Intelligent Gamer: Content / Author / Areala

Obscure (PS2)

on 02 Mar 2009 by Areala

All is not right at Leafmore High, and Areala's going to look into why.

They didn't exactly invent the genre, but after Capcom burst onto the scene with the first Resident Evil for the Playstation, it's safe to say that Survival Horror had truly come into its own. And ever since, there have been a host of developers who have tried to cash in on the horror genre with titles of their own. [read more]

Areala's Retro Reviews

Sega Classics Collection (PS2)

on 24 Feb 2009 by Areala

Ten games, one low price...what could go wrong?

One thing I am a sucker for is large collections of games available on one disc. After all, I've been gaming for many, many years now and I have all sorts of memories of playing classic arcade games back when you actually had to put in a quarter and stand in front of the machine to play them. [read more]

Food Fight

All the mess, none of the clean-up.

on 11 Nov 2008 by Areala

Looking for something amusing for a quick evening's play, Areala digs out this game which origi[...]

INCOMING!!! Describing itself as "a fast-paced game of cafeteria conflict", Food Fight has to be played to be believed. Bryce Knorr managed to design a rule-set that can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be for waging all-out war in a high school cafeteria. As the game might suggest, the object is to be [read more]

Grailquest 1 - The Castle of Darkness by J.H. Brennan

on 12 Oct 2007 by Areala

Solo gamebooks were all the rage in the 1980s. In this review, Areala takes a walk down memory lane [...]

The Realm of Avalon prospers due to the vigilant protection of King Arthur and his valiant Knights of the Table Round (or Round Table as people insist on calling it...wrongly). When these extraordinary men face something they cannot handle, they call in the Wizard Merlin. But when the job is too tough for Merlin to handle, who is there to [read more]

Star Wars: Battle at Sarlacc's Pit

Areala checks out an old-school Parker Bros. Star Wars boardgame!

on 15 Sep 2007 by Areala

Heading back to 1983 and a more innocent time, Areala stumbles upon a boardgame that recreates the c[...]

I was digging through my games for something nifty to discuss when I found a square box that I had thought lost to time. But no sooner had I laid eyes upon it then I knew I had to pull it out for review. And thus, we turn our Intelligent Gamer eyes toward Star Wars: Battle at Sarlacc's [read more]

Go Bark!

Edutainment that is both educational and entertaining.

on 14 Aug 2007 by Areala

Using the standard rules for a game of Go Fish, players attempt to match up breeds of dogs in[...]

Go Bark! is a quirky variant of the old Go Fish playing card game. Only instead of attempting to complete a set of four identical numbers, players play instead to create "packs" of four dogs from the same breed. It features twelve different breeds of dogs (Beagle, Black Labrador, Cocker Spaniel, Dachshund, German Shepherd, Golden Retriever, Rottweiler, Shetland [read more]

Public Assistance

Why bother working for a living?

on 14 Aug 2007 by Areala

Hammerhead Enterprises set out to make a board game that explained exactly what happens to people on[...]

It seems impossible to grasp the reason behind Ron Pramschufer and Bob Johnson's burning drive to create a game that seems to encourage deviant behavior at the expense of that which society has deemed better for everyone. But their idea was to make a point: so many people in the Welfare system in the 1970s were playing the system [read more]

Thunder Road

Areala takes the "Ram & Wreck Survival Game" on a test drive.

on 08 Aug 2007 by Areala

Ever wanted to engage in virtual vehicular manslaughter in a wasteland of your own? Yeah, Areala did[...]

Burning Highway! Klaxons howling in the night sky. Burning Highway! Dreams burst into flame. -- "Crisis - Ikari o Komete Hashire", SHOW (translated from the Japanese) Way back in 1981, the world of gaming was given the blessing of a film that would practically create a new genre single-handedly. That film was Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, and it did more to bolster the [read more]

Doom: The Boardgame

Areala drags you, kicking and screaming, into a Marine

on 04 Aug 2007 by Areala

Released in 2004, Doom: The Boardgame was developed to follow (loosely) the storyline of [i]D[...]

ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! All UAC personnel be advised. There has been a code red security breach in the dimensional gateway research facility here at the Union Aerospace Corporation's Mars base. We are under invasion. I repeat, we are under invasion. Our cameras have picked up a number of unusual entities roaming the corridors and rooms of the [read more]