Ramblings from the Marginalized

For the past few days a friend and I have been trying to take down the ultimate boss monster in Borderlands: Crawmerax.

This gigantic craw wurm is the baddest boss in the game and fights at level 64 while the players are capped at level 61. He is surrounded by level 61 craw wurms and craw maggots that will tear you to shreds! One swipe from the giant beast is often enough to leave you fighting for your life.

How did I beat this bad boss? Well, I cheated.

See, there is a glitch area in the boss encounter that causes the big guy to freeze in place and roar. Not only does it freeze him but it also freezes all the lesser craw critters as well. Check the video o see how it is done.

PS: After you defeat him make sure a friend is around to join your game because he drops more loot than one player can carry!

Happy hunting!

• Misery Loves Company
• Guns, Guns, Guns
• Hiro’s Paradox
• 5 Tips To Keep Your Woman Happy
• Is GameStop killing the video game industry?

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Rockstar Games, a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO), is proud to announce the ‘Outlaws To The End’ Co-Op multiplayer Mission Pack for Red Dead Redemption. Available FREE this June simultaneously for Xbox LIVE® and PlayStation® Network, this brand new co-op mode adds an entirely new dimension to Red Dead Redemption’s game play.

“Multiplayer in Red Dead Redemption offers players a whole new way to encounter the massive open world we’ve created, but we felt the experience would not be complete without co-op game play,” said Sam Houser, Founder of Rockstar Games. “With these missions, we wanted to create new ways for players to share in the experience of engaging with this amazing landscape.”

One of three downloadable content packs, the ‘Outlaws To The End’ Co-Op Mission Pack features six all-new multiplayer missions full of outlaws, epic gunfights, and revolution for 2-4 players. The ‘Outlaws to the End’ Co-Op Mission Pack offers additional multiplayer XP rewards and brand new Achievements and Trophies to unlock. These six explosive and epic missions will play out across the game world, including:

“Walton’s Gold”

Walton’s Gang have taken control of a mining camp rich with gold. Fight through the camp and load your mine cart with as much gold as you can carry and get out as fast as you can – Walton’s boys have rigged the place to blow.

“The River”

Ride a raft down river, taking out rebel encampments along the way until you reach the rebel stronghold of Nosalida and a final epic battle for the town’s massive weapons caches. Watch out for Gatling gun-equipped enemy rafts.

“Ammunition”

The Mexican Army has the town of Tesoro Azul under siege. Storm the gates under heavy cannon, Gatling gun and sniper fire to destroy the Mexican artillery placements.

Go to www.rockstargames.com/reddeadredemption for more information. Stay tuned for news about two additional downloadable content updates for release later this summer.

• Getting Ready For Red Dead Redemption: Jonah Hex
• The End is Near, Are You Ready?
• 10 facts about Nintendo’s first half of 2007
• Rock Band Coming to Wii on June 22, 2008
• Stormtroopers Will Invade New Milford’s ‘Relay For Life’

A few months back I reported on the Black Wii hitting European shores. Those of us in North America can now rejoice for not only has the black Wii come to the Americas but it has arrived with extra goodies!

While keeping with the $199 price point Nintendo has increaded the value of the base system by adding in Wii Sports Resort and a Motion Plus accessory. This equates to about a $50 value.

The add-ons are available with all new Wii systems, both black and white. While some fans may be disappointed that the Wii has not moved on from 480P most new buyers will be happy for the increased amount of loot available with the console.

With global sales of over 70 million units sold (topped only my the Nintendo DS at 130 million) I just don't know how many new buyers Nintendo is going to get for their hardware. For comparison the Xbox 360 has not even broke 40 million units sold and it came out a year before the Wii. Then again, the long-lived PS2 sold over 140 million units so who knows?

To quickly recap the new Nintendo Wii bundle includes a black or white Wii unit, one controller, one nunchuk, one motion plus, Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort all for only $199. Expect the previous bundle to drop about $20 or more as retailers attempt to move them off of their shelves.

