Bugs: Recent Topics Paging, Uploading Images & Preview (11 Dec 2020)
Recent Topics paging, uploading images and preview bugs require a patch which has not yet been released.
Play Matt: Top Titles 25 - 1
- Matt Thrower
- Topic Author
- Offline
- Shiny Balls
- Number Of Fence
What makes it...
#25 Ticket to Ride / Ticket to Ride: Europe
There’s a good reason why this has been a smash breakout hit outside the hobby: it is fast, fun and exciting. And for gamers, there’s just enough meat here to satisfy. The original has the nasty ratchet of predicting and blocking routes, while the Europe version is a little kinder and has a few extra strategic levers. It’s a game where you’ll never have a dull session and that, alone, makes it worthy of a top slot.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
- Andi Lennon
- Offline
- D6
- Do your thing
I am however looking forward to both Pax Pamir 2e and Undaunted: Normandy which I have on the way.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
- Matt Thrower
- Topic Author
- Offline
- Shiny Balls
- Number Of Fence
Andi Lennon wrote: I fear I must have missed something fundamental in my play-through of the D&D Adventure System-Castle Ravenloft as my whole group found it tedious in the extreme. Bad art, uninteresting combat mechanics, perfunctory writing etc. and yet I continue to see it lauded so it's a little perplexing and perhaps worth another shot.
I am however looking forward to both Pax Pamir 2e and Undaunted: Normandy which I have on the way.
You don't have to like a game just because others do. I'll agree that the card art and the writing is poor. Many of the early scenarios are quite easy, which some people don't care for in a co-op game but I prefer a well-pitched difficulty curve with some quick wins.
The main reason I like it is because it creates the sense of a living, breathing dungeon to explore, something almost no other co-op game has managed.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
- Andi Lennon
- Offline
- D6
- Do your thing
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
As a resident PHG and Emerson Matsuuchi fan, it's nice to see Specter Ops up here.
Otherwise, great list and I wish I had played more wargames.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
At the clubs I used to go to before all this, 2p games were very uncommon, and I never really thought to play wargames with my wife.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
Candidates where my top 25 differs from Matt's are probably:
WALLENSTEIN: cube tower used to cool effect, grindy attack mode to convinced taxed rabble to pitchfork other taxed rabble so they become my rabble, and tons of horribly misprounounced German make this a gem.
ACQUIRE: best gateway game that is also 50 years old. Great money game for folks that learned to deeply hate MONOPOLY.
SURVIVE: Best, most ruthless meeple game since CARCASSONNE, and definitely more overt about it. Yeah, I am sinking that boat.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
- Matt Thrower
- Topic Author
- Offline
- Shiny Balls
- Number Of Fence
Jexik wrote: Okay, I know what to complain about now - Catan, Power Grid. Both of which I'd much rather play over Lords of Waterdeep, which I found immensely overrated all over the place.
As a resident PHG and Emerson Matsuuchi fan, it's nice to see Specter Ops up here.
Otherwise, great list and I wish I had played more wargames.
Thanks. I feel the same about Power Grid as you do about Waterdeep. Power Grid is just a maths lesson, except more expensive and time-consuming.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
- Matt Thrower
- Topic Author
- Offline
- Shiny Balls
- Number Of Fence
jeb wrote: I can't complain, other than to take ARKHAM 2e over 1e, but I get the sentimentality there. The rest of this all lines up with what I want in games as well. I might actually prefer 1960: THE MAKING OF A PRESIDENT to TWILIGHT STRUGGLE (am I allowed to say this?), but I'd need more plays of each to suss all that out.
Candidates where my top 25 differs from Matt's are probably:
WALLENSTEIN: cube tower used to cool effect, grindy attack mode to convinced taxed rabble to pitchfork other taxed rabble so they become my rabble, and tons of horribly misprounounced German make this a gem.
ACQUIRE: best gateway game that is also 50 years old. Great money game for folks that learned to deeply hate MONOPOLY.
SURVIVE: Best, most ruthless meeple game since CARCASSONNE, and definitely more overt about it. Yeah, I am sinking that boat.
It's not sentimentality: I've never actually played Arkham Horror 2e. Just never felt the need to. I'm sure it's a superior game but when I've got the original, a bunch of expansions, a bunch of cool stories and a hand-made box I know I won't ever get rid of it, so I've never felt the need.
I did not like 1960. It seemed to have a bunch of pointless fluff elements and then just consisted of adding cubes, taking them away, adding them and so on ad nauseam.
Wallenstein is great - it's further up this list, somewhere.
Acquire is really clever, it's a game I admire as a seminal design but fundamentally it feels too much like hard work than a game.
Survive is okay, but I found it didn't deliver on its promise in the way I'd hoped. Yes it's great fun to pull tiles out from under your opponent's meeples and eat them but the hidden values make the whole game a crapshoot. As a result, you just can't gloat the way you want to.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
I have been playing some Founding Fathers at yucata, and it's probably too early to comment - but it feels like the events on the cards can be massive, but because they represent people, they cycle through all the time, so knowing the deck for those one use kind of events is not a thing so much.
I don't know if it's gut punchy though in quite the same way.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.