Roll the List #3, Dalton’s Take

Our first head-to-head matchup is…again…in my comrade’s area of expertise and I am…again…the visiting team. As such, I am at a bit of a disadvantage as far as knowledge. But, I merely turn that into an advantage, by being so explicitly ignorant on the topic that Kyle is forced to react accordingly. The head-to-head matchup is a Roll the List topic in which we both must pick our favorite thing from the given topic, argue why it is the best, and then argue why the other’s is the worst. In the case of tabletop games, I have created a bit of an issue. Firstly, I haven’t played the game I picked previously. Likewise, Kyle has not either. Which makes arguments for and against slightly different than Kyle’s choice, which he recently introduced me to. Let the ARGUING BEGIN.

When it comes to the topic of guilty pleasure, this can become just as much an argument about why this game is the best as it is about whether the game belongs on the list at all. I think that overall the theme of zombies has become in itself a guilty pleasure, as they have saturated nearly every market. One market that is overwhelmed with zombie games is the tabletop format. As with movies, you can expect rolling eyes and “not another zombie [fill in the blank]…” when you bring up your favorite brain-eating brethren. So it’s easy to be a little hesitant to introduce your friends to, yes, another zombie tabletop game. Having said that, this one has a pretty cool style to it and the gameplay is set up in such a way that it is a little more user-friendly. Unlike most tabletop games, this game is designed to have as few as 1 player to go through the game, for our forever-alone tabletop gamers out there that are tired of solitaire. It has three stages of difficulty – tutorial, classic, and advanced – so you can get into the curve of the game, and then march right into the apocalypse. And I like the idea that you are defending the town to survive, as opposed to trying to escape like so many other zombie tabletop games. It’s like a tower defense game with cards. C’mon…how much can I really defend this game? I haven’t had the opportunity to play it…Stupid poverty…

Kyle’s selection, in all honesty, is difficult to argue with, as we played it and it was quite a bit of fun. But having had played the game, I have the opportunity to bash it based on the experience. I can start by identifying it as a fairly legit guilty pleasure game. As I had discussed in my own arguments for DotZ, the zombification of every media has made loving a zombie game a bit embarrassing at this point. But, I can’t really bash the game for this because…well…I picked a zombie game too. Well, c’mon, the horror topic didn’t give us much of a choice. So you and a certain number of other players are in the middle of a city looking for a key to open the door to escape. Simple enough of a concept with a bit of strategy involved around each player’s abilities, movement options, and of course noise tokens that attract the zombies. Well, we never got to delve too far into the game, as far as strategy and the interesting level-up system, because we beat the game too quickly. By the time we had learned how to play the game, we had won. And no, I don’t think the game is that easy. Quite the opposite. It was clear that as we were strolling through the exit relatively unharmed, we would have been annihilated had we not been one step ahead of the zombies. We only had that extra step because the first room we checked happened to have the key we needed to escape. So we picked up the key…and left. And still, a rather formidable swarm, with a gargantuan zombie monster, was right on our heels. It was clear to me at this point that you would need the self esteem boost of a fluky first victory to have the patience to get through countless losses to follow. Searching just one additional room would lead to almost certain death, considering you only take 2 wounds from a zombie before you join the army of the undead.

ZOMBIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!