Dale Yu: First Impressions of Zombie Teenz Evolution

Posted on December 10, 2020 by Dale Yu

Zombie Teenz Evolution

  • Designer: Anick Lobet
  • Publisher: Scorpion Masque
  • Players: 2-4
  • Age: 8+
  • Time: 15-20 mins per game (so far)
  • Played on review copy provided by Scorpion Masque

Well, one of the things about legacy games is that they are really hard to review!  The whole point of them (at least IMHO) is the discovery of the secret twists and surprises put in the box by the designer.  For the most part, there’s no way to talk about those things in a review without ruining the surprise for the reader – so… what is there to talk about?  Well, I think there is still value in talking about the game, the theme, and the system so that people can try to figure out if this is something they even want to get involved with.  After all, most legacy games require the group to play a number of games in order to complete the story arc. Continue reading →

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Weekly Giveaway #2 – Star Wars Unlock!

Posted on December 9, 2020 by Dale Yu

OK, we’ve spent a lot of time this year writing up reviews, and frankly, there’s not enough room in the Gaming Basement for all of them…. So, we thought it would be a neat idea to start a series of weekly giveaways where our loyal readers can enter in raffles to win these games! We’d love to see the games end up in homes where they can get played and enjoyed!

First up – Star Wars Unlock!– you can read our review here!

Unfortunately, for the time being, we’re going to limit this to US mailing addresses only. Given the cost of international shipping right now – it might actually cost us more than the value of the game to mail it abroad – and well, we don’t have the budget for that… As long as the game fits into a USPS flat rate box, that’s likely how we’re going to send it to you… Continue reading →

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Dale Yu: Re-Review of Detective: Season One (Spoiler Free)

Posted on December 9, 2020 by Dale Yu

Detective: Season One

  • Designers: Ignacy Trzewiczek, Merry Nowak-Trzewiczek Weronika Spyra
  • Publisher: Portal Games
  • Players: 1-5
  • Age: 12+
  • Time: 90-120 mins per case, 3 cases in box
  • Played with review copy provided by Portal Games

TL;DR from the box – “Detective: Season One is a fully cooperative, deeply immersive, board game in which 1 to 5 players take on the roles of investigators trying to solve a crime. It consists of 3 stand-alone cases that can be played in around 90 minutes each. Each of the cases challenges players with different settings and case styles”.  The game is a descendant of the original Detective game from 2018.

Continue reading →

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Dale Yu: First Impressions of Photosynthesis Under The Moonlight Expansion

Posted on December 8, 2020 by Dale Yu

Photosynthesis: Under the Moonlight Expansion

  • Designer: Hjalmar Hach
  • Publisher: Blue Orange
  • Players: 2-4
  • Age: 10+
  • Time: 60 minutes per game
  • Played with review copy provided by Blue Orange USA

Photosynthesis was one of the games that really captured my attention in 2017 – the combination of the strategy of placing the trees combined with the beauty of the 3D cardboard trees on the board made it a very captivating experience.  I reviewed a final prototype of the game way back when – you can read it here. Continue reading →

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10 Great Games from the 00’s

Posted on December 7, 2020 by huzonfirst

Here at the Opinionated Gamers, we love our new and shiny games.  But we also have plenty of older favorites.  Even some that are–dare we say it?–more than 10 years old!  So let’s see what we think are the best of those golden oldies.

Today’s article is part of our “10 Great” series that features 10 great games in a given subcategory.  A mechanic, theme, publisher, etc., is chosen and we all vote behind the scenes to create a list of 10 great games that meet the criteria.  In this instance, we all voted for our favorite games published between the years 2000 and 2009.

The Methodology

Each OG writer was given the chance to vote for up to 10 games.  Their top choice was worth 15 points, second place was worth 14 points, and so on, all the way down to the tenth pick, which was worth 6 points.  Voters also indicated whether or not they had played each of the listed games.  All of the points were tallied up and our top picks made the article.

For this election, 20 OGers made selections and 59 different games got at least one vote.

In the summary of the results, there are references to Gold, Silver, and Bronze votes.  These represent the number of voters who made that game their first, second, or third choice, respectively.

So let’s see what our favorite games from the 00’s are!

Continue reading →
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Alan How – Review of Dwellings of Eldervale

Posted on December 4, 2020 by Dale Yu

Dwellings of Eldervale

  • Designer: Luke Laurie
  • Publisher: Breaking Games
  • Players: 1-5
  • Age: 14+
  • Time: 60-150 minutes

The first thing you’ll notice about the game is the size of the game box. It’s on the large side and you’d be right in assuming that it contains miniatures, (mainly monsters) as is de rigueur for many Kickstarter projects these days. The number depends on what version you acquired, but either way you will see a bunch of miniatures and then a huge number of other elements in the game.

Continue reading →

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