only good condition is being blessed which means that rolling a 4, 5 or 6 is a success. (On the flip side being cursed reduces the successes to 6s only.)

There are three phases to the game: Action, Encounter and Mythos. The Action phase allows the investigators to move, rest, trade and perform other actions (hence the name). In the Encounters phase the investigators encounter something on their space, which could be fighting a monster, closing a gate, getting a clue or even one based on the specific location. Finally the Mythos phase is where the game really fights back against the players. New gates are spawned along with the obligatory monsters and for the most part, bad things happen. 

As you may have picked up from the last paragraph, this is a cooperative game. The players all work together to beat the game. It is suitable for 2 to 8 players, but 4 players seems to work really well. (There are also supplementary rules for solo play.) There are eight investigators to choose from and each has their own strengths and weaknesses. You can generally look at their stats and decide what they will be good at whether that is gaining clues, fighting or casting spells. I know some people play this by picking an ideal team using the available investigators but I prefer to randomly select them. It seems to throw up some interesting combinations of characters that initially seem to be destined for failure but miraculously work well together. The game allows opportunities to fine tune characters by building their stats, to make them even better at their job.

Eldritch Horror is a finely balanced game. It would be dull if the investigators won every single time. This doesn't happen. A game can be played for three hours. And then you lose. (In Arkham Horror games can easily stretch to five hours which makes the losses even harder to bear.) But when I lose, I set up another game straight away. Most of the games seem to be extremely tight which can make for some quality tension. 

Great games should teach us something about life and the main thing Eldritch Horror rams home constantly is perseverance. The game regularly batters you into thinking that there is no way of winning, everything goes against you and all seems lost. Yet if you keep going to the bitter end it's amazing how many times you win or come really close. There are other life lessons to be learnt such as co-operation, prioritising and how to slaughter a Star Spawn using a shotgun.

Eldritch Horror is a pleasure to play. The artwork in the game is gorgeous, especially on the locations and all of the components are well made. It feels like it has been play tested to death. My one concern is that it sometimes feels too harsh, initially the restrictions on movement make winning appear impossible and there is one card that can make a player lose six health, which is more than most characters have. But overall the game appears to be fair. Luck is obviously involved but it is definitely possible to improve your chances of success through shrewd choices. Strategies can be employed, especially the ways that investigators can work together, to make winning more achievable. As the players' skills and knowledge improve the rule book has suggestions to make the game even harder which adds to its longevity.

If you're completely new to board games of this ilk that have a little more depth than Guess Who, then this is probably a quite good place to start. The rules are pretty long but they are relatively easy to learn. It's a great game that has already given me many hours of pleasure. Despite this being so good I can still recommend Arkham Horror too. The games take longer - making the stakes higher - and the expansions available add new boards and cards. Right, I'm going to leg it now to see if I can batter Azathoth into submission with a politician, a psychic, an astronomer and an actress.

evlkeith

Book Review - The Breach - Patrick Lee

F. Paul Wilson (author of the excellent The Keep and The Tomb) recommended this on Twitter. If F likes it, it's got to be great.

And it is. It's a strange book to review because any discussion of the plot would contain far too many spoilers. Which would spoil it. I can tell you about the inciting incident that sets the ball rolling. Travis Chase is an ex-con, fresh out of the pokey, who embarks on a hiking trip into the Alaskan wilds. Very quickly he stumbles across something that shouldn't be there. And that's all I'm going to say. (It's not the titular breach either.)

This book must have taken a long, long time to plan. It is fairly complicated and is a bit of a test for the old grey matter. I'm not completely sure that I've got my head around all of the implications yet. There are so many unexpected twists and turns that it leaves you with a post-waltzer chucking-up type of feeling. It will be interesting to read it again knowing how everything fits together and hopefully being able to follow the logic. The one downside of all this twisty turniness is that many of the chapters end with a suitably twisty turny sentence, designed to keep the reader turning pages even at two o'clock in the morning (this happened to me a few times). It does get a bit tiresome after a while, but only a smidge.

If there's a problem in a story where an item is required to solve it, then the author has to make sure that that item is introduced earlier on in the book. 'The Breach' has many of these items, sometimes used in an obvious fashion, sometimes used in the most surprising of ways. Again, the planning must have been immense. Some items come perilously close to being a deux ex machina, but the central conceit craftily allows the author to include them.

