Everyone’s got to start somewhere, so on the latest episode of the Die Cast, join a bunch of white, chubby bearded guys (and a token lady) as they sit around a table and talk about the board games that everyone (yes, even you!) should play if they want to get into gaming.

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Day 1 is in the books!

Chris and (a very weary) Brian sit down to discuss (briefly because again Brian was passing out) what they saw and what they experienced on the opening day of Fantastic Fest 2013.

(NOTE: The audio begins at 00:13, so be patient. We’re reporting from the trenches here!)

Stay tuned for more podcasts, videos, and other fun coverage bits as the Infestation of Fantastic Fest continues.

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When one or two members of The Us get together, that’s merely a gathering. When hordes of Us descend upon one spot to worship at the altar of our geekdom, that’s the moment it becomes…an Infestation.

Welcome to Infestation, OneOfUs.Net’s official festival and convention coverage feature. It seemed entirely appropriate that the festival with which we christen this ongoing feature would be Austin’s own Fantastic Fest

We will be bringing you daily wrap-ups, podcasts, videos, and all manner of fun surprises as we make our way through the boozy, film-laden wonderland of this mecca of cinephilia. To start things off, Chris and Brian sat down for a brief preview of their most anticipated movies of the festival.

Check out the audio as well as the trailers (where available) for these films below.

There’s no stopping it now, the Infestation is already spreading.

Escape from Tomorrow–Dir: Randy Moore

The Sacrament–Dir: Ti West (No Trailer Available)

Grand Piano—Dir: Eugenio Mira

Big Bad Wolves–Dir: Aharon Keshales & Navot Papushado

Jodorowsky’s Dune–Dir: Frank Pavich

Patrick–Dir: Mark Hartley

Rigor Mortis–Dir: Juno Mak

A Field in England–Dir: Ben Wheatley

We Are What We Are–Dir: Jim Mickle

Ninja: Shadow of a Tear–Dir: Isaac Florentine (No Trailer Available)

Man of Tai Chi–Dir: Keanu Reeves

The wait is over! The first purchasable Watch a Movie With Us commentary is here!

And this time, we’re gonna take you through solid matter with an overthruster!

Chris, Brian, and the incomparable Johnny Neill from our LEOG days take a voyage across The 8th Dimension with Buckaroo Banzai. There may be no survivors.

We’ll be watching the DVD version, because this cult classic of inter-dimensional proportions inexplicably has no Blu-ray release (at the time of recording, it does now)!

<—-If you don’t own it already, feel free to purchase the DVD from Amazon before you buy the commentary.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE COMMENTARY TRACK.

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Everyone’s got to start somewhere, so on the latest episode of the Die Cast, join a bunch of white, chubby bearded guys (and a token lady) as they sit around a table and talk about the board games that everyone (yes, even you!) should play if they want to get into gaming.

Jacob Hall is joined by Daniel Kalbacher, George Hickman, Paul Gandersman (of Arcanum Pictures), Randy Lander (of Rogues Gallery Comics & Games), and Toni-Taylor Salisbury (of Brian & Toni) for an epic, two-part journey into the world of cardboard, meeples, tokens, dice and tangents that actually have little to do with what they’re supposed to be talking about.

First, Daniel, Paul and Randy join our chairman for a roundtable on tabletops how what inspired them to become gamers. And then Paul, George, and Toni join Jacob for a slightly uncomfortable game of colonialism and trade as they play Archipelago.

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The Digy-noizers (we’re SO street) bring you another week’s ear-load of the titles for home release you’ve just got to see! And those that you only kind of, and absolutely should avoid as well, of course.

We take a look at some of the best creature designs we’ve seen in, like, forever, in Frankenstein’s Army, take a voyage with the Enterprise to kill Osama in Into Darkness, follow the Winchester brothers through the latest season of Supernatural, narrowly avoid the machete in the giant HD Friday the 13th box set, and oh, so much more. Featuring giveaways for Ultimate Wolverine vs Hulk and Star Trek: Origins, this is the podcast to fill your ear holes with this week!

Thinking of purchasing any of the titles we discussed? Or anything from Amazon in general? Please access Amazon via our links to help support the site. We really appreciate it!

Follow Digital Noise on Twitter and make sure to review us on iTunes.

(Welcome to The Pantheon, Chairman of the Board’s irregular series about the best games of all time. If it’s in the pantheon, you should own it.)

Let’s forgo any fluffy opening statements and get right to the point because I respect you and don’t want to waste your time: Cosmic Encounter is the greatest board game of all time.

