It’s been a while since I’ve played a dungeon crawler themed board game. The last one I remember playing was HeroQuest, featuring that menacing barbarian on the front of the box that looked like he had skipped his regular morning dose of Zoloft. I don’t recall ever playing that game correctly either…I just enjoyed making the plastic figures fight each other. I’ve always wanted to get into D&D and other RPGs, but as I got older, I found myself losing patience for things that were overly complex in nature. If I had to spend days understanding the three hundred page rulebook, I tended to just file the game away to be addressed later…much, much later.
Board Games
All posts tagged Board Games
It’s Armageddon for real this time, and Bruce Willis is nowhere to be found…what can be done? Well, for starters, you can take control of a major spaceship corporation and charge an arm and a leg to ferry customers off of Earth and onto other habitable planets. I know, sounds cruel…but the Ferengi’s 22nd Rule of Acquisition states that “A wise man can hear profit in the wind” and Star Trek hasn’t let you down yet. It’s a dog eat dog galaxy, and you’re out to be the biggest asteroid in the belt.
Most, if not all of you, have heard of this little game called Monopoly. Okay, maybe it’s not so little. Anyway, the main complaint that I’ve heard against the original Monopoly board game is that it took too long to play, assuming that you played to be the last man (or woman) standing. Personally, I’ve always been a fan of Monopoly, mainly because it was the first board game I remember playing as a kid. I liked the idea of owning property and charging other players rent…but heck, I really hated that income tax space…I land on it EVERY SINGLE TIME. Even when I am one space away from it, the dice somehow break the laws of physics and I end up paying the two hundred bucks that I just earned for passing “Go.”
Pop Quiz: What is the longest river in the world? Whether you pulled the information out of cobwebs from within the deep recesses of your brain or looked at the title of this article, you probably guessed it to be the Nile River. In ancient Egyptian agriculture, the Nile was essential in providing water to grow food as rainfall was scarce throughout the region. The lands near the Nile on either side were known as the floodplain, where the soil was the richest for farming.
Before “Say Anything!” was brought into our house, “Apples to Apples” was probably the most requested game to play on family game night. That is extremely high praise seeing as how we have over fifty board games in our living room closet. I’ve often referred to this game in previous articles, but today we’re actually going to address it.
Let’s pretend for a moment that you’re hosting a party and that the guests of honor should be arriving any minute. You’ve got your Star Trek DVDs locked and loaded, you’ve got your favorite Hanson album blasting away, and the eighteen topping pizzas that someone is sure to be allergic to are on their way. You’re confident that Captain Kirk can keep your guests actively engaged throughout the evening, but you’re thinking of bringing out a party game just to be sure.
Words can’t express how psyched I was when I discovered this game. I am a big fan of city builder games and a lot of the good ones that people recommended to me are either out of print or go for outrageous amounts on Amazon or eBay. Sure, you could play SimCity 4 or Cities XL on the PC…but the former was released in 2003 and the latter I didn’t find to be all that good. I desperately needed to scratch that city builder itch, and Sunrise City happened to come along just in the nick of time.
Being a customizable card game connoisseur can be expensive. More often than not, you’ll drop five bucks or more on expansion packs in the hopes of getting a rare card that will boost your main deck…sometimes with disappointing results. I experienced a lot of that when trying to build my first Star Trek Customizable Card Game deck when I was a kid. I may have to bring my binder out of mothballs and review that game as well…but for now, we’re going to take a look at a lighter two player card game that is much easier to pick up and play.
I enjoy a good mystery. I am not sure what appeals to me more…the leaps in logical deduction that I make during the ordeal or the smug satisfaction I feel when I finally figure out what really happened. I was secretly hoping that I would find a board game that featured the brilliant Sherlock Holmes, but Jack the Ripper turned out to work just as well.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that most of you have at least heard of the board game Trouble. You know, die popper in the middle, diamond-shaped board, different colored pegs that you move around said board, etc? Personally, I am not a fan of games based on chance, but the overall gameplay is sound. I am a little fuzzy on how this particular version of Trouble landed into my board game closet, but I suppose the Force works in mystery ways.
Sometimes the best things come in the smallest packages and sometimes, the smallest package does not always imply simplicity. I’ve often stated in my reviews that the hallmark of a great game is one that is simple to learn and difficult to master…this game certainly applies.
I’ve written many articles about Chess already, but I wanted to write a formal review so that it can be formatted appropriately for other websites and to serve as a one-stop shop for all of my articles on the subject.
Ingenious, as I’ve stated in my review, is an excellent game. However, I was often the victim of fat finger syndrome…that is…I had issues constantly moving the small colored pegs up the scoring track.
Has anyone ever played Zoo Tycoon 2: Marine Mania for the PC? It’s a simulator game where you have to manage a zoo park, creating the perfect habitats for both land and sea animals. You have to manage employee wages, ticket prices, customer comfort…all that jazz. Well, Aquaretto, while having a zoo park theme, has none of these features. Yet, the question remains…is it a good game?
I have a confession to make…I’ve never played Dungeons and Dragons. I’ve always been interested but frankly, I wouldn’t know where to start now. I can only imagine how many books are out there and how long it would take for me to get up to speed on how the whole thing works. I’ve heard that it can take hours just to create a character…perhaps if I were twenty years younger and didn’t have a full-time job as both an accountant and a parent *shrug*. Luckily, I found this little gem, which takes place in the port city of Waterdeep from the D&D realm. Sure, there aren’t any D20 initiative rolls (my apologies if I butchered that), but the game still has “Dungeons and Dragons” printed on the box. At this day and age, I’ll take whatever I can get…assuming it takes less than two hours to play. As it turns out, I couldn’t be more than pleased with my purchase.
I am not sure why, but I’ve always liked “run your own casino” type games. Casino, Inc. for the PC is among my favorites, even though it suffers from quite a few flaws. I was watching Frasier the other night when the thought popped into my head…”Hey, I’ve been reviewing a lot of board games lately, maybe there’s a readily available casino themed game out there? TO AMAZON!!!” I must have said that last part out loud, based on the looks my dog and two cats gave me. After a little research, I went ahead and ordered this game, hoping for the best.