Forum Overview :: Reviews :: Boardgame roundup: Vol. 1

[quote name="FABIO"]People still play these, right? Going down a list of the ones I own or have played throughout my college years. <b>Axis & Allies</b> WHY do people love this so much? Enough that it's the only Gamemaster game to have been made into a PC game. Is it just the setting allowing armchair generals to show how it would have turned out if THEY were in command? Alright for about two or three games until everyone realizes the ONE optimal strategy they MUST stick to, right down to the EXACT opening moves you MUST make the first turn. Out of all five players, only Germany and Russia really get to do anything, extremely boring for everyone else. Recommendation: Maybe good for one or two plays until it becomes stale Availability: High (sold through the new Avalon Hill) <b>Axis & Allies: Europe</b> Meh. Slightly more historically accurate (mostly by just removing the pacific theater, where all the inaccuracies occured), but still the same game. Infatry/tank grind between Germany and Russia, Britain and US simply ferry troops over to land in France. Recommendation: Same as standard A&A Availability: High (sold through the new Avalon Hill) <b>Fortress America</b> Not great, but still better than A&A. Red Dawn setting helps. A little unbalanced in that the American player must know exactly what he's doing in order to stand a chance. Certain invaders are forced to play certain roles, but they're not as deadset specialized as A&A. A decent game, but after awhile once the US player knows what to do, it mostly just comes down to the luck of the die and which reinforcement cards you get. Recommendation: A step up from A&A. Decent enough. Hinges too much on simple luck though. Availability: Long since discontinued. Ebay only. Some electronic online games available at the yahoo groups site. <b>Shogun</b> Hands down the best Gamemaster series game. Why hasn't this been made into a PC game instead of A&A being made into one <b>twice</b>? Instead of reissuing this game under the new Hasbro/Avalon Hill brand, they come out with fucking FOUR different versions of A&A. When will people realize that game is fundamentally boring and cuts off any attempt of replay value at the knees? Anyways, Shogun rules because no player is forced into an unbalanced role and every setup is completely different like Risk. No set teams, it's everyone for themself. Money received can be spent on all sorts of neat stuff like units, mercenaries, or fortifications, in addition to secretly bidding against other players for turn order and ninja hiring. Recommendation: Highly. If you enjoyed A&A at all then this is a must have. Fun, tense game. High replay value. Availability: Ebay only thanks to jerkoff A&A fanboy fagwads. Some play by email games available off the yahoo group. <b>Supremacy</b> I've really, really always wanted to like this game, but it's horribly, horribly broken. Basic premise is Risk with resources (oil, grain, minerals, money), logistics, and nukes. Would be fun, but is broken for several reasons. - The only way to make money is off the market, which is horrendously violitile. Prices can go from $1 million to $1 <i>billion</i>. After people secure their own resources from territories, there's no more reason to buy off the market anymore, prices crash, and everyone goes broke. - Limited resource stockpilies make the logistics of moving around large conventional armies impossible. Every game turns into a nuke war and usually ends in nuclear winter with everyone losing. There are about ten billion different add ons and optional rules for this game, all of which needlessly (and exponentially) increase the complexity without ever bothering to fix the fundamental brokeness. For some reason the game still has some appeal to it. You can almost have enough fun simply playing through and trying to come up with new variations to fix it and make it playable. Availability: Ebay only. Online games at various sites are available, but all of them use almost every single add on rule, bringing it to Star Fleet Battles levels of complexity, rendering it unplayable. Recommendation: Horrible broken, but still has some sort of unexplainable charm to it. Probably not worth the trouble it'll take to acquire a copy. <b>Cosmic Encounters</b> The Mario Party of boardgames. On the surface, it's a fun party game with a ton (over 50) of wacky alien races, each of which with their own special power that lets them break one rule of the game. Basic gameplay is sort of like Diplomacy without borders (anyone can attack anywhere) with a slight random factor in direct combat (play the highest power card). Then the problems start shining through. Like Mario Party, there are so many random factors that pop up (with all the cards) that it pretty much becomes blind luck that determines who wins rather than skill or strategy. End games are usually extremely anti-climatic. More than one person can win as long as each of them meets the winning requirements on the same turn. Last turns usually look something like this Player 1: "Hey, if you could play this card, then we'd both end up winning" Player 2: "Okay" *plays card* Player 1: "We win!" Pretty lame conclusion for a one hour game. There's absoutely no incentive to selfishly horde the victory to yourself, so players just hasten the ending and EVERYBODY WINS! My suggestion for a more interesting cutthroat game (which always gets shotdown by the fools I played with) was for everyone to ante a couple bucks at the start. Winner takes the pot. Combined victories must split the pot evenly. More trickery, more backstabbing, more fun. Availability: High (sold through the new Avalon Hill) Recommendation: Do you enjoy Mario Party's complete randomness? Your answer will reveal how much you will like this game. <b>Naval War</b> Fun, simple, quick little card game of Naval combat. Each player gets a certain number of ships, each with a certain number of damage points and gun size (and aircraft carriers). Cards are mostly salvo blasts that inflict a certain amount of damage, but you must have a ship of the listed gun size to fire it. Whoever deals the killing blow to a ship receives its point value. Games end up being everyone taking potshots at other players' ships, not wanting to leave an easy killsteal for anyone else. Some other cards add to the fun, the best of which is the destroyer squadron, a ship card that, if it can survive an entire round, allows you to target one player and outright sink 1-6 of his ships. It can be sunk if everyone works together, but will they? Or will everyone not fire on it in hopes of not pissing off its owner so they won't be targetted? Great opportunities for backstabbing and assholellery. Availability: Part of the old Avalon Hill lineup, probably ebay only now. Recommenation: Not only is it fun, it's extremely simple and quick to play. Playable by even the most casual of gamers (even girls!). <b>Guerilla War</b> Fun fun fun cardgame simulating a banana republic revolution. Each player can field both Government and Rebel forces at once, but secretly supports only one of them. Each battle scores points for both the faction that won it and the player. The player with the most points at the end wins, but if the faction he supports loses, his point total is halved. Lots of fun cards to keep things interesting. Play the "atrocities committed" card to halve an opponent's points for a battle. Now the possibility for UN intervention opens up where they police a player and prevent attacks on and from him. If this gets too annoying, just attack and kill off the peacekeepers! Capture the television station to broadcast propaganda and get enemy soldiers to desert. Capture the airfield to launch airstrikes. Capture La Policia station to arrest "traitorous" officers. I could really use the port to smuggle in arms staches, which I can then use to try and blow up El Bacno de Nationalle. UNLIKE Cosmic encounters, tension as to who will win runs high up until the very end. You can't quite be sure about who supports which faction, some players might even be mercenaries trying to prevent either faction from winning by too much. Availability: Part of the old Avalon Hill lineup. Probably ebay only now. Recommendation: Great fun little game of shithole Latin American revolutions. Probably my favorite on this entire list. Moderate complexity to start, but once you pick it up it's pretty smooth and streamlined with excellent documenation and indexing on cards to explain things if you ever do get stuck.[/quote]