May 2012
5 posts
2 tags
Teaser: S2E4
Poor, impressionable Quinns has been seduced. He is taken… and he forgets.
And what of Paul? Where is he? He has come to no harm, I hope.
Music is Good Morning, Captain by Slint.
4 tags
Guest review: Belfort
(Paul: Hey hey hey, what’s this? For a while Quinns and I were discussing the idea of guest reviews, where we ask certain particularly sexy contributors if they’d like to take a spot on the blog. For our very first, we’re delighted to host the excellent Ludocracy Now, a wonderful group of gamers who you may remember tried to muscle in on our last show. This time, we’re...
4 tags
Review: The Castles of Burgundy
Paul: Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Oh, Jesus! That looks like the lovechild of a maths textbook and hotel room art. I’m not having that in my house.”
Hold on. The Castles of Burgundy, which casts 2-4 players as the holders of estates in medieval France, has the whole board game community bleating with quiet joy. We absolutely had to get hold of a copy and try it out. You know...
4 tags
The "Podcast"
Paul: What is this?! Why, it’s the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast! And it’s also available right here as an mp3. At last, you can enjoy SU&SD while shelling crabs, or during an exceptionally banal bout of lovemaking.
As our chat bubbles (and meanders) like a mountain stream, we touch on games we haven’t reviewed yet (and why), some of our viewer responses, beautiful...
3 tags
Impressions: April
Quinns: We’re trying a new format! Sometimes Paul and I don’t have time to assemble a true, riotous review, but we are always playing new games, our bodies like a pair of unreliable steam engines powered by a smouldering pile of cardstock. So how about this: a quick’n’dirty roundup of the best games we tried last month.
Click on through, then, for some impressions of...
April 2012
3 posts
3 tags
Season 2, Episode 3: The Show
Following literally hours of preparation and filming, the night of SU&SD’s television debut is upon us. There’s just one problem. The boys have to get home first.
Come with us, noble viewer, on a journey through the darkest ventricle of London’s black heart. Or just come for the board game reviews. We’ve got loads of them!
02:25 - The Walking Dead: The Board Game...
4 tags
Teaser: "The Show"
Season 2, Episode 3 is upon us, and… what’s this? Are the boys trapped in a deadly game, forced to play for their very lives?
That doesn’t sound like much fun. We’d expect a negative review, if we were you.
(The music is War Drums by Quakers.)
4 tags
Review: Fiasco
Quinns: Listen up, ladies. Fiasco: A Game of Powerful Ambition & Poor Impulse Control (which you can buy from that same link) is very much outside the realm of what we usually cover. It’s a two hour table game, but it has no cards, cardboard, winners or losers. It has almost no rules. But despite that, it’s perhaps the best game you’ve never even conceived of.
All you’re paying for here is...
March 2012
4 posts
4 tags
Review: The Mines of Zavandor
Quinns: CAPITALISM! It’s what’s for dinner. Paul: It’s what’s for dessert, surely, especially if it’s about excess. The Mines of Zavandor is just the kind of cash-clutching economy management we can put all of our pasty weight behind. That’s because it treats running a business with the same giddy lack of dignity as J.K. Rowling gave to the arcane.
[[MORE]]The Dwarf king is...
4 tags
Season 2, Episode 2: The 2-Player Special
Oh my GOODNESS! The latest episode of internet sensation Shut Up & Sit Down is all about 2 player games, and it’s definitely not for kids. Watch as Team SU&SD smoke, spit, sneeze and sass their way towards discovering their favourite “dueling” game. Whoah! Did you say there’s five reviews in this one? Impossible!
01:51 - Cold War: CIA Vs. KGB review
07:49 -...
4 tags
Teaser: The two-player special
Coming very soon to a browser window near you, the second episode of our second season is all about… the number two. We’re devoting the whole episode to two-player games or, as we like to call them, dueling games, and we’ll be looking at some of the finest face-offs that board gaming has to offer.
Prepare yourself…
(The music this trailer features is Temecula Sunrise,...
5 tags
Review: Kingsburg
Paul: So, you know that Merchants & Marauders game we looked at a couple of weeks back? Well, we didn’t. I was desperate to get my pirate paws on it and Quinns went ahead and played it without me. You know why? His excuse was that I was ill. That’s not an excuse, that’s just exploiting a good man’s sickness. I could’ve been dying, and there he was, laughing over a game that I could only...
February 2012
4 posts
5 tags
Review: Red November
Quinns: Myself and Paul don’t talk much about how Shut Up & Sit Down’s episodes are made, for much the same reason that we don’t talk about times when we’ve fallen over while trying to climb stairs two at a time. We have, in the past, spent whole afternoons thinking we were turning the camera on when we were really it off, resulting in hours of captivating footage of our crotches...
