Forum Overview :: Reviews :: Volume 2, right now!

[quote name="FABIO"]To start things off, what the fuck is with play by email players? Every single PBEM group I find for these games insists on using every single optional rule that makes the game overcomplicated (something I'd think you wouldn't want to do for a streamlined email game). If the rules don't exist, they invent their own horribly overcomplicated ones that add nothing to the game other than make it harder to play (h4rdkOr3!). The worst of all these is Supremacy, a game that started out no more complex than Axis & Allies, but through <a href="http://www.bachleda.org/games/supindex.htm">a shitload of extra rules</a> grew into an unplayable monster. WHY? Okay I can sort of understand Supremacy. The basic game is broken and some boardgaming Zseni set out to try and save it by adding rule upon rule which made the whole thing worse. BUT they have to go and do this with every single game out there. Fortress America is slightly less complex than the already simple Axis & Allies, but they had to go ahead and do <a href="http://s39.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1K5VVVZ25HX021Y1KKSD9WCA7Y ">this</a> to it. Can anyone read that without getting a headache? Boardgames shouldn't require <b>GRAPHS</b> to understand. <b>Risk 2210</b> This game is broken. Turn order is different for every round and you bid energy (money) for the right to choose turn order. This sets up situations where someone can go last in one round, then first in the next round, effectively giving them TWO turns in a row. Can you imagine how overpowered it would be to get two turns in a row in Risk? It's exactly as broken as it sounds. Once one person takes a lead, he gets more armies AND energy making it impossible to stop him and he just steamrolls everyone else. It all really just comes down to who gets two turns in a row first. You can't simply set a standard turn order because without the bidding the entire ecomomic model is fucked. Another dissapointment is that it comes with all these neat commander units and cards you can get for them, but the game is pretty much over before you really get to use them that much. A game lasts only 5 rounds (as mandated by the rulebook), and usually someone takes an overwhelming lead one or two turns before that. Availability: High (part of the new Hasbro/Avalon Hill lineup) Recommendation: Promise of fun, but the game's just a broken mess. Avoid <b>Settlers of Katan</b> My old college boardgame friends swore by this game. I couldn't stand it. One of many odd economic trading games from Germany. Several tiles are randomly placed, each tile produces a certain resource (grain, brick, sheep, etc). Each player gets two towns to place on a tile and receives the resource in tiles he has a town in whenever that town's number is rolled. The object is to build roads across the board and place more towns along the road to get more resources until you get enough points to win. Every round you barter with the other players to trade resources. Problems include brick usually being a major stopgap every game. Everything drags to a halt as everyone waits for someone to roll more brick. A bigger problem is the road system works like Tron light cycles; you can't build through existing ones. Some players get cut off by others and at that point they're fucked because they can't expand, yet you HAVE to keep playing because the game's all about players bartering. You're never going to win, but you still have <i>some</i> resources to barter with. If you hit this point then playing on is the most pointless and boring thing imaginable. Whenever it happened to me I would just give away all my resources for free to whomever was in the lead just so the game would end faster. That tactic got labelled as "cheap" and going against the spirit of the game. I defended it by claiming that the GAME went against the spirit of the game by not being fun. The dispute was resolved with me playing videogames instead of Settler of Katan. Availability: Moderate. Still in print, not too hard to find. Recommendation: A blast if you enjoy watching the screwed players sighing as they count the cracks in the wall while waiting for the game to end. <b>Carcasonne</b> Another fruity European game, I'm going to guess German. I never actually played it, but I did sit in on half a session and was utterly clueless about what was going on. Everyone was putting down little tile cards (Germans and their tiles). I <i>think</i> everyone was tracing some river to connect buffallo together or something. Everyone was staring at the board until someone would proclaim "ah ha!" and adjust the score. It felt like everyone was staring into one of those magic 3D drawings and I was the only one not seeing the picture. Availability: Some as Settlers? Recommendation:........the hell? [/quote]