ALIENOID SMASH! - King of Tokyo Review

You  know those last moments of a convention? You’ve stayed up til the wee hours for three nights in a row, and you’re just killing time before the last door prizes are awarded. Might as well learn a new game,  but for the love of heaven, not something heavy. You’ve spent the whole convention learning 3-4 hour games. This is the situation I found myself in when I first played King of Tokyo earlier this year. Since none of us know how to play, we learn from the rules, which is usually a no-no. But in this case, it’s not bad at all. We’re up and running in about fifteen minutes. After one game, we’ve gotten a feel for the rules, for the different dynamics and interactions. So hey, might as well play a second game. That’s a good move, because by now the rules are totally internalized, and we can focus on trying to push each other around. But the third game? That is the coup de grace. Because after two previous games, we now have some grudges. We all have someone we want to take down. And it was at that point that my experience with King of Tokyo became something special. It’s a good thing the game wasn’t available at the con, because otherwise you couldn’t have stopped me from buying it.