• Black Wii Coming To Europe!
• The Fort Dix MP
• Nintendo Goes Blue
• Dell Black Friday Deals
• KPC – The $199 Linux PC

On December 2, 2009 Pokemon International released the Pokémon Trading Card Game (TCG): Rumble to coincide with the release of the Pokemon Rumble game on WiiWare. This game combines TCG strategy with a board game presentation, is fully compatible with all of your existing Pokémon Trading Card Game (TCG) cards and can be played with two to seven players.

The box contains 16 cards (same in every box), a set of energy dice, a targeting die, a Battle Royale Playmat, 14 player markers (two per player), and rules. The 16 cards are from an exclusive Pokémon Rumble set that can only be acquired in this box and each card has a foil Pokémon Rumble logo imprinted on it.

The game begins by laying out the Battle Royale Playmat and placing Pokemon cards (one face-up and one face-down) on each of the seven slots on the playmat. Players then take turns placing their player markers (max of two per slot, can't double up your own marker) on the playmat. The player markers have either a three or a five on the back side and these numbers come into play when the game ends for scoring purposes.

On a player's turn the four energy dice are rolled. The dice are six-siders that have a dash on one side and various energy symbols on the other five faces. There is also a special energy symbol that can be used as any type of energy. After rolling the dice the player scans the Pokémon on the playmat (not just ones with his/her marker) and chooses which attack to use. For example Rattata can use Bite for 20 damage at a cost of two colorless energy and Pikachu can use Volt Tackle which can cause 60 damage to another Pokémon but also causes 10 damage to Pikachu for a cost of one electric and two colorless energy. If both of these Pokémon are on the playmat and a player rolls enough energy they can use either of these attacks to injure or knock out other Pokémon.

After choosing what attack to use from which Pokémon a special red target die is cast. This is another six-sided die that is numbered from one to three (three ones, two twos, one three) and decides which Pokemon is hit with the attack. All attacks are made in a clockwise direction and the Pokémon launching the attack can not attack itself.

After rolling the target die and seeing which Pokemon is hit weaknesses and resistances are taken into consideration. This part of the game works exactly the same as the standard TCG system. When a Pokémon is weak or strong against an attack they suffer more or less damage. If a Pokémon is not knocked out from an attack, damage counters are placed on the card. If a Pokémon is knocked out from the attack the attacking player takes the card and flips the remaining card face-up. If that was the last Pokémon in that slot then the slot remains empty and is ignored for the rest of the game.

There are two ways for the game to end: If only one player still has markers on the playmat or if only one pile of Pokémon still has player markers on it. When the game ends any remaining player markers on the playmat are given back to their respective players and the number on the back is added to their score along with one point per Pokémon defeated. If a player knocked-out four Pokémon then four points would be added to their score. If this same player had their three point marker on the playmat at the end of the game their score would now be seven (four Pokémon + three point player marker). The player with the highest score is the winner.

The cards in the game are 100% compatible with the existing Pokémon TCG cards but not all Pokémon TCG cards can be used in Pokémon Trading Card Game (TCG): Rumble. Any Pokémon that requires more than four energy for its attacks can not be used due to the number of dice in the game. Also special effects are not used in this game so Pokémon who rely on such things will be less powerful.

All in all I have to say that we played the game and found it enjoyable. The game is weighted more towards luck than strategy (dice) but some basic strategic skills will help. The learning curve is very low and even though the game suggests players be 10 or older this game can easily be played with younger players who enjoy collecting the Pokémon Trading Cards but are not able to play the game.

Put this one on your holiday shopping list for your Pokemon fans!

As an added bonus Pokémon International has also released a new collector tin for the holiday season. The Arceus tin is available now and includes a special foil Lv. X Arceus card and four booster packs from recent sets.

You can purchase this game through Funagain Games.

This is cross-posted on PokeFarm

• How I joined the Pokemon Cult
• Pokemon: In-game advertising
• Storage Update Hits Wii
• Pokemon Battle Revolution: First Glance
• Wii Preview: Pokemon Battle Revolution sprites

I've begun to notice something in my gaming life; misery loves company.

