Category Archives: Holiday Special
The Space-Biff! Holiday Survival Guide
It’s that time of year again! The weather is getting nippy, radio stations are playing jollier music, and you’re honor-bound to spend multiple evenings with people you don’t necessarily know very well but who hold some sort of genetic or matrimonial connection to you. Sure, Uncle Deever is sort of a racist and your mother-in-law asks a lot of questions that feel like indictments of how badly you’re caring for her precious baby, but it could be worse. You might, for example, have nobody around who loves you.
But for those of us who do, what follows is an incredibly subjective and probably wrong-headed list of the ten games I’ll be hauling around in a big yellow duffel bag this holiday season.
The Thurotyville Horror
When people recognize me on the street this time of year, one of the most common questions I get is, “How do you guys over at Château de Thurot spend your Halloween?” A natural curiosity, considering our legendary rambunctiousness.
Well, I’ve put together a little video to answer that question, because our holiday celebrations might seem just a smidge unconventional to the uninitiated. You can find it below.
The Leftovers, 2012 Edition
It’s hard to believe that 2012 has already reached its end. Only moments ago it was 2011 and I was young and innocent and had a head full of ambitions and dreams. Worse, I didn’t write about some dozen games that I intended to, and now it’s really too late to get to them for fear of appearing out of vogue. Instead, here’s what I would have written, though in much abbreviated form — the leftovers of 2012, if you will.
Celebrating the 4th with Future Soldier
A pack of patriotic pros.
Here in the States it’s Independence Day, in which we celebrate Benjamin Franklin burning down the White House with electricity, a distraction that allowed George Washington to conquer Yorktown while Betsy Ross falcon-punched Benedict Arnold, making the thirteen colonies free from taxes and stuffiness. The details are a bit fuzzy because nobody really kept notes back then, so we may never know the full story.
Four hundred years later, Americans are still up to some awesome stuff in Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, which, like the story of our glorious nation’s founding, is all about four guys beating the stuffing out of foreigners while wearing snappy uniforms.
Christmas, Occupied
After years of not being played with, my old Star Wars toys were sick of the annual use that the Christmas crowd was getting. They’ve taken matters into their own hands. Take that, ornament fat cats!
They're as mad as hell, and they're not going to take this anymore.
Disclaimer: This is what I did with my sister while everyone else was dipping chocolates. This isn’t meant as a statement of political alignment, etc, etc.
More pics after the jump, and of course, you are permitted to click any of the pics for embiggening.
The Most Frightening Game of the Year
Tabajaras says goodbye to his grandparents for the last time. Is this the most frightening part of the year? Tragically, no.
Last night was Halloween. This would have been posted then, but I sat down with a group of friends to play Mansions of Madness instead. So here’s Space-Biff’s first ever (belated) Halloween special.
I’d like to talk a bit about the game that’s frightened me the most this year. You may have already guessed what it is from the image above. If you have, you’re probably wondering how anyone could consider this game frightening. If you haven’t, a hint: it isn’t called “Nuevos Aires, 1960.” It’s a game that at its most profound level is about the detachment and numbness that follows real violence, about confronting impossible atrocities, and about a nation’s disconnect between the suffering of its people and the isolation — and ambitions — of its leaders. It’s also a puzzle game. About zombies. And smashing them to their constituent atoms.
SPACE-BIFF! 