#7: Last Man Standing III: The Revival
2006

Winner: Monica
Runner-Up: Carl
Third: Erin
Killer: Chris

The Cast:

Angi / DiamondAuraPayge (6th)
Carl / AisleyeneForever (Runner-Up)
Chris / CPYankees25 (Killer)
Danny / Play642Day (10th)
Erin / erinengle (3rd)
Jennifer / IntyrelyJen (11th)
Kelley / midnightproblay (8th)
Meg / MeggsyWeggsy83 (5th)
Monica / DCReads56 (Winner)
Steve / moka380 (4th)
Steven / gabewannabe (9th)
Tyler / SilvahYoshum (7th)

Description:

While the first two Last Man Standing games were in the early 2000s, I got a little nostalgic and decided to revive the series in 2006, after I'd been playing FGC/Yuku games as myself for a few years. This was another game where I completely recruited the cast, and tried to bring together 12 people that I really liked from past games and get them all to know one another. I decided early on that I wanted Chris to be the Killer, since I needed someone who I knew was active, sneaky, and intelligent - anyone who has played with Chris knows that he is all three. He really did a great job - everyone liked him and no one really suspected him until Monica won a clue to the Killer's identity and deciphered it brilliantly to get on Chris's tail.

Mole-type games are always a little tricky to host, and sometimes vaguely inactive people end up making it pretty far, but thankfully that wasn't the case here. We had a few people eliminate themselves from the game by failing to take the quiz, but generally speaking, it was a very active cast throughout. I especially loved the final four of this game - Carl and Monica were easily the two best investigators and they caught onto Chris the earliest, and Erin is just a sweet, very likable person (even though she made it all the way to the end without ever seeming to have a complete grasp on things, haha).

What was interesting and different in this game than others was that I wrote up little descriptions of each death as they happened. The board got nuked during the switch from EZBoard to Yuku, but I remember that some of them were pretty nifty. (I think my favorite was when Tyler forgot to take the quiz, I said that he tripped and hit his head on the way into the quiz room, and died in the hallway waiting for help to arrive ). I also recall the order in which people were eliminated was somewhat fitting - for example, Steve and Meg became very close friends during the game, and they ended up leaving in the double execution right before the final four.

I also liked the big twist of the game, that the executed player could choose to help one person remaining in the game, harm one player, or do neither. I thought it would be cool to see if people were generous spirits or something else entirely - unfortunately, no one ever seemed to really use it, so it didn't really have a big impact on the game. I think revenge twists make much more sense in games where people vote each other out, because those tend to actually inspire the bitter feelings that make them entertaining.

In sum, I loved the cast of LMSIII, but when it comes to drama and excitement, it just didn't deliver enough to crack the top six.

Last Edited By: Electric Autumn 05/10/10 11:34 AM. Edited 1 times.