Games

While the departure was announced on BoardGameGeeks back in March, the departure of game manufacturer Asmodee from Alliance Distribution has been one that has happened a bit silently.

Alliance Distribution is the games arm of Diamond Comics Distribution, which took a major hit when DC Comics pulled out of their distribution contract this spring, opting to shift their operations to Luna Distribution and UCS, which allowed them to get product to comics retailers well ahead of their competition, who were still hamstrung with Diamond's COVID-19 related shutdown of operations.

There have been a lot of movies and television series that revolve around gambling. In most cases, these series lack an interesting storyline, and that makes them boring over time. There is a different television series that has a unique storyline but with all the gambling action jam-packed in it. 

The show is an action-packed, Vegas-set thriller called “The Player” and some wonder if it is worth watching. Here is a comprehensive review that will give you an idea of what to expect and if this gambling series is worth watching.

The Storyline

The Player is a gambling world series that has received global recognition for its unique storyline and stunning visuals produced by the production team. It is a series about gambling but not the conventional methods of placing bets at casinos but rather on the odds of criminal activities. 

"It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good," the expression goes, meaning that most bad situations are at least good for someone. Thus it is that with most events of impact, a canny person can predict where the money will flow and try to get ahead of it. The greatest example of this would be the baby boom; hindsight shows how this influx to the population caused economic grown in various markets as that demographic reached different stages -- baby supplies at first, fast food in their youth, durable goods in their adulthood, financial planning in their retirement years.

MORTAL KOMBAT LEGENDS: SCORPION'S REVENGE opens, as one would expect, by presenting itself as the origin of Hanzo Hasashi (voiced by Patrick Seitz), a great warrior who returns to his village to find it completely eradicated, including his wife. His final vision before his death is the brutal murder of his young son.

Hasashi awakens in the Netherrealm, where he is about to be tortured for all eternity by a demon. But Hasashi's will is indomitable, and he manages to fight his way through an army of demons, to the door of Quan Chi (Darin De Paul), who offers Hasashi an opportunity to get his life and family back -- by obtaining the key to unlock Quan Chi's imprisoned master through a competition held between the many realms. The competition comes with an opportunity for revenge against the man who killed Hasashi's family. And so Scorpion is born.

If you think about it, a lot of video games over the past few decades have included luck-based minigames with wagering, so the distance between video games and casino games have never really been that far apart. Some games take this even further by including actual interactive casinos within the game world, or make casino games more useful than a downtime distraction.

In this article, we’re going to look at five popular video games that also included traditional casino and card games.

The Sims 3

Sims 3 players can purchase the Lucky Simoleon Casino DLC, which not only adds an entire casino with blackjack and slot machines, it also adds a Gambling skill that will level up as your sim plays.

The face of Sega gaming races into theaters this weekend, and the studio execs have got to be crossing their fingers that they hit a home run with the fans. After early images of the CGI-rendered Sonic the Hedgehog were released to the public and met with universal scorn, production went back to the drawing board to get a redesign that was closer to the original version of the character.

They succeeded.

Sonic the Hedgehog came from another dimension, fleeing to this one as a hiding place when evil beings on his home wanted to take his power from him. It's a power he doesn't fully understand himself, but it manifests itself in super-speed. (Warner Brothers may want to push back THE FLASH another year after this.) He's been here for a while, living among the people in a small town, hiding from them. He knows them intimately, even though they don't know he's around.

Whether you’re an avid gamer or an enthusiastic rookie, MARS wants you to have fun. So they've built a truly immersive lightgun gaming experience that you’ll love to play over and over again.

The Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens will stage the Super Bowl LIV. Photo: AJ Lipp

The countdown is on for the Super Bowl LIV, the 54^th Super Bowl and the 50^th championship game in the modern-day era of the National Football League (NFL). The location has already been set for Super Bowl LIV, with Florida’s Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens set to celebrate the seventh decade of Super Bowl action. It will be the sixth Super Bowl staged in Miami Gardens, with Super Bowl XLIV the last time it was staged in this region of South Florida.

Load up and get ready to fire...at your game monitor.

Critical Blast is giving away one package of Mars Lightcon's IR shooter game, VOYAGE OF THE DEAD, which includes:

Zoe Quinn is no stranger to controversy. One might even argue her entire career has been built on the house-of-cards foundation of accusations of sexism and abuse, setting her up as a heroic overcomer in the male-dominated industries of video games and comic books.

