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X3F TV -- XBLA in Brief: Hasbro Family Game Night
The shortest, easiest way to say it: Hasbro Family Game Night lets you play Hasbro board games on your TV. There's not much more to say, really. Oh, each game will cost you 800. Before the anger starts flowing, you should know that most of these games cost more in the real world. Check out the latest XBLA in Brief and decide if Hasbro Family Game Night deserves a shelf in your digital game closet. Download Hasbro Family Game Night [iTunes] Subscribe to X3F TV directly in iTunes. [Zune] Subscribe to the X3F TV directly (Zune Marketplace link coming soon). [RSS] Add the X3F TV feed to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically. [M4V] Download the M4V directly.
Mr. Potato Head presents: Hasbro Game Night Achievements
A list of Achievements has made its way online for this month's release of Hasbro's Family Game Night collection of Xbox Live Arcade titles. The list of 70 milestones totals 1400 Gamerscore points, which may seem like a Gamerscwhore's dream, but know that the sum is calculated using all seven separate XBLA games. Mathematically, that's seven classic board games (which we're told will cost 800 each) multiplied by the Arcade's standard 200 Gamerscore, which gives us the 1400 total. That said, Evel Knievel Mr. Potato Head still approves of the digital board games.
Hasbro Family Games to release mid-March, include Avatar support
Nestled in a press release announcing the inclusion of Yahtzee in Hasbro Family Game Night (something we already knew) is confirmation that four Hasbro games will be releasing on Xbox Live Arcade sometime this March. Scrabble, Connect Four, Battleship and Yahtzee will be the first four Hasbro titles made available when Xbox Live's special Family Game Night Destination launches next month. Boggle, Sorry! and Sorry! Sliders will release later this year. The press release also confirms Avatars will be supported and that each title can be purchased individually for 800 ($10). If that wasn''t enough information, we're told the Family Game Night Destination lets players launch Hasbro games from their own customized game room. This uniquely decorated space accommodates Mr. Potato Head, can be shared with friends and sounds to be somewhat inspired by Home. %Gallery-45867%
Want to control the Flood? Play Risk: Halo Wars
Last week, the folks at USAopoly revealed that they had nabbed the Halo license and planned to release a special, themed edition of the board game Risk, soon after the retail release of Halo Wars. Set to hit the street in July, Risk: Halo Wars features three playable factions (UNSC, Covenant and that pesky Flood), 42 territories with six sectors and 250 plastic playing pieces that represent each of the three factions. The themed set has a MSRP of $39.99. It may not be the new Halo announcement many were hoping for, but a Halo-themed Risk set has, "Yes, please," written all over it.[Update: Image gallery now includes a snap of the game board and pieces.]%Gallery-43278%
Wii Warm Up: Card and board games (without the cleanup)
The news that Uno would be gracing WiiWare came as a pleasant surprise to us. We love card games, board games, and anything of the like, but we're just not big fans of cleaning them up. Or, in some cases, setting them up (looking at you, Axis & Allies).What card/board games would you want to see grace WiiWare? Do you think a WiiWare is due for some Texas Hold 'Em or something?
Scrabble is XBLA bound, Hasbro channel coming soon
After it was first rumored nearly a year ago (along with Monopoly), EA has announced that Scrabble is indeed heading to Xbox Live Arcade. The company also announced the creation of a brand new Hasbro Family Game Night "channel" in Xbox Live Arcade. The channel will serve as a "digital game closet," according to EA Hasbro general manager Chip Lange, where players can quickly access various Hasbro games without leaving the channel. Players will be able to "earn virtual trophies, furniture and themes" to decorate their closets by playing Hasbro games. In addition to Scrabble, other titles planned for the service include Sorry!, Sorry! Sliders, Battleship, Connect Four, Boggle and Yahtzee. The Hasbro Family Game Night channel is set to debut this spring, though no specific dates have been given for any of the individual game releases. Oh, one more thing: No Monopoly mentioned, folks. Sorry. [Via Joystiq]
XBLA receiving Hasbro game channel; EA's Scrabble coming to handhelds, consoles
Electronic Arts announced today that Scrabble will make its way to the DS and PSP in March, and to Xbox Live Arcade at a later date. Beginning in spring, XBLA will not only receive the perennial wordsmith board game, but also Boggle, Battleship, Yahtzee, Connect Four, Sorry! and Sorry!Sliders. In a very interesting development, XBLA will also receive a branded "Hasbro Family Game Night" channel. Chip Lange, general manager of EA Hasbro, says it'll allow players to easily find family-friendly digital board games. We only wish that Microsoft would extend such a courtesy to the high-quality European board games that are also available on the service.