7 tags
Review: Merchants & Marauders
Quinns: Rum! Guns! Thievery and corruption! Broadsides and boarding actions, executed by daring captains, their magnificent ships reeking of fragrant spices and tobacco. A glittering sea, taken to foul moods and murderous storms. Sharks! MONEY! Ain’t no backdrop like the 18th century Caribbean. If only there was a board game set amongst all this.
Oh wait!
In our last episode we said we...
5 tags
Season 2, Episode 1: High Rollers
We’re BACK! What’s changed? Not much! We’re still straining like weightlifters to bring you the best board game reviews this side of the moon, and you should still relax, grab a glass of your favourite beverage and enjoy. This episode we’ve got a huge game, a brilliant game AND a party game! Come see.
02:37 - Fortune & Glory review
11:08 - K2 review
15:57 - Pipe...
5 tags
Review: The Pyramid of Horus
Quinns: We’re always squealing about smart games here at SU&SD. I’m guessing actually reading our site is a bit like untying the knot of a balloon with IMTELLIGENCE written on the side and having it noisily exhale into your face for hours on end. Which is misleading, because we love stupid games too. “WHICH ONES,” you cry, anxious to get to the bottom of this unsettling...
January 2012
3 posts
5 tags
Paul's Nostalgia Trip
Imagine Paul sat by a crackling fire, speaking calmly to you in his warm, academic, almost mahogany voice…
In fifty years time I shall be a very wrinkly and very old man, but all the stats suggest I’ll still be very much alive and, I imagine, probably still playing board games too. I imagine myself sat with the odd youngster now and then, perhaps grandchildren, great nephews, or just...
5 tags
Excitement: The Top 10 Games Coming in 2012
Paul: If 2011 didn’t spoil us enough with board games, it looks like 2012 will. Below we present our top ten games coming this year. Ten whole games! That’s a towering collection, a veritable Cleopatra’s needle, so you lot had better start commissioning specially-constructed barges to ferry those needles home to you. Games barges. For these towering games needles. Yes.
One thing’s for sure,...
5 tags
Review: Dungeon Run
Quinns: The idea behind Dungeon Run is as sharp and alluring as a crescent moon. Up to six players control heroes running (of course!) through a monster-packed dungeon (yep!) on a breakneck quest to locate a huge dungeon boss, break its neck and snatch the all-powerful relic known as the Summoning Stone from its still-twitching claws. …which is where the action takes off, because...
December 2011
4 posts
5 tags
Episode 7: The Christmas Special
Come all ye gentlemen. Come ye ladies, too! The boys have released their Christmas Special, a frantic fumble with the quirky lady of board games. We’ve got dice games, solitaire games, print’n’play games, classics and MORE!
02:12 - Quarriors review
09:44 - Christmas… is… ruined?!
10:52 - Phantom Leader review
13:57 - Print’n’Play reviews
26:29 -...
4 tags
Review: Pictomania
Paul: Draw Christmas, without drawing a Christmas tree. How would you do it? The clock is ticking. Tick tock, tick tock. Tick. Tock. Maybe you’d draw a Christmas dinner! Of course! Wait, no, what you’ve drawn looks like the Last Supper fix it QUICKLY NOW oh dear too late everyone’s finished and you didn’t even bother trying to guess what they were drawing-
Quinns: Don’t be difficult. You’re...
4 tags
Review: A Game of Thrones
Quinns: This month saw the release of a beautiful new edition of the Game of Thrones board game, a game of duplicity and scheming that, according to rumours, is so mean it’s actually capable of damaging friendships. Yesterday Paul and I played it, and today we seek to answer two very serious questions. One, should you buy it? And two, following his incredible defeat, will Paul manage to...
6 tags
It's war: Player Interaction
Quinns: There’s a WAR ON here at SU&SD. A disagreement of olympic proportions. You see, I think board games should be about interacting with one another, and Paul is an asshole. I’ll let him explain. Paul: Quinns is not a fan of certain kinds of games. Worker placement games, games where the players are a bit more independent, or games where players are otherwise free to act...
November 2011
3 posts
4 tags
Episode 6: The Vlaada Chvátil Special
A whole episode about one board game designer?! Have the boys found true love? Or have they just had too many cups of tea? One thing’s for certain - they’re getting pretty good at this video review business.
02:39 - Dungeon Lords review
11:22 - Bunny Bunny Moose Moose review
15:59 - Vlaada News! Ft. previews of Mage Knight, Dungeon Petz & Pictomania
22:05 - Galaxy Trucker...