But Internet controversy turned to real life consequences barely two weeks ago when Quinn took to Twitter to make public accusations against former fellow game designer, Alec Holowka, claiming sexual abuse and false imprisonment. The immediate fallout for Holowka -- the loss of his career and the shattered public perception -- drove a man who already suffered from emotional troubles to take his own life.

#MeToo had been successfully weaponized--and the weapon was deadly.

Just short of two years ago, Zoe Quinn was being celebrated as having overcome online harassment to go on and become a game designer on a hotly aniticipated indy game project with Chuck Tingle. (Editor's Note: The crowdfunded game has yet to be delivered and is currently over two years late in fulfillment.) She was the model of the underdog who wouldn't give in to online trolls.

Six days ago, Quinn recalled sexual abuse details from an old relationship with fellow game designer, Alec Holowka. Instead of taking these details to the police for investigation, Quinn chose to air the accusations through her Twitter account, @UnburntWitch.

ComicsGate and GamerGate. The boogeymen that allow the geek and nerd communities to partake in outrage culture continues to be the gift that keeps on giving in that regard, despite the fact that most of the world has forgotten what GamerGate was about (for which Zoe Quinn is no doubt grateful) and ComicsGate exists now largely as a hashtag to market the ideology behind the comics they produce and, yes, deliver.

Not that this stops Anthony Gramuglia, writer at large. In a recent piece for The Mary Sue, Gramuglia conducts “interviews” with a handful of people with axes to grind. The Spectre of Hate is raised more than once, and the fearmongering goes into high gear in order to gin up the clicks. He expands his reach from ComicsGate to the more recent AnimeGate, spun out of accusations against DragonballZ: Broly actor, Vic Mignogna, and the resulting defamation suit that followed.

Often on this site, you will find list for the top 10 movies or the top 5 moments from a particular flick, but we thought we would reverse it and have a look at the top 5 casino games that are based directly on movies. There is actually a huge number of casino games based on movies out there, and you would be surprised to see some of the movie titles that have been released as officially branded slot games. Dirty Dancing, for example, became a smash hit slot game for Playtech, and you wouldn’t necessarily think the Patrick Swayze hit would match up to the world of casino gaming.

Anime is not something you would think to find at land-based casinos. Well, not all of them. Video slots are available in an array of themes, each offering different paylines, themes, bonus rounds and special symbols, but it isn’t often you discover one of manga or anime. However, with the internet working in favor of all gaming preferences, online casinos have been adopting more video slots, expanding their gaming options and attracting new players with specific preferences. If you take novicasino.com for example, you will find a multitude of video slot themes, all geared toward bringing in new players with a new database of video slots. Now with that being said, there are a few that really stood out to us, mentioned below.

Moon Princess

(Article Image: "Roulette" (CC BY 2.0) by Sonny Side Up!)

Roulette is one of the most famous and iconic casino games on the planet, and even people uninterested in staking money on things are familiar with the table game. Ever since the spinning wheel was invented by Blaise Pascal way back in 18th century France, people have been trying to work out ways to beat it and fix the result so that they can win money. But no matter what the cunning tricksters try, it’s usually the game and the house which prevail. So what are the methods that have been used? Are any actually viable?

One of the things that makes Apex: Legends so unique is their voice talent.

As with prior years, 2018 was a wide-open field of new electronic and online games, and our readers let us know their favorites. Of particular interest this year was the inclusion of some old-school games given new twists -- tabletop and board games, which, while never excluded before, made their presence known well enough that we can safely say that rolling dice and drawing cards is going to continue to be as much of a favorite pastime as pressing buttons.

You wanted the best, you got the best! It's the hottest game in the world: APEX (Legends)!

Within its first week, APEX: LEGENDS shattered records by bringing in 25 million players and after just under a full month it's hit the 50 million mark. It's a remarkable achievement for a game that has entered a highly contested market, previously dominated by FORTNITE. And FORTNITE has taken notice!

I love backing new games on Kickstarter, especially ones from new designers, first time publishers, or with a favorite theme. When I saw the KS page for Churrascaria, I was very intrigued. It seemed like it would be a huge hit in my home. The quick game play, wonderful theme, colorful art, and cutthroat element were all very compelling to me. Of all the games I backed, this one had great potential to be a part of every board game night.

When it arrived, I could not wait to begin learning how to play. Unfortunately, I struggled through the copious rules, rich with examples rather than instructions. The wording was not consistent, the paragraphs were too long, and relevance of the examples were not made for someone with a cognitive need for simplification. Even the setup instructions were slightly puzzling. I did find the simple setup illustration to be of great use.