GamesReviews written by Harkonnen13
Age of Mythology is a decent game and the very first strategy boardgame I got my wife to play. There's some neat things going on but amassing an army and using it have never won me a game. A solid building strategy does win games. Maybe it was poor development/playtesting but why put all those plastic soldiers and monsters in the box if it's primarily a building game?
Combat Commander is a game with WWII imagery and terminology that uses cards to determine when counters on a hex map can move and fire. Many turns can pass while players draw cards into their hands to try to get something they can use, in the meantime the opposing forces stop dead, nothing happens. Good tactical opportunities can't be exploited unless you have the right cards. Fog of war and battlefield chaos didn't result in every battle of the war being some weird non-reactive situation with entirely random results. There are no tactics involved with this game, just card play that governs the actions of chits. Hand management is not tactical. CC apologists will tell you otherwise but that's not the case.
I really wanted to like Zombies but after a few games I can say that I probably won't be playing again. Roll, move, more zombies, more bullets, more cards, more hearts. Get killed, lose your stuff, start over at the beginning. That is Zombies in a nutshell. Such a light game shouldn't take more than an hour to complete. I had two games go over two hours. I can play a wargame that lasts 10 hours but the payback in fun for Zombies just isn't worth the time invested. The designers should have remedied this with the second edition but really didn't. Last Night on Earth is a much better game and I recommend that instead to anyone who's a fan of zombie horror.
Great game solo or with others. The rule book is a little quirky but after a couple of plays it's not a problem. I would recommend it for Lovecraft fans (that would be me) or non-Lovecraft fans looking for a character-based game. A LOT can go on in Arkham Horror, don't ever expect the exact same game twice. Once I was past 10 or so games the expansions became necessary to keep it interesting for me. Overall I've gotten a lot of enjoyment out of Arkham Horror.
A quick, light game that does have a little of the LOTR theme. I like playing the Fellowship then turning the board around to play the forces of the Shadow and having it only take around an hour. There's some neat game play here. I've played 10 games with my wife and she's beaten me 10 times. I suck at this but it's still a good little game.
Simple rules simulating a complex fictional setting. Dune does a good job recreating some of the themes of the novel and is pretty easy to learn while having some fairly deep strategy. Shai Hulud can wipe out spice production and the coriolis storms can wipe out your units. Interesting interactions can occur when your factions' special abilities work against another's. There's probably a few modern boardgame designers that drew inspiration from this game. If you love the Dune novels (I have for many years) you need to play this game a couple of times. If you like games that give a full strategy boardgame experience you should try it.
After one game of Puerto Rico I saw that a collection of rules can work well together and be nothing more than a collection of rules. Add some peices and the ability to occasionally pull the rug out from under an opponent along with a name and box cover art that looks like a historical scene and you have the #2 ranked boardgame in existence. Dull, not at all historical, and condcive to a weird vibe that said to me the people I was playing with wanted to beat each other badly but didn't want to be up front about it.
Twilight Struggle is a first-class strategy boardgame where the Cold War is played in its' entirety. Influence chits are added to or removed from individual nations and fought over with card play that can directly affect the Influence through Operations Points or the cards may be played as historical Events with associated in-game effects. Rules for the Space Race, Coups, and a Defcon track that keeps the world on the edge of nuclear war are presented, though failure through starting a nuclear exchange is not rewarded. There's critical decisions that must be made every turn and TS can be very unforgiving. The general flow of the game provides a great historical feel. The rules are fairly simple, winning the game isn't.
As already mentioned in the previous review this is only a wargame in the loosest definition of the word. Armies do not at any point hit the table or move across the board, Influence does. Influence is political, cultural, religious, creative, and military in nature. BUT there is a very high amount of direct conflict (which by itself isn't the sole criteria for what constitutes a wargame) in TS, this isn't some multiplayer solitaire eurogame. Players actions against each other can be harsh and felt fairly quickly. This is not for people who try to avoid confrontation in games.
I highly recommend Twilight Struggle. Fans of history will love it. So will people who enjoy a strategically deep game that is a no-holds-barred 2-player contest. Beleive the hype, this game rocks.
I don't often post negative comments anywhere about games but this game is one of the most boring collection of tiles and rules that I've ever played. The one 4p game I did lasted over two hours, which would have been ok if the game was fun but it wasn't. Wood for sheep? I don't think so. Add to that a swarm of eurogamers (in various stages of bad hygiene) that surrounded the table to call out strategic advice to those of us playing and you have a game I won't play again.
After trying to force myself to like Twilight Creations Zombies (and failing) LNoE was the perfect replacement. This game does indeed play out like a scene from a Zombie movie. The play flows, playing either side is fun, Kick-ass components, and it's generally a blast. This game is the zombie fix I needed.