That’s a bold statement, but it’s a statement that’s backed up by the game’s very simple rules, its infinite variety, its quiet complexity, and, most importantly, its ability to get every single person at the table yelling, screaming, scheming and laughing at the top of their lungs. It has a delicious theme worthy of the best American games. It has the depth of your favorite Eurogames. It has the “everyone has fun even when you get your ass kicked” factor of a party game. If you bring Cosmic Encounter to the table, everyone is bound to have a good time.

The set-up is simple enough. Each player (five with the base game, up to eight with expansions) takes on the role of an alien race with five planets, each protected by five spaceships. Your goal is simple: you want to establish colonies on your opponents’ planets and the first person to have five foreign colonies wins the game.

The gameplay itself is fairly straightforward and can be taught in less than ten minutes. When it’s your turn, you draw from the “Destiny Deck” which tells you which player you are going to invade. This means that every alliance is brittle and the whims of the game can shatter even the strongest bonds between allies. Then you declare which of their individual planets you want to attack and request reinforcements, letting other people join in on the invasion. The defender can also call for back-up, with his friends rushing to his aid. Combat is a matter of basic mathematics: you add up the number of ships on each side and each opponent plays a card face down. The card may feature a number, adding more to the attack or defense score. It may be a negotiate card, which can allow everyone to talk it out. It could be something else altogether. If the attackers win, everyone gets to land a ship on the planet and the previous occupants are destroyed. If the defenders triumph, the attackers are toast.

Even if this was all the game had to offer, there would be plenty of fun to be had with Cosmic Encounter. While everyone’s deck of cards means that there’s a certain amount of luck involved in combat, it’s not random luck — it’s poker luck. Ever battle is a tense round of gambling, with both sides attempting to bluff their way into a victory. With no one knowing exactly what secrets the other players have hidden, each battle is a showdown of wills.

Someone says he can beat you, but offers to play a Negotiate card if you will. Do you trust him? Is he telling the truth? If you don’t comply, can he actually crush you? If you’re a lying, scheming bastard who likes a science fiction theme, Cosmic Encounter needs to be on your shelf.

But those basic mechanics aren’t what make the game really special. They’re just the incredibly simple foundation upon which the game’s true greatness is built. You see, you’re not just playing as an anonymous alien race — you’re playing as an incredibly specific alien race with incredibly specific powers. You randomly draw your identity at the start of the game and what you and your fellow gamers pick influences everything about the game. Each character sheet gives your race unique advantages and disadvantages and unique avenues to victory. Some of these races are military juggernauts, with ships that are far more powerful than others. Some are traders and can hold onto additional cards. Many of them allow players to contort (if not completely shatter) the rules of game, like the one that only wins battles by losing battles.

Suddenly, your game of galactic poker warfare has a dozen new layers. Who you choose to request assistance from is changed. The pace of the game as altered in unexpected ways. Every thing you do is coated in doubt and intrigue, as you carefully examine your opponent’s races and wonder how they’re going to twist the game to suit their very specific skills. That’s the beauty of Cosmic Encounter: once you know the basic rules, you can play it forever without any problems, but no two games will ever be the same. With the expansions, there are close to 200 alien races to choose from, meaning that you will never see the same combination skills and abilities at your table ever again.

Many games get old or stale after repeated plays. Everyone learns the board, knows what’s in the deck and can prepare for any situation. Not Cosmic Encounter. It reinvents itself with every play. Even if you’ve owned the game for years, it’ll reinvent itself every time you open the box. It’s magic, guys.

Cosmic Encounter has been around for decades, but the current printing by Fantasy Flight games is the best its ever been. The components are gorgeous and the art is lovely. Everything is nice to touch and the game just looks nice on the table. This is ultimately a game where 90% of the activity is about bartering and talking and threatening, but everything has the gloss of the best thematic war games.

Everyone has their own specific taste in board games, but Cosmic Encounter is the rare experience that has something for everyone. No game has ever offered so much depth and re-playability while being so simple. Few games encourage being this social while forcing thoughtful strategy. If you haven’t played Cosmic Encounter, you just haven’t played your new favorite game yet.

While sifting through both of our pieces of fan mail recently, we came across a letter clearly delivered to us by mistake. This made sense of course, as it was incredibly hard to believe that two whole people would send us fan mail.

