Some Brief Game Reviews

Some Brief Game Reviews

I've been playing some different games lately. Here are some very brief reviews:

Stone Age: This game from Rio Grande is a resource management game, kind of similar to another game I enjoy, Pillars of the Earth. It's got more random elements than most similar games, though, for not only are their random cards and tiles in play, but you roll to determine how successful you are when attempting to gain new resources (mining for gold, making bricks, etc.). This seemed odd at first, but by the time we'd played two games, I found this random factor fun and refreshing. I think I'll add this to my stable of games to go back to.

Puerto Rico: This is one of those games that apparently I'm supposed to be ashamed to have never yet played. Oh well. It's a fun game. It's another resource management game of the variety that's more typical than Stone Age. You're developing resources to build things which help you develop resources, etc. It seems quite elegantly balanced, and I see how it has become a classic of the type. Give it a try if you haven't already.

Seven Wonders: I love this game. Similar to Puerto Rico and others, you're developing resources and buildling things. But the mechanics are very different. Everyone's after a slightly different set of objectives (everyone's trying to build one of the different seven wonders of the world), and you do so with cards dealt to you. You take the card you want, and then pass your hand to the person next to you. And so on. It's also interesting that as you develop your resources and build your structures, these too affect those immediately to your right and left (but no one else) and vice versa. This of course, can create a ripple affect around the table. You might not be near the person trying to amass huge military resources, but you could still be adversely affected by being adjacent to someone who then has to build up their own military might to deal with that warlike neighbor. This is probably my favorite game on this short list.

Letters from Whitechapel: Very, very different from the others on this list, this game pits one player (Jack the Ripper) against all the others (the cops looking for him). It's an investigation game, where players move around a large board looking for Jack, who's current location is always hidden but clues are left in his wake. It's probably unfair, but if you think about playing Battleship, you're on the right track for how the game sort of plays out. My objection to this game is similar to others I've played with that dynamic--the one player has lots of interesting things to do, and the rest all have just a little. It's also very easy for one player on the investigator's side to manage the rest of the players, suggesting that really this could (and perhaps should) be just a two player game. The only time I feel like it's been done well is Betrayal at House on the Hill, where for most of the game, you're all sort of working together, and you only get the one vs. many dynamic at the very end. Playing one of the investigators, I found the game to be slow and not well balanced. I'm not likely to join in a game of this one again.