TUAW Review: Scrabble for iPhone
Hasbro's Scrabble is a classic board game, and Electronic Arts made the crossword game one of the first releases for the iPhone / iPod touch platform. Although the game has been available since July, I decided to wait to review it until some of the early bugs were squashed and new features were added. Since Scrabble is a holiday favorite for families, it's the perfect time for a review of the game. The original board game is played with 100 small hardwood tiles, most of which have a letter of the alphabet and a point value printed on them. The playing board is a 15 by 15 grid with some squares marked as double or triple letters or words. The object, to those few people who have never played the game, is to create words from a rack of letters randomly assigned to you. Points are assigned per word based on the individual point values of the tiles and whether a letter or word overlays a colored multiplier square. After the first word has been placed on the board, subsequent words must touch another word in crossword puzzle fashion.
DS Fanboy's DSiWare screen round-up
Thirteen DSiWare titles will be released to Japan's DSi Shop on December 24, so we thought we'd construct a one-stop post where you can gawk at games most of us can't have. Past the jump, you'll find screens for all launch titles, as well as the price and size of each. How would you spend the free 1,000 DSi Points you get with the system? Because we love the series, we'll kick proceedings off with a look at A Little Dr. Mario (500 DSi Ware Points, 29 blocks required): %Gallery-39567%
Off the Grid + Joyswag: Donkey Kong Jenga
Update: Entry period for the giveaway has ended. Saria the Cat was randomly selected, and here's her winning entry: "Ticket to Ride expansion using the Ocarina of Time Hyrule map. Yeah, I know I'm creative. Not." Congrats to the winner, and you can still read our impressions of the game below!It's been awhile since we've brought you an Off the Grid post, and we're returning with a special edition where you can actually win the game we're talking about. During the final rounds of this year's Omegathon at PAX '08, Jenga was one of the most exciting things to watch. Which block would they pull out next? Who would topple the tower? Is it cheating to use two hands?USAopoly has been putting out branded versions of popular board games since 1994. They currently produce eight different versions of Jenga including Casino Jenga: Las Vegas Edition, and the timely Jenga: Halloween Edition. The most recent version of the game is Donkey Kong themed, features different colored Marios, pink girders, a spinner, and Pauline (not Princess Peach) who was the damsel in distress in the arcade game. Read all about it after the break, and steady your hand before commenting so you can win one of your very own.
Gaming to Go: Clubhouse Games
Remember checkers? How about chess? And blackjack? What about dominoes? And Shogi and Ludo and Hasami Shogi and Koi-Koi and -- ahem. Don't recognize those last few names? No worries! I didn't know them either. There's still time to learn, however, and this is where Nintendo's Clubhouse Games comes to party. It contains 42 -- yes, 42 -- classic games for your enjoyment, running the gamut from bowling and billiards to Mahjong solitaire and Pig. An incredible amount of variety exists in this tiny DS cart, making Clubhouse Games one of the most involving titles the DS has seen in recent years. The mind-boggling amount of games also makes it ideal for this week's edition of Gaming to Go. Sure, I might not recommend starting up a game of chess on your next lunch break, but why not go for a quick game of Connect Five? Whatever your mood fancies, Clubhouse Games has you covered. Want to hear more? Click that big grey button there to see what you've been missing. NEXT >> #ninbutton { border-style: solid; border-color: #000; border-width: 2px; background-color: #BBB; color: #000; text-decoration: none; width: 100px; text-align: center; padding: 2px 2px 2px 2px; margin: 2px 2px 2px 2px; } .buttontext { color: #000; text-decoration: none; font: bold 14pt Helvetica; } #ninbutton:hover { text-decoration: none; color: #BBB; background-color: #000; } %Gallery-32851% Tick tock of the clock ringing in your ears? Tell your timepiece to shove it! We live busy lives, but remember this: there's always time to game. Check back with Gaming to Go every week for the latest and greatest titles you should spend your precious few minutes with.
