New Game Round-up: Fast and Furious on the Table, Real-Time Deckbuilding in the Caribbean & Martin Wallace in Zombieland

The parking lot is pulsating with the sound of a hundred different rhythms. People crowd around several cars, each a unique work of art and a powerful beast. Some are tricked out imports from Japan, others are pure American muscle, and someone has brought the latest European beauty. Not all of them will take to the street tonight, but some will be putting it all on the line for a mix of cash and respect.

This is a game of making the cool-headed move or spinning out of control! Drive smart and smooth by managing your hand of cards well, or look for an edge, take a risk, and bank it all on one flip of a card! Either way, full throttle speed is the goal because you're a driver with special talents. You've souped-up your car with all manner of upgrades. This race is yours!

Fast & Furious: Full Throttle is a game of hand-management. Discard cards to change gears, play sets of cards to move and have your hand size decreased through speed penalties.

The setting is the Caribbean 1663. Four nations try to establish themselves on the various islands. Power and money are the goals. On lower levels people try to survive, and achieve personal gain wherever possible. This is the game of those people, who need to overcome challenges, together, but when the opportunity to back stab arise, they will!

The players start with a deck of characters and skills and will improve this deck during the game. The players need to cooperate because they cannot solve most challenges of the game alone. However, this is not a cooperative game... Alliances will be short lived. Heartless betrayal can win you the game, but could also turn against you at the worst possible moment.

The game starts with improving the deck of the player, and in the second half, the players will start to buy victory points. These can be gained if a player has gathered a lot of experience in one of the eight game specializations. Because players face challenges together, they will discuss who is going to help. During that, important, phase of the game, the players can play action cards (skills) whenever they want.

Puerto Diablo has no player turns — you act when you want to!

In Route 666, each player leads a team of five survivors through a hostile land infested by zombies. Their backpacks are filled with food, weapons, bullets and maps of their surroundings. You have to be careful with these meager resources as the team will enter increasingly dangerous areas as the game progresses. Zombies of all types await, with cannibals, anti-personal mines and radioactive wastes also being among the hazards awaiting the players. Who will survive the zombie onslaught?