Forum Overview :: Reviews :: Re: Boardgame roundup: Vol. 1

[quote name="mark"][quote] <b>Axis & Allies</b> Recommendation: Maybe good for one or two plays until it becomes stale Availability: High (sold through the new Avalon Hill) [/quote] The came can pretty much be called after the first turn. Sort of cool, way way too long for the fun density. The new version is out, but I really can't ever see myself playing this again. For the money and WW2 theme, you could buy Memoir '44 which is apparently extremely good. I can't say that I am a gamemaster fan -- mostly an exercise in pushing plastic around. [quote] <b>Shogun</b> Anyways, Shogun rules because no player is forced into an unbalanced role and every setup is completely different like Risk. No set teams, it's everyone for themself. Money received can be spent on all sorts of neat stuff like units, mercenaries, or fortifications, in addition to secretly bidding against other players for turn order and ninja hiring. [/quote] I've only played part of Shogun once and it seemed sort of cool. My friends tell me it gets fairly Risk-esque in end game with the insane sweeps of armies from one end to the other. [quote] <b>Supremacy</b> I've really, really always wanted to like this game, but it's horribly, horribly broken. Basic premise is Risk with resources (oil, grain, minerals, money), logistics, and nukes. Would be fun, but is broken for several reasons. [/quote] The ultimate in mass produced garbage. A pointless risk clone that me and my friends played a bunch in high school, convinced that we must have misunderstood something fundamental about the game. No, we didn't. I can't recall a game that didn't end in nuclear winter. This is a great example of people (in the boardgame world) saying, "you just need to play it right to enjoy it." No, no I don't. I'd like to see one of the great boardgame designers like Knizia or Tresham take a design like this an beat it into shape. This game sucks. [quote] <b>Cosmic Encounters</b> [/quote] Played this a lot in highschool too (Mayfair edition, I'm not sure which you are playing). I don't know if we were really that stupid or just didn't know any better. It's not terrible, but the game is radically unbalanced and the powers don't always work very well together. The weird expanions were insane too, Lucre and the moons just unbalanced things more. I really think this game is a design which was great once but has aged poorly. At least it is fast... in that hour of time, however, I could play Knizia's Lord of the Rings or Modern Art or Settlers or half a game of 1825 or 2 games of chess, etc. Doesn't seem like a good investment. [/quote]