I know what your thinking, “that's an old saying Steve so what are you talking about?” If you give me a few minutes of your time I'll try and explain it.

As a child of the American 70's and 80's I grew up with the likes of Parker Brothers, Milton Bradley, Avalon Hill, and in later years Nintendo. Most of the board games I played were player vs. player. The only exceptions would be role playing games but even when I played those games I more often than not ran the games as opposed to being a player in them. For all practical purposes I was always playing single player against the game (in the case of video games) or against a group of others (board and RPG games.)

In recent years more cooperative board games have appeared on the market and I've tried a few. It can often be hard to get a group of players together once you advance in years and move into family life. Yes, you have your family to play games with but you can only play so many games with children before your head explodes!

For me the only real outlet for group gaming has been video games. It is also an outlet that has only recently moved me into the world of cooperative group gaming. Whether it be an FPS or a rhythm game I have found that as fun as these games are when you play them solo the fun factor increases exponentially with each additional player.

Let's take the Rock Band franchise for example. I can do a pretty decent job playing the game on medium difficulty by myself but it's not really fun to play it solo. It is much more fun to have a group of friends (or in my case kids) over and jam out as a band, switching instruments between songs. Even though I can't carry a note in a bucket I still have fun making noise into a microphone while the others jam out on their instruments. It doesn't matter whether we five star the song or barely squeak by, as long as we live or die together we all have fun. Yes, even when we lose we still have fun.

Which brings me to the world of FPS gaming, something I do with my older (though still not as old as me) friends. Last night I got a chance to play Borderlands in co-op mode with a friend of mine who lives several states away. We had our crappy 360 wired headsets on (why most the wireless one be so expensive?) and we were chatting back and forth as we played.

Now I have some friends who play the more realistic war themed FPS games but I never noticed them having a lot of fun. What I would notice is a whole bunch of yelling, screaming and passing the blame around after a mission would start to go wrong. Because this was my main exposure to the genre my interest in it was always lukewarm at best. It all changed last night.

We started off on the wrong foot when both of us chose the same character to play as. Having two skinny guys running around with sniper rifles did not make for a very balanced game. While we were very good at killing things long range we were not so good at killing things at close range. I'm not sure how often we died or how many times each of us died but we re-spawned a lot.

This is when I had my little epiphany. When you play a group game against the game (as opposed to other people) it's not that stressful. Neither one of us were complaining about the other player's complete lack of tactics or ability to coordinate attacks. In fact just the opposite was true. As we were getting our asses handed to us by a guy with a bunch of bones on his head we were laughing and cracking jokes. When one of us would go too far ahead and then come charging right back followed by a pack of angry critters there was no name calling or other abusive behavior. Even when healing packs would appear on screen both of us would quickly look at our health bars and quickly decide on who needed it most. Due to the shared XP system of Borderlands neither one of us complained when the other would steal our kill. Well, except for one time when one of us was trying to kill someone for a Second Wind and other did him in but, we don't talk about that anymore.

My point is that it was not just our shared victory that kept us playing but also our shared misery. No one wants to feel like a third wheel and because our skill levels were very close neither one of us felt that way. When one of us died the other was soon to follow.

It was this simple reality that made our game fun. We were losing miserably but we were losing together. Neither one of us was dragging the other down just as neither one of us was consistently saving the other.

It is this shared misery that is often missing from many games. Nothing is worse than going to your friends to ask them about a boss battle only to have them tell you it was a cakewalk and that there must be something wrong with you if you can't defeat the bad guy. When you play single player it is you against the game. When you play co-op it is us against the game and for some reason when you lose as a group it doesn't sting nearly as bad as when you lose on your own.

• Ed Whitacre to retire from at&t
• Work From Home? No Startup Money? OMG!
• When did Jenny become a plumber?
• Why Blu-ray will fail
• Kingston Technology Celebrates 20 Years of Memory

I recently picked up a copy of the game Borderlands for the Xbox 360. When I first heard about this game I was excited. Shortly after reading about the game I began to become skeptical. What at first looked like pure awesome had begun to look like only partial awesome.