According to Hoyle, it's 2009
Encore Software apparently has a time machine, and it's not the one built into Leopard. They have just introduced three new entries in their Hoyle series of Mac games -- Hoyle Puzzle & Board 2009, Hoyle Cards 2009, and Hoyle Casino 2009. Hoyle Puzzle & Board 2009 features puzzle games, including Sudoku, Anagrams, Hangman, Mahjongg, and over 1,200 crossword puzzles. The "Board" part of the game is actually Freeverse's Big Bang Board Games, which includes Backgammon, Checkers, Chess, and four more classic games. You can play against virtual or real opponents, and you gain Hoyle Bucks to purchase new music and backgrounds. Hoyle Cards 2009 has hundreds of card games, and you can now play online against other card sharks in the Royle (sic) Suite. Hoyle Casino gives you slots, roulette, and all of the other casino favorites, now with access to the Royle Suite and online tournaments.The games are available for $19.99 each and require Mac OS X 10.4.10 or later. Be sure to check out the system requirements before you buy, since some of the games require Intel processors, and then party like it's 2009!
Clubhouse Games and Hotel Dusk: new Player's Choice?
We've been hearing word recently of restocks of Clubhouse Games and Hotel Dusk: Room 215, but as CAG forumite worrybomb reveals, the new cartridges are more than a simple reprint. Hotel Dusk has been labeled as a Touch Generations game, for one thing, and both games now sport orange banners with content descriptions (the real one, by the way, is posted after the break, as is the new Clubhouse Games box). Could this be the new iteration of Player's Choice? Both games are now selling for $19.99, and the orange bar evokes the yellow bar of the GameCube/GBA Player's Choice line. It's pretty smart to maintain consistent budget-rerelease marking while also providing info about the games. [Via NeoGAF; the CAG link requires registration]
EVE Online: the board game?!
EVE Online's 'Walking in Stations' expansion isn't the only new way fans will be playing the sci-fi title this winter. CCP Games will also be releasing a 'big box' board game called "EVE: Conquests," suitable for two to four players, which will come with a large fold-out board and cards. However, this game won't come cheap; EVE: Conquests will be priced at a steep $75, putting the game -- and its presumably ornate playing pieces -- out of the reach of most casual players. Pop culture-focused site ICv2 got the scoop on this latest game offering and spoke briefly with CCP's Peter Thorarinsson:"It's got a Euro-style mechanic to it," Thorarinsson said. "It's very easy to learn, but has a very deep game play and a lot of strategy to it." Thorarinsson indicated that no knowledge of the Eve universe would be necessary to play the game, and that although Eve Online players would be a natural audience for it, some gamers would undoubtedly be introduced to the Eve universe for the first time by the board game. In addition to his work on EVE: Conquests, Thorarinsson has been involved with creating the card game "EVE: The Second Genesis." While we're fans of all types of games at Massively, the price that's quoted at ICv2 seems mighty high. For you EVE enthusiasts out there, would you spring for EVE: Conquests to play when you're offline, or is this price tag out of step with your expectations? [Via EVE Stratics]
PAX 2008: Count all the pretty pieces in the tabletop gaming gallery
One of the best things about PAX is that it's not just all about video games. There are legions of people who still enjoy doing it old school, and that includes board games, tabletoppers, and RPGs. We witnessed people playing everything from the massive, sprawling, plastic-fest of Twilight Imperium to the simple wordplay of Apples to Apples. Heck, even the final elimination round of the Omegathon was a Jenga showdown.Check out the gallery below that's filled with people who still love how a pair of dice feels in their hands. To those about to roll, we salute you.%Gallery-30902%
Joystiq hands-on: Hasbro Family Game Night
