The great board game post, part 2
Last time, I asked for feedback on games that we had already played. This time, I'm looking for feedback on games I'm debating buying. If any of these catch your fancy, let me know. Let's get right into it.
Pandemic
Co-op game where up to four players play on the same team, trying to eradicate disease outbreaks. Each of the players has a specific skill. Either all players win, or all players lose. Time: 45 minutes |
Battlestar Galactica
Co-op game for 3-6 players. Game plays as humans against the cylons, but in the beginning the cylon players are kept hidden. So while this is a co-op game, there are traitors (cylons) that are randomly assigned each game. You play as one or more characters from the show, each of which has special abilities and, throughout the game you must make jumps and fight cylons, etc. Time: 120 minutes |
Puerto Rico
Players are plantation owners in Puerto Rico. You must grow crops, run an efficient business, ship goods to Europe and develop San Juan with useful buildings in order to win. Each round players choose different roles which have different actions and bonuses associated with them. Time: 90 minutes |
Power Grid
Players bid on power plants to provide power to their cities. Players then use these power plants to supply power to the cities in which they have connected. Virtually no luck in this game. Player must balance upgrading existing power plants versus expanding their network and buying new power plants. Time: 120 minutes |
Agricola
Be a farmer! You own a farm, and must decide how to grow it. Build a fence to keep animals, expand your house so you can have kids, collect clay or wood, harvest your field, etc. You must balance what few actions you have in order to build the best farm. Time: 120 minutes |
Hollywood Blockbuster
A pretty lightweight auction game where you produce movies. How much money will you spend on the script? What actors are you willing to pay for? Which director? Real names are used here, so you could, for example, make "Braveheart" starring Keanu Reeves and directed by John Hughes. Whoa. Time: 45 |
Cash n Guns
Party game involving foam guns, samurai swords, and shotguns. This is effectively a press your luck game. Each round you point your weapon at someone, and play a card. Each card has 1 bullet, 3 bullets or a blank. Most cards are blank. People who survive the round share the money. Get shot too much and you die. Time: 30 minutes |
Say Anything
It's like Apples to Apples, but the judge gets to pick from a number of "green" cards, and the contestants can write their own "red" card. After judge secretly picks the winner, contestants then bet on what answer they think the judge picked. Time: 40 minutes |
Race For The Galaxy
Using cards, build a galactic civilization, complete with social and tech tree. It's sort of like a Puerto Rico light (or a heavy San Juan) type of game. Pretty short game, can be played in <60 minuts. Time: 45 minutes |
Colosseum
In ancient Rome, build a colosseum, expand it, put on shows and events, attract nobles and the emperor. Person who attacts the most people wins. Time: 60 minutes |
Thebes
Be an archaeologist. Manage your time to collect materials to excavate, acquire knowledge about ancient civilizations, then use this information to dig for treasure... er, artifacts. Time: 60 minutes |
Kingsburg
You are a Lord, who must build up your town, gather resources, gain influence and defend your castle from roaming monster hoards. Utilize advisors to accomplish your goals. Time: 90 minutes |
Age of Empires 3
Explore, colonize, trade and manage your empires economy. Civilization building game. Very little war. Time: 120 minutes |
Arkham Horror
In the year 1926, defend a small Massachusetts town from the Ancient One, Cthulhu. This is an incredibly complex game, but once you learn it people seem to love it. Time: 180 minutes |
Pitchcar
Build a race track (made of wood). Each player gets a disc that represents their car. Players then take turns flicking their car down the track, trying to prevent it from falling off. Dexterity party game. Time: 30 minutes |
Galaxy Trucker
You have a short amount of time to construct your ship in order to haul cargo, people, and defend itself against space pirates. Then you fly around the galaxy completing objectives, while being facing random encounters (asteroids, pirates) that blow chunks off your ship. Doh! Time: 60 minutes |
...
I've heard Puerto Rico is good (thought it was you that told me that though...) and played Race for the Galaxy - My brother really likes Race and I think I would too with more understanding of it. So my leanings are for those and the Arkham one because it sounds interesting.
Games
I've really enjoyed San Juan, so I'd vote for Puerto Rico. And I agree that Arkham Horror seems interesting. The setting and story are different than any other game we've played.
I vote against Power Grid because the pieces are pastel colors!!
Pandemic is the one I would
Pandemic is the one I would have voted for (because who doesn't like global killing diseases?)... so you already beat me to it. Puerto Rico is the other one I've wanted to try for a while now. I still have yet to play San Juan. Either way... I'd probably like most of the games up there. :)
UPDATE
I didn't include this game originally because it had been out of stock, but here is another possibility
Last Night On Earth
In this game you re-inact a B-movie Zombie flick. This is a semi-cooperative game, where one team plays as stereotypical characters from zombie movies (e.g. Farmer's Daughter, Bumbling Deputy, Nurse, high school football player, etc), and the other team is the zombies. Each game has a specific mission, such as kill all the zombies or escape to the truck. Throughout the game you find items, like a chainsaw, baseball bat, various guns, flashlights, etc, and use these items to either heal yourself (or your buddies), fight of zombies, or run away from zombies faster.
By the way
I will be buying Pandemic and Battlestar Galactica. Pandemic will be back in stock (hopefully) in November, while Battlestar Galactica is released at the end of October. So I'll likely just wait until Pandemic is back in stock to buy them both. It will be at that point that I also buy a few extra games in order to maximize my shipping costs. Likely, those extra games will be a subset of the list above.