The Final Days of Nintendo Online

It is once again a dark day for gaming.  Nintendo’s last bastion of online gaming, the WiiU and 3DS, has now been shut down like the Wii and DS before it.  The only thing keeping Nintendo in people’s good graces is no more and this time there’s no excuse like the shenanigans with Gamespy that I’m aware of.

Resident Evil 2: The Board Game Review

Video games making a transition to tabletop games is as old as the games themselves, dating all the way back to the Pac Man board game.  With enough effort into the design, some of them work really well, like the Doom board game (both the old one and the one based on the remake from Fantasy Flight Games) or the Exceed system putting Street Fighter and Shovel Knight characters in the game.

Being a Resident Evil fan, I’m fond of the Resident Evil Deck Building Game, a highly customizable card game about inventory management featuring screenshots, characters and monsters spanning all the Resident Evil games up to 5.  I have 4 of the 5 sets available and it’s a great game I never run out of new ways to play with.

After seeing how well Resident Evil could be made into a deck builder, I was really intrigued about the Resident Evil 2 board game by Steamforged Games, who previously made the Dark Souls board game.  I haven’t played that one, in fact I haven’t played any of the Dark Souls video games either, but from what I can tell audience reactions were mixed.  Looking past that, the developer’s blog detailing the way the RE2 board game translates the video game as well as how they balanced and tested it really drew me in with the level of detail and thought they were putting into the board game.

I wanted to contribute to the Kickstarter, but was only one week late for the deadline by the time I even found out it existed so I ended up getting the core game and the “B-files” expansion at retail prices online because it doesn’t seem like any game stores are selling it yet.  Being a highly detailed board game, it costs a premium.  In total those two boxes cost me $130 dollars and that was after I found lower prices and got some shipping and tax off.  How much it’s really worth will vary from person to person, but even if it’s a bad game, it might be worth it for the collector’s value.  It’s a good thing then that it’s a great game as well.

Top 10 Stupidest Resident Evil Moments

Resident Evil has a reputation for being badly written and stupid, something I don't think it deserves.  The games have more strong emotional moments, badass moments and detailed lore than people give it credit for. Heroes, villains and the monsters in between them are well-established and have some good relationship building and continuity.  I can unironically say that a big part of why I like the Resident Evil games is for the story.

But I cannot pretend that Resident Evil doesn't have its bouts of stupidity, as if the concept of viruses being astoudingly mutagenic weren't outlandish enough.  Bad writing, bad delivery, bizarre concepts or awkward handling of situations are where its reputation comes from and regardless of whether it's exaggerated by the general public, it is still a part of what makes Resident Evil what it is.  As a sort of demonstration and celebration, this is my top 10 stupidest Resident Evil moments.