Stepping into Electronic Arts' "EA3" event last week, we made a beeline for ... Hasbro Family Game Night, passing up the likes of Dead Space, Mirror's Edge, Mercenaries 2, and Tiger Woods Golf 2009: Busted Knee Edition along the way. We know, we know. But who can resist the lure of Battleship, Connect Four, Yahtzee, Boggle, Sorry and its new sibling Sorry Sliders? (Answer: you maybe; not us.) %Gallery-26011%
Quirks: the 1980 board game equivalent of Spore
As you know, we sometimes like to cut the wires and take things Off the Grid, which can lead to bouts of surfing through websites like BoardGameGeek until 5 in the morning ... allegedly ...However, all of that browsing paid off in spades when we stumbled across Quirks, a board game from the magical year of 1980. Looks a bit familiar, doesn't it? We wonder if Will Wright ever sat down with this back in the day. He would have been around 20 years old when it came out, and he's admittedly a huge fan of board and strategy games, so you do the math. Find out more about genetic manipulation in the 80s after the break (spoiler: it wasn't all big hair, bangle bracelets, and friendship pins).
Family Game Night is fun for the family
Remember when your family used to put one night of the week aside to play board games, so that you'd grow closer to one another amongst bouts of innocent fun and mayhem? Yeah, neither do we. Hasbro does, though, which is why the company is bringing six of its most popular board games to the Wii, in one small package. Called Family Game Night (not to be confused with Wii Fanboy's Game Night), this title includes the following classics: Connect Four Yahtzee (not the one that curses a lot) Battleship Boggle Sorry! Sorry! Sliders (who wants to tell EA and Hasbro that this doesn't count as a "sixth" game?) We know that going digital is the wave of the future, but is anyone else slightly against the entire "board games turned video games" genre? Call us old-fashioned, but when we cheat at Battleship, we want to cheat with style -- not by looking at a TV screen. If you think differently, though, keep an eye out for Family Game Night, which will hit European Wiis this fall. [Via press release]
EA announces Hasbro Family Game Night for Wii, PS2
Electronic Arts has finally revealed the fruits of its recent partnership with board game evangelist Hasbro, announcing Hasbro Family Game Night, a collection of classic board games for the Wii and PlayStation 2. Shipping this fall, the game will include a wide assortment of Hasbro properties -- six in all -- from Battleship, Yahtzee, Boggle, and Connect Four to Sorry! and its more recent incarnation in Sorry! Sliders. Purists will be happy to know that they'll be able to play the classic games as they remember, though EA notes that new versions will also be included as well for those looking for a different way to play. In addition, the collection will let players build and decorate a virtual game room, earn trophies, and play various mini-games once they tire of sinking each other's battleships. However, even with support for between two and four players, we doubt the compilation will have us tossing out our boxed favorites just yet, though at least with this game we know we'll never have to go searching though couch cushions for missing pieces before we can play.
Eidos goes on a Brain Voyage
The brain training bandwagon has gotten increasingly crowded over the last year, with everyone and their brother seemingly thinking it's their duty to churn out interactive tools to help the cerebrally infirm. The latest company to climb on board is Eidos with Brain Voyage, a new "stylish and challenging" noodle puzzler coming to the Nintendo DS later this year.For board game enthusiasts, the game features "ingenious" puzzles designed by noted German game designer Dr. Reiner Knizia, known for such board games as Amun-Re, Modern Art, and Lord of the Rings. As for what sorts of puzzles we can expect, Eidos notes that the game will feature a sort of globe trotting mechanic, as players ponder 80 different geographically-relevant puzzles "ranging from easy to elaborately ambitious." Details remain cloudy on how exactly these puzzles will work, though that could simply be a side effect of our mental faculties being on increasingly shaky ground.