What made me change my mind about the game? It was the fear that it would be too much like Sacred 2: Fallen Angel. While I do enjoy playing Sacred 2: Fallen Angel I have to admit that as a single player game Sacred 2: Fallen Angel is bad. What is fun with a friends is not so much fun when played solo. It was this fear that kept me from pre-ordering Borderlands when the opportunity arose.
Now that I own and have logged several hours into Borderlands I have to say that it is not entirely fair to put this game in the same group as Sacred 2: Fallen Angel. While games have similarities (random loot generation, single and multi-player modes, set classes that are customized as you level up, quests, and weapon mods) they also have a few things that make them different (FPS vs isometric, local split screen versus local shared screen, fantasy vs futuristic wasteland). It is these differences that keep my interest level up.

I admit to being a fan of wasteland games. My love of the Fallout series of games is proof positive of that! As much as I enjoy fantasy games there is just something inherently cooler about shooting a shotgun than shooting a bow. Is it the noise? The way the blood spatters in artistic patterns? The satisfaction of lining up a sniper kill that takes out the guy on the platform mounted autocannon?

Guns

You can't talk about Borderlands without bringing up guns. In fact the procedural system used to create new guns on the fly is one of the game's big selling point. To paraphrase Forest Gump, "Borderlands is like an unmarked weapon crate, you never know what you're going to get until you crack it open!"

In the game weapon crates are scattered all over the world. When you first open them they contain a random assortment of randomly generated guns. You might open the crate and find a selection of pistols, shotguns, machine guns, sniper rifles, or any combination thereof.

These weapons even vary in how effective they are. Some are scoped (not just sniper rifles), some have melee bonuses, some bullets that split, some have distinct shot patterns, some have elemental effects that can cause them to set your target on fire, and sometimes they just suck.

You read that part right, sometimes they just suck! I have pulled rare (color coded) weapons out of crates only to find that my common weapon of the same type is better than the rare one. Even worse is when you complete one of the "find the parts to my gun" quests and find out that the gun you get is no where near as good as the one you already have!

There are also times when you find a gun that is good but only in certain situations. T.K.'s Wave (a shotgun that shoots in a wave pattern) is a good example of this. When it comes to knocking flying critters out of the sky this weapon is great. When it comes to taking down ground based enemies it's not that good. Because it is a rare weapon you don't want to sell it but because you can only hold a small number of items (not weapons but total items) in your backpack you often find yourself selling the rare guns due to space considerations.

A similar problem arises when you find something that is totally kick-ass but you are too low level to use it. Do you keep it? Do you sell it? If the level requirement is more than one or two levels from where you are you have to wonder if keeping it is worth it. You might find something even better an hour from now that you can use and that item is taking up space in your backpack!

Unlike Fallout3 there is a limited amount of ammo you can carry for each weapon. You can purchase ammo upgrades as the game moves along but these are very expensive. The most cost effective thing to do is to hold on buying the upgrades until you can buy the last one (they do not stack). I don't recommend this approach because even though you are saving money you are also going to find yourself leaving a lot of ammo unclaimed as you explore the world. As a looter myself it causes me pain to leave things on the ground that should be in my pockets! From a game design standpoint it makes sense. I never did understand how my Fallout3 character could carry all that ammo as if it weighed nothing!

The game allows for four archetype characters. You have a stealth character, a hand-to-hand character, a sniper character, and a generalist/support character. For my single-player foray I decided to go with the solider (generalist/support).

The soldier can spawn a small defensive shield with a machine gun (Scorpio) as a class ability. As you level up there are three fields you can put skill point into to customize your character (true for all characters). Because I knew this was going to be a single-player character I avoided the support tree (provides benefits such as healing and rearming allies) and instead focused heavily on the combat skills that allow me to cause more damage with my weapons.