I really enjoyed 'The Breach' and I highly recommend it, but I don't think that it will ever enter into the upper echelons of my top books. As with films, I love atmosphere. It has some in the opening chapters but quickly loses it as the plot moves away from Alaska. The characters are likeable but never really venture out of the second division. 'The Breach' is all about the plot. And the plot is premium quality. There are two more Travis Chase books in the series which F describes as 'insane'. Sounds good to me. Like I said at the start: if F likes it, it's got to be great. 

evlkeith

Review - The Martian Chronicles

In the seventies I remember watching the Martian Chronicles TV series and promising myself that one day I would read the book that the series was based on. I can recollect very little of the episodes I viewed other than a fast food restaurant on an atmospheric Martian desert and alien land yachts cruising across the horizon. To a young boy this looked like a serious brand of Science Fiction unlike the Star Wars and Buck Rodgers I was used to.

I finally read the book this year and to say it's only a short novel I really struggled to get through it. It's not what I expected at all. This is 1950's style Science Fiction with a great deal of stiff upper lip, traditional family values and lots and lots of pipe smoking. It's more a collection of connected short stories than a novel and Bradbury uses the colonisation of Mars to reflect the ills and abuses he saw in 50's American society. The stories explore religion, racism and modern warfare amongst other issues, but in an obtuse way that is neither subtle or particularly engaging.

The features of the television adaptation are all present, but jumbled in an almost surreal collage of Martian folklore. None of the individual stories are satisfying or enjoyable, but the the tale of the deserted Walter Gripp in 'The Silent Towers' is straightforward and the prolonged story of Spender in 'And the Moon be Still as Bright' is at least thought provoking. The atmosphere of the book is its strong point, with a hallucinatory quality that lets you drift in and out of Martian life never really knowing if it is reality or a dream.

It's clear to see that the book has dated considerably and as a work of modern Science Fiction it doesn't quite hold water, however at the time of publication I'm sure it was a relevant piece of work with cutting edge social comment. Read the Martian Chronicles for a history lesson of the genre and be grateful that pipe smoking has gone out of fashion. There is little wonder that the first expeditions went so badly, when the astronauts turned up puffing clouds of noxious Condor fumes over the Martians. I'm glad I've read it but honestly can't recommend it.

Doccortex

Book Review - The Player of Games - Iain M. Banks

I quite like a bit of science fiction for something a little different every now and again, and have really enjoyed some of Banks' other offerings like 'Consider Phlebas' and 'Against a Dark Background', although I found the plot in both a bit too close to Serentity for comfort. The Player of Games is different and even though he embarks on a journey into other galaxies the main story details his game playing antics and integration into a new and often brutal society. If you want a read with an entertaining story and the ability to make you think then this book if a definite winner.

This is the second Culture novel after 'Consider Phlebas' and is far less dark and war torn, and explains Culture society and structures in far greater detail. The Culture is a cross galaxy, technology savy, super society that has eradicated many of the afflictions prevalent in humanity and is a fascinating idea as a vision for our ultimate evolution. The book places the Culture's seemingly more advanced position against the harsh, semi-dictatorship of Azad where state violence and exploitation is the norm.

We experience Azad through the eyes of Jernau Gurgeh, the best games player in all the Culture and a bit of a Bohemian ladies man with mixed up scruples. It all makes for great fun as the liberal, intelligent game player is forced to confront and participate in the baser, guteral and often violent actions of his morally challenged hosts. It's not unlike being a metro-sexual in modern day, egg throwing South Yorkshire.

There is so much to love in the book. I particularly liked the interaction with the various floating robot characters, the obscure names, the three gendered nature of the Azad people and the internal conflict in Gurgeh's brain. You feel like you've been on a journey yourself on completion of the story, learning and exploring something about yourself. Surely the mark of a decent book.

Doccortex

Book Review - The Disappearance - Bentley Little

This is only my second Bentley Little book and I was dreading it. My first foray into the Bentley universe was 'The Vanishing'. This disturbing tale concerned naked men with strange patches of fur, running amok and butchering their families. And there was the involvement of children with deformed animal faces such as llamas, rhinos and pigeons (possibly not pigeons).

'The Disappearance' is a completely different jug of aquatic life. Gary and his girlfriend Joan - plus the rest of his chums - visit the Burning Man festival in Nevada. They all get drugged by persons unknown and Joan disappears... From that moment on, where the book is going is anyone's guess. There is mention of some shady Outsiders. Mysterious prayer scrolls make an appearance and other people go missing too. Just what the Dickens is going on? All is eventually revealed and unlike some books that have good starts and then fail to capitalise on their gains, 'The Disappearance' keeps you interested right up to the end.