The mysterious letter was addressed to the administrators of Camp Crystal Lake and was dated August 13th, 1982. Given our steadfast reverence for the sanctity of the federal postal service, we waited the entirety of twenty-two seconds before we tore into it. What we found was a formal complaint from a very unhappy female camp counselor.

Here’s what she had to say…

Crystal Lake Enterprises
CO: Summer Leisure & Hemorrhoid Ointment Division

To Whom It May Concern:

My name is Betty, and I am a counselor at your supposed summer camp. I am writing you today to protest your inflammatory hiring methods.

I don’t know what rock you had to kick over on Whore Island and South Cantkeepitinyourpantsburgh, but these so-called employees you wrangled have not stopped humping since they arrived. I was actually worried that perhaps where you meant to hire eight youth counselors, you instead inadvertently added an octet of genetically enhanced rabbit-people to your payroll. As someone saving herself for marriage, I find this carousel of boning particularly offensive.

That is, except for one guy. He’s not had much success courting me or any of the other nubile females you sent. I guess you could call him “the funny guy.” He’s content playing practical jokes and generally acting like a creep. There’s always one “funny guy” isn’t there?

The point I’m trying to get across is that, besides myself, there is not one counselor here fit to lead an ill-advised solo midnight darkness hike, much less supervise children.

Oh, and while we’re on the subject, where are all the children? The other counselors and I have been here for a solid week and we haven’t been sent so much as one tow-headed mouth-breather. How do you remain in business? I am well-aware that in the past you’ve had a few (what is the kind way to say it) wet farts in the public relations department, but as a finance major at Local University, I feel I must inform you that in this economy, it is exceedingly unwise to operate a childless children’s summer camp for children.

But let’s get back to the unapologetic chromosomal mismatches with whom I am now forced to work. I hate to be a tattletale, but it’s now five minutes to noon, which means they have officially exceeded their allotted lunch break period by…three days. Apparently they all thought it would be hilarious to go into the woods for a beer-fueled picnic and then just go ahead and not be seen since. The nerve! That is, unless you count the guy wearing the blood-stained burlap sack on his head I keep seeing looking in my window. Yeah, real original, “funny guy.”

Oh, and I really don’t like pointing fingers, but I’m pretty sure that at least one of these wayward wanks is also a thief. I can’t even count how many power tools, gardening utensils, and pieces of sports equipment have gone missing since we arrived. I know times are tough, but how much money could anyone really hope to acquire by hocking stolen machetes, chainsaws, garden sheers, and hockey masks? I guess there is benefit of doubt to be lent here, but unless a down-on-his-luck Bobby Orr is stalking the area AND hellbent on clearing storm debris from his backyard despite the financial troubles that drove him to steal from a kid’s camp, I’d say it’s time to check some staff bunks.

So here I sit, all alone in a creaky cabin on these now deserted campgrounds with nary a hatchet nor lawn dart with which to occupy myself. I’ve made the most of it; taking long steamy showers and dancing around in my underwear to both rock ‘n’ roll. I think the missing degenerates left a bag of smoking drugs behind as well as some alcohols, but I don’t touch that stuff.

At least the scenery around here is nice. The lake is positively choked with majestic nature weeds and ominously upturned canoes. The insects chirp the night away with a relaxing “ki-ki-ki-ma-ma-ma,” and some native bird’s song sounds oddly reminiscent of blood-curdling murder screams. It would be perfect if not for the chunks of bloody flesh from what I assume are pigs that were mutilated by what I assume are coyotes that instinctively leave shreds of clothing on their prey.

I hope you like the taste of sarcasm, because I just eye-fed you a shovel-full. All those things serve to NOT make Camp Crystal Lake the “idyllic and relatively murder-free natural paradise” advertised in your brochure. In fact, I’ve heard many a townie describe this place as “Camp Crud.” Yeah, I’m almost positive that’s what they said.

Ah, I hear the insects now. Strange, I haven’t heard those birds since yesterday. Oh look, there’s the “funny guy” again. Yeah, I see you out there! Well at the very least, those of you reading this can now call off your search for the missing hockey mask.

In any event, Camp Crystal Lake administrators, the situation here is untenable. If drastic changes are not made to your hiring standards, I can assure you I will be the final girl…to ever apply for this job. Sorry, I don’t know why I added an ellipsis there. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to stick this letter in the only mailbox within a ten-mile radius; the one outside that grimy old hunting shack deep in the forest.

Consider this my resignation, and do not for a moment think you won’t be hearing from me again.

Sincerely,
Betty Kant-Catchmee