Review Detail

I can really see why this is such a popular and highly lauded game amongst a certain type of gamer. If you want an intense, cerebral multiplayer strategy game with low player interaction and in which randomness plays only a tiny impact, they don't come much better than this. Of course, the fact that it manages to be all these things also means that there are a bunch of things it isn't - thematic, accessible, social. It also has that infamous left/right binding problem where a weak player can hand a huge advantage to the next player in the chain. The thing I like most about Pureto Rico is the fact that by presenting you with a limited decision tree it manages to feel a lot less heavy than it actually is - which is a pretty impressive feat in my book. So it's worth a play simply for being the best of it's kind - and I find it interesting that it had to break so many rules of it's own paradigm (this is neither short nor simple) to get there.