I am currently level 16 and climbing. I have focused mostly on sniper rifles, repeaters, and shotguns. Early on I only kept weapons that included scopes but as my FPS skills improved I moved away from scopes and moved towards weapons with significant bonuses. Currently I use a revolver that is very effective against shields, a sniper rifle that occasionally fires exploding shells, and a vicious shotgun with no special powers other than a very high damage rating and a fast rate of fire. I keep these three weapons equipped
at all times and cycle through them as needed.

I'm no where near completing the game yet (only defeated two bosses) but I'm still having fun. I occasionally find myself outgunned and that is where the ingenious Second Wind part of the game comes into play. If you get gunned down you start to bleed to death. If you manage to kill an enemy while in this state you get a Second Wind (quick health boost and you are no longer dieing) that gets you back on your feet. This has saved my butt many times over the course of the game!

I'll try and provide a more informative review of the game after I get in some multi-player action and complete more quests.

• Fallout 3 DLC Review: Operation Anchorage
• Lost: John Locke, everyone’s favorite fiddle
• Get FREE Guitar Hero 3 bonus disc at Best Buy
• Rules of the Road
• Review: The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena

Before I acquired my Xbox360 I had no idea why many gamers valued achievements. For those who may be unaware, the achievement system (trophies on the PS3) awards points to gamers based on miscellaneous actions performed during a game.

Some achievements require a lot of work to get (the Valve 'garden gnome' achievements) while others require no skill at all (The Simpsons 'Press Start to Play' achievement). When you look at achievements as a whole you find that there are two distinct types of achievements; time-based and skill-based.

Time-based achievements are those that you earn over time no matter how skilled you are. If you put enough time into a game you will earn these achievements.

Skill-based achievements are those that you earn after mastering a skill. Not everyone is able to earn this form of achievement and it confers serious bragging rights when earned.

For purposes of this article we will be using the achievements from The Beatles: Rock Band game. This game has 50 achievements and they are split just about 50/50 in regards to time-based and skill-based awards.

Before I get too deep into that game let's take a quick moment to reminisce about the bygone days of gaming. I'm not talking about the 90's when LAN games were just becoming popular I'm talking about the 80's when the only source for real video game news was Nintendo Power.

As a kid in the 80's you didn't have the luxury of the Internet for getting hints and tips on how to beat games. The only real source for tips was Nintendo Power magazine and not many kids were able to convince their parents to subscribe to it. Because of this a gamer could claim bragging rights for beating a game in only a few particular situations:

1. Multiple witnesses - In the event some great gaming victory was achieved among a large group of friends (3+) this group would vouch for the claim and it would be considered valid.

2. Photograph - Many a gamer would keep a Polaroid camera by the gaming console for capturing high scores and other bizarre events. Due to the lack of a pause button on some games a second person would often be required to be on hand to man the camera.

3. Secret knowledge - Because there was no Internet post-game knowledge was extremely valuable as a source of proof. For example no one knew that Samus was a girl until they completed Metroid and saw her remove her helmet. Which castle was the princess in? So many games were chock full of secret things that could be used to prove your claim. However, once a piece of secret information became public it could no longer be used by another person to make a claim.

These methods were never fool-proof and often some kids were able to claim an achievement that they had never truly earned. This became most apparent when a game had some sort of multi-player mode. It was always strange when the kid who claimed to have beaten Contra would keep getting himself killed on the first stage!

Today's achievement system is much nicer than what we had to deal with as kids in the 80's. Now, when you do X you get achievement X that tells the world you did something. If you didn't do X you can't lie and say you did because the achievement was not earned.

While some folks might not even care about achievements at all they do serve a purpose. Actually they serve multiple purposes. In the first place achievements are hard proof that you have done something in game. In the second case they can also help to extend the life of a game.

Achievements can extend the life of a game by providing the player with something interesting to do. For example there may be an achievement for completing a tough level in a combat game using only a pistol. While the casual player may never even attempt this the hardcore game may see the existence of this achievement as a challenge to perfect his skill.