The book is split into three parts: part one is a mystery, part two is where the mystery is solved and part three is a bit on the tense side. It is obvious that something bad is going to happen, but like the characters, the reader is always kept in the dark about the where and when of this dreaded occurrence. The ending is satisfying and it didn't take me very long to read the whole book (always a sign that a book is good). This is more of a thriller than a horror story. The only horrific element is the inclusion of some inbred children (sans animal heads this time). Oh, and a few grizzly deaths. I can't see Richard and Judy recommending this, but I will. (Great two-tone beard by the way.)

evlkeith

Game Review - Journey PS3

Is this really a game? I'm not entirely sure, but it is the best experience I've had on my PS3 or any gaming system in a long time. Experience being the operative word.

You are a strange stylised little fellow dressed in a long robe, trudging through a desert. I know. It sounds really dull. In the distance you can see a huge mountain (in a similar way to Half-Life 2); you know from the very start that that is where you are heading. The path along the way is always signposted by various landmarks and I never got lost once. The only control you have over your figure is to walk, jump/glide and shout. A shout is a musical note that changes with each button press. You can make short notes and long notes. And that's it. No shoulder button action in the slightest.

The journey through the landscape is incredible, with some absolutely gorgeous sights. The lighting effects deserve special mention. The game clocks in at about three hours, which doesn't sound like much, but it never repeats itself, something new is always happening. The only gamey thing about Journey is the ability to collect some swirly glowy things. Arguably this wasn't really needed and actually detracts from the whole experience of travelling.

The best thing about this game is the multiplayer aspect. Normally I wouldn't touch multiplayer with a barge pole. Tried it. Got tired of having my sexuality questioned by twelve year old boys. In Journey you only ever meet one other player at a time. You don't know who they are. You can't talk to them. All you can do is use your shout. When you run into the other player, you both glow and recover some flying energy. This results in two players rubbing their avatars up against each other on a regular basis. Always a treat. On one occasion, there were two towers. I stood on one; the other player stood on the other. We must have spent about five minutes just singing to each other. A quality gaming moment. When I lost the player that I was travelling with, I felt gutted. I would look for them and shout out to see if they would find me again. And then, in a Dark Crystal moment, I decided to carry on alone. Luckily, it's not long before another player is met. There is the option to turn off the multiplayer component, but I strongly recommend that you share the experience with another.

A great game (I'll call it a game). This is an experience that I will be going through again very soon. Give me a shout if you meet me on the way...

evlkeith

Book Review - Urban Gothic (Brian Keene)

Brian Keene returns to form in this breathless tale where generic haunted house fiction meets The Hills Have Eyes. After 'The Rising', 'City of the Dead' and 'Dead Sea' I've had high expectations of Keene, and although not that impressed by 'Ghoul', 'Urban Gothic' will not disappoint his growing army of readers. This is not a book for the faint-hearted however, as Keene unleashes a slashing, bashing gore-fest on downtown America.

Some posh kids stumble into one of the less desirable areas of Philadelphia looking to score some drugs rather than soft cheese. Typically their car breaks down and chased by some of the local homeboys they flee into a nearby haunted house to hide, as you do. Sounds like my journey to work most days. You can more or less guess the rest, as the six buddies enjoy a torrid experience inside the spooky old house, with some or all of them receiving some nasty cuts, abrasions and grazed knees.

It's great fun if you like that kind of thing and even has the added bonus of a social comment based sub-plot, where Keene documents the decline of the old American sense of community, the ghettoisation of deprived areas and the stereotypical view of black youths in the hood. The homies and their middle aged leader are a particular highlight as they come charging to the rescue and ultimately re-unite the whole community - hurray!

The only downside is that Keeno goes a bit over the top with the violence and gore in a book that doesn't really need it. The atmosphere of the house and its labyrinthine cellars is such an excellent location for the story that we really only need to follow some well-defined characters into its depths to fully enjoy the whole scenario. Unfortunately the plot whizzes along so fast and with so much splatter that we only gain a surface knowledge and empathy of the characters, when another two hundred pages was probably needed to fully exploit the potential of the wonderfully created subterranean environment.

Problems aside this is a high paced, enjoyable read and is only a zombie tuna away from one of Keene's best.

Doccortex

News - The Obscure World

Exciting news.

In a similar move to 2000AD's take over of Starlord, 'The Obscure World' is being merged with 'obscurendure' and 'into the valley of the obscure'. 

Books, comics and games will be covered by 'obscurendure'. Food, drink and ornaments will be featured in 'into the valley of the obscure'. Don't think for one minute that this will dilute our regular film coverage. Roughly 1 in 10 posts will be 'The Obscure World' based, to give you a little break from all of the film related goods.

We will be posting some classic reviews and features to get you up to speed on what has already been discussed, then we will get on to the new stuff. Regular updates will be made on facebook and Twitter to keep you informed of what is happening in 'The Obscure World'. 

Exciting news indeed.

evlkeith