Game update

Card games this time. Loot and In a Pickle are recent acquisitions. Loot is an interesting Pirate themed game that actually involves a bit of strategy. Your hand consists of Merchant ships with a point value, Pirate ships with an attack value, and possibly a Pirate captain or the Admiral. The pirate ships come in four colors. Once you attack a merchant ship with a specific color, your opponents have to use the remaining colors. You try to one-up your opponents in order to win the Merchant. At the end, the player with the most points wins. Clever and fun. Plus the artwork on the cards is rather fun.

In a Pickle is a game to play when you're in the mood for a good fight. In theory you play a card that is either smaller than the card at the top of the chain or bigger than the card at the bottom. At any time there are four chains to choose from and once one of the stacks reaches four cards each player then has to try and play a bigger thing at the bottom. In reality you spend most of the time arguing whether China is bigger than Spring or whether a skeleton in a jungle could fit in an Encyclopedia. If you can't handle a (hopefully) good natured argument on such things, stay away from this game. I kind of get a kick out of it...

The Cave was rather silly. And the ending was just best forgotten. It really should have ended with the escape, but they had to throw one last little twist in. Oh well.

The Brothers Grimm however was rather enjoyable. I'm sad I didn't go to the theater to watch it. Not just to see it on the big screen (which I'm sure was probably quite impressive) but to actually throw some monetary support its way. I think they did a pretty poor job of marketing this one. It's not really the comedy they made it out to be, although there is humor in it. In a lot of ways it's very reminiscent of the Grimm fairy tales themselves. An interesting story with touches of horror, humor and morality. Plus it's got Gilliam's fingerprints all over it, which is always nice. Reminded me a touch of The Fisher King. (Although that was better...)