There is a subculture in video gaming circles of people who try to beat games using the least amount of materials or in the shortest amount of time possible. If you search on Youtube you can find a plethora of these videos. Knowing that such people exist is it any surprise that game developers have decided to cater to them by creating more and more bizarre achievements?

Let's take a moment and look over the achievements available in The Beatles: Rock Band game. Out of 50 achievements roughly half of them can be acquired just by putting in a lot of hours playing the game. These include achievements for getting 5 stars on all songs, scoring 1,000,000 career points on each instrument, playing songs in each part of the story mode, and unlocking half or all of the Beatles photographs. These achievements can all be gained by playing the game in single player mode on easy difficulty. While some skill is needed to play the instruments at this easy level it is very minor.

The remaining achievements are all skill-based. These achievements require a real commitment to the game and learning how to play each song well at the hardest difficulty setting. Achievements such as I GOT BLISTERS ON MY FINGERS! (Score 100% notes hit on Helter Skelter playing Expert Drums) and Won't You Come Out to Play? (Play Dear Prudence on Expert Guitar, playing all hammer-ons and pull-offs without strumming) are achievements that I will likely never earn. The amount of skill required to earn these is far beyond me and I doubt I will have enough time in my adult life to master those skills.

As of writing this I have earned 24 out of the 50 achievements offered up in the game and they account for 320 of the possible 1,000 gamer points that can be earned. Right there we can see that even though I have earned almost half of the achievements I have only earned about 30% of the possible gamer points.

Even though I have earned almost half of the achievements for this game I have not earned any bragging rights based on those achievements. Why? Because none of them required any serious amounts of skill to earn. Even my favorite game (and one of only two games I have ever earned 100% of the achievements for) Fallout3 lacks any real skill-based achievements. The closest they come to being skill-based are the ones for winning 50 lock-picks/speech/terminal challenges.

Even though Fallout3 lacked any real skill-based achievements the achievements it does include do extend the game's life by providing extra things for the player to do. Have you completed all of the side quests? They all have achievements! Killed all the Super Mutant Behemoths, collected all the Bobbleheads, explored over 100 locations? All of those have achievements. While you don't need to do everything to complete the story mode of a game having those achievements does give you something else to do besides the main quest.

Another type of achievement (the ones I tend to hate) is the secret achievement. These achievements are often skill-based and don't stay secret for long. Within a week or two of a game being released these secret achievements will be listed on gamefaqs for the whole world to see. Unfortunately for most of us they will still appear as 'secret' on our consoles.

Secret achievements bother me because even though they are skill-based their secretive nature makes them more about luck than skill. It's not something you can actively hone your skills towards achieving and instead becomes an award you earn by luck.

Personally I like achievements. I find that they extend the life of some games and allow players to easily prove their gamer cred to their peers.

• Playing Without Achievements
• Playing Without Achievements Part 2
• Console Review: Xbox 360
• DirecTV to offer HD package in space
• Fallout 3: The Pitt

The Panzer General series of games has been out since 1994 when SSI published the first one. Seven sequels were produced with Allied Assault being the most recent. SSI is no longer its own company and this particular incarnation of the title was created by Petroglyph Games for the Xbox360 Live Arcade.

Unlike the previous titles in the series that emulated a form of the old style chit based wargaming systems Allied Assault takes the game into the card game realm. While the playing area is a board (6 wide by 5 deep) the game system is heavy on the card side using the board only for placement of units and for defining victory conditions.

Let me state right away that I have not purchased the full game and that this review is based solely on the results of playing through the demo a few times. While this has not allowed me to experience the full breadth and depth of the game it has shown me enough of the game to form an opinion on it.

Panzer General: Allied Assault is a two player game where you play either against the CPU player or a real player over Xbox Live. More than half of the achievements are Live-based so expect to play many games online before earning them all. Playing against a human opponent is not that different from playing against the A.I. except that you should expect the games to take longer.

