[mckerney]

Originally Posted by terpkristin

Ok, what is FLGS? Friendly Local Game Store?

Yep.

I kind of wish Chris Kluwe had opened his board game store in Minneapolis, though the Fantasy Flight Event Center will do for a local gaming shop.

Cardboard Children: Fortress America | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

This really made me want to get Fortress America.

And this is what I love about the game. The “feel”. There are better dudes on a map games than Fortress America. But none of them tell this story. You can almost imagine the flow of the game as newspaper headlines.

AMERICA INVADED!
AMERICAN FORCES IN DISARRAY
EASTERN SEABOARD FALLS!
AMERICA: NO SURRENDER
LASER TECH HITS BACK
INVADERS LOSE GROUND IN SOUTH
THE PEOPLE RISE UP!
LASER WARFARE SHIFTS TIDE
ENGLISHMAN’S BAD TEETH SHOT OUT!

Man, this is a fun, old-school game. When you play it, you can almost picture yourself in an American college dorm room, with Red Dawn playing on the TV and Born In The USA on the radio. And Sally knocks on the door and asks you to go to the diner with her, and you’re all like “Sorry, Sally, I’m playing Fortress America with the guys!” And you don’t lose your virginity for another six years and you’re a fucking idiot.

This game would probably not be designed in 2012. Publishers would turn up their nose at it and say there aren’t enough rules, or that luck plays too big a part in the battles. Or that the story of the game is just too silly and you might have mental health issues for even thinking of it. But fuck those guys, because Fortress America already exists, it rules, and it’s about an America that we all secretly love.

See, when I was young, America was this big scary glamorous place that would fuck you up if you looked at it the wrong way. America existed in my head as a creature with Stallone’s muscles, an eagle’s head, Ronald Reagan’s voice and a rocket launcher. In the 1980s, American culture fed me the idea that the USA was built on solid foundations of kissing beautiful girls, driving shit hot cars, shooting anyone who wasn’t American, putting lasers in space and playing some pretty sweet rawk guitar. Now all of this is BAD, sure, and it was a LIE too. But for an 8 year old boy in Glasgow it was certainly cool. Every kid wanted to be an American in the 80s. Fact. These days America is just a confused skinny dude with horn-rimmed glasses trying to decide what to do with a bible.

Fortress America is that good old 1980s fictional America in a box. This is the ultimate guilty pleasure. Pick it up, open some beers, and enjoy some Old Glory.