5 tags
Review: Dixit
Quinns: I’m going to go ahead and stick my fork-like opinion into your ribeye reality, here- Paul: That’s disgusting. Quinns: Dixit is a multi-award winning game that everyone should know about. An honest-to-god revelation. That’s because where most board games test your logic, wit, or even dexterity, Dixit tests your ability to toy with the imagination of your friends. Imagine you were...
4 tags
Review: Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space
Quinns: We didn’t provide the most glowing of reviews in our recent Halloween Special, which raises a question. What would we actually choose to play on Halloween here at SU&SD? Absolute no brainer. Say hello to Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space. Not only is it much smaller and cheaper than Arkham Horror, while Arkham has a grim setting, this game is genuinely horrible. All you’ll find in...
October 2011
5 posts
4 tags
Episode 5½: The Halloween Special
The rumours… they’re all true. Say “Hallo” to our first ever Halloween Special! It’s a little shorter than we usually manage, but that’s only because we’re working so hard on Episode 6.
Happy Halloween, everybody.
4 tags
It's Out: The Summoner Wars Master Set
Oh my GOODNESS! If you’ve watched Episode 3: Civil Surface you’ll have seen us squeaking about a great little two-player game called Summoner Wars. Well, it’s just gained some weight. The luxurious Master Set is now on sale, containing everything you need to play, a “premium board” (read: an actual board) and six all-new races to play.
Prior to this your only...
4 tags
Review: Black Gold
Quinns: We know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “SU&SD, what I really want is a board game about being an oil prospector, except with all the tension and exclusively brutal interaction of a wrestling match.” Well today’s your lucky day! We’re reviewing Black Gold, a game of racing across Texas in a pick-up truck, trying to build wells before your opponents, as well as fierce, ...
4 tags
Episode 5: The Sci-Fi Special
In this unholy union of “cardboard” and “the future”, the boys review their three favourite sci-fi games on a dangerous journey through time and space. Will they make it home in one piece? Now, that would be telling…
03:22 - Twilight Imperium review
14:30 - Race for the Galaxy review
25:01 - Space Alert review
33:01 - The end… or IS IT?
3 tags
Episode 5: The Trailer
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September 2011
4 posts
4 tags
Review: Fury of Dracula
Quinns: Did you ever play hide and seek as a kid? Do you remember the hysterical thrill of wedging yourself under the bed, trying to control the unbelievable noise of your own lungs? Or being the hunter, creeping through a familiar environment with carbonated anticipation tingling along your veins? Because I’m inclined to call board game Fury of Dracula hide and seek for adults. This is a...
4 tags
Review: Zombies!!!
(Photo credit: verminose on BoardGameGeek.)
We’ve reviewed a lot of smart games lately, a lot of intricate and very cleverly designed ones. Let me tell you, we have some even smarter and even bigger ones coming too, with all sorts of clever twists, but sometimes size isn’t everything. Sometimes smarts aren’t everything, either. It’s not always about brains, you know.
...
5 tags
Episode 4: Deal With It
In this cramped episode of Shut Up & Sit Down the boys swing their industrial spotlight in the direction of card games, with reviews of Dominion, 7 Wonders and Nightfall. But that’s not all! We’ve also got Games News and the exotic debut of SU&SD’s Lonely Hearts.
2:56 - Dominion review
10:17 - Shut Up & Sit Down’s Lonely Hearts
14:37 - 7 Wonders review
...
5 tags
Review: Condottiere
It says right there on the Shut Up & Sit Down About page that we love games that’ll let us do a bit of scowling. Well, packed within Condottiere’s tiny box* are more scowls than in a whole month of Mondays. Feel like buying yourself a cheeky little game this week? This is the one. This game? It’s a gem.
HISTORY LESSON! Oh, I’ll make you wish you’d never clicked Read...
August 2011
6 posts
5 tags
Our guide to: Rules Explanations
Quinns: The other day I was perched on a windowsill and talking to myself. Nothing strange there, then, but what’s (comparably) interesting is what I was saying to myself. I was explaining the rules of a card game, as if to a group of first-time players. I had people coming over that evening and I wanted to make sure I could explain the rules as smoothly and quickly as possible.
Is ...
4 tags
Review: Stone Age
Quinns: We’re positive guys here at SU&SD. If you were to ask us what animal we resemble, it would be a seagull, except a strange, mutant seagull that must tell people about wonderful games. “GAMS,” it would screech as it divebombed children and the elderly alike, its reedy vocal chords inadequate for the task of human pronunciation. “GAMS! GAMS!” Talking about a game that we...