The game uses a point system (prestige) in an attempt to limit your actions on each turn. Each card you play has a prestige cost that must be paid in order to be played. While this sounds like a good mechanic in theory it only works until you exploit the one major loophole in this game which I will discuss later.

Prestige points are earned each turn based on the zones you control. Some zones earn you bonus points (cities, towns, etc). A zone is considered to be controlled by a player if their units were the last to enter or exit that square. Thus it is beneficial to use a fast unit to grab land whenever possible. Just be ready to defend the lands you have taken lest your opponent do the same to you!

You can also earn prestige points after you defeat an enemy unit in combat. If you choose not to earn the points after combat you also have the option to force your opponent to lose points. While the tutorial tried to make the claim that it can be very useful to do this I find that the instances when denying my opponent points outweighs my gaining points to be few and far between. In fact it is only useful if denying them points would put their prestige low enough as to deny them the ability to play any more cards in response to your attacks.

When your turn begins you draw a number of cards. If your hand size is lower than ten you also get the option to spend prestige points to draw more cards. While I did not see a definitive cost formula it does appear that the cost to draw more cards costs you X prestige where X = the turn number. Thus if you want to buy bonus card on turn one they will only cost you one prestige each. Those same cards purchased on turn five would cost five prestige points each.

After you draw cards you then have the option to place new units, move existing units, have existing units 'dig in' (gain a defensive bonus), attack with existing units or place a relevant card from your hand. Movement is very simple so I will not even bother covering it here. Instead I will move directly into the combat system.

When units are adjacent to enemy units you can engage them in combat. This consists of comparing attack and defense values as well as checking for supporting units. Supporting units are any adjacent friendly units and artillery units that are within range. If one side is 'dug in' they get to attack first in combat, otherwise attacker fires first.

After figuring the base values for both sides you have several rounds of playing combat cards. These cards can alter some elements of the combat round (and only that round) and are discarded after being played. Some cards can add or subtract from attack and defense values while others can cancel the combat entirely, remove support for the enemy unit or even cause direct damage to the opponent. Combat cards can be played until both sides pass.

After playing combat cards you can then sack one card for it's Battle Value. This number ranges from 0 to 6 and is added to your attack or defense score depending on which side of the battle you are on. As strange as it may be I did see some cards with a Battle Value higher than the value they impart for being played as a Combat card. Why would you play a card for three points (paying prestige) when you could sack it for 6 points?

Once all numbers are finalized a die is cast and the battle concludes. If the attacker's total is higher than the defender's defense damage is taken. If enough is taken to eliminate the unit it is removed and the attacker gains a point of health. Armor units also have the added bonus of being able to move into the now empty square.

This is the core of the game and as a representation of card/chit war gaming it's not that bad. Where the game is broken is in the cards. OR should I say in one particular card.

Fans of CCGs know that it only takes one bad card to ruin a game. Games are quickly thrown out of balance when one card opens up a loophole that the game can not handle. Panzer General: Allied Assault has one such card. While I will not give the name of the card I will tell you what it does.

This card allows you to search your discard pile for two cards and put them into your hands. At this point you are either thinking, "oh no!" or "so what?". If you don't see the potential mayhem that can occur from such a card existing in this game than you have not been paying attention or you have not played a lot of CCGs.

While by itself the card is not overly broken as soon as you have two of them the exploit becomes more obvious. With two of them you can search your discard pile for any one card and the second copy of this card. Rinse, repeat ad infinitum ... Yes, with two of these cards your discard pile will only ever have one card in it!

Is this game any good? Is it worth 800 points? My good friend Grim seems to think so even with the exploit described above. Of course he has no intention of playing the game online where the exploitation of this broken card will make for some very one-sided or drawn out games depending on whether or not both sides are aware of the exploit. For me it's not worth 800 points. I'd rather play Panzer Tactics on the DS.

• Riddick Assault on Dark Athena Preview
• Iraq: War or Battlefield?
• Contest: The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
• Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena pre-order Bonus Items
• PS3 begins to overtake Xbox360 in sales since launch