10-17-2007, 07:59 PM
Chez Grunt
A card game review by Eric Ridley
Stand straight you horrible little maggot! You will pay attention to this write-up of the latest in the Chez Geek line! Ahem, Chez Grunt follows quickly on the heels of Chez Greek, and represents the 5 set in the slack-obsessed line of 'Chez' card games. This game is all about relaxing, but relaxing in the army can be stressful in and of itself.
You are required to take the position of a randomly selected Military Operation Specialty (MOS) and from there you must work your butt off to gain slack. You have a slack goal to attain which is printed on your MOS card, and a certain amount of free time per turn to acquire that slack. Slack can come in many forms, from normal activities like sleeping to jumping the fence of the compound and running off into civvie life. There are also a number of cards that allow you to interfere with your fellow recruits: you can shop them to the corporal, or perhaps steal their cigarettes and generally make life difficult for them. As a member of the armed forces you are under strict instructions not to have any illicit objects or possessions, and that counts a lot of fun stuff, everything from bongs to claymore mines. Anyone found with such offensive articles will be immediately punished for their actions.
This is one of the main differences from Chez Geek, you risk a major penalty if you get caught buying contraband, but these items do carry a high reward of slack if you manage to sneak them under the nose of the CO.
Apart from that, there are no real differences. The card backs are different from Chez Geek and Greek, but the games can still be combined into one gigantic slack-gathering fest. To do so you just combine all the sets together and shuffle them into one big pile. The artwork continues to be done by the brilliant John Kovalic, and is reason alone for buying the game. But is it worth getting over the other Chez games or, indeed, if you have all of them already? I know more than average about military terms and equipment, but a lot of these jokes were lost on me, I just did not know about the subject. So to me it is less fun than the other Chezes: the flavour text is still funny and the art is still great and of course the game is fun, but if you don't have any Chez games I would buy either Geek or my personal favourite Greek. If you have all of them already, I would be a mean person to say 'do not buy this game you office-working sissy!' but not entirely out of line. If you have a spare twelve quid then go for it, but it is not as funny as its predecessors and feels like a bit of a rehash rather than a spanky new M-16 assault riffle.
Chez Grunt
Steve Jackson Games
112 cards and rules leaflet
£12
2 - 5 players
A card game review by Eric Ridley
Stand straight you horrible little maggot! You will pay attention to this write-up of the latest in the Chez Geek line! Ahem, Chez Grunt follows quickly on the heels of Chez Greek, and represents the 5 set in the slack-obsessed line of 'Chez' card games. This game is all about relaxing, but relaxing in the army can be stressful in and of itself.
You are required to take the position of a randomly selected Military Operation Specialty (MOS) and from there you must work your butt off to gain slack. You have a slack goal to attain which is printed on your MOS card, and a certain amount of free time per turn to acquire that slack. Slack can come in many forms, from normal activities like sleeping to jumping the fence of the compound and running off into civvie life. There are also a number of cards that allow you to interfere with your fellow recruits: you can shop them to the corporal, or perhaps steal their cigarettes and generally make life difficult for them. As a member of the armed forces you are under strict instructions not to have any illicit objects or possessions, and that counts a lot of fun stuff, everything from bongs to claymore mines. Anyone found with such offensive articles will be immediately punished for their actions.
This is one of the main differences from Chez Geek, you risk a major penalty if you get caught buying contraband, but these items do carry a high reward of slack if you manage to sneak them under the nose of the CO.
Apart from that, there are no real differences. The card backs are different from Chez Geek and Greek, but the games can still be combined into one gigantic slack-gathering fest. To do so you just combine all the sets together and shuffle them into one big pile. The artwork continues to be done by the brilliant John Kovalic, and is reason alone for buying the game. But is it worth getting over the other Chez games or, indeed, if you have all of them already? I know more than average about military terms and equipment, but a lot of these jokes were lost on me, I just did not know about the subject. So to me it is less fun than the other Chezes: the flavour text is still funny and the art is still great and of course the game is fun, but if you don't have any Chez games I would buy either Geek or my personal favourite Greek. If you have all of them already, I would be a mean person to say 'do not buy this game you office-working sissy!' but not entirely out of line. If you have a spare twelve quid then go for it, but it is not as funny as its predecessors and feels like a bit of a rehash rather than a spanky new M-16 assault riffle.
Chez Grunt
Steve Jackson Games
112 cards and rules leaflet
£12
2 - 5 players
Eric Ridley
2004-12-06
2004-12-06