4 tags
Episode 3: Civil Surface
The government’s banned board games, and the boys are outraged. Their resistance movement can’t possibly fail. Or can it? Grab a glass of your favourite beverage, click play and find out.
2:18 - We review our first party game
10:41 - Pipe Down & Take a Chair
16:56 - We review our first “Classic”
24:30 - We review… for our very lives
6 tags
Floating round my tin can
For me, writing and filming SU&SD is an exercise that frequently swings between excitement and painful nostalgia, a bit like a pendulum that strikes you in the balls on every arc. Or like one of those Newton’s Cradles that strikes you in the balls on every arc. Or like pretty much anything that strikes you in the balls regularly.
The problem I have is that every other game I want to...
4 tags
Review: Ghost Stories
If you’ve watched Episode 1 you’ll have seen a sneaky cameo of the above beauty. Ghost Stories, by Antoine Bauza. Seeing as we only used it for a quick gag, I appreciate some of you may have been left out in the cold, alone, aroused, and hungry for more. Both you and this game deserve better. Click through the jump for our review of Ghost Stories. Ghost Stories is a co-operative game...
4 tags
Keep Calm and Carry A Flamethrower
Hello, my Lindels! There are far too many games on the horizon that look positively incredibells. Here’s another one landing in the next few months: Panic Station.
Trust no-one and fear everything in a CO-OPERATIVE NIGHTMARE!? I think I need a lie down. As for the actual game, OK- when was the last time you watched The Thing?
In the excellent Pattern Recognition, William Gibson...
July 2011
9 posts
4 tags
We Have To Go Cheaper
Paul and I get asked all the time where to start with boardgaming. People want to get into the hobby, but at the time of writing there are 52,942 games listed on the BoardGameGeek.com database. Which one should they buy first?
Until now, Paul and I would produce answers like two men fumbling meat products out of an open window. “Uh, you could try Pandemic? No, Settlers of Catan.”...
4 tags
Episode 2: Descending Deeper
Oh my goodness, it’s out, and it’s almost entirely devoted to one ginormous, mind-bogglingly big board game. Take a deep breath and press play.
3:16 - Our descent into Descent
10:22 - Breaking news from the studio
13:02 - Descent’s expansions
25:15 - An aside: DungeonQuest
4 tags
A Terry Pratchett Double Bill
Whether you’re a fan of the irreverent English fantasy author, or simply enjoy a game with a nice solid example of punctuation in its name, you can look forward to the release of a brace of titles this season.
Discworld: Ankh-Morpork is a two to four player game set for release from Treefrog Games in September and challenges players to try and take control of the famous fantasy city...
4 tags
Runewars just got even more epic
It was only the other day that Quinns and I were lamenting the lack of love that the gaming community seems to have for Runewars. I think this is a great game of grand fantasy strategy, but I don’t know many gamers who have a copy, nor many shops who stock it. For a little while I held a terrible fear that it would fall by the wayside and I spent more than a few sleepless nights clutching...
4 tags
Grievous Ninjury
You know what I’d love to see this year? A board game about sneaking into a fortress as a ninja in feudal Japan.
Ah, if only that was happening.
Oh, shit! Wait! Not only is it happening, we’re getting two competing ones. Fight! Fight! Fight!
First up, let me introduce you to Ninjato from Z-Man games. That’s the board you can see above, but we can do one better than that. As...
4 tags
Overlorded
Quinns: If you’ve watched episode 1 you’ll have seen Paul and myself getting a bit too excited about WW2 strategy game Memoir ‘44. It’s a two player game, but an expansion, Overlord, turns it into a team game where up to eight players can fight a battle that makes the original game look as pathetic as two consenting adults splashing water at one another in a bath. Here’s an Overlord scenario...
4 tags
Flipping great
I appreciate that, for a lot of people, this whole board game thing is still a bit mystifying. When we say we enjoy board gaming that might call to mind Monopoly*, Cluedo or, worse still, kids’ games like Snakes and Ladders. Why on earth would we want to play things like that? Well, we don’t, and for exactly the same reason everyone else doesn’t: They’re boring as hell. But...
3 tags
Robot Rock
My mum’s attic is a narrow crawlspace some four feet high and seventy feet long. If you imagine poking around inside a building’s intestine, you’re most of the way there. I was up there the other month, scrambling around on my hands and knees and squinting through sweat and dust when I found exactly what I was looking for. A box containing my old copy of RoboRally. Hell yes!
A...
Episode 1: Go!
Say hello to Shut Up & Sit Down, Episode 1. We made it because we love you.
4:43 - Citadels review
11:29 - Our guide to Ghost Stories
15:02 - Memoir ‘44 review